April 4, 2025

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

Turnout No Longer Favors Democrats – Will the Party Seek to Suppress Turnout in the Future?      

By Manzanita Miller  

The Democratic Party has been searching for its edge ever since President Donald Trump won reelection in November. Demographic destiny — the idea that Hispanics and young voters would merge into eventual Democratic voters and propel the party forward — has not panned out as both groups are moving toward the right over time.      

Reeling in moderate voters has failed as well, as moderate voters are largely repelled by the Democratic Party’s fixation on fringe social issues over substantive issues like the border and the economy.  

Focusing on turnout or increasing the number of voters who participate in elections has not favored Democrats in recent years either. In fact, increased turnout among low-propensity voters has been a thorn in the party’s side in recent elections.  

In 2024, over 155 million people cast ballots in the presidential election, making it the second highest number of participants in U.S. history, with 2020 representing the highest, and even then, it netted former President Joe Biden the weakest legislative majorities for a Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. Turnout was 63.9 percent of eligible voters, the second highest in history, with 2020 being slightly higher.  

High turnout among low propensity voters delivered President Trump the electoral college and the popular vote for the first time for a Republican in two decades, meaning turnout is now no longer in the Democrats’ toolbox either.  

What is left? According to some political analysts the main weapon Democrats have in the modern era is to appeal to and engage the most high-turnout voters in the party and focus on off-year and special elections.  

Nate Cohn at the New York Times speculated this week that Democrats would perform well in Tuesday’s special election in Florida due to highly active voters being concentrated in the special election voter pool.  

Democrats have a streak of doing well in elections when only the most active voters turn out, as Cohn pointed out. “Throughout the Trump era, Democrats have excelled in low-turnout elections, as the party appears to fare best among the most highly engaged, regular voters”, Cohn noted.    

Looking at the results of Tuesday’s special election in Florida, Democrats did perform better than expected. Americans for Limited Government Foundation Executive Director Robert Romano noted Wednesday that while Republicans held onto their seats in both the 1st and 6th congressional districts, their Democratic challengers overperformed by about 8 to 9 points in each district.      

So, what does the Democratic Party’s recognition that it performs best in elections where only the most highly engaged voters participate mean for the future? Understanding the position in which the Democratic Party finds itself is important for conservatives, so that we do not find ourselves blindsided. There are a few strategies that the party could utilize based on its current position.   

First, Democrat leadership may reject calls from the center of the party to adopt a more moderate set of principles and appeal to low propensity voters. The party’s edge in the modern era is with the most highly active — and liberal — voters, so appealing to the center could be seen as a poor trade off.    

Second, Democrats may focus more on off-year elections. They may strategize to focus heavily on amassing more Congressional power through mid-term elections and using that power to mitigate a Republican president elected by a larger sample of the people.  

Last, Democrats may in fact seek to lower or “depress” voter turnout especially among low-propensity voters, poorer white voters, young people, and Hispanics. Where once the idea of activating working-class whites, young voters and Hispanics seemed like a surefire way to increase their numbers at the ballot box, Democrats may realize that they could end up drumming up just as many votes from Republicans as they do for themselves through increasing turnout.    

We are already seeing discussions of the way turnout used to benefit Democrats, but no longer does, among mainstream political analysts.     

Miles Parks, an NPR correspondent who studies elections, noted in an NPR interview after the 2024 election that “less educated” and “poorer people generally”, historically favored Democrats when they did vote, but this is no longer true.  

“Research has found that these sorts of people are generally less educated, are poorer people generally, and those sorts of people have tended to vote for Democratic candidates,” Parks noted. “Therefore, higher turnout brings out more of these sorts of people, helps Democrats.”  

Parks went on to speak about Trump’s edge with low propensity voters upsetting this narrative. “But Trump seems to have really changed the game here. Exit polls found that he did really well among people without a college degree and also won people who said it was the first time they'd ever cast a ballot. So the question now is whether this is going to change how Republicans feel about voter turnout and also, critically, policies that make voting easier, since those policies have been shown to help low-propensity voters the most.”   

Perhaps Democratic Party leaders will not outright suppress the vote — though anything is possible — but they may focus on launching more attack campaigns at conservatives to turn off low propensity, minority, and young voters more than they focus on activating these voters.  

Democrats might also recruit less frequently among working-class whites, Hispanics, and young people, and attempt to predict who will become a high propensity voter instead by using benchmarks like education and income.  

Conversely, conservatives may continue to widen their tent, making inroads with larger portions of the low-propensity vote, capitalizing on their edge during highly publicized election years, and developing defensive strategies to boost their own turnout during off-year elections.   

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.  

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/04/turnout-no-longer-favors-democrats-will-the-party-seek-to-suppress-turnout-in-the-future/ 

Is Al Gore Committing Criminal Climate Fraud? 

By Bill Wilson 

By now, everyone the world over knows that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the ultimate green-freak. For more than 40 years, Gore has preached the doom and gloom mantra of the “climatists.” His numerous predictions have routinely proven false. 

