Woke II: pro-worker, pro-trans, pro-housing.

I think a long term compromise blue states should seek is more clearly delineating federal vs state control over issues. For example, moving all federal transportation funding to a block grant based on population would help blue states better advocate funds towards transit and their priorities

Whether or not Dems take this deal likely depends on how Purple the Sykes/Landsman seats are. Another benefit here is locking in a map for the rest of the decade instead of having another redraw later

Steps I think Dems can take to mitigate the Republican gerrymandering spree: 1. Unwind nonpartisan commissions where possible: CA/CO/WA/NY are the states where partisanship likely allow you to revert to full Dem control. VA would be nice but it's swingy so success isn't guaranteed

Trump really not trying to reopen the government. If this was true what value would there be to Democrats ever reopening the government? The longer they hold out the more Republican priorities will get defunded

At a certain point I wonder how many truly professional prosecutors are left to back the administrations claims. The more hacks they have to hire the more cases they'll lose because of procedural fuck ups

However unlikely, I think Sharice Davids threat to run for state office is smart. Karmic justice is the only way forward with this redistricting fiasco since it seems unlikely the Supreme Court won't block mid-cycle changes

There's a perverse incentive for Groups to engage in defeatism and I don't care for it!

Ban on congressional stock trading, double NIH funding, double the CTC, eliminate tax loopholes to make the system fairer, universal pre-K and parental leave, just to start

As the shutdown extends, the rhetorical utility of a 94-style Contract With America becomes significantly greater. Democrats need something material they can point to and say, "These are the perfectly reasonable points Republicans are refusing to do their jobs for."

I'm honestly surprised this list wasn't comprised of 9 schools from red states

Good example of the difference between his first and second term: Trump's first cabinet was full of people trying to hit the brake, his second Cabinet is full of people with their for on the gas

Sherrill likely pulls out a modest win, but get candidacy is lab designed to underperform. Running a bland campaign, backed by the NJ machine, and Murphy has underwater favorables. Sherrill embodies the Dems current problems- bland and only playing not to lose

Sherrill is a great example of a big problem in the Democratic party- she's an empty suit who doesn't have a clear message and isn't willing to take risks

There have been liberal concerns about media control for like 20+ years, why exactly hasn't there been any effort in creating a liberal version of Sinclair? It's not even a money losing venture, this is something that could generate returns for a group of liberal investors

I'm not sure how much salience there is, but I think there's a a pretty big opportunity for Dems to paint Trump as weak, particularly on foreign policy. He's about to sell out American interests and farmers to the Chinese, won't stand up to Putin, etc.

IMO Hochul is going to give Mamdani one big policy win because she knows she succeeds if he succeeds. The question is what does he spend it on- a big investment in public housing, free buses, expanded pre-K?

Part of me thinks the best scenario for Dems on the budget is for the GOP to go out alone and break the filibuster for this. Threatening a shutdown to save Republicans from themselves on healthcare subsidies is uninspiring

Dems really should be pushing a systematic plan to inhibit redistricting at the state level with ballot initiatives wherever possible. FL, OH, MO, AR, OK, NE all offer the possibility to limit GOP power and unlock new seats. Utah is a great example of what is possible

There would be a rather grim irony if it did happen while the media spent 2022-2024 obsessed with Biden's health

I do think the fact the tariffs might raise $300B a year in revenue is something Democrats will need to contend with in a tight fiscal situation, but there's obviously way better ways to raise that revenue (VAT, DBCFT) while also staying kosher with reconciliation rules

It would honestly be pretty comical if the Supreme Court blocks most tariffs (saving Trump from himself) and then the economy falls apart down the road anyway

Not for nothing but you'd think Putin wouldn't want to overtly humiliate Trump. That's the one thing that might get him to act out against you

Something that hasn't really been touched on with the redistricting debacle ongoing is that maps kind of get locked in over multiple 10 year cycles.

Once you break the taboo of redistricting outside every 10 years, it's not hard to see states doing it every 2 years so they can get ahead of trends and ice out potential problems

the gerrymandering wars stuff is probably the first time I've really felt legitimately like it all might fall apart. like this is an actual point of no return they're pushing us towards. it's the ruling party declaring they won't allow themselves to lose elections, voters be fucked.

