Category Archives: Democrat

Democrats now assert theirbailout of multiemployer union pension plans in MarchsAmerican Rescue Plan Act was deeply flawed and are demanding the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) rescue multiemployer union pension plans from the acts botched rescue. Democrats admission this bailout will cost much more than advertised should raise concerns about thereal costs of the thirdmassivebill they are rushing to enact this year with newsocial spending schemes.

The American Rescue Plan Act provided an $86 billion taxpayer bailout to some multiemployer union pension plans, according to theCongressional Budget Office, but not enough to make them solvent. Eligible plans will only be given enough money intended to fully pay benefits through 2051, leaving them no assets to meet remaining pension promises (incurred both before and after the act). Even lasting until 2051 can only happen if the acts questionable assumptions hold true which is extremely unlikely as the senators who wrote the bill are now complaining.

This is because Democrats entangled themselves in the web of multiemployer union pension plans financial alchemy and based the bailout onoptimistic hypothetical investment returns, instead of the market value of liabilities. Plans use this sleight of hand to value pensions at less than half of cost and is a key reason multiemployer union pension plans, along withstate and local government pensions, are severely underfunded to begin with.

Majority Leader Charles SchumerChuck SchumerSchumer mourns death of 'amazing' father Feehery: The honest contrarian Biden administration to release oil from strategic reserve: reports MORE (D-N.Y.) is leading several Democratic senators in a letter demanding PBGC rewrite the flawed rescue to provide untold billions more in taxpayer handouts. Their primary grievance is that acts bailout is based on 5.5 percent annual investment returns, which PBGC is correctly insisting on. Democrats imposed this requirement in order to misleadingly claim they were saving multiemployer union pension plans through 2051, without providing enough taxpayer funds to do so. But, as Democrats now acknowledge, such returns are very unlikely given market conditions.

To prevent the pension plans from speculating with taxpayer funds, which even Democrats realized was especially unseemly, the act requires multiemployer union pension plans to invest taxpayer funds in investment-grade bonds unless PBGC allows other investments. The return on such bonds is only around 2-3 percent, which means the plans will need much higher returns on other investments in order to hit 5.5 percent and pay promises through 2051. Schumer wants PBGC to ignore the American Rescue Plan Act and lower the rate to take into account the lower returns on safe investments.

PBGC could arguably allow risky investments that may achieve higher returns and give plans a better chance at lasting until 2051, but that also increases the chance of running out of money much sooner. Even the letter effectively recognizes the fundamental financial principle that risky investments do not magically lower the cost of pensions, as it urges PBGC to use a rate lower than provided by the act, even if PBGC allows risky investments.

Forcing taxpayers to bailout plans using 5.5 percent is offensive given multiemployer union pension plans made promises based on 7 percent or 8 percent,thus collecting less than half the contributions needed from employers. The American Rescue Plan Act did nothing to protect workers, retirees and taxpayers by requiring plans to accurately measure promises going forward. Schumer demanding PBGC take more from taxpayers by lowering the acts rate while allowing multiemployer union pension plans to make new promises at less than half their cost is the height of chutzpah. The bailout creates atremendous moral hazard giving multiemployer union pension plans the upside of the severe risks they continue to take while subjecting taxpayers to the downside.

In July, PBGC estimated the cost of the bailoutat $8 billion more than CBO. In September, it increased the score yet again to$97.2 billion, while projecting that the final cost may be far higher. Absent fundamental reforms, future bailouts for American Rescue Plan Act plans past 2051, and for other plans, will be many times that. PBGC estimated that circumventing the 2051 limitation, as some are requesting,may multiply the score by four.

To limit the cost, the plans bailout only includes multiemployer union pension plans in the worst condition, but not other severely underfunded plans. Total multiemployer union pension plan underfunding skyrocketed to$757 billion in 2018 according to the latest PBGC data, withmore than 95 percent of the systems10.9 million participants in plans that are less than 60 percent funded.

The Democratic senators accuse PBGC of repeating the very mistakes that have undermined the pensions for decades by limiting the size of the bailout, but it is the statute written by Democrats and their Big Labor allies that doubles down on those mistakes instead of providing needed reforms. The letter accuses PBGC of wrongfully limiting bailout assistance based on a 5.5 percent assumption that has failure baked in the cake, but Democrats required that assumption. And Democrats refuse to stop multiemployer union pension plans andstate and local government plans from using 7 percent oreven 8 percent assumptions even more likely to fail, thus further endangering workers, retirees and taxpayers.

Aharon Friedman is a director and senior tax counsel at the Federal Policy Group and formerly served as senior adviser and senior tax counsel at the Treasury Department and the Committee on Ways & Means. Follow him on Twitter: @76redwhiteblue

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Democrats want to rescue union pensions from the party's failed bailout plan | TheHill - The Hill

In a year defined by media narratives portraying Democrats in disarray, it can be tempting to think that the party is defined solely by its work in Washington. And while pundits are keen to focus on President Bidens congressional setbacks, a myopic focus on the Beltway ignores the broader Democratic agenda unfolding in states and cities across the country.

Unfortunately for Biden and the Democratic Party, voters across the country are frustrated by what they view as a lack of progress by Congress on key elements of Bidens popular Build Back Better spending plan, not to mention the internal party frustrations around the Biden teams de-prioritization of criminal justice reform and voting rights earlier in the summer.

As we sit down for an increasingly politically polarized Thanksgiving with friends and family, lets break down five victories Democrats can be thankful for this holiday season.

Democrats put maternal health in the spotlight

Ask the average American about whats in Democrats sweeping $1.75-trillion-over-a-decade Build Back Better spending plan and theyre likely to paint a picture in the broadest strokes: free preschool, an expansion of the child tax credit and tax hikes on the wealthy. Lost in the bills details are Rep. Lauren UnderwoodLauren UnderwoodFive victories Democrats can be thankful for For Democrats it should be about votes, not megaphones Black Caucus emerges as winner in spending package MOREs (D-Ill.) historic investments for mothers, including critical funding for Black maternal health in a nation where Black moms die during pregnancy at nearly four times the rate of their white counterparts.

Im thankful that the Build Back Better Act includes historic investments in maternal health equity, Underwood told me. Extending mandatory Medicaid coverage to a full year postpartum and my Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act represent the largest-ever investment in advancing maternal health equity, and Im proud that the House passed this legislation to save moms lives.

Criminal justice reform is winning in the states

Despite largely falling off Democrats national agenda over the summer, criminal justice and prosecutorial reform has remained one of state and local Democrats most effective campaign issues. And despite some embarrassing electoral setbacks earlier this month in Virginia, progressive prosecutors have largely succeeded in running and winning in closely-divided red and blue states.

In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner sailed to a second term by a two-to-one margin, running up the score against a GOP challenger who made tough on crime the centerpiece of his campaign. In ruby-red Norfolk, Va., voters elected a progressive who described crime as a symptom of structural racism and vowed to further separate drug offenses from prison sentences. Democrats should be heartened that a majority of Americans, including some Republicans, agree: A recent Gallup survey revealed that over 60 percent of Americans favored addressing social and economic problems to lower crime instead of stuffing our overburdened jails with minor offenders.

Congress gets it together to pass historic infrastructure spending

In case you didnt hear, Democrats and Republicans briefly called a truce in their no-holds-barred war against cooperation to pass a historic $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. The transformational package touches on nearly every piece of the aging infrastructure holding our country together, including $550 billion in new funding for roads, bridges, broadband internet and more efficient delivery of utilities.

The bill also represents public validation for Bidens dreams of bipartisan collaboration, which many in the Democratic Party considered out of touch and wishful thinking in an era of record high political tribalism. If Democrats can find their voices and sell the bipartisan plans expansive offerings to voters who will be immediately helped by them, they will enter a bruising 2022 midterm election cycle with a positive, results-driven message.

Congress provided the raw materials for that campaign now Democrats will need to package Bidens big reforms into a narrative more compelling than dryly reciting the bills big topline spending numbers.

COVID-19 mass vaccination efforts are succeeding

Despite politically polarized resistance to COVID-19 vaccination driven by an unprecedented wave of irresponsible fearmongering by leading GOP officials, the United States has made incredible progress deploying a safe and effective vaccine to tens of millions of people. Nearly 200 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, and nearly 70 percent of people have received at least one vaccine dose. With over 452 million vaccine doses administered, Biden and Democrats can lay claim to the fastest, largest vaccination rollout in human history. And the effects are real.

Imagine if this whole response was being run by the same people who bungled everything in 2020 and are now leading the anti-vax pushes that are killing thousands, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff and communications director for Virginia Rep. Don Beyer. [At Thanksgiving] a year ago, I couldnt see my family safely. It feels like such a blessing.

Senate Democrats are repairing Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellRepublicans seem set to win the midterms unless they defeat themselves Graham emerges as go-to ally for Biden's judicial picks Five reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season MOREs GOP-packed judiciary

Senate Republicans packed a record number of hard-right conservative jurists onto the federal bench during Mitch McConnells (R-Ky.) tenure as Senate majority leader. Lefty pundits (including your columnist) urged Democrats to follow the McConnell playbook by rapidly accelerating the pace of judicial confirmations ahead of a possible 2022 Red Wave election cycle. To the surprise of many progressives, the Biden administration agreed, putting Democrats on pace to appoint federal judges even faster than President Trump, or any other president.

Part of Bidens seat-filling success comes from continuing the Trump-era tradition of largely ignoring the objections of senators from the states in which judges are being nominated. But that isnt the only reason: Biden has also made it a priority to fill the 108 Article III vacancies currently spread across the judiciary by nominating a record-number of candidates and fast-tracking almost every single one. The end result will be a judiciary still tilted to the right, but pulled back significantly from its far-right Trumpist extremes.

Republican obstruction is doing an excellent job of slowing long overdue national change. But that doesnt mean Democrats are empty-handed in this season of giving thanks. Even if the Congress-focused Beltway media rarely look beyond the East Coast, Democrats can raise a banner of thanks and celebration for rolling out signature victories in Washington and across the country.

MaxBurnsis a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies, a progressive communications firm. Follow him on Twitter @themaxburns.

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Five victories Democrats can be thankful for | TheHill - The Hill

The attention of the political world is beginning to shift to the midterm elections, now less than one year away.

President BidenJoe BidenGOP eyes booting Democrats from seats if House flips Five House members meet with Taiwanese president despite Chinese objections Sunday shows preview: New COVID-19 variant emerges; supply chain issues and inflation persist MORE and the Democrats face an uphill climb to hold on to their tiny majorities in Congress. The party that holds the White House usually loses seats in the first midterm elections and Bidens approval ratings are poor.

But a lot can happen in almost 12 months. Here are five big issues that will reverberate between now and Election Day 2022.

COVID-19

The pandemic is still the most important issue facing the nation, because of both its direct health effects and the way it ripples through other areas, notably the economy.

COVID-19 cases have begun to rise again but they are nowhere close to their all-time high, which occurred early this year.

During the worst of the pandemic in January, around 250,000 new cases of COVID-19 were being diagnosed every day. Now, the figure is closer to 90,000, according to New York Times data.

The Biden administration had made huge progress with vaccinations and the presidents handling of COVID-19 has consistently been the issue on which he polls most strongly.

In aWashington Post/ABC News poll earlier this month, 47 percent of Americans approved of Bidens conduct of the battle against COVID-19, by comparison with the 41 percent who approved of his overall job performance.

But the pandemic has been characterized by its unpredictability something that has been underlined yet again by the emergence of the omicron variant.

The U.S. will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other African nations starting Monday. The UK, the European Union, Canada and Israel are also imposing restrictions.

The electorate already appears frustrated by the sheer length of the battle against the pandemic and the massive disruptions it has caused to work, schooling and other aspects of daily life.

If the nation is definitively moving past the pandemic by spring, it would be great political news for Biden and his party. But serioussetbacks, from omicron or future variants, would likely spell doom.

Inflation

Inflation hit its highest level in more than 30 years in October, coming in at a startling 6.2 percent. Everything from gas prices to grocery costs has spiked and the rise has exacted a significant toll on Bidens popularity.

ACBS News/YouGov pollreleased last Sunday found that 67 percent of Americans disapprove of Bidens handling of inflation. Eighty-two percent report that the items they usually buy have grown more expensive.

Biden is at pains to avoid appearing detached from the issue.

His last public speech before the Thanksgiving break, on Tuesday, announced the largest-ever release from the nations Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move intended to ease gas prices. In a Saturday tweet, the president highlighted action that has eased congestion at ports. Earlier in November, Biden declared that taming inflation was a top priority for him.

But the problem is at least twofold: First, inflation is an inherently difficult problem to tackle without undercutting the economic recovery; second, the main tool in the fight the capacity to adjust interest rates is in the hands of the Federal Reserve, not the White House.

Republicans are blaming Democratic-led spending for inflation, while the president and his party colleagues insist it is a temporary problem caused by supply chain disruptions and the unique circumstances of the pandemic.

Much will depend on which of those explanations gets traction with the American public in the months ahead and whether inflation comes down anytime soon.

Trump

For all the tumult that former President TrumpDonald TrumpStowaway found in landing gear of plane after flight from Guatemala to Miami Kushner looking to Middle East for investors in new firm: report GOP eyes booting Democrats from seats if House flips MORE causes, the public view of him retains a remarkably consistent shape the Republican base adores him and much of the rest of the population detests him.

In a recentEconomist/YouGov poll, 84 percent of Republicans had a favorable view of Trump. Among the general population, that figure cratered to 39 percent, with 56 percent holding an unfavorable view.

The disapproval of Trump appears to be even more fervent than his support. In the Economist poll, 47 percent of the population said they had a very unfavorable view of him, more than twice as many as the 23 percent who had a very favorable perception.

The former president has stayed central to the political landscape, despite his incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection an action that made him the only president in history to be twice impeached.

He is far and away the most popular politician in the country with Republican voters, and he would be the prohibitive favorite to become the 2024 GOP presidential nominee if he enters the race.

Trump also revels in using his muscle in internal GOP politics, backing primary candidates who have displayed their loyalty to him and these days disparaging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellRepublicans seem set to win the midterms unless they defeat themselves Graham emerges as go-to ally for Biden's judicial picks Five reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season MORE (R-Ky.) as an old crow on a regular basis.

Democrats believe Trumps prominence helps them, given that he is so broadly unpopular.

