issue: Politics

Mortimer for Newsweek: The House’s SALT Cap Proposal Is Bad Policy and Bad Politics

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The tax bill passed by Republicans in 2017 mostly made our tax code worse, increasing the federal debt by up to $2 trillion and delivering the bulk of its tax cuts to corporations and the rich. But the bill contained one very good, very progressive provision: capping the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction at $10,000 per household. Unfortunately, House Democrats just made a proposal that would compound the GOP tax bill’s regressiveness: increasing the SALT cap and giving multimillionaires a $25,000 per year tax cut. The Senate must not follow their lead.

The SALT deduction has been around in some form for a long time, dating all the way back to the Civil War. It allows taxpayers to deduct what they pay in state and local income, property and sales taxes from their federal taxes. But not all taxpayers get to reap the benefits of the SALT deduction. Taxpayers must itemize their tax returns to be able to claim the SALT deduction—and only the richest taxpayers tend to itemize. Most taxpayers tend to take the standard deduction rather than itemize, unless they make at least $500,000 in a single year. And as one becomes richer, and consequently pays more in state and local taxes, the dollar benefit of the SALT deduction becomes larger.

Until the 2017 Republican tax bill capped the SALT deduction at $10,000, there was no limit on the amount that could be deducted. The cap amounted to a tax hike that applied almost exclusively to the richest Americans. It raises about $85 billion each year, 90 percent of which comes from the richest 10 percent of Americans.

Read the full op-ed in Newsweek.

Marshall for NYDN: Democrats Must Change Course: Here Are Four Steps to Right the Ship

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Will Marshall

The odd-year contests in Virginia and New Jersey often offer an early test of how voters think the incumbent president is doing and a foretaste of the public mood heading into the next year’s midterm elections. For Democrats, who did badly in both states last night, the message is clear: It’s time for a major course correction.

The Republican sweep of Virginia’s top offices, a year after President Biden’s 10-point victory there, was propelled by a host of factors. Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe ran a generally negative and uninspiring campaign focused mainly on trying to depict Republican Glenn Youngkin as a Donald Trump clone.

Read the full piece in the New York Daily News.

Marshall for The Hill: Remember, Democrats: Business isn’t the enemy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Republicans are following the Pied Piper of Mar-a-Lago down a twisted trail of sedition and anti-democratic extremism. That’s weakening the party’s historically strong bond with U.S. business leaders, who are appalled by former President Trump’s delusional bid to void the 2020 election, as well as a concerted push by red state officials to make it harder to vote, get a legal abortion or protect school children from unvaccinated adults.

In Texas, for example, leading local corporations such as American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are flouting Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order banning private companies from requiring their workers to get COVID-19 vaccines, while iconic Georgia firms such as Coca Cola and Delta Airlines condemned the Republican legislature’s passage of a severely restrictive voting law last Spring.

The growing rift between business and a Trumpified GOP marinating in grievance and paranoia should be opening doors for Democrats. But they’ve got a business problem of their own, namely the high media profile of leftwing activists who are reflexively hostile to our largest and most successful companies.

Read the full piece in The Hill.

Marshall for The Hill: Progressives’ spending proposals are out of step with battleground voters

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The House of Representatives is set to vote next week on President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. At stake is not just a stronger U.S. economy, but whether we still have a functioning democracy.

In normal times, this bill wouldn’t be controversial. Almost no one disputes the need for a major infusion of public investment in modernizing America’s transportation, water and other common goods that undergird U.S. economic innovation and competitiveness. That’s why the bill breezed through an otherwise polarized Senate on a 60-30 vote in August.

In the House, however, progressives are threatening to torpedo the bill unless they get a simultaneous vote on a “reconciliation” bill that would spend trillions more on social and climate programs. Critics have assailed this tactic as political hostage-taking, but it’s more like a murder-suicide pact, since progressives want a big infrastructure bill too.

But they’re apparently willing to sacrifice the infrastructure upgrade to gain political leverage over the growing ranks of moderate Democrats who, although they support many elements of the massive reconciliation bill, are balking at its $3.5 trillion price tag.

