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**JULY 15, 2021**

Meyerson on TAP

The 2022 Campaigns: Already All Laid Out

It's only the midpoint of 2021, but the outlines of both parties'
2022 campaigns are already clear. Consequently, it's also clear that
the two parties' electoral pitches will deal with entirely separate
universes.

The Democrats will campaign on the real benefits they've delivered to
the American public, more particularly the American working class
(assuming, of course, that Sens. Manchin, Sinema, and their ilk don't
deep-six the entire Democratic program). Those benefits will include
their largely successful effort to diminish the pandemic, their funding
for infrastructure, the establishment of an expanded Child Tax Credit
and affordable child care, universal pre-K, tuition-free community
college, paid family and medical leave; the expansion of Medicare to
include dental, vision, and hearing care; more affordable housing; and
numerous advances in clean energy. It will also include some of the
executive orders that Joe Biden issued last Friday, including a ban on
the noncompete agreements currently imposed on tens of millions of
workers, and a "right to repair" rule that will enable Americans or
their mechanics to fix their own cars or tractors instead of having to
take them back to the manufacturer whose proprietary software has
blocked anyone else's attempts to fix the damn things.

All to be funded by Medicare savings derived from negotiating down drug
prices, by higher taxes on the wealthiest one percent, and higher taxes
on corporations.

In short, a lot of very real and very helpful stuff. As Biden himself
once observed, "a big fucking deal."

And there's not much here that Republicans can profitably attack.
Should they try to persuade farmers that they shouldn't have the
option of repairing their own equipment? Parents that they don't need
the Child Tax Credit? Seniors that they're better off if they have to
purchase supplemental health insurance to cover their teeth, eyes, and
ears-or even better off if they simply go without tooth, eye, and ear
care because they can't afford it?

I think not.

Instead, Republicans will run on culture war issues, attacking critical
race theory, defunding the police, the influx of immigrants, the threat
posed by minorities voting (which will be dog-whistled under the heading
of voter fraud)-in short, the threat that Democrats presumably pose to
white people. Which, they have to hope, will persuade a sufficient
number of those white people to disregard the Medicare expansions, Child
Tax Credit, and other actual benefits with which Democrats, and
Democrats alone, have provided them.

So Democrats will run against Republicans because they opposed all those
benefits. And Republicans will run against Democrats for supporting all
those culture war threats, a number of which, like defunding the police,
the vast majority of Democrats don't actually support.

At least the two parties' ground games will be centered on the same
question: who will vote. Republicans will mount a mass voter suppression
campaign, particularly in states where they've been able to pass voter
suppression laws, while Democrats will mount a mass voter turnout
campaign. On this issue alone, they'll directly engage.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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Infrastructure Summer: The Senate Budget Deal Kicks Off a Flurry of
Negotiation

This is only the beginning of a long, long process. BY DAVID DAYEN

To Build Back Better, Biden Needs to Promptly Staff the Department of
Justice

Numerous positions are vacant, threatening progress in a host of areas.
BY TIMI IWAYEMI & ZENA WOLF

USDA Wants to Make Farms Climate-Friendly. Will It Work?

The Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers to leave land
uncultivated. But critical flaws in the program may significantly limit
its climate benefit. BY LEAH DOUGLAS

Pharma Companies Spend Billions More on Stock Buybacks Than Developing
Drugs

House Oversight Committee report combats industry claims that lower drug
prices would stifle innovation. BY DAVID MOORE

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