But there is a large question mark over whether fear of Trump is potent enough to motivate voters to turn out for Democrats especially when the former president is not on the ballot.

The strategy ostentatiously failed for Democrat Terry McAuliffeTerry McAuliffeFive reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season BBB threatens the role of parents in raising and educating children Virginia's urgent lesson: Democrats' down-ballot enthusiasm gap MORE, who tried to get his old job back as governor of Virginia in November only to lose to GOP nominee Glenn YoungkinGlenn YoungkinFive reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season Parnell exit threatens to hurt Trump's political clout Virginia's urgent lesson: Democrats' down-ballot enthusiasm gap MORE.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezGOP eyes booting Democrats from seats if House flips Greene: McCarthy 'doesn't have the full support to be Speaker' Omar calls out Boebert over anti-Muslim remarks, denies Capitol incident took place MORE (D-N.Y.) told The New York Times in an interview published last weekend: This notion that saying 'We're not Trump' is enough this is such a deeply demoralizing message.

Immigration

The nation and its partisan media landscape increasingly appears cleaved into different universes, and immigration is one of the clearest examples.

The topic receives only passing mentions on liberal-leaning cable news channels, where the chief concern is often whether enough is being done to help unauthorized immigrants who are already here.

Meanwhile, in conservative media, immigration controls are portrayed as hopelessly lax, and the issue more broadly is seen as an ongoing, frightening crisis.

Liberals may be being too complacent, politically and substantively.

Encounters between unauthorized migrants and border patrol agentsat the southern border reached their highest level in 21 years in July, when there were more than 213,000 such interactions. The numbers have dropped slightly but only slightly since then. In September, they stood at roughly 192,000.

The perception that the administration is not in control of the borders is deepened by high-profile episodes like the chaos seen in southern Texas in September, when thousands of mostly Haitian migrants amassed under a bridge in squalid conditions.

On the other side of the coin, progressives within the Democratic Party are eager to preserve a legislative measure within Bidens Build Back Better plan that would give about seven million unauthorized immigrants the right to live and work in the United States for two five-year periods.

The progressives argue that Latino voters, in particular, will be demoralized if the Democrats dont do enough to help others in their community acquire legal status.

One way or another, Bidens performance on immigration is another weak spot. AnAssociated Press/NORC pollreleased at the start of October found just 35 percent of the overall population and an unusually low 60 percent of Democrats approving of how he is handling the topic.

The upshot: Its likely that the more salient immigration is to next years campaign, the worse for Democrats.

Wokeness

What does it even mean? Lots of people vehemently disagree about the answer and therein lies part of the problem.

Conservatives, in particular, have thrown together a loose collection of divisive social issues under the label.

Broadly, wokeness has come to represent a set of attitudes that include a view of racism as systemic in the United States; strong backing for transgender rights; a hypersensitivity about language, especially as it pertains to minority groups; and a desire to fundamentally reform the police.

There are reasons conservatives like to fight on this battlefield.

The slogan Defund the Police polls catastrophically.

A backlash from conservative-minded parents over the perceived radicalism of school curricula helped Youngkin to win his gubernatorial race last month.

An Atlantic magazine/Leger surveyin October found 56 percent of Americans agreeing that the country is becoming too politically correct and only 15 percent disagreeing.

Democrats protest that the vast majority of their elected officials, including Biden, are staunchly opposed to defunding the police, and that the ultra-controversial critical race theory is rarely taught to anyone until college.

But the degree to which Democrats can rebut conservative attacks, and at least battle to a stalemate in the new culture wars, will be politically vital next November.

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Five issues that will define the months until the midterms | TheHill - The Hill

Democrats signaled Sunday that the Senate will pass the $1.7 trillion social spending bill with several priorities trimmed or removedmeaning the package that's key to President Joe Biden's domestic agenda will likely be sent back to the House for a final vote.

The Democratic-controlled House passed $1.7 trillion in new funding to expand the U.S. social safety netknown as the Build Back Better Actin a 220-213 vote on Friday, with one Democrat crossing party lines to vote with Republicans against the measure.

The legislation now heads to the 50-50 split Senate, where Democrats still have to navigate major challenges with no room for error. For it to clear the chamber, Democrats expect that several provisions will likely be amended to satisfy Senator Joe Manchin and the Senate parliamentarians' arcane budget rules.

"The Build Back Better Act as passed by the House is not going to be the same when it comes back to the House after the Senate gets its hands on it," said Rep. Ro Khanna on MSNBC's The Sunday Show.

The legislation will pass the Senate with amendments but "it's going to be 90 percent" of the version passed by the House, with about 10 percent removed, the California Democrat added.

Senator Debbie Stabenow also said the House-passed social safety net and climate bill will remain "mostly or overwhelmingly intact" after overcoming changes in the upper chamber.

Provisions that won't be removed include "lowering costs for families, and we're going to make sure we're tackling the climate crisis in a way that's going to create jobs," the Michigan Democrat said on MSNBC's The Sunday Show.

Among its major priorities, the legislation includes $555 billion in funding for climate initiatives (the largest effort on the worsening issue in U.S. history), child care funding, universal pre-K, and extension of health care subsidies.

The bill faces major challenges in the Senate and several provisions are expected to be cut down or removed entirely.

It will need to clear the so-called "Byrd Bath" process, under which the Senate parliamentarian will determine whether its individual components can fall under the budget process called reconciliation. The parliamentarian has scrapped Democratic attempts to include immigration provisions in previous legislation, so the ones included in the social spending bill may not make the final version.

For it to clear the Senate through reconciliation, the bill will need support from all 50 Democratic members. Manchin, a moderate West Virginia Democrat who opposes a paid family leave provision, has yet to fully endorse the package despite already having negotiated significant cuts, frustrating progressives.

The bill is expected to head back to the House for a final vote after several provisions are removed following Senate consideration. The lower chamber will then hold a final vote on the amended legislation.

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.

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Democrats Signal Senate to Trim 10 Percent of Spending Bill, Another House Vote Inevitable - Newsweek

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In the heady aftermath of Republicans winning the Virginia governorship this month, Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader who hopes to become speaker after the 2022 midterm elections, made a bold claim at the Capitol.

If youre a Democrat and President Biden won your seat by 16 points, youre in a competitive race next year, McCarthy declared. You are no longer safe.

It was, by most measures, more bullish hyperbole than sincere prognostication. There are 276 House seats that Biden won by less than that far more than Republicans have held in nearly a century. (As of now, Democrats hold a narrow 221-213 majority.)

But there was also an undisputed truth undergirding McCarthys braggadocio: Democratic support has plunged nationally in recent months. The partys loss in Virginia was just the most consequential example.

Exactly how far and fast Democratic popularity has fallen is hotly debated in both parties.

Virginia was one key data point: The election showed a Republican improvement of 12 percentage points, from Bidens win in the state a year ago by 10 points to Democrats loss of the governorship this month by two points. The governors race in New Jersey swung toward Republicans by a similar margin.

Still, few strategists, Democrat or Republican, believe the Democratic brands collapse nationally has been quite that complete and widespread.

Among campaign insiders, one popular measurement that is closely tracked to gauge the mood of the electorate is the generic ballot test. That is when pollsters ask voters whom they would prefer to serve in Congress a Democrat or a Republican, with no names attached.

