Looped In / Substack:
The Anti-Politics Of Popularism
The current strategy to bring Democrats back from the brink of electoral wipeouts rejects the very thing they need most
On its surface, popularism is intuitive political advice: do things voters like, and they’ll support you. But interrogating this theory reveals at best some glib recommendations of generic political best practice and at worst, nebulous advice that boils down to some form of “do nothing at all.” It turns out that conservative-leaning white voters mostly prefer the status quo. Even popular policies, like broadly agreed upon gun safety legislation, become less popular if voters see them as a change in current policy…
If the polls are an accurate reflection of reality, then progressives will be consistently stymied by voters who won’t support candidates campaigning on things like a just immigration system, a sizable expansion of the welfare state, bans on assault weapons, ending the use of fossil fuels, or any number of other policies that would alleviate large amounts of suffering. Either progressive-minded candidates can start lying to voters en masse about what they’ll do when elected, or Democrats will have to start changing public opinion. The latter strategy is obviously preferable.
This is where actual politics – the business of building mass coalitions that can demand and win concessions – comes into play. What Democrats need more of, as Osita Nwanevu has written, is movement building. The best hope for reversing the societal decay driving Americans to retreat into a permanent anti-social defensive crouch, is building and strengthening organizations that can politically mobilize people to (as one big fan of movement building put it) fight for someone they do not know.
Post Crescent (WI):
Kiel is swept up in a cultural war from a Title IX investigation, but residents are trying to carry on
Even though Kiel prides itself as a small city that does big things, it has grappled with sensitive gender issues and seen local school board races turn contentious.
Last spring, as masks and racial education policies were debated, the rhetoric during the school board election became so heated that staff from the school district wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the local weekly newspaper, the Tri-County News, in early April titled, “Teachers address ‘inaccuracies.'” It was signed by 70 staff members.
Run for school board. This debate is happening everywhere.
(Questions abound as to what Grassley meant, and it is not obvious he had inside info).
Philip Bump / WaPo:
What if – and bear with me here – John Durham does not have the goods?
Durham’s probe has become everything that Trump and his allies accused special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of Russia investigation of being: a fishing expedition that’s gone on for an extended period of time without actually surfacing anything that significantly aids the central case. Mueller could point to dozens of indictments and a voluminous exploration of how Russia tried to swing the 2016 election two years into his assignment. Three years into Durham’s, he failed to obtain a conviction on his central line of attack.
To objective observers, there was always reason to be skeptical that Durham would be able to fulfill his mandate of proving that the Russia probe was dubious and, by unstated extension, that Trump was right all along. It seems far more unlikely now.
Here’s hoping the goalpost-movers have stayed in shape.
Politico:
‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections
Placing operatives as poll workers and building a “hotline” to friendly attorneys are among the strategies to be deployed in Michigan and other swing states.
“Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger, ”said Matthew Seifried, the RNC’s election integrity director for Michigan, stressing the importance of obtaining official designations as poll workers at a meeting with GOP activists in Wayne County last Nov. 6. It is one of a series of recordings of GOP meetings between summer of 2021 and May of this year obtained by POLITICO.
Backing up those front-line workers, “it’s going to be an army,” Seifried promised at an Oct. 5 training session. “We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”
Axios:
Blockbuster witness for Jan. 6 hearings
J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge and lawyer who advised former Vice President Mike Pence, is expected to testify in the Jan. 6 select committee’s public hearings this month, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The committee, which has until now been interviewing witnesses behind closed doors, has revealed little about its plans for the public hearings set to begin next week.
- The desire to showcase Luttig – a judge lionized within the conservative legal movement – matches what sources have described as the committee’s strategy to reach as broad an audience as possible, including conservatives.
That’s heavy duty sarcasm, folks.
Guardian:
‘Theocratic’ US abortion bans will violate religious liberty, faith leaders say
The anti-abortion side has monopolized arguments based on religion. But some say their faith supports the right to choose
Reproductive rights are under threat in the US as states implement harsher restrictions and the supreme court weighs a case that is widely expected to reverse the constitutional right to abortion.
But while religious arguments around the issue are commonly associated with the anti-abortion movement, abortion restrictions can violate the right to religious liberty, faith leaders and legal experts say. And some organizations are already gearing up for possible legal challenges to looming abortion bans.
Religious liberty for people of all faiths is protected under the US constitution, state constitutions and federal statutes.