The Cult of Shor

As cults go, it's one of the best. The reasons why people listen to David Shor are simple. He is very smart. He has very good data. He is completely uninterested in promulgating advocacy group/Democratic Party talking points on how everything Democrats stand for is popular and anything to the contrary is Fox News/GOP propaganda. He is keenly attuned to the actually existing views of the actually existing electorate rather than the views of activists and advocates. He recognizes that Democratic party strategy is frequently set by socially liberal college-educated professionals whose views are very far from those of the median voter. He realizes there is no escape from the fact that popular policies are popular and unpopular policies are unpopular and that electoral strategy must be shaped by these realities. And above all, he wants to win and is unafraid to say out loud what so much of the progressive infrastructure is afraid to: the bullshit, performative, unpopular stuff has to go if Democrats are to achieve their goals.

If this is a cult, sign me up!

From Politico's West Wing Playbook:

"Democratic data scientist DAVID SHOR was fired in 2020. Now, he’s got an audience in the White House and is one of the most in-demand data analysts in the country.

There are the MSNBC hits, the recent guest appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and the innumerable podcast interviews. At just 29 years old, he is one of the few party strategists right now whose interviews tend to run Q&A style — the ultimate status symbol for the political elite.

BARACK OBAMA approvingly tweeted out one such interview from New York Magazine in March. And some Biden White House officials have taken notice, too. Some aides in the White House pay close attention to Shor’s analysis and have talked with him about his data, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

That may be because Shor sings from the same hymnal as many — but not all — of Biden’s political advisers. He’s advised Democrats to stand against “defund the police,” not talk too much about immigration, assume that Twitter is not real life, and talk about things that already have approval instead of trying to make unpopular things popular.

The White House declined to comment. Shor declined to comment on any conversations with clients or talks with the White House but agreed to talk about politics generally.

“I like to joke that I feel like I've stolen my ideas from JOE BIDEN much, much, much more than the other way around,” Shor said.

“The advice I give to every Democrat that I ever get a chance to talk to is talk about popular things that people care about using simple language,” Shor said. “I think it's as simple as that.”

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook

Why Issue Consensus in America Is So Hard

At The Liberal Patriot, John Halpin fingers the role of party cues in blowing apart public issue consensus:

"Partisan polarization has been fingered as the cause of any number of problems in contemporary politics from the rise of divided government and ideological extremism to beliefs in conspiracy theories and the spread of misinformation. A less examined aspect of how partisan sectarianism degrades democracy involves the role of party cues in turning issue agreement among Americans into issue warfare.

This isn’t simply an instance of Democrats and Republicans disagreeing on an issue, and looking for points among base voters, so nothing gets done. Rather, it’s more that Americans themselves often agree on many issues but then this consensus blows apart once political elites on both sides indicate that “it’s not our issue” or that someone they hate likes this issue so our side can’t agree to it anymore.

Primary examples of this trend in recent decades involve health care and immigration."

Read the rest at The Liberal Patriot!

THELIBERALPATRIOT.SUBSTACK.COM

How Issue Consensus Turns to Dust

Agreement on a common agenda drops off as soon as partisan cues get tripped.

The Democrats' Secret Weapon: Republican Dumbness

As we look toward 2022, The Democrats do have a number of points of serious vulnerability around issues like crime, immigration, education and ideological anti-racism. It remains to be seen how effective Republicans will be in exploiting these opportunities given that the crazy in their own ranks may undercut their attacks and lead to successful Democratic pushback.

But perhaps the Democrats' secret weapon here is Republican dumbness when it comes to kitchen table issues like retirement benefits and health care. As Henry Olsen notes in a recent column the House Republican Study Committee has released an alternative budget document that revives the specter of Paul Ryan-style budget austerity and entitlement-cutting. In the current climate, how this is possibly an effective riposte to the Democrats' provision of benefits and public investments through the American Rescue Plan and further bills is beyond me.

It just seems, well....dumb. Perhaps the Republicans will try to walk this one back. But it could be that Democrats will have a healthy helping of dumbness to work with along with the usual serving of crazy as they defend their Congressional majorities.

"There has been a lot of talk recently about the Republican Party searching for a post-Trump ideological future. The annual alternative budget released Wednesday by the 152-member House Republican Study Committee shows how difficult it will be for the party to square its old, entitlement-cutting mind-set with its newer, populist faction.

The document is essentially an update of former House speaker Paul Ryan’s 2008 “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a libertarian-inspired vision of what the federal government would do if taxes were never raised. The Republican Study Committee sets out to balance the federal budget through spending cuts alone and keep it balanced well into the future. The result is a dramatic reduction in what the federal government does across the board.

