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David Brooks can't figure out why the Democrats haven't figured out how to stop Donald Trump. Excerpts:

You would think that those of us in the anti-Trump camp would have at one point stepped back and asked some elemental questions: What are we trying to achieve? Who is the core audience here? Which strategies have worked, and which have not?

If those questions were asked, the straightforward conclusion would be that most of what we are doing is not working. The next conclusion might be that theres a lot of self-indulgence here. Were doing things that help those of us in the anti-Trump world bond with one another and that help people in the Trump world bond with one another. Were locking in the political structures that benefit Trump.

My core conclusion is that attacking Trump personally doesnt work. You have to rearrange the underlying situation. We are in the middle of a cultural/economic/partisan/identity war between more progressive people in the metro areas and more conservative people everywhere else. To lead the right in this war, Trump doesnt have to be honest, moral or competent; he just has to be seen taking the fight to the elites.

The proper strategy in this situation is to scramble the identity war narrative. Thats what Biden did in 2020. He ran as a middle-class moderate from Scranton. He dodged the culture war issues. Thats what the Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman is trying to do in Pennsylvania.

A Democratic candidate who steps outside the culture/identity war narrative is going to have access to the voters who need to be moved. Public voices who dont seem locked in the insular educated elite worldview are going to be able to reach the people who need to be reached.

Trumpists tell themselves that America is being threatened by a radical left putsch that is out to take over the government and undermine the culture. The core challenge now is to show by word and deed that this is a gross exaggeration.

But the thing is -- it's not a gross exaggeration. This is what the elites keep telling themselves. Just today, I was driving, and heard NPR interview Juan Perez Jr., an education reporter from Politico, about Republican strategies in this fall's education races. Here's an excerpt from that interview:

PEREZ: I think that's true. For starters, I think we should note - education and schooling have always been political, right? Yet the pandemic, our nation's ongoing reckoning with race, gender identity, have made it clear that the environment was ripe for a shift, a pendulum swing. Recent polling from one Democratic education advocacy group from this summer concluded that parents and voters of color in dozens of congressional battlegrounds, they were more likely to trust Republicans on education policy than Democrats.

SUMMERS: OK. So we've talked a lot about the attention that conservative Republicans across the country are paying to these offices. Have Democratic candidates offered any sort of counter narrative or funding to match that intensity on the right?

PEREZ: I think they're working on it. The challenge is whether it's actually breaking through, particularly in red states, where, again, this stuff is so potent, such a potent issue for base voters. There's emerging polling and messaging, guidance and strategy coming out of Democrats right now that are trying to get candidates focused on, I guess, what I would describe as bread-and-butter issues, back on academics, back on the classroom, back on teacher pay, back on what we need to do to make sure children catch up after years of disrupted schooling amid the coronavirus pandemic. And I think that's partly because they want to appeal not only to voters who are very concerned about these issues, but also, again, moderates and independents who may be turned off by some of the far-right culture war messaging that's been animating primary campaigns.

Classic, just classic. The way Perez Jr frames it is that the Republicans are fooling people with "far-right culture war messaging," instead of focusing on real issues, like teacher pay and Covid catch-up. Funny, though, that black and Latino parents trust Republicans more on education issues than Democrats. Gosh, I wonder why. Do you think that black and Latino parents don't want their kids to be jacked up with propaganda encouraging them to think of themselves as transgender, and to learn a hundred pronouns? Yeah, I think that might be it. That, and the fact that over and over, we are seeing school boards defend policies that instruct teachers and staff to hide from parents their child's transness. Not to mention all the CRT crap that riled up northern Virginia voters, including immigrants and people of color.

You can tell by reading or listening to the interview with the Politico reporter that this entire media class sees their own cultural preferences as normative and uncontroversial. To object to it is to either be on the far right, or a dupe of the far right. Why is this such a mystery to my friend David? Maybe if you live in the Boston-NYC-DC corridor, you can't easily see how radical all this is to people outside it. Today the Biden White House held a summit to fight "white supremacy" -- this, while the country is suffering a crime wave that is not being led by white people any more than religious terrorism is being led by Swedish Lutherans. You can be sure that Joe Biden is not interested in this hate crime at a Beaumont school; it doesn't fit the Narrative:

This is why the anti-Trump people don't have a strategy to stop Trump. It would require them abandoning their cultural narrative. People are less afraid of what Trump might do to the country than they are about what Biden and the elite Left that runs American institutions, including Big Business, are doing to the country right now. I spoke to a recently retired military officer the other day when I was traveling. He left the service early because woke politics had infested the brass. He told me it's truly affecting American readiness -- but no one higher up the Pentagon ladder cares. It's all about woke politics now.

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I hope Ron DeSantis is the 2024 Republican nominee, because I think he is right on the issues, competent, and blessedly free of Trump's narcissism and drama. But you want to know why a lot of us would vote for Trump, despite having no particular regard for him? Watch Tucker Carlson's monologue tonight. This is but one reason why. This stuff is no great mystery. I remember the summer of 2016, when candidate Donald Trump flew to mosquito-bound, rain-soaked Baton Rouge to visit with victims of the catastrophic flooding. That same weekend, candidate Hillary Clinton was at a $50,000 a plate fundraiser on, yes, Martha's Vineyard, at the home of her friend Lady Rothschild. You can't make it up!

Excerpt from:
Why Can't The Democrats Beat Trump? - The American Conservative

The draft text of permitting reform expands the scope of categorical exclusions that are regularly applied to oil and gas projectsincluding BPs Deepwater Horizon rigin a way that could include more clean energy projects and level the playing field.

Many advocates are leery of categorical exclusions writ large. A more careful analysis also isnt necessarily a slower one. Analyzing 41,000 NEPA decisions completed by the U.S. Forest Service between 2004 and 2020, legal scholars John C. Ruple, Jamie Pleune, and Erik Heiny found that delays associated with the law are owed to inadequate staffing, insufficient funding, and time spent on interagency coordination, not a delay in permitting. Contrary to widely held assumptions, they write, we found that a less rigorous level of analysis often fails to deliver faster decisions. As Aaron Gordon reported recently for Vice, the agencies that handle such decisions are chronically understaffed, with many now adding a growing number of climate disasters to already full plates. According to the most recent draft on offer, this version of permitting reform wouldnt give regulators more resources to do their jobs; it would require them to do them more quickly. Forty years of bludgeoning state capacity has not made it more efficient. The gamble proposed by proponents of the side deal is that now it will.

Neither is the bill a panacea for local opposition; locals seeking to block a project can lean on any number of local, state, and federal provisions to keep stuff from getting built. Theres no way around getting the backing of politically powerful players where you want to get a project through, Earthjustice director Abigail Dillan told me. Decarbonizing the U.S. economy, that isan awe-inspiring taskwill require a certain amount of democratic consent.

Read the original post:
Why Resolving Democrats' Internal War on Climate Policy Will Be Hard - The New Republic

Democratic State Senate candidate Andrea Hunley said abortion is an economic issue as she spoke to reporters on Sept. 15, the day Indiana's near-total abortion ban took effect.

Democratic state legislative candidates say the only way to repeal Indianas near-total abortion ban is by electing Democrats to the Statehouse.

Candidates issued a call to action Thursday, the day the ban took effect.

Joey Mayer is running against Rep. Donna Schaibley (R-Carmel), an incumbent in a suburban district north of Indianapolis. She said shes been shocked how, even when she goes door-to-door to talk about economic issues, voters of both parties turn the conversation back to the abortion ban.

If the Indiana GOP had bothered to listen to their own polling or actually talk to the people they represent like were doing, they would know how far out of step SEA 1 is from what the people of Indiana want, Mayer said.

Republicans insist inflation and the economy are the biggest issues this election. Democratic Senate candidate Andrea Hunley said abortion is an economic issue, too.

When families are concerned about how they are going to pay for gas and how they are going to pay for groceries, they cannot also be concerned about how they are going to feed another mouth in their home, Hunley said.

Republicans are largely expected to maintain their supermajorities in the Indiana House and Senate.

Contact reporter Brandon atbsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.

More here:
Indiana Democrats issue call to action for voters on first day of abortion ban - WFYI

Four top progressive advocacy groups are calling on Democrats to campaign affirmatively on immigration, countering Republican rhetoric on the issue rather than pivoting away from it.

In a memo released Tuesday by Community Change Action, Mi Familia Vota, SEIU and United We Dream Action, the groups shared internal message testing they hope will encourage Democrats to take a more positive stance on the issue.

Community Change Action, Mi Familia Vota, SEIU, and United We Dream Action envision a future where our society treats immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers with dignity and respect, wrote the groups in the internal memo reviewed by The Hill.

We know this vision is in jeopardy if the GOP gains control of Congress and other state and local seats across the country as they continue their dangerous anti-immigrant rhetoric that leads to bad policies and even worse outcomes for our communities, they added.

