This morning while dipping into the endless stream of punditry, this from Obama's communications guy Dan Pfeiffer caught my eye:
The best way to protect democracy is to punch fascism in the mouth. ... If there’s one lesson of the Trump era, it’s that moral victories aren’t really victories at all.
This definitely makes me sad. Pfeiffer's boss, Barack Obama, the very election of a Black president (who was rather good at the job), was a moral victory. We need more of those, more demonstrations of the positive potential of the American story.
But Pfeiffer is also certainly correct. Trumpism needs a punch in the kisser.
Polling guru G. Elliot Morris has been investigating Democratic discontent. His national findings:
Democrats are not unpopular. They’re unsatisfying.
What all of this suggests is that Democrats do not have the problem many political narratives say they do. The party’s core weakness is not that voters see it as elitist or too extreme; it is that too many voters, including their own, see Democratic politicians as unmoored, passive, and ineffective. Republicans, by contrast, still project the kind of strength and clarity that voters often reward — though their extremism is a huge drag on votes.
More Americans see the GOP as extreme, out of touch, and worthy of intense dislike. That is why Democrats can be underwater on their favorability and still in a stronger electoral position overall.
His research leads him to conclude that Dems currently really do have strong chances going into the 2026 election, despite how little most of us thrill to their candidates.
The California gubernatorial race seems to have all the worst features of this moment.
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