The proposal’s most notable features are its changes to the major entitlement programs most Americans rely on in old age. The age at which one receives full Social Security benefits would go up to 69 by 2030, from a planned rise to 67 in 2022. Medicare’s eligibility age would rise from 65 to 69. Combined, these increases would likely keep many aging Americans in the workforce for years more than they expect or desire.

Medicare’s structure would also be thoroughly transformed. Instead of a guaranteed government set of policies, the RSC budget would instead provide a subsidy for premiums that could be used for any insurance plan, including a new “Fed Plan” that would replace traditional Medicare. The subsidy would be based on income, wealth and health status, and every senior would then be responsible for buying their own plan and paying for any difference between the federal subsidy and that plan’s premium from their own pocket. Many, if not most, retirees would pay more for their health insurance than they do now."

Now that's dumb!

WASHINGTONPOST.COM

Opinion | The latest Republican budget is a revival of Paul Ryan-ism. The GOP will have to do better.

No Democrats, Rural Voters Are Not Hopeless

My latest at The Liberal Patriot:

"The general take on the rural vote in 2020 has been that, despite Biden’s presumed appeal to these voters, it didn’t really pan out for the Democrats. That isn’t quite right. Sure, Trump got more raw votes out of rural areas—of course he did! It was a high turnout election and there was less third party voting. But when you look at shifts in voter preference, it is apparent that Biden actually made important progress in these areas.

This can be seen by consulting the sadly neglected detailed spreadsheet that Catalist released along with their public report on 2020 voting trends. The spreadsheet is where the real data gold is. The spreadsheet shows that Biden improved Democrats’ (two-party) margin by just under 3 points relative to 2016 in rural areas, not that far off the roughly 5 points Biden gained in suburban areas."

Read the rest at The Liberal Patriot. And subscribe--it's free!

THELIBERALPATRIOT.SUBSTACK.COM

The Rural Vote in the 2020 Election

It Was Better and More Important for the Democrats Than You Think

Black Lives Matter Popularity Fades

BLM has had a moment--a year--since the killing of George Floyd. There was an outpouring of support after Floyd's murder and a continuing torrent of approving coverage of BLM and its issues in most media, particularly elite media, since then.

Yet BLM today is no more popular than it was in fall of 2019 and not only massively down from its peak support after the Floyd killing but considerably down from its popularity in spring of 2020, when people were first made aware of the Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery killings. Moreover, among Hispanics there has been no improvement in BLM popularity since the beginning of 2020, with about as many unfavorable to BLM as favorable today just as was the case a year and half ago. Moreover, whites, who were about evenly split unfavorable/favorable at the beginning of 2020, are now significantly net unfavorable.

So....what happened? Despite the massive push, the corporate backing and the plethora of Black Lives Matter signs in liberal neighborhoods, the movement's popularity is declining not advancing. From certain quarters the immediate interpretation will be that America is full of stone cold racists who refuse to Face The Truth about our white supremacist society, hence the failure of BLM popularity to hold up. But that leaves out other very salient developments such as the association of some BLM protests with violence and looting, the linkage of BLM with strenuously "anti-racist" ideology and above all the promulgation of the idea and slogan "defund the police" which is still embraced by many activists and supporters. It seems highly plausible that the much of the good will toward BLM generated by opposing flagrant acts of police violence has been squandered by these highly unpopular acts and ideas.

Movements either get broader and smarter over time or they lose momentum. BLM is unlikely to be an exception to this rule.

https://www.nytimes.com/.../blm-movement-protests-support...

Right Now, You Should Be Asking Yourself: What Can I Do to Help Insulate Democrats in Competitive Districts from Blowback?

No, not even an economic revival, covid containment and some good legislation can guarantee, or even make it likely, that Democratic control of the House can survive the next election. Far from it. Democrats need not just a good record to run on but all the help they can get defusing the now predictable lines of attack that the GOP will wield. Sure, Republicans will make these attacks anyway. But the less real world referents for these attacks they have, the better off the Democrats will be.

Message discipline comrades, message discipline. All elections are now national! Kyle Kondik at Sabato's Crystal Ball runs down just how dicey the situation is for the Democrats in the House.

"Every state with more than one U.S. House district will be redrawing their district lines this cycle to account for population changes, and that process is on hold because of delays in the U.S. Census. The Census Bureau won’t be releasing the granular data states need to draw new maps until later this year. While some states are trying to get a head start — Oklahoma, for instance, drew new state legislative districts using older data — we likely will not get a good handle on what new maps will look like until the fall. Among those delayed by the stalled census is us: We have not released House ratings yet as we await the new districts.