The memos release two months before the midterms comes as many Democrats have shied away from immigration, although some high-profile Democrats in tight races have already leaned in.

Bruna Bouhid, communications director for United We Dream, pointed to campaigns in Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas, where Democrats Charlie Crist, John Fetterman and Michelle Vallejo have released ads countering the Republican narrative on immigration.

Thats what they should be doing, going on the counteroffensive. What Charlie Crist is doing is effective. Using something thats quite popular and has majority support to remind voters what hes about, said Bouhid.

Crist is running for governor against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Fetterman is running for the open Pennsylvania Senate seat, and Vallejo is running for a House seat in South Texas.

Still, many Democrats see immigration as a risky issue, particularly as Republicans merge border security issues with immigration policy.

Using the motto Bidens Border Crisis, GOP candidates have sought to paint the Biden administration as opening the border to smuggling, cartel crime and unfettered migration, often jumping from criticism of Bidens asylum policy to domestic drug overdose statistics.

You have people coming across illegally from countries all over the world. And so what has that gotten us? We now, in this country, have the leading cause of death for people 18 to 45 as fentanyl overdose, said DeSantis in June.

While both immigration and fentanyl seizures remain high, most experts agree migration flows and drug smuggling are separate phenomena.

The probability [that migrants are] going to carry some kind of illicit narcotic is probably close to zero, Victor Manjarrez, director for the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas, El Paso, told NPR last month.

And thats a distinction the four groups underwriting the memo believe voters can make.

There are a lot of different things the Democratic Party can point to in a positive way to counter these attacks, but were hearing silence, said Bouhid.

The most accessible issue for Democrats laid out in the memo is a defense of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

That program is popular with voters across the political spectrum, and its popularity resisted a Republican push to frame it as executive overreach by the Obama administration, and a concerted effort to shut it down through the court system and through administrative action by the Trump administration.

The groups tested a variety of messages in different states, measuring their power to mobilize certain groups of voters and noting where other groups were discouraged from voting.

In Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Texas, the following message helped encourage Latino youth voters to openly support pro-immigration policies, while discouraging moderate-to-conservative voter participation, according to the memo.

A handful of Republican politicians are obsessed with uprooting our communities by deporting DACA recipients and their families. They are fueling fears about immigrants as a way to divide us. But, we know the truth, DACA recipients, and all immigrants, play a vital role in creating thriving communities. We need to elect politicians who will defend the right of DACA recipients to stay in our communities with a pathway to citizenship, it said.

The groups found that messages attacking Republicans for their stance on programs like DACA and messages heightening the dignity of asylum-seekers were most likely to discourage conservatives from voting.

The memo was released publicly by the four groups independent expenditure wings, meaning they are not allowed to directly coordinate or donate to campaigns.

Community Change Action is the political wing of Community change, a group founded in 1968 as a civil rights and low-income community organizer; Mi Familia Vota is one of the countrys largest grassroots Latino voter organizations; SEIU is a union that represents nearly 2 million workers in health care, property services and government; and United We Dream Action is the political wing of United We Dream, a youth immigrant advocacy organization.

The rest is here:
Progressive groups call on Democrats to lean in on immigration - The Hill

Democrats are questioning whether theyre missing former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), as Nevada now looms as Republicans best chance of picking off a Senate Democratic incumbent amid stumbles by GOP candidates in Arizona and Georgia.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) entered the 2022 election cycle as a strongly positioned incumbent who was viewed as holding a safer seat than several of her colleagues, including Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.).

Less than two months from Election Day, however, Senate Republicans now view Cortez Masto as their most promising target, raising questions about how much Democrats strength has slipped in Nevada since Reids retirement and death.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) on Monday pointed to Ohio and North Carolina as other states where Democratic candidates are exceeding expectations, but he admitted that Nevada is a tough state for us.

And Catherine will tell you the same, he added, referring to Cortez Masto. Its been up or down 1 or 2 points for a long time.

Asked if Democrats are missing Reid, Durbin exclaimed, I miss him every day.

He also said that of course Democrats miss Reids political muscle in Nevada, acknowledging, Theres no replacement for Harry. He was Mr. Nevada, and he knew how to make it work.

Even so, Durbin insisted that Catherines the best and predicted that shell do very well.

But polls show that if Cortez Masto hangs on to win reelection, it will be by the slimmest of margins.

An AARP-commissioned poll conducted last month showed Cortez Masto leading her Republican opponent, former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, by less than 4 points, within the surveys margin of error.

Another poll conducted last month by the Republican Trafalgar Group showed Laxalt leading by nearly 3 points.

The tight polling numbers are all the more concerning for Democrats because Cortez Masto has received significantly more support from outside groups than Laxalt.

Outside groups have spent$7.9 millionin support of Cortez Masto compared to$4 millionin support of Laxalt and$13.9 millionagainst Laxalt compared to$8.5 millionagainst Cortez Masto, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan research group.

Laxalts resilience in the polls also comes despite vulnerabilities as a candidate.

Like other Trump-backed candidates who won Senate primaries this year, Laxalt embraced former President Trumps false allegation that the 2020 election was stolen because of voter fraud. He has also claimed that ballots for ineligible and dead voters were fraudulently counted for President Biden in Nevada.

Jon Ralston, the CEO of The Nevada Independent and the most respected political commentator in the state, said, Harry Reids acolytes are still around and are still running the machine, so to speak.

Ralston said Cortez Masto has proved to be a formidable fundraiser.

Her campaign reported raising more than $7.5 million in the second quarter of this year after raising $4.4 million in the first quarter, giving her campaign $10 million in cash on hand to start July.

But Ralston added that if you dont have Harry Reid you cant raise as much money, and so you are handicapped to some extent.

Ralston said Reid and his political machine were huge factors behind Cortez Mastos victory in 2016, an otherwise a disappointing election cycle for Democrats. She won the seat that Reid held from 1987 to 2017.

He also argued that she ran against a much better candidate in former Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) than she is facing now.

Adam Laxalt, who Ive told virtually anyone who will listen, is an absolutely terrible candidate, Ralston said, citing his embrace of Trumps election fraud claims and ethical issues related to his term as state attorney general.

Yet National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.) on Monday pointed to Nevada and Georgia as the two most promising pickup opportunities for Republicans, pointing to the low approval ratings of Biden and the Senate Democratic incumbents.

If you look at the polls, it would suggest [in] those two states we have every opportunity, he said. Bidens numbers in all of our swing states are under 40 [percent] and all the Democratic candidates are under 50 [percent]. Its rightful to tie every one of those candidates to Biden.

Ralston said its somewhat easier to tie Cortez Masto to Biden, whose approval rating in Nevada stood at 41 percent last month, because she doesnt have as strong a brand as some other politicians.

[Because] shes much more of a work horse than a show horse, its easier to define her as a just a Biden clone, he said. I think that definitely has hurt her.

Democrats familiar with Reids famed political machine say its still a force to be reckoned with and will churn out large numbers of voters for Cortez Masto. But Democratic strategists also acknowledge theres been a major void in Nevadas Democratic power structure since Reid died in December at the age of 82.

Kami Dempsey-Goudie, a Nevada-based political consultant who mainly works with Democrats but has worked with Republicans as well, said Democrats miss Reid but are still benefiting from the political operation he built over the decades.

I think they miss him a lot, but I think they also feel a lot of his presence here. A lot of his original staff and what they call the Reid machine is functioning and working aggressively, she said, noting that former Reid staffers are still involved in state political races.

She cited Rebecca Lambe, who worked closely with Reid to rebuild the state party after 2002, and Megan Jones, a longtime Reid aide who recently joined Vice President Harriss staff, as two key political players active in the state.

But she said the machine doesnt run quite as efficiently without Reid.

I think hes missed in a way where one phone call from him to certain people got a job [advanced] further down the road in a quicker time frame, so thats really missed by Democrats, said Dempsey-Goudie.

Democrats dont have as big a lead over Republicans in voter registration as they have in past election cycles, which will make Laxalt more competitive, Democrats acknowledge.

Mike Lux, a longtime Democratic strategist, hailed Reid as a political mastermind.

Nevadas always been a close state, he said, noting that Reid won reelection in 1998 by fewer than 500 votes. A number of Harrys elections were quite close so this is a swing state. Its been a swing state for about 20 years.

If Harry were still around, it would make it easier to win because he was a brilliant political strategist and he was a great leader and he brought people together. Obviously he is sorely missed so that makes it tougher, he said.

When asked about Reids missing influence on the Nevada race, Cortez Masto told The Hill that voters would make up their own minds about who to support.

Nevadans are always going to decide their races, no matter what, she said, adding that Nevada is independent, strong and that ultimately, at the end of the day, its the voters who decide who theyre going to elect.

Asked whether the Democrats get-out-the-vote operation remains as strong as it used to be now that Reid is gone, Cortez Masto replied, Absolutely. Yup. Absolutely.

Read more:
Democrats wonder if theyre missing Harry Reid in Nevada - The Hill