The reason there's needs to be federal legislation or the supreme court blocking midcycle redistricting is that now that Pandora's box is opened I'm not sure we get back to equilibrium without. Why don't states redraw for 2028 too?

The Trump administration's moves against solar/wind kind of remind me of some of the moves Biden made against oil/gas. Mainly driven by ideology which ended up coming back to haunt them when energy prices surged

Trump would veto (and it likely won't even get a vote), but all Dems+CA/NY Republicans is a majority in the house. Trying to threaten equal losses is the only way to pressure the GOP to walk away from mid-cycle redistricting

One of the biggest differences vs Trump's first term was there's a lot less margin for error this time, and he's making much larger errors. TCJA was fine in 2017 but the zombie version in 2025 is generating much higher deficits with the US already having a higher debt load

It's gonna be really funny if the vibe shifts from "the economy is strong" to "actually the economy is very weak", to see how Trump reacts to that. Outside of COVID Trump has never had to really react to persistent economic weakness

I do wonder what happens if in say 2027 the US trade deficit is worse because of the high tariffs on input materials (lumber, steel, copper) compared to the product tariffs. Does Trump just declare fake news or does he lash out?

The second half of the year will be interesting in that we're finally having the rubber hit the road on tariffs and we'll see how that plays out. EU and Japan have now settled on 15%, China is at 55% for the foreseeable future, and you can probably safely pencil the rest of the world in for ~25%

I wonder if Harvard tries to cut this Gordian knot by pledging the money for a "Conservative Institute" (so they're not directly paying a fine) since that seems to be one of the likely outcomes of any settlement

I thought about it some more, and it seems likely if it's President Vance we see something like a codified 15% tariff to pay for a $5k child tax credit and a 15% corporate tax rate. Given the lack of other pay-fors for GOP tax bills, I think they go this route

I'm pessimistic this will pass, but I think a nationwide agreement to block mid-decade redistricting is the only way we break this death spiral that's started

I am pessimistic this will happen, but the only way we get out of this redistricting death spiral is if the Supreme Court steps in and blocks mid-cycle redistricting across the board. Texas leading to blue states trying to do the same leading to more red states doing the same is bad for everyone

The Texas gerrymandering plan is extra crazy if they truly target the 4 districts listed. These aren't marginal seats, trying to flip them is going to require massive changes and going to unload a lot of Democratic votes to neighboring districts, and there's only so many places you can put them

more than half of all GOP political donations in 2024 were over a million dollars.

It's wild how much worse the OBBB is compared to if the GOP just passed a 10-year extension of the TCJA. Going from the house to the Senate usually moderates the bill, but instead things got much worse. 17 million uninsured people is a staggering figure

This multi-trillion-dollar Trump agenda bill is brought to you by the Pennsylvania Senate election of 2024.

Hot Take but I might have considered voting for it. It jams the GOP side (since they either keep it in and raise taxes or cut it and anger Collins). But I don't think Collins is basing her decision on this alone

In the original TCJA, I believe Dems largely voted against GOP amendments, but this time around there's a lot of interesting opportunities to gum up the world, like voting for Collins' tax increase, or reducing renewable burdens, etc

instead of offering amendments that could trip up senate republicans, dems are just offering motions to commit the bill back to committee. has 0% shot of winning policy victories or undermining the bill’s odds at passage. the motions are helping the gop stall enough to strike deals for passage.

Thinking about this some more, a useful project would be drafting sample legislation for state governments to make improvements at the state level. The GOP did this in the 2000s and I think there's a lot of low hanging fruit in blue states

Project 2029 described here is a misunderstanding of Project 2025 at best. This effort seems to be a way to better message Democratic priorities to voters, not how to exercise the levers of power and get into policy minutae

I think a bill will very likely get passed this week, but the whole the Senate forces the house to pass whatever they want" seems inevitable to blow back on someone eventually

My hot take on a Mamdani mayorship is I think he can get about 75% of what he wants if he's willing to play ball, and I think he is. The governor IMO will want him to succeed because her fate is largely tied to his

Mamdani as a media-savvy mayor and Lander as a technocratic first deputy mayor making fixes behind the scenes is honestly a best case scenario for NYC

Mamdani winning big is really the best case scenario: crushes Cuomo and fully rebukes a lot of old school types who tried to keep the status quo going