Top Lines: US Economy And Trade Policy | 2020 Election And Political Analysis | Coronavirus Crisis | Protecting Our Elections And Disinformation | Immigration And The Border | Countering Illiberalism's Rise
2 Events This Week – Our Friday policy discussion this week is with our good friend Rep. Anna Eshoo, who has been on the front lines of the Congressional response to COVID. It will take place this week at 230pm – not 2 pm as is our usual spot Our weekly Wed 2 pm ET look at US politics and the election is a showing of our new deck, “With Democrats Things Get Better.
You can learn more, sign up for either event, and see our complete schedule of future events here. Join us!
Out of Tragedy, Hope – This has been an extraordinarily challenging and bitter time for America – a President impeached (and clearly guilty), the ravages of COVID19, Great Depression level job loss, repeated racial violence, protests marred by what DHS has been calling “violent opportunists,” and a shocking overreaction by the White House and law enforcement across the country. It has been numbing, hard, an incredible period of struggle for so many.
Then came this weekend, and somehow some of these spontaneous protests, born from such grief and pain, became joyous, warm, hopeful. You could feel it in the air on Saturday walking along that big yellow Black Lives Matter mural painted on 16th street here in DC by Mayor Bowser. You could see and feel it in the dancing, the peaceful crowds, the kids atop their parents’ shoulders, the pleasure of being around others after months and months apart. Something changed in America these last few days. Bitterness, at least for now, was ceding to something more hopeful.
New polling suggests things have indeed changed in recent days, and that those protesting are winning the argument with the President. Clear majorities support the protests and are worried about police violence and systemic racism. Concerns about looting and violence remain, as they should, but it is not hard to be for the protestors, upset at the police and White House violence, and against the looting we saw. The violent reaction we’ve seen from authorities to protests over exactly this kind of violence has helped push the American people into an unprecedented place on race and reforming law enforcement.
Recent polling also continues to show that the public is very unhappy with how the President has handled both COVID and the protests, and together these governing and moral failures have taken a huge toll on the party of Trump and Mitch. On Thursday we published a detailed review of just how bad the GOP’s numbers are now in both the Presidential race and swing Senate seats. Since then the President’s numbers have continued to slide, and he is now in one of the worst moments of his entire Presidency. We are starting to see unimaginable numbers show in up in reputable polls – Biden up 14 nationwide, 12 in Michigan, 9 in Wisconsin, Trump minus 13 job approval. All this data suggests the desire to end this bitter, dark period in our history is swelling up into something powerful enough to alter the trajectory of the 2020 election and thus the country itself.
And that is welcome and hopeful, news indeed.
Best,
Simon, Georgia, and the rest of the NDN team
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