The SALT provision is a serious issue, and not just substantively. It also points to a real coalitional problem Democrats face, with some House members coming from wealthy suburban districts:
Here's my proposal in the wokeness wars: Let's ground our response to the right in egalitarian liberalism. This provides a way to recapture the center, articulate a real vision of our own, and unmask the ugly truth about the right's real goals. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Chris Rufo tweeted that "it's time to clean house in America" and "lay siege to universities" and "overturn school boards."
This messianism about purging subversive cultural leftism creates an opening for liberals to occupy the center of this debate:
Instead of cowering defensively and screaming for purges of "wokeness," Dems should make Republicans pay a political price for their ugly anti-CRT tactics, the deeper aims they embody, and the degradations they’ve inflicted on our national life. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Important:
DCCC chair Sean Maloney tells me emphatically that in 2022, Dems will avoid the pitfall of non-engagement that cost them in VA.
“Children need to learn their history — all of it — without censorship or politics limiting what they can learn."
I call BS on the idea that Dem losses were caused by the BBB agenda straying too far left. This is entirely out of touch with how electoral politics works. And Biden *ran on* the BBB agenda. My response to that bad NYT editorial and other centrists: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The @nytopinion editorial and some centrists are saying Dem losses are partly due to the overreaching ideological ambition of BBB and its alleged departure from Biden's 2020 platform.
Here's a thought experiment that, in my view, blows this idea up:
I confess to being shocked and unsettled at how quickly the Dem coalition fractured after ousting Trump. This leads to an ugly possibility: For the third time, Dems may have only a two-year window to clean up a big national mess left by GOP rule.
Republicans appear to be benefiting from changes Trump inflicted on our politics (educational polarization) without paying any price for his legacy of white nationalism, mass covid death, or trying to overthrow democracy.
Democrats need a better response on CRT. They need to more frontally engage genuine parental concerns about curricula. But this cannot entail backing off holding Republicans accountable for the conflict and chaos their race-baiting demagogy has unleashed:
Congressional Dems from Florida are ratcheting up pressure on the University of Florida to explain and reverse its decision to ban professors from testifying against the state's voting law.
I asked the University of Florida to detail its rationale. A spox emailed me a new explanation.
It's not persuasive. And one of the professors tells me he repeatedly testified against the state of Florida in the past with the university's approval: