American Politics from 2019 on

[JimC]

But they do reflect how many people are thinking, right or wrong, which will directly impact their electoral choices...

[Tero]

Who knew? Polls only give a good economy label to Republicans. Despite the fact that they are the ones screwing up the economy and adding debt:

For example, according to Pew, in 2016 when former President Obama, a Democrat, was in office, just 18% of Republicans thought the economy was either good or excellent.

But in 2020, with Trump, a Republican, in office, that jumped to a whopping 81%. And this year, with Biden in the White House, Republicans' positive views of the economy tanked to just 10%.

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/09/12182915 ... ation-jobs

[Tero]

If the little people are hurting, blame Manchin.
The Atlantic

President Joe Biden and Democrats cannot win the debate over the economy without fundamentally reframing the terms of the choice they are offering voters, an extensive new research study by one of the party’s prominent electoral-strategy groups has concluded.

To close that gap, the study argues, Biden and Democrats must shift the debate from which party is best equipped to grow the overall economy to which side can help families achieve what the report calls a “better life.” The study argues that Democrats can win that argument with a three-pronged message centered on: delivering tangible kitchen-table economic benefits (such as increased federal subsidies for buying health insurance), confronting powerful special interests (such as major corporations), and pledging to protect key personal liberties and freedoms, led by the right to legal abortion.
The study was conducted by Way to Win, a group that provides funding for candidates and organizations focused on mobilizing voters of color, in conjunction with Anat Shenker-Osorio, of ASO Communications, a message consulting firm for progressive candidates and causes. Last year, Way to Win was among the top advocates pushing the party to stress a message of protecting personal freedoms and democracy—an approach that helped Democrats overperform expectations despite widespread discontent about the economy.

Reversing the advantage Donald Trump and the GOP have on the economy will require Democrats to highlight “the tangible improvements their policies have made in people’s lives, in lieu of speaking of abstract economic gains, as well as touting their future agenda of expanding on these gains, taking on corporate greed and the MAGA Republicans who aim to rule only for the wealthy few,” concludes a memo summarizing the research that was provided exclusively to The Atlantic.

Based on months of polls, focus groups, and other public-opinion research, the study comes amid simmering Democratic anxieties over national and swing-state surveys showing Trump leading Biden. Especially frustrating for the White House and other Democrats has been the persistence and pervasiveness of negative public attitudes about the economy, despite robust economic growth, low unemployment, and a huge reduction in the inflation rate over the past year. Democrats were particularly unnerved by a recent survey from Democracy Corps, a group founded by the longtime party strategists James Carville and Stanley B. Greenberg, that found that voters in the key swing states gave Trump a retrospective job-approval rating for his performance as president nearly 10 percentage points higher than what they give Biden for his current performance.

Biden has spent months trying to highlight positive trends in the economy by describing them under the rubric of “Bidenomics.” But the Way to Win study, like the Democracy Corps research, argues that it is counterproductive for the administration to try to convince voters that inflation is abating or that the economy is improving while so many are struggling to make ends meet. Telling voters that “inflation is going down [produced a] backlash” in the research, Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, Way to Win’s senior vice president, told me: “Their experience is that it’s up. If you make an overarching statement that things are getting better, it rubs people the wrong way.”

Probably the key insight in the report is the contention that it’s a mistake for Democrats to focus the 2024 debate on any of the broad national trends in the economy, including those that have been positive under Biden, such as job growth.

For many years, the report argues, voters have been inclined to believe that Republicans are better than Democrats at managing the overall economy—an advantage that may be especially pronounced for Trump, a former business mogul, if he’s the GOP nominee. But, the study found, swing voters, as well as the irregular voters the party needs to turn out in 2024, give Democrats an edge on which party can best deliver for “you and your family’s economic well-being.”

To shift the debate into this more favorable terrain, the report argues, Biden and other Democrats must simultaneously reorient their economic arguments in opposite directions. The group argues that Democrats must narrow their focus by talking less about macroeconomic trends and more about specific policies they have enacted to help families make ends meet. That includes policies that Biden has passed to lower prescription-drug and utility costs, and policies he could promote in a second term, such as restoring the expanded child tax credit that Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia stripped from the Inflation Reduction Act last year.

“Among both swing voters and surge voters, folks are moved more by talking about tangible gains than by talking about growing the economy,” Shenker-Osorio said.

...strongest case for Democrats blended pledges to deliver concrete economic benefits with promises to defend fundamental rights and stand up to big, wealthy corporations.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA1lux13

[Tero]

On another board. Biden's speech makers need to be fired and get all new writers.
Sounds like our Sean, by the way.

i don't know how, from the perspective of the working class at least, we can look at home prices, wealth inequity and taxation, student loans, social safety nets, energy and the environment, childcare and healthcare costs, etc. and not seeing a future where major reform is required for it to work for anyone not eyeballing retirement. that's the problem with saying the economy is doing well.

it was neough for a blog entry
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com/2023/1 ... asses.html

[Tero]

Trump the gift that keeps on giving.