Read the full piece in The Hill

Battleground Voters Trust Biden to Improve the Economy, but Democrats Face Headwinds on Job Creation, Deficits and Competition  

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As Democrats shape the reconciliation package, Congressional leaders must work to earn voter trust on jobs, debt and support for private enterprise

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) recently commissioned a national survey by Expedition Strategies of public attitudes in battleground 44 House districts and eight states likely to have competitive Senate races next year. This second report focuses on how these pivotal voters compare the two parties on jobs and the economy, tax and fiscal policy, and innovation, entrepreneurship and competition.

“Our findings provide crucial context for today’s debate – both between the parties and between the pragmatic and left wings of the Democratic Party – over the size, cost and financing of President Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better plans,” said PPI President Will Marshall.

“The good news is that battleground voters trust Biden and the Democrats more to improve the economy and deliver tax fairness,” he added. “But there are warning signs here on job creation, deficits and paying for public investment that Democrats should heed as they shape their big reconciliation package.”

The full memo on this exclusive polling can be found here. Here are some of the key takeaways:

 

    • Battleground voters trust President Biden (53%- 47%) and Congressional Democrats (52%-48%) more than Republicans to “improve the economy.”
    • They overwhelmingly believe that Republicans stand more for the wealthy (74%) and favor special interests (63%), while Democrats are seen as representing the poor (72%).
    • Although they want Biden to succeed, voters divide evenly on which party “knows how to create good jobs” and lean toward the GOP as the party that “knows how to strengthen the economy (52-48).
    • Republicans appear to have a structural advantage on helping companies be more innovative, working to create private sector jobs, strengthening the economy, and helping U.S. firms win the competition with China for economic and technological leadership.
    • Two-thirds of battleground voters say they are concerned that Democrats are too anti-business. This includes 73% of Independents and even 42% of Democrats.
    • Possibly as a result, voters are more likely to credit the GOP as the party striving to create private sector jobs (54-46).
    • Voters lean strongly toward the Democratic position on tax fairness, saying their top goal for tax policy is “making sure the wealthy and companies pay more in taxes.”
    • Voters also side with Democrats in supporting additional IRS funding to crack down on tax cheats and evaders.
    • Battleground voters favor more public investment to improve the economy over cutting taxes and regulations by a solid margin, 58-42. Republican supply side nostrums aren’t getting traction.
    • On the economy, voters say jobs, growth and rewarding work are more important goals than addressing inequality and fairness. Only 10% said “promoting fairness” should be the most important goal.
    • Battleground district and state voters rank deficits and debt as their second highest economic concern. By 88-12, they say the national debt is a “serious problem.” Independents, undecideds, and Hispanic voters strongly express this view.
    • By 80-20, voters say they are worried about the mounting debt burden on the young and working families. They also express strong concerns about inflation (74-26).
    • Voters are slightly more inclined to blame Democrats than Republicans for running up public debt (32-28). Similarly, they trust Republicans more than Democrats (32-28) to get the debt under control, but a plurality (40%) say they trust neither party.
    • These voters favor (53-47) taxing gains from capital and labor at the same level. However, they oppose capital gains hikes when they are presented as a way to finance public investment in infrastructure and child tax credits (54% opposed).

 

Read the poll here.

Last week, PPI released the first report on the poll, which focused on voter attitudes towards President Biden’s infrastructure plan and the social investment package Democrats hope to pass using the reconciliation process.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

 

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Marshall for NYDN: What the far left needs to learn: Work with, not against, other Democrats

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This piece first appeared in the New York Daily News. Read it here.

Hailed by many credulous observers as the future of U.S. politics, the progressive left is on an epic losing streak. Democratic primary voters in Cleveland last week dealt the latest rebuff, choosing Joe Biden loyalist Shontel Brown over Nina Turner, a combative acolyte of Sen. Bernie Sanders, in the race to fill a vacant congressional seat.

Brown’s upset victory followed centrist Eric Adams’s comfortable win over the progressive favorite in New York City’s mayoral Democratic primary in June, as well as recent drubbings of leftist hopefuls in primaries in Virginia and Louisiana.

Progressives also stumbled in last year’s main event — the 2020 presidential nominating contest. It began amid lavish media coverage of the jockeying by Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julian Castro and Bill de Blasio for “more progressive than thou” honors. It ended with Biden, the unfashionable old party warhorse, coasting to the nomination on his way to a resounding victory over Donald Trump in November.

The country got a preview of the left’s narrow electoral appeal two years earlier, in the 2018 midterm. No doubt Democrats benefitted from activist energy, but they won back control of the House mainly by recruiting mainstream candidates who wrested 41 swing districts from Republicans. Sanders-style progressives fared badly.

The activist left was cheered by socialist India Walton’s victory in June’s Democratic primary for this fall’s mayoral race in Buffalo. Otherwise, the campaign by Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Squad and allied activist groups to refashion the Democratic Party in their image isn’t going very well. The insurgents keep stumbling over the same obstacle and, it’s not a monolithic party “establishment” that exists mostly in their imagination. It’s grassroots Democrats, anchored by Black and Brown working-class voters and moderate suburbanites.

These voters seem to like their party and share its pragmatically liberal outlook. Like Brown, they also trust Biden and want him to succeed. No wonder they are put off by Sanders’ monotonous railing against “corporate Democrats,” or AOC’s lament that she has to run in the same party as Biden, or Turner’s infamous crack that having to vote for Biden was like being forced to eat excrement.

Nonetheless, the party’s Jacobin faction keeps insisting that its ideas are popular, even if its candidates aren’t. That’s probably true in some deep blue urban districts, but across wider geographies, the progressive catechism clearly repels voters Democrats need to build majorities. A confident prediction: In competitive races next year, you won’t hear many Democrats running on nationalizing health care and abolishing private insurance; giving affluent kids a free ride to college; shutting down oil and gas production ASAP; defunding the police, or decriminalizing illegal immigration.

It’s true that Democrats have become more liberal since 2000, especially on social issues and government spending. Even so, the party remains a heterogeneous coalition about evenly balanced between self-identified liberals on the one hand and moderates and conservatives on the other.

To understand where that coalition’s true center of gravity lies, however, you also have to take into account its generational and class cleavages.

The activist left is overwhelming white, college-educated and urban. Older and working-class Black voters are more religious and socially moderate. “The median Black voter is not AOC and is actually closer to Eric Adams,” says Stanford political scientist Hakeem Jefferson. The picture is similar for Hispanic voters, as Democrats learned to their chagrin last November when Trump made unexpected gains among blue-collar men.

In an analysis of Americans’ ideological composition in presidential years going back to 1980, Brookings scholars Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck note that one thing hasn’t changed: Self-identified liberals are still the smallest part of the U.S. electorate. They constituted 24% of the voters in 2020, compared to 38% each for conservatives and moderates. Nearly half of independent voters identify themselves as moderates.

Progressive pretensions to historic inevitability, based on America’s changing demographics, keep colliding with these electoral realities. The left has a choice to make: It can continue to hector Biden and the party to adopt purist positions that will make it difficult to win elections and govern. It can accept its role as an influential but not dominant part of a broad Democratic coalition that’s respected more for its passion and mobilizing energy than its often utopian ideas. Or it can turn Democratic Socialists of America into a real political party and try to win elections on its own.

For our country’s sake, let’s hope it’s option two. The Republicans, led by a vengeful sore loser, lacking any kind of unifying vision for the country, and stewing in paranoia and hatred of their political competitors, are incapable of governing the country.

It’s up to Democrats, working together, to right our ship of state.

Marshall is president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

Carolina Postcard: Will Pat McCrory Pop Trump’s Balloon?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Former Governor Pat McCrory is something of a political punching bag in North Carolina. But he could go from chump to champ in 2022 if he shatters the conventional wisdom that the state Republican Party belongs to Donald Trump.

In June, Trump endorsed Congressman Ted Budd in the 2022 Republican Senate primary. Conventional wisdom saw that as a mortal blow to McCrory.