For years, Democrats continuously have held an edge in this metric.

Until now.

For the first time since January 2016, Republicans are now preferred, according to the FiveThirtyEight public polling average. FiveThirtyEights average has swung 4.6 points in the last six months toward the G.O.P.

Just how bad is it out there for the Democrats? A Washington Post/ABC News poll last weekend showed Republicans in the strongest position on this measure in the polls four-decade history. On Thursday, a poll from Quinnipiac University of registered voters said 46 percent wanted G.O.P. control of the House, compared with 41 percent for Democrats.

The same trend is showing up in private surveys. The National Republican Congressional Committees internal polling this month showed that Republicans in battleground districts had improved by seven percentage points since the beginning of the year. So-called generic Republicans began the year three points behind Democrats; now they are ahead by four points.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees generic ballot testing this month also shows Democrats trailing albeit by two points. Party officials said that actually was an improvement from some other recent months. The D.C.C.C. declined to say what its polling showed at the start of the year.

Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who is chairman of the House Republican campaign arm, said in an interview that the N.R.C.C.s private polling at the start of the year measured Bidens approval rating as 10 percentage points higher than his disapproval rating. Now, Emmer said, its the reverse: Bidens disapproval is 10 points higher.

Emmer offered a less hyperbolic version of McCarthys prediction of exactly how many Democrats are at risk in 2022. The experts are telling me that any Democrat who sits in a seat Joe Biden won by 10 points or less a year ago is vulnerable, Emmer said.

That is still roughly 250 seats. We will win the majority, Emmer said flatly, but were going to let the voters tell us how big thats going to be.

The indicators for Democrats are not quite as sour everywhere.

My colleague Nate Cohn wrote earlier this week in the newsletter about two House special elections in Ohio, where Democrats finished only about three percentage points behind Bidens performance.

That is erosion, but its not as politically catastrophic.

And in Pennsylvania, a Supreme Court vacancy was contested with millions of dollars in spending. In some ways, the contest functionally pitted a generic Democrat against a generic Republican, because even the most engaged voters know little to nothing about candidates for the judiciary.

The Republican candidate won by 2.6 percentage points in a state Biden carried by 1.2 points in 2020. That represented a nearly four-point improvement for Republicans.

To summarize, various data points show a range of possibility for Democratic decline: somewhere between three to 12 percentage points. None of the possible outcomes bode well for holding the House in 2022 or maintaining control of a Senate now equally divided between 50 Democratic-aligned senators and 50 Republicans.

Perhaps what is giving Democrats the most solace is the calendar. It is 2021 still and not 2022.

Democrats also hope they will have more to sell in the coming year Biden signed a $1 trillion infrastructure package on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday, and a $1.85 trillion social policy and climate change bill is winding its way through Congress and more time to sell it.

Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chairman of the D.C.C.C., has pushed for both the president and Democratic members of Congress to more forcefully pitch what they have already passed this year. As he told my colleague Trip Gabriel this month: My message is free Joe Biden. That campaign needs to start now before the next crisis takes over the news cycle.

Maloney said it was understandable that voters hadnt given Democrats credit for the large economic recovery measure that passed earlier in the year or for the new infrastructure spending.

We dont expect them to know if we dont tell them, he said this week on Capitol Hill. So were going to tell them.

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Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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Just How Bad Is It Out There for Democrats? - The New York Times

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Texas Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson says she will retire before the 2022 midterms ending a career in Congress that lasted almost 30 years.

Johnson, who was elected to represent the Dallas, Texas area in Congress in 1993, announced during an event on Saturday that her current term would be her last.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., acknowledges applause as his wife Marcelle Pomerleau looks on at the conclusion of a news conference at the Vermont State House to announce he will not seek re-election, Monday, Nov. 15, 2021, in Montpelier, V.T. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm) (AP)

HARRIS: RITTENHOUSE VERDICT SHOWS THERE IS 'A LOT MORE WORK TO DO' ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE EQUITY

The 85-year-old Texas Democrat did not endorse a replacement but said she hopes that she will be replaced by a woman.

TOP DEM TWEETS RITTENHOUSE STATEMENT CONTAINING MISINFORMATION; ADVISER TWEETS 'NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE'

"I will recommend to you who is the best to follow me," Johnson said. "My goal is to look for a female that is qualified. Anyone who has already been rejected in this district will not be getting my endorsement."

DECEMBER 05: Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, speaks during a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center to call on the Senate to pass mental health reform legislation, December 05, 2016. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) (Tom Williams / Contributor)

A spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee reacted to the news by suggesting it is a sign the Democratic Party is in trouble heading into the midterms.

"Committee chairs rarely retire unless their party is about to lose the majority. Smart Democrats know their majority is doomed because their policies have led to rising costs, skyrocketing crime, and a massive surge at the border," NRCC Spokesman Mike Berg said.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., presides over House passage of President Joe Biden's expansive social and environment bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Nov. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Johnson's retirement is unlikely to affect the balance in power in Congress as she represents a solid blue district that handed her a 60-point win over her Republican challenger in 2020. President Biden carried Dallas County by 30 points over former President Donald Trump.

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Texas Democrat Rep. Johnson will retire ahead of 2022 midterms - Fox News

A year after Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the Presidential election, and nearly ten months after a Trump-led mob laid siege to the nations Capitol, a new round of elections yielded mixed results for the Democratic Party, which lost the Virginia governors race and came close to losing New Jerseys. An unrepentant and insurgent Republican Party has motivated its base with the so-called culture war over public-school curriculum, opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, and relentless attacks on the entirety of Bidens political program. Meanwhile, months after Democrats passed the most expensive domestic spending bill since the War on Poverty, they remain mired in internal conflict over the purpose and possibility of their congressional majority. Political observers have pointed to Republicans spirited turnout on November 2nd as evidence that their culture war tactics are working. But that doesnt explain the enthusiasm gap that threatens the political fortunes of the Democratic Party. Unfulfilled expectations, not the often invoked wokeness, are what clouds Democrats horizons.

The gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey offer only a snapshot of contemporary politics, but both contests have been portrayed as referenda on the Biden Administration. And in both states Biden and his surrogates, including former President Barack Obama, rallied voters in person, indicating the importance of the elections. Afterward, what set off alarm bells among Democrats was Republicans enormous voter participation. In Virginia, the former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe captured almost two hundred thousand more votes than the winning ticket in 2017. And yet he still lost to the former corporate executive Glenn Youngkin, who captured more than four hundred thousand more votes than the 2017 Republican challenger. Republican voters overperformed in every Republican county, indicating their excitement and motivation. Not only did Youngkin win, but his big turnout helped Republicans win down the entire ballot, allowing the G.O.P. to wrest control of the Virginia statehouse from the Democrats.

Although Phil Murphy became the first Democratic governor to win relection in New Jersey since 1977, historically high turnout among Republicans across the state made the race much closer than anyone imagined. His Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, a former state representative and a featured speaker at a November, 2020, Stop the Steal rally, trailed by double digits throughout most of the campaign, only to lose by three points. Ciattarelli, who did not concede until more than a week after the race was called, gained almost three hundred and seventy thousand more votes than the Republican who lost to Murphy in the 2017 governors race. Even more significant was the dramatic loss of the powerful Democratic president of the New Jersey state senate, Steve Sweeney, to a Republican truck driver, Edward Durr, who had no backing from the state G.O.P. and spent just over twenty-three hundred dollars on his campaign.

