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The GOP spits up blood daily. Its president is mendacious and unstable. Its lawmakers are fractious and extreme. Its face in the Senate is Mitch McConnell. Its brand is the Rosemarys baby of failed health care legislation.

Historically unpopular, Donald Trump faces exposure as an ignorant faux-populist pawn of Russia fronting for his partys donor-driven plutocratic agenda. Yet Democrats remain the 90-pound weakling of politics unable to inspire confidence, or even hope.

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Why? Because they have had too little to say to too many Americans.

Fatefully, Democrats sought salvation in demographics: By turning out more of the same, but ever-more abundant, people college graduates, urbanites, minorities they would overwhelm the GOPs dwindling cohort of conservatives and less-educated white folks, cementing an electoral hammerlock. No matter that this voting bloc was overconcentrated in populous cities and states. The Electoral College would inevitably waft a Democrat to the White House.

Instead they are reedy voices in a sea of red inaudible to large swaths of a populace that, increasingly, views the partys leadership as arrogant elitists indifferent to all but the coddled beneficiaries of an identity politics that perpetuates their stale incumbency.

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This alienation from Democrats reflects a widespread distrust and insecurity regarding our political and economic system as a whole the belief that our institutions scorn ordinary people, that our public servants serve themselves, and that our government is feckless and corrupt. For many, Trump became a human Hail Mary, a last-ditch antidote to despair.

Republicans must remind President Trump of his own health care promises.

As the Democrats demographic became increasingly urbanized, secular, and affluent, working-class support seeped away. In turn, many Democrats focused on cultural liberalism instead of Americans who felt economically adrift.

The 2016 election illustrates the fallout: the rise of a Bernie Sanders-style populism on the Democratic left; on the right, a distrust of globalization; a strain of anger at racial and religious minorities; a bitter divide over immigration policy; and a yearning for national identity sometimes wistful, sometimes nativist and nasty.

Thus the Democrats must do more than regain political ground. They must offer a vision of hope that transcends these fissures, seeking a more cohesive yet inclusive country.

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Trumps failings serve as springboard but only that. It ill serves Democrats to run on outrage alone, or to imply that his voters were fools. Nor should the party treat the core concerns of blue- collar whites as separate from those of young people, minorities, and women.

Democrats must say that a country achieves greatness by engaging the potential of all for the common good. This means better schools, affordable college, student debt relief, and retraining for those displaced by automation and globalization. It means rebuilding our infrastructure and providing universal health care that prevents medical neglect and curbs the ravages of catastrophic illness.

It means combating inequality through fair taxation, reasonable regulation, and reforming a campaign finance system little better than legalized bribery. And it means arguing that only by broadening economic opportunity can we confront our common challenges in such areas as climate change.

Congressional Democrats recently rolled out a program calling for affordable college, infrastructure spending, job training, lower drug prices, and other initiatives focused on economics. Its a start. But Democrats still lack a compelling and unifying theme. And they must honestly tackle issues such as immigration and globalization.

It is not illiberal to combine a humane solution to illegal immigration with a reasoned policy that respects our borders and our laws, balancing the strength we derive through welcoming new Americans with a realistic assessment of how many we can absorb. And it is not progressive to pretend that globalization can be repealed by reviving dying industries and erecting barriers to trade. The sin here is not candor; it is indifference to those in whom these issues provoke such anger and anxiety.

Nor can Democrats ignore whole chunks of the country and its people. This neglect underwrites its impotence in Congress, especially the House, stacked as it is with districts gerrymandered by Republicans who control state legislatures and governorships. The party needs candidates who embrace its broad economic message, not generic Democrats engineered to pass every litmus test but winning an election. There is nothing wrong with framing a progressive message in religious terms, or appealing to moderate voters to build a broader coalition.

In a time when fractiousness imperils Americas future, Democrats must become our national glue.

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Resisting isn't enough. Democrats must offer a vision of a better future - The Boston Globe

Last week was an intriguing one for fans of economic populism. Maybe not a White-House-staffers-threatening-to-sic-the-FBI-on-each-other level of intriguing. But intriguing nonetheless for anyone wondering how the U.S. landed itself in this topsy-turvy political freakshow.

Why Is Populism Winning on the American Right?

On Monday, Democratic lawmakers unleashed upon the nation their Better Deal, the latest move in the partys scramble to win back the love of the white working-class. As the accompanying web site grandly proclaims, The Democratic Partys mission is to help build an America in which working people know that somebody has their back. Too many Americans, the site laments at length, feel like the rules of the economy are rigged against them.

The plans anodyne namea response to Donald Trumps dealmaker posturingprompted much sniggering. Some people considered it an uninspired echo of FDRs New Deal. Others grumped it was a rip-off of Paul Ryans A Better Way agenda. Twitter wags compared it to the slogan for Papa Johns. (Better ingredients. Better Pizza.)

As for the guts of the plan, many of its proposals carry the imprint of the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders wing: get tough on monopolies, boost the minimum wage to $15; invest $1 trillion in infrastructure; cut the cost of medications, college, and child care. Dems are also looking to equip left-behind Americans for todays economy by giving tax credits to employers that set up retraining and apprenticeship programs.

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer summed it up in The New York Times: First, were going to increase peoples pay. Second, were going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, were going to provide workers with the tools they need for the 21st-century economy.

This third prong in particular sounds eminently sensible, targeted, and forward-looking. It also seems about as likely to excite the masses as a plate of week-old avocado toast.

For understandable reasons, Democrats are eager to jump on the populist bandwagon. But populism is a slippery, squishy sort of term that can mean any number of things. Republicans like Jack Kemp were called populist if they appeared to care about someone other than the rich, notes my former colleague John Judis, author of The Populist Explosion. Putin is sometimes called a populist because he rides bare-chested on a horse. So the Democrats are free to use the termmeaning in their case that they are focusing now on the economic welfare of less well-to-do Americans rather than Goldman Sachs, transgender people, or illegal immigrants.

Thomas Mann, a senior fellow in governance studies with the Brookings Institution and co-author of an upcoming book probing Trumpism, agrees: Populism is a protean conceptused by politicians of all stripes to rally the forgotten people against the nefarious elites. Left wing/right wing, liberal-democratic/authoritarian, policy oriented/purely symbolic, racially inclusive/racist, he told me. Trump's populism is in each case of the latter type. Identify the enemy, romanticize the past, promise a return to a better and fairer life.

With a Better Deal, Democrats are pitching a gentle, constructive, we-want-to-help-you-cope-with-modern-life brand of populism. Trump, by contrast, excels at the let-me-bring-back-the-good-times-by-punishing-the-bad-guys version. Trumps populism is nativist, revanchist, and ultimately unachievable. (Please tell me no one still believes hes going to revive the coal industry.) But in terms of raw, gut-level appeal, it kicks the snot out of what the Democrats are peddling.

Just look at Trumps campaign-ish pep rally in Ohio last Tuesday. In between rants about immigrant invaders and Islamist terrorists, the president repeated his vow to restore the Mahoning Valley to its glory days when steel was king. All those big, beautiful manufacturing jobs are coming back, he swore. He even offered the crowd a bit of real estate advice: Dont sell your house. Were going to get those values up.

Well, heck, if Trump is going to do all that, why on earth would anyone be jazzed about retraining programs or additional schooling or apprenticeships? All that stuff requires scary changeand worse still, comes with the implicit judgment that ones current way of life/thinking is somehow inferior. (Let us show you how to become better!) And, in the end, who knows if all that change will bring about better anything?

In many ways, the Better Deal is reminiscent of what Bill Clinton was selling in the 1990s. Anyone remember that scene in Primary Colors where Governor Stanton/Clinton is delivering some tough-love straight talk to a roomful of grumpy Granite Staters?

No politician can re-open this factory or bring back the shipyard jobs or make your union strong again. No politician can make it the way it was. Because we now live in a world without economic borders. In that world, muscle-jobs go where muscle-labor is cheap, and that is not here. So to compete, you have to exercise a different musclethe one between your ears The whole country must go back to school. We have to get smarter, learn skills. And I promise this: I will work hard for you. I will think about you. I will fight to make education a lifetime thing in this country to give you the support you need to move up. But you have to do the heavy lifting your own selves.

Todays Dems are similarly set on reassuring struggling Americans: We are so sorry you have felt ignored by us. From now on, we pledge to work our butts off to help you help yourself.

But Trump? Trump keeps right on telling folks to sit tightDont sell that house yet!and let him do the heavy lifting. Forget retraining. Hes going to get all those coal mines and steel plants humming again. How? By putting his boot on the neck of China, NAFTA, enviros, immigrant labor, liberal elites, etc. Maybe even some transgender soldiers!

Is Trump spinning a cruel fantasy, scapegoating certain groups to fuel false hope in others? You betcha. But its such a soothing, satisfying bedtime story for many Americans that its almost irresistible.

Trumps brilliance was in thinkingor at least talkingbig about upending the system, says Judis. The key to his campaign, and what made it populist in the tradition of the People's Party, Huey Long, Perot, was that he voiced demands that the prevailing leadership of both parties were unwilling to grant or even consider. Ditto Sanders.

By contrast, says Judis, Schumers Times op-ed used every clich of the last 20 years. I don't disagree with anything they propose, but they are proposing incremental stuff that in some cases (worker retraining) has proven to be pretty useless.

Of course, how you feel about this or that policy idea will depend heavily on your own political leanings. But, overall, the Democrats message is one of incremental, future-oriented change.

In the Age of Trumpsanity, where is the thrill in that?

The Democrats Better Deal cant compete at a rhetorical level with Trump's Make America Great Again, says Mann. Rather, it resembles past party efforts to identify a set of policies that address the underlying economic realities that would be a basis for governing.

But that is not to suggest the move is without merit, insists Mann. Its a commendable effort to keep Democrats on the same page as they try to position themselves to take full advantage of a Democratic wave in 2018. The national campaign will be about Trump the autocrat, the kleptocrat, the phony populist, and the cravenly accommodating Republican Party. The Better Deal will be helpful in arming candidates with a positive vision and avoiding intraparty divisions in the midterm elections. Their rhetorical challenge is best dealt with via the right presidential candidate and campaign in 2020.

Maybe they can come up with something a little more inspiring by then.

See more here:
Democrats Struggle to Sell Their Better Deal - The Atlantic - The Atlantic

Sen. Paul Doyle, one of the holdouts, had little to say to the press after emerging from a talk with leadership.

On a tie-breaking vote by Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, the Senate gave final approval Monday to a state-employee concessions deal after Democratic leaders mollified three dissenting colleagues with a promise to make a good-faith effort for fiscal reforms.

Uniting all 18 members of the caucus hinged on the willingness by Senate Democratic leaders to at least endorse in concept a dozen fiscal and collective-bargaining reforms sought by three wary Democratic colleagues, any one of whom held the power to kill the deal by voting with Republicans in the evenly divided Senate.

Im very pleased that we achieved Democratic unity on this proposal today, and it now helps set us up for the remainder of what will be very difficult budget negotiations, said Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven.

The show of unity did not go beyond the vote. The three holdouts Sens. Paul Doyle of Wethersfield, Joan Hartley of Waterbury and Gayle Slossberg of Milford skipped a post-session press conference with Looney and other Democrats, a sign of remaining difficulties in resolving an impasse that has left Connecticut without a budget for 31 days.

Aside from the promise of support for fiscal reform, the trio conceded they saw no clear path to an alternative that could produce the $1.57 billion the concessions are projected to yield over for the overdue two-year budget.Doyle said he saw potential chaos in rejecting the concessions.

Republicans said accepting concessions now would do little to stabilize the states long-term finances, articulating what is likely to be a wedge issue in the 2018 campaign for control of the closely divided General Assembly.

Once you vote for this deal you are trapped, said Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano of North Haven. He warned that labor costs under this deal largely will be fixed for the next decade, and that Democrats who ratified it will be responsible for what he says are certain tax hikes and program cuts.

Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over whether Connecticut needs to end decades of setting pension and health benefits by collective bargaining and instead dictate them by legislation. The GOP, whose candidates for governor declined to campaign on weakening collective bargaining in 2014, is getting more aggressive on the issue.

People look to us for leadership, Fasano said, dismissing Democrats arguments that the GOP approach would lead to a court fight with unions. People look to us for strength. And were afraid to take an issue up and lead with it?

The intra-party turmoil in the Democratic caucus largely overshadowed the partisan differences. The days source of drama was the question of whether Doyle, Hartley and Slossberg would give the Democrats 18 votes for passage.

mark pazniokas / ctmirror.org

Sens. Gayle Slossberg, right, and Joan Hartley before the vote.

Doyle told his colleagues on the floor he was placing faith that the Senate leadership would deliver on its promises to him, Hartley and Slossberg.

They assured me they would do their best to advocate for systemic reforms, Doyle said. I have to take a leap of faith with all of you in this chamber.

All Looney could promise was his best efforts. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, and rank and file Democrats in both chambers will dictate what, if anything, is accepted.

Doyle, Hartley and Slossberg retain significant leverage their support for a budget, when one is finished to ensure that some of their demanded reforms end up in policy language implementing the budget. Hartley hinted her vote would depend on seeing support for the systemic reforms.

I do believe that the SEBAC [concessions] with systematic changes will help to make a path forward and bring equilibrium, she said, and will be for me personally pivotal in adopting a budget.

Until a speech on the floor at 6 p.m., Hartley declined to say how she intended to vote. But the Senate opened debate at 2:20 p.m., an indication that the Senate leadership believed all 18 Democrats were on board, setting up the tie-breaking vote by Wyman.

With the holdouts missing from the chamber, Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, began outlining the case for concessions by SEBAC, the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition.

SEBACs position is it will always be willing to sit down and help the state, said Osten, who was leader of the correction guard supervisors union before her retirement from the Department of Correction.

mark pazniokas / ctmirror.org

Sen. Paul Doyle, right, and Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney before Doyle addressed the chamber.

Slossberg eventually arrived in the chamber and chatted amiably with Looney before explaining her support for the agreement to the chamber.

I believe in collective bargaining, Slossberg said.

Doyle followed and briefly engaged Looney in a one-sided conversation in which neither man smiled. Doyle spoke, and Looney listened.

The resolution accepting the terms of a concession deal negotiated by the Malloy administration could be voted up or down, but not amended. The holdouts demands would have to be addressed in a side deal inserted in the budget or a new piece of legislation at a later date.

Some of the reforms sought by the trio would restrict in statute benefits the state could offer in future contracts, when the latest concessions deal expires in mid-2027.

They would end automaticcost-of-living adjustments to pensions, remove overtime earnings from pensionscalculations, andrestrict future benefits contracts with state employee unions to no more than four years in duration.

Other reforms would peg arbitration awards to the states ability to pay increased wages and benefits and create a commission to developa sustainability plan for the pension fund for municipal teachers. One study projects the states annual contribution will grow from $1 billion last fiscal year to more than $6.2 billion by 2032.

Malloy celebrated the passage Monday night.

Today the state legislature ratified the largest state employee concession package in our states history a deal that will save state taxpayers $1.57 billion over the next two years and approximately $24 billion in long-term savings, Malloy said. Make no mistake about it these are significant savings, and I want to thank our state workers for stepping up to the table and negotiating in good faith to produce significant, structural changes that will be the foundation of a responsible, balanced budget.