But two Republican strategists in North Carolina – Paul Shumaker and Carter Wrenn – think McCrory, like Toto in The Wizard of Oz, might expose the man behind the curtain.

The Charlotte Observer reported that Shumaker, who is working with McCrory’s campaign, “released polling last month in a memo arguing that (Trump’s) endorsement might actually hurt a Republican’s chances in the general election.”

Noting that “the memo was not paid for or commissioned by the McCrory campaign,” the Observer said:

“Among the unaffiliated voters cited in Shumaker’s poll, 47% said they would prefer a candidate who pledged to help President Joe Biden’s agenda over one who voted against certifying the presidential election results…. Just 30% said they would prefer a candidate who voted against certifying the election, and 23 percent declined to answer.”

Budd voted against election certification, while McCrory said he would have voted to certify Biden as the winner. They’re running to succeed retiring Senator Richard Burr, who was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump for inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

The poll Shumaker cited said voters prefer a Biden-endorsed candidate over one endorsed by Trump by 49-39%. Shumaker wrote:

“When comparing a Trump endorsed candidate to a Biden endorsed candidate, (Republicans’) advantage with the Unaffiliated voters evaporates. Candidates for state and federal office at any level who are on the wrong side of these issues will alienate suburban voters and jeopardize Republicans’ chances of winning in 2022.”

Shumaker isn’t a disinterested source, of course. And his poll was about the general election, not the primary. But Carter Wrenn isn’t working for anybody, and he wrote in his blog about a national poll that found weakness in Trump’s support among Republicans:

“Half the Republican primary voters…said Trump’s endorsement didn’t matter to them; the rest split, some for Trump’s candidate, some against.”

Wrenn said “Texas’ Special Election confirmed the numbers didn’t lie.” Trump’s candidate lost a special congressional race there last month. Trump’s candidate won a special primary in Ohio, but that’s a safe Democratic seat.

Wrenn and Shumaker are both smart, veteran strategists – from different wings of the party. Shumaker is from the Burr/Jim Martin/Jim Broyhill tradition. Wrenn is from the more ideological Jesse Helms school.

McCrory, like Shumaker, came out of the Charlotte- and Western-based Chamber of Commerce, country-club, big-business wing. He was elected governor in 2012, when nobody imagined a President Trump. He lost reelection in 2016 even though Trump carried North Carolina.

McCrory’s GOP pretty much was the state party until 1972, when Richard Nixon and Jesse Helms began bringing in white voters who didn’t like the Democratic Party’s liberal tilt, especially on civil rights.

The party changed again in the 1980s with an influx of white evangelical Christians, led by Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority. They opposed abortion, and they wanted tax subsidies for all-white Christian academies.

Now the GOP has changed again as Trump has brought in displaced and disaffected working-class whites – as well as the neo-Nazi, QAnon, Confederate-flag-waving white supremacists like those who attacked the Capitol.

The Senate primary next year will tell us whether North Carolina Republicans are more at home with the Chamber of Commerce or with the Proud Boys.

 

Links:

Charlotte Observer story: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article253118418.html

Carter Wrenn blog: https://talkingaboutpolitics.com/echoing-a-proverb/#.YQlW645KiM8

Texas primary: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/27/susan-wright-jake-ellzey-texas-6-congressional-seat/ 

Rep. Joe Courtney and Hon Ed Husic MP of the Australian Labor Party Join Joint PPI and McKell Institute Event on Tech, Civic Integrity, and Democracy 

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Last night, the Progressive Policy Institute, based in Washington, D.C., and the McKell Institute, based in Sydney, Australia, hosted an event focused on global technology and democracy, featuring U.S. Representative Joe Courtney (CT-02), and the Hon. Ed Husic MP (Australian Labor Party).

The event, titled “Global Tech, Global Democracy: How Has Tech Broken Down International Boundaries?” focused on how the U.S., Australia, and their international partners can develop international solutions to ensure that we benefit from technology’s promise while avoiding its dangers. The lawmakers and an expert panel discussed civic integrity, the importance of combating online misinformation, protecting freedom of speech, and the role tech has played in elections.