On balance, we expect the reapportionment of House seats — which we analyzed late last month — to benefit Republicans to a small extent. Redistricting seems likely to also help Republicans. Given that the Democrats only won a 222-213 edge in the House last year, Republicans only need to net five seats to win the House. That kind of small gain could come from reapportionment and redistricting alone.

This doesn’t even take into account the usual advantages that the party that does not control the White House typically has in midterm House elections: Since the end of World War II, the average seat loss by the presidential party in midterms is 27 seats. In those 19 midterm elections, the presidential party has lost seats 17 times. The exceptions were 1998 and 2002, when the president’s party made small gains.

House Democrats are facing twin challenges next year: The overall consequences of reapportionment and redistricting, as well as midterm history. The combination of the two will be difficult for Democrats to overcome. But what if they only had to overcome one of these challenges? What if no district lines were changing? Could Democrats hold the House under the current map?....

The larger point of this exercise is that we would start many more Democratic-held seats as Toss-ups than Republican-held ones even if no district lines were changing.

Overall, these ratings show 211 districts at least leaning to the Republicans, 203 at least leaning to the Democrats, and 21 Toss-ups (19 held by Democrats, two held by Republicans). Splitting the Toss-ups roughly down the middle — let’s say 11-10 Republican — would result in a 222-213 Republican majority, good for a nine-seat Republican net gain and a narrow majority the same size as the one Democrats elected in November.

In other words, Republicans already appear set up to significantly threaten the Democratic House majority, and the net impact of reapportionment and redistricting may make their task easier. Republicans are not guaranteed to win the House next year, but the majority is clearly there for the taking."

This may not be what people want to hear. But it is the reality we live in. Act accordingly.

CENTERFORPOLITICS.ORG

The House: Democrats Would Have a Tough Slog Even Without Redistricting – Sabato's Crystal Ball

The House: Democrats Would Have a Tough Slog Even Without Redistricting Our hypothetical ratings of House 2022 if no district lines changed By Kyle KondikIn: 2022 HousePosted May 20, 2021 KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — The reapportionment of House seats and pending redistricting has prevented us f...

The Two Line Struggle in the Democratic Party

As the Biden administration unfolds, it is becoming ever more apparent that the Democratic Party has a choice to make about its future direction. There are basically two directions on offer which are nicely summed up by George Packer in an Atlantic piece on the civics education controversy:

"The early months of the Biden presidency have revealed a conflict between two approaches to policy. One is liberal and universalist, the other progressive and particularist. One pursues equality through programs that include as many Americans as possible; the other targets groups, sometimes narrowly defined ones, in the name of equity. One minimizes cultural flashpoints; the other heightens them. One tries to weaken the Republican opposition with broadly popular ideas; the other, pushed by activists, draws conservatives into battles that intensify polarization. One has a chance to build a governing majority; the other risks consigning the Democratic Party to the dismal fate of the British Labour Party."

That is indeed the choice, as is becoming increasingly obvious even to some Democrats associated with the party's more progressive wing such as Ro Khanna, a leading member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. From a piece by Gerald Seib on Democratic challenges in moving their agenda:

"Democrats are in the midst of a push to enact a $6 trillion economic stimulus, infrastructure and jobs-creation agenda that would change the relationship between government and the economy, while also pushing progressive ideas on social issues. The risk is that Democrats are overplaying their hand....

Conversations with a variety of Democrats and public-opinion watchers suggest that Democrats are quite comfortable with the size and scope of their economic agenda, which they believe matches the public’s thirst for a new and vigorous start after the coronavirus pandemic. They are more worried on the cultural front, where their progressive wing is pushing the party to places on social issues where the loyalty of moderate voters will be strained.

“I think we’ve won the argument with many Americans that we need more investment in the American people,” Rep. Ro Khanna [says] “Where the Democrats, candidly, I think, get into trouble is conveying that we believe in markets, conveying that we believe the American experiment is an extraordinary one, that we love our founding and our Constitution and that we have an aspirational vision of American patriotism, conveying that we do believe in borders (and) conveying that we believe in law enforcement.”

That is correct. And if the Democrats wish to convey those beliefs and build a true governing majority, they will have to decide which of the two roads Packer mentioned they are going to go down.

https://www.theatlantic.com/.../civics-education.../618894/

https://www.wsj.com/.../as-gop-wrestles-over-trump...

WSJ.COM

As GOP Wrestles Over Trump, Democrats Run Their Own Risks