What is driving this surge of Republicans to the polls? The Party has found new political traction on invented issues like critical race theory in public-school curricula, while still being fuelled by the notion that Trump was robbed of the election last fall. In Virginia, Youngkin deployed an ad featuring a white woman who led a campaign against teaching Toni Morrisons Beloved in Virginia public schools. Youngkin vowed to ban critical race theory in his states public schools on Day One. But there are also real issues on which the G.O.P. offers positions distinct from those of the Democrats, including the economy, immigration, crime, and federal vaccine mandates. In some areas, Republicans tend to want heightened government action, supporting the police and a tightening of the U.S. border, but they are simultaneously expressing suspicion of the state, opposing Bidens spending proposals and bolstering claims of government overreach on vaccine mandates. These differing positions, including a fierce opposition to a perceived effort to defund the police, allow Republican officials to portray themselves as battling on behalf of an aggrieved voting constituency. Republicans feel as if they are in a struggle for the direction of the country, and they have been able to clearly identify the issues around which they are fighting.

The new momentum for Republican candidates provoked anxiety and finger-pointing among Democrats. Republican gains in presumed Democratic Party strongholds have unleashed dire predictions about the 2022 midterms and assessments that the Democratic Party has been captured by the left, alienating voters with big spending and a politically correct agenda. In some ways, this is a repeat of the intra-party rancor that ensued as the Party assessed its loss of thirteen House seats in the 2020 election. There has to be a reckoning within our ranks about this because a lot of Justice Democratsa progressive groupdont give a damn about the Democratic Party, one unnamed critic told the Washington Post last year. Theyre all about purity and orthodoxy, and it is damaging our opportunities. This time around, moderates have pointed to the size of Bidens Build Back Better bill as a culprit in the electoral losses. In dispensing electoral advice to the Democrats, the New York Times editorial board looked to last years election and concluded, Mr. Biden did not win the Democratic primary because he promised a progressive revolution. There were plenty of other candidates doing that. He captured the nominationand the presidencybecause he promised an exhausted nation a return to sanity, decency and competence. Representative Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat from Virginia, said, Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos.

The script of the left mucking up the Partys chances with wokeness also still holds strong. The Democratic strategist James Carville left little doubt where blame lay for the Election Night losses. Dont just look at Virginia and New Jersey, he said. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Washington. I mean, this defund the police lunacy, this take Abraham Lincolns name off of schools. People see that, and it really has a suppressive effect all across the country. Carville was pointing, among other things, to the Buffalo mayors race, in which India Walton, an activist and democratic socialist, defeated Mayor Byron Brown in the Democratic primary, only to lose the general election to Brown, who launched a write-in campaign. Recently, Walton told a national online audience of progressive organizers that her opponent and his wing of the party actively colluded with the G.O.P. After his win, Brown told the Washington Post that mainstream Democrats need to stand up and fight back against the left, because its making it more difficult to get things done at the national level and its not good for the country.

These critiques share an assessment that the Party is dominated by its left wing and pursuing a political agenda at odds with the wishes of the broader American public. A review of the events of 2020 reveals a different state of affairs. For most of his long career as a Democrat, Biden was a small-government deficit hawk, but the onset of the pandemic and the eruption of powerful protests pushed him and his party to embrace an agenda of political change. The pandemic had exposed two realities: that the government, on every level, was ill prepared to handle a national disaster, and that the threadbare safety net exposed poor workers of color to the worst of a public-health crisis. In the middle of protests, the Democratic Party pledged a new social and economic contract, including an increase in the minimum wage, Section 8 housing vouchers for every eligible family, and affordable child care.

Nearly two months after he was inaugurated as President, Biden signed into law the nearly two-trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan Act, one of the largest domestic spending bills in American history. The gigantic bill included expanded unemployment benefits, rental assistance, direct stimulus payments, billions for public schools and beyond. Democrats also led successful efforts to expand the child tax credit and the earned-income-tax-credit programs to allow for more benefits and to broaden eligibility. The Biden Administration oversaw a twenty-five-per-cent increase in food-stamp benefitsthe largest in the history of the program. In the face of mounting food insecurity, Bidens U.S.D.A. also extended free school lunch programs into next year. By early April, just weeks after the bill was signed into law, Biden enjoyed the highest combined approval ratings of his Presidency, at fifty-five per cent.

The infrastructure bill that has been the source of angst within the Democratic Party pitted Biden against centrists within the Party looking to scale back spending and rein in the creation of new programs. The bill was finally signed into law by Biden, but vastly diminished in size and scope after stonewalling by Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, with a fraction of the money needed to fully address the infrastructure crises that abound in the country. For example, fifteen billion dollars is dedicated to removing lead pipes in water systems, but experts have estimated that sixty billion is necessary to do the job. A hundred billion dollars to fix the deplorable condition of American public schools was dropped entirely from the final bill.

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Wokeness Is Not the Democrats Problem - The New Yorker

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For decades, Texas Democrats have banked on the growth of voters of color, particularly Black and Latino voters, as the key to their eventual success in a state long dominated by Republicans.

But with less than a month left for candidates to file for statewide office in the 2022 elections, some in the party worry Democrats could see their appeal with those constituencies threatened by a Republican Party that is rapidly diversifying its own candidate pool.

The GOP slate for statewide office includes two high-profile Latinos: Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who are both running for attorney general. It also includes two Black candidates who have previously held state or federal office: former Florida congressman Allen West and state Rep. James White, who are running for governor and agriculture commissioner, respectively.

By contrast, the Democrats most formidable candidates are white Beto ORourke, who is running for governor, and Mike Collier, Matthew Dowd and Michelle Beckley, who are running for lieutenant governor.

We need to look at that and need to do an introspection as to why theres a lack of diversity at the top of the ticket. We need to do better. Weve gotta cultivate our bench.

Lee Merritt, a Black civil rights attorney from McKinney, and Rochelle Garza, a Latina former ACLU attorney from Brownsville, have jumped into the Democratic primary for attorney general; and Jinny Suh, an Asian American Austin lawyer, is running for land commissioner. But none of those Democrats have the political experience or fundraising prowess of their Republican counterparts.

The issue has caused consternation among some Democrats, particularly as they see South Texas and border communities, with large majorities of Latino voters, become a battleground for Republicans. Democrats lost a special election in San Antonio to Republican John Lujan earlier this month. Two weeks later, Rio Grande City Rep. Ryan Guillen, whod served in the Texas House as a Democrat since 2003, switched his party affiliation to Republican. Both Lujan and Guillen are Latino.

We need to look at that and need to do an introspection as to why theres a lack of diversity at the top of the ticket, said Odus Evbagharu, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party. We need to do better. Weve gotta cultivate our bench.

Jamarr Brown, co-executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, downplayed the concerns, saying his party will have a competitive slate of candidates when the filing period closes in December. He pointed to Annise Parker, the openly gay former mayor of Houston, who is reportedly considering a run for land commissioner, as a candidate who can bring a different viewpoint to the race. Parker is also white.

Im not concerned as it relates to us having real diversity and us having candidates, he said. We will have diversity in gender, race and ethnicity. We will have diversity in industry and in experience.