Watch the twitter livestream here:

Representative Joe Courtney is a Democrat representing Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District, and is the Co-Chair of the Friends of Australia Caucus. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the Education and the Workforce Committee.

The Honorable Ed Husic is a member of the Australian House of Representatives for Chifley and a member of the Australian Labor Party. He is the Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation.

They were joined by an expert international panel on technology innovation, including Sunita Bose, Managing Director of DIGI, Damian Kassabgi, Executive Vice President, Public Policy and Communications, of Afterpay, and Mike Masnick, Editor of TechDirt. The event was moderated by Michael Mandel, Chief Economic Strategist at PPI and Michael Buckland, President of the McKell Institute, and featured welcoming remarks by Alec Stapp, Director of Technology Policy at PPI.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

The McKell Institute is a progressive research institute based in Sydney, Australia, dedicated to providing practical and innovative solutions to contemporary policy challenges. Since its establishment in 2011, the Institute has played an important role in shaping the public policy agenda at both state and federal level. Learn more about the McKell Institute by visiting mckellinstitute.org.au.

Follow the McKell Institute.

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Media Contact: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org

Marshall for American Purpose: Can the Democrats Save our Democracy?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Democratic Party must fend off extremes and hold on to responsible, center-left politics.

Ideologues of all stripes are perennially frustrated with America’s two-party “duopoly.” They say it stifles voices of radical reform, fails to offer voters meaningful choices, and delivers only tepid incrementalism. Many yearn for the doctrinal coherence and discipline shown by parties in Europe, where multiparty systems are the rule.

Whatever the merits of these complaints, it’s true that America’s two-party system seems immutably entrenched. Third parties come and go; but except for the Republicans in the 1850s, none has succeeded in supplanting either of the two major parties—and it took the Civil War to make that happen.

Most U.S. voters reasonably figure that if they want their vote to count, they’d better line up with Democrats or Republicans. As duopoly critics note, that arrangement doesn’t give the public an ideological choice, since both parties normally offer variations on America’s classically liberal creed. But party allegiance isn’t strictly a matter of intellectual conviction; it’s also influenced by sectional, family, ethnic, class, and religious ties.

Historically, the two major parties have been broad, loose, and shifting coalitions. That feature has given them a pragmatic bent, since today’s political foe could become tomorrow’s convert. It’s reinforced by a presidential system designed to diffuse and share power rather than alternate one-party rule.

To prevent untrammeled majority rule, the Founders created structural incentives for compromise so that minority interests get taken into account. But heterogeneous and pragmatic parties don’t suit Americans with more dogmatic dispositions. These Americans demand adherence to fixed principles, typically expressed as moral absolutes. Not for them the tedious drilling of hard boards; they want the romance of revolution.

Read the full piece in American Purpose. 

Carolina Postcard: What Boris Johnson Can Teach Democrats

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute
By Gary Pearce, Guest Author

To many Americans, especially Democrats, Boris Johnson is a clownish British version of former President Trump. But Democrats might take a page from Johnson, especially on how to talk to people.

The party is going through self-analysis now. Yes, President Biden beat Trump and Democrats won a 50-50 split in the Senate. But they’d hoped to do much better; they want to get to the bottom of why the bottom fell out on their high hopes.

Democrats being Democrats, they think they need a stronger economic-policy message – and the right set of policy proposals.

Not so fast. There’s a reason most people avoid economics classes in school. Economics is boring. Economic policy proposals are boring.

Americans want specifics, but they yearn for hope and optimism. They’re listening more for tone: confidence, strength and persistence. They want to hear music, not just read lyrics.

Boris Johnson gets it. He says his goal as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is “to recapture some of the energy and optimism that this country used to have.”

Democrats could use more energy and optimism – and less hectoring and lecturing.

 

Biden and Boris

 

Johnson’s style is analyzed in a new article in The Atlantic, “The Minister of Chaos: Boris Johnson knows exactly what he’s doing,” by Tom McTague. He wrote of Johnson, “To him, the point of politics—and life—is not to squabble over facts; it’s to offer people a story they can believe in.”

