More progress.

November 28, 2023

          More hopeful news emerged from the Middle East as the “four-day-pause” was extended by two days as Hamas agreed to release another 20 hostages. National Security spokesperson John Kirby said that the parties were attempting to extend the pause beyond the two-day extension—assuming Hamas agrees to release additional hostages. According to the math of the agreements, the six-day pause will result in the release of 70 hostages.

          The extension of the pause in the fighting is the outcome that the US hoped to achieve with the initial four-day pause. A reasonable assumption is that President Biden is actively working the backchannels to keep the pause in place and secure the release of additional hostages. That inference would explain President Biden’s decision not to travel to Dubai this week to attend the global climate summit (referred to as COP28, for “Conference of Parties” 28).

          Biden is also attending former First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service in Georgia on Tuesday—a decent and respectful gesture by President Biden.

          But CNN couldn’t pass up the opportunity to criticize Biden for not attending the climate summit. See CNN, Biden expected to miss global climate summit opening as young voters question his progress on climate change. CNN accepted John Kirby’s assertion that President Biden wasn’t canceling travel to Dubai to work on Middle East peace—a denial that is a sure sign that is exactly what President Biden is doing. Read the room, CNN!

          While it is certainly fair of CNN to note that the good news of President Biden’s accomplishments on climate change has not spread to all young voters, it was unfair to omit any mention of Trump's “climate policies”—promoting coal-fired power plants, discouraging electric vehicles, and opposing nationwide emission and fuel efficiency standards.

For example, are young voters abandoning Biden and flocking to Trump to support his “anti-environmental, climate denialism”? In the absence of that comparison, the dig at Biden’s standing with young voters was misleading and gratuitous. Perhaps we should let CNN know how we feel about its anti-Biden bias?

          I frequently recommend letting news outlets know how we feel about their biased reporting. Do such tactics work? I think so. I see evidence that criticism from consumers of news and users of social media is working. Let’s look at two examples in today’s news.

          The NYTimes ran the umpteenth article on its highly criticized Times/Sienna poll showing that Donald Trump was leading Biden by more than 178 percentage points in 57 swing states. (That last sentence was sarcastic and hyperbolic but essentially true.) The poll was an obvious train wreck of poor methodology, but that didn’t stop the Times from wringing three consecutive days of front-page coverage of its own flawed poll.

          The Times political expert—Nate Cohn—returned to the same poll on Monday. See Nate Cohn, NYTimes, Why Biden’s Weakness Among Young Voters Should Be Taken Seriously. Cohn defends (again) the Times’ counter-intuitive polling. I am not linking to a gifted article because I don’t want to drive traffic to Mr. Cohn’s article.

          But . . . something is different in this article by Cohn. The tone is different. Instead, Cohn admits the possibility that the Times’ polling might be wrong—even though he doesn’t think it is. Cohn writes,

Could President Biden and Donald J. Trump really be locked in a close race among young voters — a group Democrats typically carry by double digits — as the recent Times/Siena polls suggest?

To many of our readers and others, it’s a little hard to believe — so hard to believe that it seems to them the polls are flat-out wrong.

Of course, it’s always possible that the polls are wrong . . .

Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with those who question whether the final election results will look like recent polls. Personally, I’m skeptical the final results will look quite like these polls. But even if you think the final results will be very different, it does not mean that the polls are “wrong” today.

          Gosh! Nate Cohn finally acknowledges that what the polls look like today may be “very different” from what they look like in November 2024—a point that begs the question of why the Times is conducting such polling.

          But I digress. Nate Cohn—and the Times—heard readers’ criticism of its polling and its slanted coverage of the results. For example, when Democrats “ran the table” in the November 2023 elections, Nate Cohn dismissed actual results as less reliable than forecasted results! See Nate Cohn in NYTimes, (11/8/2023), Tuesday Was Great for Democrats. It Doesn’t Change the Outlook for 2024.

          In today’s Times, Nate Cohn drops the haughty, “I’m right, you’re wrong, and elections don’t matter” schtick. Why? My guess is that he got an earful from readers.

          A similar dynamic appeared to be at work in Elon Musk’s trip to Israel to visit the site of Hamas’s October 7 terror attack. Musk has opened Twitter to neo-Nazis, antisemites, and white supremacists. He promoted tweets linking Jews to the Great Replacement Theory. And advertisers fled the platform in response to public outcry. See AP, Advertisers flee X as Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy.

          Musk has been famously dismissive of criticism of his many offensive and insensitive statements. But he finally buckled in the face of the firestorm of criticism of his tweets promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories. Although Musk is worth $242 billion, losing $75 million in ad revenue over a single tweet apparently pierced his pain threshold.

          Even for a multi-billionaire, economic pressure and public criticism work. It is unfortunate that such pressure is what it takes to focus Musk on the consequences of his actions, but there is a lesson in Musk's sudden change of tune. Public pressure can work. Let’s keep it up.