More than 500,000 workers at the United States Postal Service (USPS) will be handling billions of deliveries through the holidays. For hundreds of them, this may be their last Christmas at their current mail sorting facility and workers are warning the impact on consumers will be severe.

Donald Trump’s appointee as postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, is currently implementing a 10-year “Delivering for America” austerity plan that will slash jobs and close sorting centers.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ouis-dejoy

[pErvinalia]

Our national postal service has just announced that they are only delivering letters every second day now. Understandable as the number of letters being posted is tiny compared to a decade or two ago.

[Brian Peacock]

Same in the UK. Next-day delivery also takes a week!

[Tero]

House unwilling to vote on border deals:
-because Democrats would gain something
-Trump must be president when they are ready to pass border plan
-can't pass bill because it fails to advance idea that all government is bad and a waste
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-sen ... 023-12-14/

The senate is wasting time till next Fri, and nothing will then happen till Jan.

[Tero]

I decided to do some picking and choosing in polls, because some (like Rasmuussen) are always slanted to the right. The Ipsos/Reuters poll seems to be pretty neutral. In this Dec 13 poll they are noting that unlike 2016 or 2020 there is a bit of a new factor in polling. Voters are pretty much tuned out (like many here, they are just tired of it) of politics until it comes time to vote in 2024. It just amazes what a huge number then show up to vote. If they really did not care for 4 years of Biden, why bother to vote at all?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens ... 023-12-13/

Reuters/Ipsos presented respondents with a line from a recent Trump speech that there are "communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country - that lie and steal and cheat on elections" -- without first telling them who said it.

Half of respondents said they agreed with that sentiment, including 71% of Republicans and 37% of Democrats.

The poll then asked respondents if they knew that the line was said by Trump. Among respondents who were aware, 57% agreed, including 84% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats.

Rage and grievance are a key driver of Trump’s campaign. A lasting challenge for Biden will be to penetrate this cloud of anger by harnessing the relative popularity of his agenda.

Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who worked for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, said the Biden campaign needs to hope that the mood of the electorate shifts to the point where more voters are open to his message.

"There is no way you can reach people when they are frustrated. You have to wait for them to dial it down," Ceraso said. "Then you hope you can find the thing that moves the voter back into your column."

[Tero]

Abbott signs law he cannot carry out.

Asked about SB4, White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said, "This is an extreme law that will make communities in Texas less safe. Generally speaking, the federal government — not individual states — is charged with determining how and when to remove noncitizens for violating immigration laws."

The Justice Department, which would lead the charge in filing any legal action against Texas, declined to comment.

The law is also the latest effort by Texas to challenge President Biden, a Democrat, on immigration. At the direction of Abbott, Texas has bused tens of thousands of migrants to Chicago, New York and other Democratic-led cities.

Abbott can arrest them all he wants. But he then has to imprison them. He has no mechanism to deport them. Other than buses to Chicago.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-immi ... eg-abbott/

[Tero]

On anothe forums a guy posted this polling data

The split is driven by a huge gap in vote choice by turnout history: Biden+6 among '20 voters; Trump+22 among 2020 nonvoters
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/upsh ... youth.html

and then concluded that Trump voters, as obviously as they are behind Trump, may actually be quite different from traditional republicans. They may not bother to vote. These are sort of the second layer of trumpsters, not the solid core.

[Sean Hayden]

Abbott signs law he cannot carry out.

Asked about SB4, White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said, "This is an extreme law that will make communities in Texas less safe. Generally speaking, the federal government — not individual states — is charged with determining how and when to remove noncitizens for violating immigration laws."

The Justice Department, which would lead the charge in filing any legal action against Texas, declined to comment.

The law is also the latest effort by Texas to challenge President Biden, a Democrat, on immigration. At the direction of Abbott, Texas has bused tens of thousands of migrants to Chicago, New York and other Democratic-led cities.

Abbott can arrest them all he wants. But he then has to imprison them. He has no mechanism to deport them. Other than buses to Chicago.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-immi ... eg-abbott/

I think they’re getting the infrastructure in place before Trump comes back.

The deep state better be working overtime…

[Tero]

Sean, it is not the infrastructure. No bus load of arrested people is going to cross back to Mexico. States do not have the authority to deport. Joe Biden will be standing at the border crossing and telling Abbott to go back. Also, no reason for Mexico to let them in.

[Sean Hayden]

They do not have the authority yet.

[Tero]

Random item from the net:
"Biden should have fixed Trumps massive screw ups faster, so therefore we should vote Trump in again so he can screw up even more."