Donald Trump’s sweeping presidential victory this month proved that his 2016 win was no fluke.  Like his populist-right counterparts in Europe, Trump is riding a working-class revolt against governing elites — a spreading brushfire the Biden-Harris administration failed to comprehend and effectively counter.

After losing the national popular vote in his two previous White House runs, Trump won it this time by about 2.5 million votes this time and is right on the borderline between winning an outright majority and a plurality. He made inroads in blue cities, suburbs and states while scoring substantial gains among independents and traditionally Democratic-leaning groups: young voters as well as Black and especially Latino voters without college degrees.

This convergence in the voting behavior of the white and non-white working class punctures the progressive myth that “voters of color” think and vote alike along reliably Democratic lines. Class, now defined chiefly by education level, appears to be eclipsing ethnicity as the nation’s deepest political fault line.

Keep reading in The Hill.

If President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk get their way, NASA may become a glorified contracting agency. 

As Musk promises the American public “temporary hardship” as he looks to cut some $2 trillion from the federal budget — the equivalent of all spending outside Social Security, Medicare and interest on the national debt — Trump’s top space advisers talk openly about funneling even more public money to Musk’s SpaceX. If actually implemented, such proposals would give Musk a de facto monopoly over America’s commercial space industry, stifle healthy competition that fuels technological innovation and demoralize an already overtaxed NASA workforce.

Never mind that SpaceX remains well behind schedule when it comes to delivering a lunar lander derived from its Starship vehicle, or that it’ll need an as-yet untried on-orbit refueling method to reach the moon.

This reality makes it ludicrous to suggest, as Trump space adviser Greg Autry has done, that NASA simply contract out a human Mars mission to SpaceX. To put it bluntly, the company has not demonstrated the technical competence required to execute even less demanding missions.

NASA remains an irreplaceable and indispensable public agency. If Trump and Musk hollow it out, however, the United States will quickly find itself without any viable space program.

Keep reading in Space News.

As Americans voted decisively for a candidate who explicitly rejects nearly everything that Bernie Sanders advocates, Vermont’s senior senator insists that the Democratic Party just wasn’t liberal enough. The mindset of the far left seems to be that the working class just needs more of what they just voted against. For Bernie, the answer is always, “more cowbell.”

Four years ago, the United States elected “Scranton Joe,” a pragmatic with a long record of achievement in the Senate and the Obama administration attained through compromise and common sense. On economic issues, Joe Biden presented himself as a pro-energy, pro-growth, pro-worker – old-school Democrat. He made a point of eschewing the left’s “defund the police” fever and ended his speeches by saying, “May God bless our troops.” Americans were yearning for what he offered and elected him as a serious and pragmatic alternative to a chaotic Trump.

Then came the Elizabeth Warren camp. From day one, the Biden administration was flooded with operatives from the Bernie/Liz left wing of the Democratic Party. What ensued was an overt shift from Scranton Joe’s campaign promises to policies for and by the liberal elite. Like those annoying clothing labels that are itchy and unnecessary, the Sanders/Warren brand was sewn into nearly every policy that came out of the White House.

Keep reading in RealClearPolitics.

US working-class voters have sent a clear message to Democrats. Running as a centrist and governing as a leftist is not acceptable. Will Democrats listen and learn?

There are many lessons to be learned from this most recent US election and many contributing factors for the Democratic loss: the communication ecosystems are thriving on the right; misinformation through social media platforms is rampant; there was a lack of vigour in pursuing accountability at the Department of Justice; and perhaps some minor but cumulatively important tactical missteps in a very well-run Democratic campaign. All of these issues and more led to a decisive loss for the Democratic Party.

The most important lesson, however, is the one that working-class voters are teaching us. There is a real danger that the Democratic Party will misunderstand the lesson and fail the test in future elections. We have already heard from very loud voices on the far left that Democrats were not far left enough. Bernie Sanders has made his case for this perspective and is getting some traction for this opinion. Working-class voters decisively voted for Trump, a man who explicitly rejects almost everything that Senator Sanders stands for. Somehow, Sanders now argues that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working class by not giving them more of what they just voted against.

Keep reading in Progressive Post.

Having fired Donald Trump in 2020, U.S. voters did an about-face Tuesday and sent him back to the White House. It was a remarkable political rebound, but one that owed as much to the Democratic Party’s weakness as it did to Trump’s strengths.

Despite heavily outspending her opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris carried not one battleground state in failing to reassemble the solid anti-Trump majority of four years ago. She also lagged behind Joe Biden’s 2020 performance with key Democratic-leaning groups: young voters, Hispanics, Blacks and even women.

The demographic and geographic sweep of Trump’s victory is impressive. He made inroads among urban and suburban voters, independents, young men and non-white working-class voters. The U.S. political map is getting redder.