As a reminder, way back in 1982 Gore predicted on CBS News that 25 percent of Florida would end up under water very soon due to the use of fossil fuels. He has predicted that in five year’s time all the snow on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro would have melted. The number of false predictions in his propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, are too numerous to recount here. Suffice it to say, Gore has been wrong on virtually everything he has pushed on the so-called climate crisis. 

We now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that any changes in temperature have nothing to do with mankind or the industrialization that has led to better lives for billions of people. A recent, peer-reviewed study reported on March 18, 2025 by Science of Climate Change Journal (SCC) strongly suggests that solar activity and temperature cycles are the likely factors causing any climate change. In fact, the exhaustive study shows that natural occurring temperature cycles are the cause of increases in CO2, not the other way around. Of course, the climate zealots contend that CO2 increases cause temperature increases which, in their minds, leads to all the horrors they predict — predictions that just do not happen. 

It is no wonder why the mainstream, corporate media — a.k.a. the propaganda machine of the global elite — has not reported on this stunning set of revelations. The entire climate crisis scam has been nothing more than a ploy to bring the world under the control of the globalist forces. The One World Government creeps have used the scare tactics of Al Gore and others to drive their agenda. Their agenda has crushed entire industries, reduced populations to paupers and threatened the independence and liberty of nations, including the United States. And, of course, it has been a great money maker too. 

Al Gore founded an investment firm, Generation Investment Management, to raise capital and invest in “sustainability.” Radical adherents of the debunked ESG standards (Environmental, Social and Governmental) that place leftist nostrums ahead of shareholder value or community impact, Gore’s firm has raked in billions of dollars in investments. In the words of the firm’s website, the funds have been used to “seek to identify companies which will be on the right side of the structural social and economic changes that are already under way. [emphasis added]” 

In plain English, they look for companies that embrace their radical agendas and supply capital that otherwise would not be invested. This has paid off very well for Gore. While there is no way to know how much his take has been since the company’s founding in 2004, we do know that as a partner in 2002 alone he received more than $2 million a month — $26.8 million for the year.  Not bad for never being right about any of this wild-eyed fear mongering. 

For some odd reason, Gore’s firm is organized under the laws of Great Britain. I say odd because Gore was an American Senator and Vice President after all. Why would he base his money-machine in the UK? Regardless, he maintains offices in the United States — San Francisco naturally — which means he is subject to U.S. law. And that is the larger question I would like to raise. 

If Gore is collecting massive fees and raising investment funds due to his alleged knowledge of climate and the impact on the economy, and all his supposed knowledge is proven wrong, is he engaged in fraud? Is he selling something that he knows is a lie and that as a result is he nothing more than another Bernie Madoff, scamming the suckers while taking a hefty slice off the top? 

While I’m sure a high-priced lawyer can split the hair and find a way to justify this, isn’t this something that the newly staffed SEC should look into? And if there is credible evidence, shouldn’t the Department of Justice under Attorney General Bondi consider action to stop any scam? 

The days of the international con-game are over. No more using Ukraine has a money laundromat. No more rip-off trade deals that pick the pockets of hardworking Americans to benefit global elites. And no more allowing the open sale of the climate crisis snake-oil to unsuspecting investors. Something to consider. 

Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.  

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/04/is-al-gore-committing-criminal-climate-fraud/ 

As Unemployment Edges Up, Post-Covid Inflation Most Likely In The Rear-View Mirror 

April 4, 2025, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government Executive Director Robert Romano issued the following statement in response to the latest jobs numbers: 

“Nobody should be surprised by the latest jobs numbers. As the economy unwinds the post-Covid inflation bubble, the unemployment rate once again ticked up to 4.2 percent as demand continues to soften. This is what historically, almost always happens after the economy overheats from inflation: Households max out their credit cards, purchases slow down and so does the economy until finally, unemployment rises, the cycle ends and begins anew. Since Jan. 2023, unemployment has increased 1.3 million, almost all of which has been during the Biden administration, although there is likely more to come. The hope should be that with ongoing labor shortages amid the Baby Boomer retirement wave, it won’t go too high.  

“The first signals of a slowdown or recession came in 2022 when the spread between 10-year and 2-year treasuries first inverted, and then the signal for higher unemployment came in 2023 when the inversion began narrowing until the yield curve normalized in 2024. As interest rates continue collapsing amid the current flight to safety along with commodities prices collapsing, inflation expectations are predictably dropping, which is the good news.  

“When prices increases slow down as much as they have, historically, that has always coincided with recessions and higher unemployment, the only proven method of ending inflation. In 1981, Ronald Reagan and Paul Volcker triggered a recession with double digit interest rates and prices came tumbling down. They ripped off the band-aid and did what was necessary, although it was not popular at the time as unemployment rose, but the economy took its medicine. Well, here comes the airplane… 

“Politically, getting inflation down is more important than avoiding a recession in the first year. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all had recessions either occur or that were ongoing their first years in office, and all went on to get reelected relatively easily. Whereas, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Joe Biden all had inflation outpace incomes during their terms, and all were one-term presidents. Choose your poison.”  

To view online: https://getliberty.org/2025/04/as-unemployment-edges-up-post-covid-inflation-most-likely-in-the-rear-view-mirror/