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Saturday Reverie

A few items lost in the fog

The New Republic has posted a 9-article special issue, “What American Fascism Would Look Like.” It’s just popped up and I won’t have time to study it until later. Not, at least, until I’ve had another cup of coffee. Heads up.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to restart its aggressive crackdown against payday lenders and other companies that offer high-cost, short-term loans to poor borrowers, after a Supreme Court ruling this week resolved a challenge to the federal agency’s authority to act,” reports The Washington Post. Yes, that Supreme Court.

The CFPB’s mom was more than pleased:

“The CFPB is here to stay. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court followed the law and confirmed that the CFPB’s funding structure is constitutional. For the last decade, the consumer agency has fought the big banks and predatory lenders that try to cheat hardworking people. As of this week, the CFPB has returned more than $20 billion in ill-gotten funds to American families. This isn’t the last attack on the CFPB we’ll see from Wall Street, the banks, and their Republican allies. When an agency is this effective at sticking up for working families against industry’s consumer abuses, it’s an obvious target for multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns. The CFPB will keep on doing its work to slash junk fees, fight giant banks when they cheat people, and level the playing field for everyone in this country. I commend Director Chopra for his leadership, the entire CFPB team for their determination, and President Biden for his commitment to protecting consumers.”

Axios reports, “Brown v. Board plaintiffs and their family members were invited to the White House Thursday to meet with President Biden in honor of the landmark school desegregation ruling’s 70th anniversary.”

President Biden means to remind Black voters he has their backs. In a speech Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C., Biden announced $16 billion in aid to historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

Immersing oneself each day in politics in this fraught time, it is tough keeping your head on straight. The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell recounts the alternate realities one of her focus group participants, a two-time Trump voter, sees when switching between Fox News and ABC coverage of the Trump trial.

“Well, I turn on Fox, ‘The Five’ on Fox,” Longwell retells, “and they say this is going to get thrown out, that there’s nothing there. And then I turn on ABC and they say Trump is going to prison.” Because the trial is not broadcast, the trial is being filtered through press coverage. Whom to believe?

Conservative columnist David French sees the same American split-brain in himself. He recalls how, despite polls often misreading the electorate, partisanship colors how we read them. He offers examples and then (emphasis mine):

I write often about American polarization, including about how the red-blue divide is perhaps less illuminating than the gap between engaged and disengaged Americans, in which an exhausted majority encounters the highly polarized activist wings of both parties and shrinks back from the fray. This dynamic helps explain why our political culture feels so stagnant. The wings aren’t changing each other’s minds — hard-core Democrats aren’t going to persuade hard-core Republicans — but they’re also not reaching sufficient numbers of persuadable voters to break America’s partisan deadlock.

Even worse, partisans don’t realize they’re part of the problem. Their zeal isn’t persuasive; it’s alienating, and the examples above help illustrate why.

In swing states like Arizona and North Carolina, independent voters outnumber Democrats. In Arizona the split is R>Other>D. In North Carolina it’s Unaffiliated>D>R. The largest block of persuadables lie in the independent category, enough to decide statewide elections and perhaps the fate of the republic.

Democrats are “not reaching sufficient numbers of persuadable voters to break America’s partisan deadlock.” Their voter outreach strategies were designed decades ago for an era in which independents were under 20% of the electorate in such states. Base turnout decided elections and partisans were easier to identify. Not so today. Democrats have yet to adapt to the changed campaign environment. If, as French suggests, independents (most under 45) find partisanship alientating, a “Vote for Our Team” message may not be the most effective, as I’ve suggested:

Volunteers’ pitch to these untapped, young independents is not to evangelize for Democrats. Independents don’t like them. They don’t pay close attention to party politics. Independents “view themselves as proudly unmoored from any candidate or party.” Voting in 2024 has to be about them, about local/state issues to be decided in the election that may impact them or people they love. The ask is: Vote this fall for them.

But that’s not the message zealous candidates and party volunteers mobilize to send … to independents … if they engage enough of them … which they’re not set up to do. There’s still time to rethink, people.

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