Johnson led the Brexit “Leave” campaign in 2016, just before Trump won the Presidency. McTague notes that the “two campaigns looked similar on the surface—populist, nationalist, anti-establishment.”

But Johnson’s story isn’t the same as Trump’s “American carnage.” Johnson says the UK, contrary to “claims of impending disaster…is a great and remarkable and interesting country in its own right’.”

Johnson is a former journalist. He knows the power of words. He says, “People live by narrative. Human beings are creatures of the imagination.”

The article added:

“Johnson understands the art of politics better than his critics and rivals do. He is right that his is a battle to write the national story, and that this requires offering people hope and agency, a sense of optimism and pride in place. He has shown that he is a master at finding the story voters want to hear.”

Writing the national story is the challenge Democrats face. Studying the UK makes sense; we share a mother tongue.

At this month’s G7 meeting in Cornwall, England, there was much talk about the “special relationship” between the US and the UK. There also has been, over the last 40 years, a rhythmic relationship between the two nation’s politics.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, both conservatives, came to power at the same time. So did New Democrat Bill Clinton and New Labour Tony Blair. Then came Trump and Johnson. Now Biden and Johnson.

Despite their parallels, Johnson isn’t a Trump clone. At the G7 meetings, he and President Biden agreed on climate change, women’s rights, sanctions against Russia and a middle-class economic agenda. Johnson’s compared Biden’s infrastructure bill to his promise of “leveling up” the economically struggling north of England with the more prosperous south.

He said, “When it comes to building back better, we’re totally on the same page. It’s been very interesting and very refreshing.”

As Democrats struggle to tell their story in today’s divided America, they might study how Johnson tells his. Sometimes he might be a clown. But sometimes clowns are on to something. And given today’s angry politics, it wouldn’t hurt to laugh and lighten up a bit.

 

Atlantic article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/boris-johnson-minister-of-chaos/619010/

PODCAST: UK Unrest – A Frank Conversation About the State of Politics in the United Kingdom and Around the World

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On this week’s Radically Pragmatic Podcast, Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute sat down with Matt Goodwin, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, a researcher and a published author. They discussed the dynamic political atmosphere across Europe and how it relates to the US political stage, among a host of other topics and issues.

Matthew Goodwin is an academic, bestseller writer and speaker known for his work on political volatility, risk, populism, British politics, Europe, elections and Brexit. He is Professor of Politics at Rutherford College, University of Kent, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House and previously Senior Fellow with the UK In a Changing Europe.

Listen on Anchor.

Listen on Spotify.

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

 

And don’t miss PPI President Will Marshall’s new opinion piece in the New York Daily News: What the UK can teach the U.S. (again)

Marshall for New York Daily News: What the UK can teach the U.S. (again)

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Political trends in the United States and Great Britain often seem to move in parallel, and last week’s local elections across the United Kingdom yield some pertinent lessons for U.S. political parties.

For Republicans, the main takeaway is that competent governance matters. One big reason Britain’s Conservatives scored major gains on “Super Thursday” is that voters credit Prime Minister Boris Johnson with having done a good job of rolling out COVID vaccines.

In contrast, Donald Trump bungled the pandemic from start to finish in a clownish performance that his own pollster has cited as the number one reason U.S. voters denied him reelection in 2020.

For Democrats, the sad state of Britain’s Labour Party is a cautionary tale against what can happen to progressives when they abandon electoral pragmatism and indulge left-wing purists. The party seems unable to exorcise the ghost of ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn, the doctrinaire socialist who led the party two years ago to its worst drubbing since the 1930s.

 

Read the full piece in the New York Daily News

Marshall for The Hill: Biden and New Deal nostalgia

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s been 89 years since Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in the depths of the Great Depression. But nostalgia for FDR’s New Deal dies hard.

Giddy Democrats are hailing President Biden’s ambitious plans for COVID-19 and economic relief and for rebuilding America’s physical and social infrastructure – which together are estimated to cost more than $4 trillion – as the second coming of the New Deal. The White House is tweeting out FDR quotes and photos.

