Top Lines: 2020 Elections | Tariffs and Trade | US Economy | Immigration and the Border | Protecting US Elections | Patriotism & Optimism

Notes On 2020 – So here we are. Impeachment.  A few hastily thrown together points.  1) The read out released by the WH this morning is a smoking gun and devastating to the President, Pence, Barr, Pompeo, Mulvaney, and Giuliani.  And a reminder - undermining our democracy and elections may be the most serious "High Crime" of all.  2) As the 7 Dem freshmen argued in their influential op-ed in the Washington Post on Monday, that Trump was taking steps to disrupt/cheat in the 2020 election required Congress to act (more here on Trump bringing “Moscow Rules to US politics).  3) Dems should view impeachment as a tactic, not an end in of itself.  The end is to educate the public on all the ways the President has betrayed the country and his oath, and to begin to far more effectively draw lines, re-establish right and wrong, and defend the rule of law. Removal will come if we make our case effectively.  

Finally, the closer one looks at Trump and Ukraine, the more one finds Putin and Russia.  Very soon we will once again be discussing Trump’s extraordinary fealty to Putin, and what transpired in 2016 which kept Trump in Putin’s malevolent pocket all these years.

What impact will it have on the election next year? Too early to tell. But we do know a few things.  1) Trump is very weak and even a drop of a few points in his standing could cause the Rs to start to abandon him.  He has three credible challengers in the primary, so all eyes are now on the R side of the Iowa caucus.  2) Will these sustained attacks hurt Biden and propel Warren? Perhaps.  But Biden would be smart to lean in more aggressively and turn this to his advantage. This will almost certainly, however, make it far harder for the second tier candidates to get the oxygen they need to grow – we saw that happen in the 1992 Democratic primary. 

America’s Experiment With Protectionism Is Failing – NDN published a piece last week that takes a deep dive into the experiment with protectionism that America has undertaken over the past year and a half. We find that its goals of reducing the trade deficit and thus bringing manufacturing production and jobs back to the US have not happened. Instead, this great experiment in protectionism has weakened essentially every economic metric that we measure. Over 300,000 workers have lost their jobs, middle class households are $1,000 poorer, and the country as a whole will have lost at least $100 billion in economic output by the end of the year. You can find the piece here. Rob Shapiro makes a very similar point in the Washington Monthly about the failures of Trump's economic strategy to deliver what he promised, which you can read here. You can also find more of NDN's work on trade issues and the economy here. 

GOP Bringing “Moscow Rules” To American Politics, High-Volume Right-Wing Accounts Up To 215 – In a new analysis, Simon finds that the Trump campaign/GOP are already using campaign tactics that feel far more like Russian disinformation than those used in a healthy democracy.  From aggressive use of falsified people to the sharing of altered videos, we are seeing the use of illicit campaign tactics at a scale and pace which should be alarming to all Americans.  Of course these tactics include the use of high-volume, often clearly fake accounts on Twitter.  Our recent effort to build a database of the most influential of these accounts is now up to 215.  Feel free to check it out here, review our broader set of recommendations about how to protect our democracy and discourse from foreign manipulation, and see this new essay from Simon on how the parties need to re-invent themselves to tackle these new challenges.

ICYMI – NDN has released proposals to protect our elections, reform US immigration laws, and counter Trump’s reckless protectionism.  We’ve also proposed creating a new super department we call the Department of Jobs, Skills, and Economic Development to better target our efforts to ensure no one is left behind.  We’ve marveled at the dramatic decline of the GOP’s prospects in the heavily Mexican-American part of the US, and just how much better Democrats have been in managing the US economy in a new age of globalization. We are advising Congress to go slow and be smart in how it reforms the Postal Service – reforms are needed but far more is going right than wrong these days. 

We’ve also written a great deal about Trump and his contempt for democracy and the liberal order America has imagined and built.  We’ve challenged the conventional wisdom to stop downplaying the enormity of the Russian attack on our system, recognize that Trump is more like Maduro than almost any politician in the West, understand the European elections as a direct repudiation of Trumpism/illiberalism, and acknowledge that America First has become an extraordinary governing and political failure.  After repeated mass shootings and the rise of dangerous domestic terrorism, we think the Democrats should make this fall about keeping America and Americans safe. 

Recent NDN Media Citations – You can find us in these recent stories: ABC/FiveThirtyEight, AP (here, here, here), Atlantic, CNN (article, TV), Financial Times, MSNBC, NBC News, New York Times, Politico, Real Clear Politics, San Antonio Express-News, Slate, Telemundo, Time Magazine, USA Today, Washington Monthly, and the Washington Post (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here). Simon offers extensive remarks about the 2020 Democratic Primary in this recent Ron Brownstein Atlantic piece - we think it is well worth your time. 

You can also catch Simon in extended interviews on politics and disinformation in this new Future State podcast hosted by Dick Clarke, on Democrats and immigration in this Slate podcast hosted by Univision’s Leon Krauze, and in Fernand Amandi’s new Strange Days podcast on why Democrats need to go big and make their indictment of Trump far more than about “obstruction.”

Support Our Far-Sighted Work Today – We know there are many calls on your giving, but please consider donating to NDN today.  Whatever amount - $5, $25, $100 – it all helps us keep the ideas and insights coming. 

Best,

Simon, Chris, and the rest of the NDN team

 

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