Jeronimo Cortina, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said Republicans are making a play to be more competitive with voters of color as the states electorate grows more diverse. He pointed to Republicans opening up offices in heavily Latino areas like San Antonio.

The Republican Party in Texas sees the writing on the wall and that is that demographic change is here, he said. Latinos are going to be the biggest chunk of the electorate in the next couple of decades, so either [Republicans] get on board or theyre going to lose them.

A majority of the states top elected officials, who are all Republican, are white. But for years, statewide leaders like Gov. Greg Abbott and Bush have focused on expanding the Republican share of the Latino vote.

Latinos make up 39% of the states population, only slightly behind white Texans, who make up 40%, according to the U.S. Census. But while Latinos make up a majority of Democrats in the statehouse, a training ground for higher office, there are no major Latino candidates on the partys statewide slate. Garza has never been on a Texas ballot. Her only experience raising money as a candidate was collecting $200,000 for a congressional race she suspended.

Part of the challenge, Brown said, is that it is difficult to recruit candidates of color to run for office when they are more likely to face economic challenges than white candidates. ORourke, the best performing Democrat in Texas in years, comes from a prominent political family in El Paso, and his father-in-law is a real estate investor worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

People of color and women are working-class people in this state, Brown said. Asking people to take time away from their jobs and businesses and families and to campaign in a large state with 254 counties and having the resources to cover that ground is challenging.

Potential statewide candidates who are currently in office are unlikely to risk their hard-fought seats to launch an uphill battle for state office, particularly when Republican incumbents hold advantages of multiple millions of dollars from the start, Brown said. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Latina, is seen as a rising star in the party but has resisted a statewide run. And San Antonios Julin and Joaquin Castro are perennially named among potential candidates but have also turned down opportunities.

The fundraising challenges are present for candidates of color on the Republican side, too.

Its supposed to be tough, said White, a Black Republican running for agriculture commissioner against the GOP incumbent Sid Miller. You can talk about how tough it is but at some point you just gotta get after it.

Some on the Republican side, however, have found success tapping into the partys network of donors. Bush, who comes from a storied political family, has raised multiple millions, and Guzman raised $1 million in the first 10 days of her campaign.

You find a roadblock in front of me and Im going to overcome it, she said.

Evbagharu said candidates of color on the Democratic side rarely get the kind of backing from their party that white candidates do.

ORourke, he noted, has lost a statewide and national race, yet will lead the top of the ticket next year. ORourke raised about $80 million in 2018 in his race against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, however, he largely accomplished that with his own celebrity, and those funds did not flow to the rest of the Democratic slate.

That same year, the Democrat running for governor, Lupe Valdez, a Latina and former Dallas County sheriff, raised $1.9 million in a bid to defeat Abbott in 2018 where she lost by 13 percentage points. Valdez, like ORourke, was a first-time statewide candidate, but at one point in the campaign she trailed Abbott by 100-to-1 in the fundraising race. ORourke had run multiple congressional races and barnstormed all 254 of Texas counties for the Senate race.

This week, ORourke announced he had raised $2 million in the first 24 hours since launching his gubernatorial campaign, eclipsing Valdezs total funds for her gubernatorial run.

Sharon Navarro, a political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said Valdez did not receive the support a top-of-the-ticket candidate would expect, which contributed to a floundering campaign.

If youre a minority and youre a Democrat, the stereotype is that youre branded a loser, whereas the Republicans will regroup and find the way to victory, she said.

Valdez did not return a request for comment.

In 2014, Wendy Davis, who had gained national prominence for her filibuster of an abortion bill in the state Senate, lost the governors race to Abbott by 20 percentage points despite raising almost $40 million. She has since run again for congress and lost. Davis is white.

But the Democratic Partys biggest flop was not for lack of money. In 2002, Democrats ran their so-called Dream Team, which included Tony Sanchez, a wealthy Latino oilman and banker who self-funded his campaign, and Ron Kirk, a Black former mayor of Dallas and Texas secretary of state.

Sanchez lost to then-Gov. Rick Perry by 18 percentage points, and Kirk lost to John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate race by 12. The best performing member of the Dream Team was John Sharp, a white conservative Democrat, who lost the lieutenant governor race to David Dewhurst by 6 percentage points.

That tickets catastrophic failure may have turned off donors from funding candidates of color for statewide office. But Navarro said the problem runs deeper than that: The states Democratic Party lacks structure and a message.

There is no real long-term investment in cultivating generations of voters because it takes time and money, Navarro said. It isnt enough to just simply register voters and expect them to vote Democrat. It isnt enough to run a person of color without party structure or message.

Its not just fundraising, critics say, its a lack of recruitment. Democrats, who are quick to campaign on issues of diversity, inclusion and equity, could be doing more to open doors for candidates of color.

Merritt, the attorney general candidate, said he was not recruited to run. An attorney for the family of George Floyd, Merritt decided to run after advising Democratic politicians, including President Joe Biden, on criminal justice and police accountability issues.

Its a shortcoming of the Democratic Party, he said. It never crossed their mind that someone like me should be running for office.

The partys own analysis of the 2020 elections found shortcomings in its Black voter turnout. While Black turnout overperformed expectations and overwhelmingly supported Democrats, Republicans were more successful at growing Black voter turnout than Democrats, raising concerns.

If we want to win [statewide], weve got to shake some stuff up, Evbagharu said.

Part of that shake-up would include recruiting and training more candidates of color and providing them the funding to run successful campaigns, he said.

But Brown pushed back, saying the party actively recruits candidates and puts on training for potential candidates, as well as connecting campaigns with experienced political staff. Theyve also focused on registering more Democratic voters.

Evbagharu also said Democrats may need to take a page from Republicans, who often invest in candidates in close races for multiple cycles before claiming victory. For example, Monica De La Cruz, a Republican running for Congress in the Rio Grande Valley, lost her race against Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez in 2020 by 3 percentage points.

Republicans framed that loss as a victory for the GOP because of the huge gains they saw, and they are continuing to fight for the district as part of their overall strategy to win elections in South Texas next year. As of September, she had raised nearly $1 million, on par with Gonzalez, and she was named to the National Republican Congressional Committees Young Guns program for candidates to watch.

But challenges remain for candidates of color, regardless of party.

Running for office isnt easy, said Garza, the Democratic attorney general candidate. You need to have the grit and determination and belief in yourself to do it and then have the ability to get people on your side.

She said she isnt concerned about the Black and Latino candidates on the GOP ticket because their policies do not help voters in those communities.

Its not enough that folks on the Republican ticket are people of color. You need to show your work, she said. What do you stand for? And who do you stand for? What were seeing on the right is folks that stand for corporations and big interests and dont stand up for the little guy, for everyday Texans.

Navarro said Democrats will have to perfect their messaging on this point to be successful, not simply rely on voters of color to side with them. Earlier this month, Republicans in Virginia flipped the major statewide offices by making the election about wedge issues like so-called critical race theory and forcing Democrats on the defensive. Texas Republicans could do the same on issues like border and election security.

Republicans have a better understanding of how to create the message and how to flip it for the audience, Navarro said.

Jean Card, a Republican political analyst, said that strategy paid off in Virginia, where the GOP elected Winsome Sears, a Jamaican-born Black woman, as lieutenant governor and Jason Miyares, the son of a Cuban immigrant, as the states first Latino attorney general.

