What's interesting about Minnesota is that it was a rural, "prairie-populist" state 40 years ago, back when Democrats won those kinds of states — and gradually morphed into a state of suburban white-collar professionals, just as Democrats started winning *those* kinds of states.
I can't think of any analogue for Republicans.
There's not really a state that went from heavily suburban to heavily rural, timed perfectly such that it had each makeup when it was favorable to the GOP.
Minnesota isn't usually the first state you'd think of if asked to name a blue state — you probably be more likely to say New York, California, or Massachusetts.
But since 1960, Minnesota has gone blue in more elections than any of those states!
(Let me add the caveat that the entire concept of "red" and "blue" states did not actually exist in U.S. culture before the 2000 election. But even then, we can still observe some states were more reliably Republican or Democratic than others long before that.)
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Poll after poll after poll is clear. The public supports funding social services that fill some roles police currently have, but they DON'T support defunding the police.
I don't care if you think those are the same thing. Voters don't.
There are neighborhoods in some cities where police are actually *underfunded* for their essential roles, and response times are low for people reporting crimes, accidents, etc.
Police nonresponse hurts POC as much as police brutality. Defund activists have no answer for this.
"BuT wE dOn'T lItErAlLy MeAn GeT rId Of ThE pOlIcE!"
Then find a new damn slogan, because at least some of the people chanting it with you do, in fact, literally mean that. nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opi…
In my view, people are spending too much time arguing over what we could change about our policies to improve with nonwhite voters.
There's no clear evidence voters rejected our policies. There is clear evidence we lost voters because we just never went to their neighborhoods.
Like, it is fair to discuss which voters may or may not be open to progressive messaging, and how we can do a better job of disarming GOP attacks about socialism and culture wars.
But all that seems beside the point if the problem is we didn't even talk to the voters we need.
Whether or not you agree with @AOC that Dems should push more progressive messaging, she's dead right about one thing: Republicans killed us in social media. Their content spreads, ours doesn't.
They also had an edge in physical ground game because they ignored pandemic safety.
Beyond expanding SCOTUS and lower courts, we should also establish a United States Court of the Judiciary, which has the singular task of reviewing the ethics of federal judges up to and including SCOTUS, and can order mandatory recusals and sanctions.
This isn't even a new idea. Some state court systems already have a judicial body like this.
It's how Roy Moore got fired as Chief Justice of Alabama, twice.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being one of the recommendations of Biden's proposed bipartisan judicial task force.
The rare occasions in which use of the bully pulpit is followed by actual movement from lawmakers are usually just situations where there's already widespread grassroots anger.
Users of the bully pulpit are following political pressure, not creating it themselves.
The idea that one politician can overcome legislative math by moving public opinion with a speech is wishful thinking of the highest order. It just doesn't work like that.
Public opinion is an incredibly complicated thing and it has the momentum of a speeding freight train.
In general, it's a *good thing* that in our system, a single politician cannot generally manipulate the masses to coerce votes from lawmakers that contradict their own constituents. That would imply our whole system is shaped around personality cults.
It's important to note that while Trump's brand of "They're rapists, they should go back where they came from" racism is what's tearing apart the country, Kushner's softer-spoken, condescending kind of racism has been the GOP default for years, long before Trump took over.
It is critical to understand that the whole GOP narrative of rugged individualism, that poverty is a moral failing and the govt can't help losers with no drive to be contributing, productive citizens, at its core began as a way to justify the ongoing consequences of segregation.
White voters, especially white voters in the South who had voted Democratic and felt betrayed by the Civil Rights Act, grew up being told Black people are lazy, unmotivated, and benefit enough just from being allowed to live in white society.
Texas is one of the biggest oil and gas producing states.
It's also the epicenter of a shady practice called "flaring," in which gas well operators burn off excess methane rather than capture it. This is cheaper, but it's also wasteful and a major source of greenhouse emissions.
Now, if you're a gas well operator in Texas, you do need a permit to flare your wells.
But the Railroad Commission, being controlled 3-0 by Republicans, grants these permits to basically everyone. Because Texas Republicans are not exactly known for being climate conscious.