Most importantly, Trump improved his 2020 performance with Hispanics by 25 points, despite his dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants. Overall, he won 46 percent of the Hispanic vote, the most ever for a Republican presidential candidate.

The electorate’s rightward shift has sparked heady talk among Republicans about a new U.S. political alignment around education level and social class rather than traditional left-right polarities. It certainly is a rebuke to the left, which has been hailing the advent of a new progressive majority for much of this century.

Read more in The Hill.

America’s grand experiment in democratic self-rule was launched 236 years ago in Philadelphia. Since then, it’s survived a Civil War, the Depression, wars hot and cold, and disruptive waves of economic and social change.

In today’s presidential election, it faces another major test. The central question before the voters isn’t the cost of living, immigration, or abortion. It’s repairing the health and effectiveness of America’s political and governing institutions.

Donald Trump adores self-aggrandizing superlatives, so let’s indulge him: He is beyond doubt the most successful demagogue in U.S. history. But he’s already proven that he doesn’t know how to unite and lead our country. Instead, he “wins” by magnifying our differences and setting Americans at each other’s throats.

We know exactly what to expect if he wins: Four years of intensifying social conflict, political chaos, and partisan hatred. Kamala Harris may not be perfect, but she offers at least a chance to deescalate today’s ugly civil strife and revive the norms of honesty, mutual respect, and civility that make self-government work.

Keep reading in Medium.

“Just win, baby.”

While acknowledging her unpopularity in swing districts, that was what then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in 2018 to vulnerable Democratic incumbents and challengers weighing the political calculation of opposing her as House Democratic leader.

Ultimately, that distancing from Pelosi worked for several incumbent and aspiring House Democrats, helping the party maximize its gains while taking back the House. Most notably in red Pennsylvania District 17, Republicans ran ads trying to link underdog challenger Conor Lamb to Pelosi, cheekily calling him one of “Nancy Pelosi’s sheep.” Yet the attack never resonated. From the beginning, Lamb vowed that he would not support Pelosi. He ended up winning the hotly contested special election, pulling off one of the biggest upsets of the cycle.

We’re now seeing a similar dynamic in this year’s presidential election. While Harris should certainly not repudiate any of President Biden’s policies that she has supported as vice president, the same underlying imperative to create more political distance exists.

Keep reading in The Hill.

A healthy U.S. economy is finally emerging from inflation’s shadow, enabling Americans to see and feel its underlying strengths. Is the good news coming in time to give Vice President Kamala Harris a boost in the November election?

Normally, a vibrant economy lifts political incumbents, but polls show U.S. voters are still preoccupied with high living costs. Harris offers a slew of proposals for driving down the cost of housing, food, health care and other necessities.

That’s essential, but with inflation and interest rates falling, Democrats have a stronger economic hand to play. They can point at growing evidence that working families are benefiting from the U.S. economic boom, and point out that Donald Trump’s slapdash economic ideas and frantic pandering threaten to derail it.

Research by my colleague Michael Mandel shows that with inflation easing, wages for working-class Americans have risen higher than they were on Election Day 2020. In other words, U.S. workers are better off today than they were under Trump.

In addition to milder headwinds from inflation, Mandel attributes the rise in real wages to a revival of U.S. productivity growth, driven by a combination of strong government and corporate investment since 2020.

Keep reading in The Hill. 

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sprint toward the finish of the shortened 2024 presidential race, it is time to ask: What issue should be foremost in U.S. voters’ minds when they cast their ballots?

It’s not the cost of living, immigration, abortion or foreign wars, though all are critically important. Overshadowing them is this election’s meta-issue — the insistent question that just won’t go away: Can Americans entrust their democratic institutions and traditions to a vengeful Trump and a Republican Party he has remade in his image?

Trump is acutely aware of the danger in that question. He accuses Harris and “radical leftists” of posing the real threat to U.S. democracy.

With trademark disregard for honesty, civility and intellectual coherence, Trump piles on the insults, calling the vice president a socialist-communist-fascist dumbbell who’s “mentally impaired” to boot.

It’s ugly and nonsensical, but, hey, it’s Trump; in his carnival barker playbook, making sense is for losers.

Keep reading in The Hill.

By Will Marshall

Vice President Kamala Harris has righted her party’s capsized ship and opened a small but consistent lead over Donald Trump in national polls. Now comes the decisive test: Charting a winning course in the Electoral College.

To attain a majority of 270 votes or more, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), must carry at least three, and in some scenarios four of the seven battleground states. All look like dead heats today.

They can count on a strong turnout by a reenergized Democratic base, but that won’t be enough. You can’t win swing states without winning swing voters. The campaigns are spending prodigiously in these states to sway roughly 3 million voters who tell pollsters they’ve yet to make up their minds.

Keep reading in The Hill.