What we saw here was policy over personality, Card said. Thats why they were so effective as candidates.

White said he focuses his campaign talking points on his decade of experience at the statehouse, where he pushed for rural interests, and his knowledge of agriculture, which is relevant to the position hes seeking.

When youre actually doing diversity that means youre talking to everybody, listening to everybody, being respectful of everyones point of view, White said, you dont have to talk about it.'

Disclosure: Texas Secretary of State, University of Texas at San Antonio and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Correction: A previous version of this story quoted political scientist Sharon Navarro saying the Democratic Party promised Lupe Valdez funding ahead of her 2018 campaign for governor. Party officials say they did not offer any funding promises.

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Texas Democrats' 2022 field shaping up to be very white - The Texas Tribune

Republicans have an obvious race problem one they prefer not to admit, even to themselves. The party's voter base is overwhelmingly white, and Republicans are now actively trying to suppress Black voters (and other voters of color) through a range ofJim Crow tactics. They reflexively support police even in the most egregious cases of racist violence (such as the murder of George Floyd last year) and have consistently depicted Black Lives Matter as a subversive, anti-American movement. But they can't win elections without moderate and independent voters who are uncomfortable with overt and blatant manifestations of racism, so they claimthat Democrats and liberals are the "real racists."

It seems that everyone on the right, from crackpotfilmmaker Dinesh D'Souza to The Federalist,enjoys pointing out that the Democratic Partyused to be the main political vehicle for white supremacyin the United States.They assume their readers will pretend not to notice that decades ago Democrats and Republicans "switched sides" (at least on the issue of race), since that would cancel out this attempted "gotcha." In fact,the Democratic and Republican parties did not assume their current identities as"liberal" and "conservative," respectively and as we understand those terms today until partway through the 20th century,and neither party stands for what it once did, especially but not exclusively on racial issues.

Three presidential elections play key roles in this story: Those of 1912, 1932 and 1964.

RELATED:Democrats and the dark road ahead: There's hope if we look past 2022 (and maybe 2024 too)

The modern two-party system began to take shape in the 1850s, with the demise of the Whig Party and the birth of the Republicans (from the anti-slavery faction of the Whigs, more or less). But in the decades after the Civil War, neither party much resembled its latter-day version.As the party of Abraham Lincoln, Republicans theoretically supported citizenship rights for Black people (at leastup to a point), along with other vaguely "liberal" policies like a more centralized approach to economic policymaking, expanding the post-Civil War veteranpension system to create what some scholars argue was anearlywelfare state, and lavishing government support on America's burgeoningindustries. Democrats likeGrover Cleveland the only Democratic president ofthe later 19th century, and something of a libertarian by modern standards thought those ideas werewasteful and dangerous.

But the Democrats of the time, incoherent heirs to the populist tradition of Andrew Jackson,were a chaotic mixture of ingredients: Big-city political bosses and urban white immigrants, agrarian populists likeWilliam Jennings Bryan (some of whose proposals would be "liberal" or even radical today), Jeffersonian idealists who preached bromides about limited government,business interests who favored lower tariffs and opposed protectionism,andSouthern white supremacists, who often supported progressive economic policies alongside vicious Jim Crow segregation. Essentially, the Democrats were a motley crew consisting of everyone who wasn't a Republican a situation that is perhaps oddly echoed today, albeit without as many jarringphilosophical contradictions.

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Then came the 1912 election. Republican President William Howard Taft ran for re-election but was challenged by former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who believed the GOP had veered too far righton economic, environmental and good government issues. Roosevelt lost the nomination struggleto Taft, but ran anyway as candidate of the newly-invented Progressive Party and won the highestpercentage of the popular vote ofany third-party candidate in American history. In fact, he got more votes than Taft, and carried six states but both of them were overwhelmed by Democrat Woodrow Wilson. In the process Americans suddenly became aware ofthe Republican Party's ideological schism, and over time self-described "progressives" would feel increasingly unwelcome in the GOP.

With Democrats back in power after many decades in the wilderness, Wilson realized he had to deal with his own party's progressive and reactionary wings.He pushed forantitrust legislation andlabor rights, lowered tariffs, and later tried to launch the League of Nations, a precursor to the UN. The native Virginian alsoexpanded Jim Crow policies (and turned a blind eye to racist violence in the South)and clamped down on the free speech rights of socialists and other dissident groups. Wilson identified with the progressive movement when thatwas politically convenient, but he was also awhite Southerner deeply invested inthe "Lost Cause"mythology of the Confederacy. While there are other contenders for this prize, Wilson mayhave been America's most overtly racist president; his attitudes seemed extreme even to other white Americans at the time. He proved to be the practical embodiment ofhis own party's deep internal tensions, and unsurprisingly closed his second term widely despised.

RELATED:Election guru Rachel Bitecofer: Democrats face "10-alarm fire" after Virginia debacle

But the point here is that while the Democrats were certainly still racist in 1912 and thereafter, the two parties were losing the respective identities they'd had since the Civil War. The words"liberal" and "conservative," which were used very differently before the Wilson presidency, began to take ontheir modern ideological associations. But there werelarge numbers of liberals and conservatives in this modern sense within both parties, and that would take several more decades to sort out.

The big sort began in earnest 20 years later, in Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide victory over PresidentHerbert Hoover, a Republican who was widely blamed (fairly or otherwise) for the stock market crash of 1929 and the trauma of the Great Depression. Roosevelt set out, quite literally, to save capitalismwith his famously ambitious agenda, known as the New Deal. Politicallythe New Deal allowed Democrats toforge a majority coalition by becoming the party that offeredeconomic security to America'smost vulnerable citizens, and by greatly expanding government aid and assistance in many other areas of life.The basic premise of this agenda was summedup by Roosevelt himself in his 1944 State of the Union address:

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Roosevelt's economic and political innovations laid the foundations for several decades of Americanprosperity that, among other things, allowed the baby-boom generationto flourish as no other generation had before (or has since). They also greatly expanded the Democratic constituency, which now included unionized workers (a much larger fraction of the population at the time), "white ethnic" immigrants, students and intellectuals and Black people in Northern cities (which were pretty much the only places they could vote). Southern whites continued to vote for Democrats for several more decades, partly based on tradition but also because the New Deal did a tremendous amount to improve living conditions in the South. But arguably, the die was cast: Rural white supremacists, leftist intellectuals and the rapidly growing Black populations in big cities couldn't remain in the same party forever.

RELATED:Democrats can win the culture wars but they have to take on the fight early and often

And indeed all that changed after 1964, when Democratic PresidentLyndon B. Johnson, who took office in the traumatic aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination, began pushing through historiclegislation on civil rights and voting rights partly out of genuine conviction and partly under enormous pressure from the civil rights movement and leaders like Martin Luther KingJr. As Johnson himself clearly foresaw, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of1965 which established full racial equality, at least as a matter of law drove white Southerners out of the Democratic Party, apparently forever. A conservative insurrection within the Republican Party began immediately, resulting in the nomination of Barry Goldwater (essentially a segregationist, although he was not from the South) in the 1964 election. Goldwater lost to Johnson in an epic blowout, with the Democrat receiving a higher percentage of the popular vote than any candidate before or since but, again, that's not the important part. Black voters and other minority groups almost unanimously supported Johnson and the Democrats, who were now officially the party of civil rights. In practical terms, and allowing for ideological outliers like Clarence Thomas and Candace Owens,Republicans have effectively been an all-white party after that election.