Biden goes on the offensive on Obamacare.

          In Trump's recent unhinged ramblings on Truth Social, he has suggested that he still intends to terminate Obamacare. See AP, Trump says he will renew efforts to replace 'Obamacare' if he wins a second term. Trump wrote, in part,

The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives. We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!

          So, in addition to imposing authoritarian rule, Trump wants to take away the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. President Biden has rightly picked up the banner of a winning issue for Democrats and a losing issue for Republicans. See The Hill, Biden campaign jumps into ObamaCare fight.

          While we can’t count on Republicans to defeat themselves, we should take full advantage of the stupid mistakes that Trump cannot prevent himself from making. See Axios, Why Trump's vow to repeal Obamacare is a gift to Democrats. Per Axios,

The ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions have proved especially popular, with 79% of Americans — including 66% of Republicans — saying in 2020 that they did not want the Supreme Court to overturn those protections.

          Speaking of Trump's inability to help himself, he has repeatedly confused Obama, Hilary Clinton, George Bush, and Joe Biden. Trump has said that he beat President Obama in 2016 (he beat Hillary Clinton), repeatedly called the Biden administration the Obama administration, and confused George W. Bush and Joe Biden. See list of “mix-ups” posted by DeSantis campaign, here: DeSantis War Room.

          On Monday, Trump claimed that people just don’t understand his finely honed sense of sarcasm in deliberately mixing up names of his political opponents. See The Daily Beast, Trump Denies He’s ‘Cognitively Impaired’—and Says He Makes Gaffes ‘Sarcastically’.

          So, not only should every article about Trump include his threat to democracy, but they should also question whether Trump’s consistent confusion about the identity of his political opponents should be disqualifying. (As always, discussion of possible cognitive decline should not descend into mockery. If Trump is experiencing cognitive decline, his family and physicians should deal with the issue in a loving and supportive way.)

Grassroots Leaders Forum.

          If you have previously registered for the Grassroots Leaders Forum on Burnout and Sustainability, you should have received a second invitation with the Zoom registration link on Monday. (Please check in your junk / spam / other / and promotions folders if the email is not in your inbox.) If you can’t locate the Zoom registration link, please email me at rbhubbell@gmail.com. The forum will take place on Thursday, November 30 at Noon Pacific / 3:00 PM Eastern.

Opportunity for reader engagement.

          David Henry of Senate Circle sent the following invitation for a fundraiser for Senator Warnock of North Carolina:

Tuesday, December 5, 7:30ET/4:30PT Zoom Fundraiser with Senator Warnock for North Carolina

Please join Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock in a Zoom fundraiser for the North Carolina Democratic Party and the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party. Here Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina State Party, and Drew Kromer, chair of the Mecklenburg County Party, share their successes of 2023 and their plans for 2024 and beyond. Our second special guest, Congressman Jeff Jackson and candidate for North Carolina Attorney General, will describe the importance of Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte, in winning North Carolina (See this video).

Nationally our fates are tied to North Carolina, which narrowly supported Trump in 2020 and Republican U.S. Senators in 2020 and 2022. A revitalized Democratic Party infrastructure can turn these defeats into narrow victories, keeping Biden in power and Democrats in the Senate majority. I hope you can join me on December 5. Please donate here to register (or email David@senatecircle.org with any questions).    

Concluding Thoughts.

          It is easy to lose sight of the fact that ongoing litigation is having a significant impact on the congressional maps for 2024. A swing in a handful of seats due to redistricting can make Democratic control of Congress more achievable. As detailed in earlier newsletters, Republicans are stopping at nothing—including defying court orders—to delay the creation of congressional districts that fairly reflect the composition and voting power of various constituencies.

          But for every story of outrage by contumacious Republicans, there are offsetting stories of Democratic victories—usually with the involvement of Marc Elias’s law firm, Elias Law Group and Democracy Docket. If you don’t subscribe to Democracy Docket’s newsletter, you should. It is a highly informative, free resource to keep up to date on election litigation.

          Per Democracy Docket, two victories this week will improve Democratic chances for regaining control of state legislatures and the US House in 2024. The Georgia Senate committee released a new proposed state Senate map with two additional majority-Black districts, as ordered by a federal court. Although the two districts are not enough to swing the balance of power, they are a start.

In New Mexico, the state supreme court upheld a trial court decision rejecting a Republican challenge to redrawn maps that create one “safe” Democratic congressional district and two competitive districts.

          Neither of these decisions will change the balance of power standing alone. But such victories are achieved nearly every week by tireless attorneys, their staffs, and election workers who leave no stone unturned. They often work in the background but are an essential part of the defense of democracy. And we are fortunate to have them.

          Talk to you tomorrow!