Farther left along the spectrum, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) complains that Biden’s “once-in-a-lifetime investment in America” isn’t nearly enough to finance her vision for a “Green New Deal” that would re-engineer the U.S. economy from the top down.

Hardly a day goes by without some idea monger (me, for example) calling for a new New Deal to solve this or that pressing national problem. And why not? It’s hard to think of a better model than FDR for the bold and inventive leadership our country needs now.

As a universal metaphor for “going big,” the New Deal works pretty well. As a governing blueprint for today’s Democrats, it’s less useful. The real history of the New Deal was forged in a very different America, and its lessons are just as likely to challenge as reinforce contemporary progressive shibboleths.

Read the full piece in the Hill. 

Carolina Postcard: Will Voting Rights Battles Come to NC – Again?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

For 150 years, North Carolina has been a battleground over Black citizens’ voting rights. Get ready for another battle.

Governor Roy Cooper issued a warning this month:

“I expect Republican leadership in our North Carolina legislature to follow a lot of other state legislatures in using this ‘big lie’ of voter fraud as an excuse for laws that suppress the vote. Let’s just get real about it: These laws are intended to discourage people from voting.”

Legislators in 43 states have proposed more than 250 bills to suppress voting. Georgia just passed one that The New York Times says will have “an outsize impact on Black voters.”

Reporters in Raleigh have speculated that similar bills will be introduced this year – and rushed through the legislature to Governor Cooper’s desk.

Our state has been here before. Resistance began as soon as the Fifteenth Amendment gave Blacks the right to vote after the Civil War.

Blacks helped elect Governor William W. Holden, a Republican, in 1868. In 1870, the Ku Klux Klan used murder and intimidation to suppress Republican votes. Democrats regained control of the legislature. They impeached Holden and removed him from office.

Despite Jim Crow laws and the Klan, Blacks continued to hold elected office in North Carolina during the 19th Century. The last to serve in Congress was George Henry White (1897-1901).

Congressman George H. White

Then white supremacists took over. In 1898, white mobs murdered Black citizens and overthrew the legally elected government of Wilmington. The Democratic Party and The News & Observer, working together, imposed ruthless voter-suppression laws that disenfranchised Blacks for decades.

In the 1960s, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act despite filibusters by Southern Senators, including North Carolina’s Sam Ervin, a Democrat.

The two parties then reversed roles on race. The Democratic Party, once the party of white supremacy, embraced civil rights. Southern whites embraced the Republican Party, once the party of Lincoln.

The News & Observer became a strong voice for civil rights and racial equality.

Republican Senator Jesse Helms, elected in 1972, took up the Southern-resistance banner. He had won fame fulminating on WRAL-TV against the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He held his seat for 30 years; he never changed his views on race.

The U.S. Justice Department accused Helms’ 1990 campaign – against a Black opponent, Harvey Gantt – of intimidating Black voters. The campaign sent 125,000 postcards, mostly to Black voters, falsely claiming they were not eligible and could be prosecuted for voter fraud. Helms’ campaign later signed a consent decree to settle the complaint.

A former Democrat, Helms had been involved in one of the most racist campaigns in North Carolina’s history, Willis Smith’s victory over Frank Porter Graham in the 1950 Senate Democratic primary. Smith’s campaign passed out flyers that said: “White People Wake Up.”

Willis Smith campaign flyer, 1950

Despite Helms, North Carolina earned a reputation in the last decades of the 20th Century as a progressive state on racial issues.

Then, in 2010 – the first midterm after the election of Barack Obama, the first Black President – Republicans won majorities in the state House and Senate.

In 2013, they passed an election law that the Brennan Center for Justice called “possibly the most restrictive” in the nation. It required a photo ID, curtailed early voting, ended same-day registration and ended provisional voting.

A federal court said the law “disproportionately affected” Black voters, targeting them “with almost surgical precision.” Lawsuits tied up many of the law’s provisions.

Now – in the wake of the 2020 election and Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud – North Carolina may be in for another battle.

Carolina Postcard: Tracking North Carolina’s “Blue Shift”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Gary Pearce

Looking back, it’s clear that North Carolina took a big step in 2008 toward becoming a Democratic state in presidential elections. It’s not clear whether we’ll keep moving in that direction.

Since 2008, Democrats have confidently predicted that demographic trends – more young voters, minority voters and college-educated voters – would make North Carolina more like Virginia, which is increasingly Democratic, and Georgia, which was surprisingly Democratic in 2020.

Before we explore whether that will happen, let’s be clear about the “blue shift” that already has happened.

From 1980 to 2004, North Carolina was reliably Republican in presidential races. Republican candidates carried the state seven straight times, usually by double digits.

Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter here by 2% in 1980, then swamped Walter Mondale by 24% in 1984; George H. W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by over 16% in 1988. Bill Clinton made North Carolina competitive again in 1992, losing to Bush by less than 1%, partly because Ross Perot was on the ballot and siphoned votes away from Bush. Bob Dole beat Clinton here by 4.7% in 1996.

In 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore in North Carolina by 12.8%; Bush beat John Kerry by 12.4% in 2004, even with former North Carolina Senator John Edwards on the Democratic ticket.

But that pattern changed dramatically in 2008.

The breakthrough didn’t come the way experts expected: with a moderate white candidate from the South, another Carter or Clinton. Instead, it was a Black candidate, an unknown first-term Senator from Illinois with an unlikely name and an unexpected appeal.

Republicans scoffed that year at reports Barack Obama’s campaign was targeting North Carolina. No way, they said, could a Black Democrat win such a safe Republican state.

But Obama did win, by just 0.3%, thanks to a surge of minority voters and young voters. He won white working-class voters who had lost faith in Republican economic policies and lost patience with never-ending wars in the Middle East. John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin for Vice President cost him women and college-educated voters.

North Carolina turned red again on the electoral maps of 2012, 2016 and 2020. But the margins never returned to pre-2008 levels. Mitt Romney beat Obama here in 2012 by just 2%. Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 3.6% in 2016 and Joe Biden by 1.3% in November.

Democrats here have been inspired by Democrats in Georgia, which went for President Biden and elected two Democratic Senators. Efforts have begun to replicate Georgia Democrats’ voter registration and turnout juggernaut.

But North Carolina isn’t Georgia. We’re more rural. While both states have over 10 million people, Georgia’s rural population is about 1.8 million; North Carolina’s is over 3 million. Georgia has more Black voters – 30% of the total electorate, compared to North Carolina’s 20%.

Three questions will decide the future of North Carolina’s “blue shift.”

First, will Covid and its economic impact put an end to the 40-year reign of Ronald Reagan’s philosophy that “government is the problem”? Some polls suggest Americans today want more from government, not less.

Second, which party’s set of issues matter more to voters? Biden and Democrats are focusing on Covid vaccines, economic relief, climate change, and gender and racial equality. Republicans are focused on abortion, immigration, “reopening” the country and “cancel culture.”

Third, which will prevail: Democrats’ efforts to expand voting or Republicans’ efforts to restrict it?

In a state where presidential elections are decided by 1, 2 or 3%, small actions and small shifts in attitudes can produce big shifts in outcomes.

PPI Applauds Passage of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congress passed the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion emergency pandemic relief package that will help ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution, support small businesses and workers, and provide the necessary resources to safely reopen schools and communities.

Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), released the following statement:

“Passage of the American Rescue Plan is a landmark achievement for President Biden and the new Democratic Congress – one that gives us reason to hope our government may not be broken after all.

It’s not a perfect bill, but after a long, grinding year of sickness, economic privation and social isolation, this isn’t the time to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Policy disagreements aside, President Biden has rightly gauged the magnitude of the nation’s health and economic emergency and responded resolutely. His decision to “go big” was right, as was his desire to avoid vilifying his political opponents and deepening the nation’s paralyzing cultural rifts.

That’s the way our democracy is supposed to work.

By clearing his first big hurdle, President Biden has dealt himself a strong political hand for the next one: Winning passage of his coming “Build Back Better” plan for building a more just, clean and resilient U.S. economy.”

The Progressive Policy Institute is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Media Contact: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org