So in fact it's toosimplistic to saythat the Republicans and Democrats"switched sides." It was clearly a bit more complicated than that. From the pre-Civil War period through Woodrow Wilson's administration, the Democrats really were a white supremacist party along with a whole bunch of other more or less incompatible things.But in a gradual process that began with the arch-racist Wilson and accelerated through FDR and LBJ, the Democrats assembled what we would now call a "liberal" coalition, with support for racial equality (at least in principle) as a central pillar. Even after 1964, the transformation was not complete, and some "conservative Democrats" and "liberal Republicans" hung around into the late 20th century. (George Wallace was a Democrat, for instance, whileNelson Rockefeller was a Republican; both would absolutely switch parties if they were alive today.)

You probably knew this already, but the bottom line here is that it's either ignorant or dishonest (and likely both) to claim that Democrats are the "real racists" based on history. There is a lot of context especially involving milestone events likethe 1912, 1932 and 1964 elections that pretty much invalidates the claim. Maybe the real answer is that neither party is very much like it used to be. Democrats used to be a nonsensical coalition that harbored lots of white supremacists (and other groups who more or less looked the other way), so in that sense the charge contains a tiny grain of truth. But then again, Republicans used to be a blandpro-business party and not afascistic cult of personality. They should think twice about encouraging any other political party to juxtaposethe present with its ownhistory.

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Are Democrats the "real racists"? Well, they used to be: Here's the history - Salon

As recently as this summer, Joe Biden seemed to be taking a keep calm and carry on approach when it came to concerns about rising inflation.

As our economy has come roaring back, weve seen some price increases, the US president said in July. Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases weve seen were expected and expected to be temporary.

But now, with inflation hitting a 30-year high last month, Bidens tone has become noticeably less upbeat.

Everything from a gallon of gas to a loaf of bread costs more, Biden said in Baltimore earlier this month. We still face challenges, and we have to tackle them. We have to tackle them head on.

Americans are taking notice of high prices with growing alarm, and their concerns appear to be negatively affecting Bidens approval rating, which had already been falling in recent months. As the US experiences sticker shock at the gas pump and in grocery stores, Democrats are worried that inflation could imperil their legislative agenda and their majorities in Congress as crucial midterm elections loom next year.

While the president and fellow Democrats had previously sought to downplay rising inflation, it has become an unavoidable issue as prices continue to climb. The labor department has reported that prices increased by 6.2% over the past 12 months, marking the most rapid uptick since 1990. Gasoline prices have increased by 49.6% over the past year, while food prices have risen by 5.3%.

As prices rise, more working Americans are noticing their bills have become more burdensome. According to a poll conducted by the progressive firm Navigator Research this month, 54% of Americans now say the cost of groceries and gas is a major crisis, marking a 17-point increase since September.

Republicans have blamed the price increases on Bidens economic policies, arguing that rising inflation underscores the need to oust Democratic lawmakers in the midterm elections next year.

As Biden and Democrats continue to push for trillions more in reckless spending and higher taxes, skyrocketing prices and a broken supply chain under Biden are crushing American families, workers and small businesses, said Emma Vaughn, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. Americans will soundly reject Bidens failed economic agenda at the ballot box in 2022.

There are some early signs that Republicans message is striking a chord with voters, as the party looks to take back control of Congress in 2022.

An AP VoteCast survey showed that 35% of Virginia voters named the economy and jobs as the most important issue facing the state, making it the most common response. Those voters were more likely to support the Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, who defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe by two points in the election held earlier this month.

And its not just Republicans who are sounding the alarm about price hikes. Senator Joe Manchin, one of the key holdouts in Democrats negotiations over their $1.75tn spending package, has said he is hearing more from constituents who are concerned about their gas and grocery bills.

By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not transitory and is instead getting worse, Manchin said in response to the labor departments latest report. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.

Manchin has previously expressed concern that Democrats spending package, known as the Build Back Better Act, could negatively contribute to inflation. In a September op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Manchin warned against approving more government spending, saying, An overheating economy has imposed a costly inflation tax on every middle- and working-class American.

The Biden administration has sought to mitigate inflation-related concerns about the bill, which passed the House on Friday. The president has repeatedly touted a letter from 17 Nobel laureates in economics, which argued the spending package would ease longer-term inflationary pressures.

But the bills critics say the legislation would not address the inflation happening now and may even cause prices to rise further, urging members of Congress not to approve another large spending package.

Were not worried about the long-term. We have inflation in the here and now, and this policy will make it worse in the foreseeable future, said Curtis Dubay, a senior economist at the US Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business lobbying group that opposes the spending package.

The first rule of being in a hole is to stop digging, Dubay added. This would keep digging. So they need to not pass it.

Jason Furman, who served as the chair of the White House council of economic advisers under Barack Obama, rejected that argument. Build Back Better will have a negligible impact on inflation over the medium term, Furman said. In gross terms, the total spending is one-tenth as much per year as what we just did this year [with the coronavirus relief package]. Moreover, that spending is paid for.

For progressives, conservatives warnings about inflation seem a convenient excuse to quash a bill that they already opposed.

Natalia Salgado, the director of federal affairs for the progressive Working Families party, said the legislation would actually help average Americans deal with rising inflation by lowering their healthcare and childcare costs.

For example, the Build Back Better Act would establish universal prekindergarten for all three- and four-year-old children. It would also reduce Affordable Care Act premiums and lower drug prices by allowing Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies.

If we really want to have a discussion about inflation, lets talk about the many things that this bill is going to help minimize the cost of, Salgado said. Folks coming out of this pandemic were already hurting economically. It is economically imperative to pass the Build Back Better legislation.

Democrats in Congress have echoed that message, urging those who are worried about inflation to support the bill.

House Democrats infrastructure deal and Build Back Better Act tackle inflation head on through their historic investments, said Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Rather than working to solve economic problems, Republicans have voted overwhelmingly to block these bills that reduce prices for the American people and focused instead on their own extremist agenda.

But many of the provisions of the Build Back Better bill will not go into effect immediately. The Medicare drug price negotiations will not begin until 2025, and the universal prekindergarten program will be built up over the next few years.

In the short term, it may be difficult for Biden to address rising prices. Even if the Federal Reserve moves quickly to stifle inflation, it would take months for Americans to feel the effect of the fiscal policy change. And when it comes to gas prices specifically, Biden has little sway over the global oil market, although he has called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate mounting evidence of anti-consumer behavior by oil and gas companies.

Politically, people are very sensitive to inflation in gasoline prices and food because thats just a visible item they see, Furman said. Ive been in government when gas prices are going up, and its terrible. Everyone hates you.

On the plus side for Democrats, the frequent fluctuations in gas and food prices mean those costs could decrease over the next year even if overall inflation continues to rise, Furman said.

That possibility may be Democrats best hope for maintaining control of Congress after the 2022 elections. However, if prices do not improve over the coming year, the presidents party may need to brace for an ugly election night next November.

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Democrats worry inflation could imperil agenda and congressional majorities - The Guardian