Most workers would accept a three-year wage freeze and three furlough days. About half the value of the deal is in wage concessions, the rest in pension and health changes.

The deal also would:

In return for these concessions, the state offered protections against layoffs for four years and extended the basic agreement on pension and health benefits from 2022 to 2027. After three years of wage freezes, the employees would get two annual wage increases of 3.5 percent, beginning July 1, 2021.

The extension is a major obstacle to a goal of conservatives: Removing retirement and health benefits from the purview of collective bargaining.

In a a review of the concessions deal, the Pew Charitable Trust noted thatConnecticut is one of only four states where those benefits are bargained. In most places, they are set by statute.

mark pazniokas / ctmirror.org

Senate GOP leader Len Fasano, right, and Sen. Tony Guglielmo. They opposed the deal, as did all 18 Republicans.

This is bad economic policy. This vote will indeed determine which direction the state goes in, Sen. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, said during the debate. Were already in a death spiral. This is going to exacerbate that situation.

Sen. Tim Larson, D-East, urged his colleagues to consider the contributions of unionized state workers when deciding whether these concessions are sufficient to help balance the next state budget.

I dont strap on a gun before I come to work every day, and I dont hold prisoners in a cell, Larson said. I wonder if theres ever been a cost analysis of not plowing 84 and trying to get to work?

Sen. Craig Miner, R-Litchfield, said no one wants a wage freeze, but he believes many private-sector workers would accept that and tougher benefit restrictions to preserve their jobs.Miner pointed to declining state tax receipts, auto sales and other economic trends as signs Connecticuts economy is slipping and that businesses are losing confidence in the states ability to control spending.

He said Connecticut should emulate dramatic reductions in labor costs achieved by Rhode Island state government in recent years. Miner said that businesses wanted this concessions deal to make similar groundbreaking changes when it comes to the benefits offered to the next generation of Connecticut state employees.

The truth of the matter is, it may not be enough, he said. Theyre waiting for us to make that Rhode Island statement.

Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, said she has grown tired of the state employee bogey-man theory that public-sector worker benefits just get better and better.

Bye said that Republican Gov. John G. Rowland locked in much more generous health care and retirement benefits for state workers back in 1997 in a 20-year deal with unions. A concessions deal Malloy negotiated in 2011 extended the expiration from 2017 to 2022 in return for a concessions package in 2011.

mark pazniokas / ctmirror.org

Sen. Gayle Slossberg, initially a holdout, ended the afternoon in an amiable chat with the Senates leader, Martin M. Looney.

The truth is the private sector has significantly reduced their share of health care benefits, and that has really hurt middle-class workers, she said.

But Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, said that while Connecticut did offer very generous benefits to workers for decades, continuing that practice certainly doesnt make any sense in the context of a massive budget deficit.

Boucher noted that even with this deal, Connecticut employees would contribute far less toward their pensions than their counterparts in other states do.The maximum contribution here would rise from 2 to 4 percent of salary, while the national average for state employees is 6.7 percent.

Watching in the gallery were union representatives, including Salvatore Luciano, the executive director of Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.He said state employees comprise 2 percent of the states population and their concessions package would solve one-third of the projected budget deficit.

No one else is stepping up to provide any money to deal with this mountain of debt, Luciano said.

Here is the original post:
After day of drama, Senate Democrats unite to back concessions - The CT Mirror

Rep. Ben Ray Lujn (D-N.M.), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says he is willing to fund pro-life Democratic candidates for the House. He is getting fierce blowback. Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean says he wont donate to the group if it funds pro-lifers. Journalist Lauren Ducasaysthat the DCCC decision is a betrayal of every woman who has ever supported the Democratic party. (Thirty-fourpercent of Democrats believe abortion should be banned, or banned with exceptions for rape, incest, and threats to the mothers life; polling has generally not found a significant difference in views of abortion between men and women.)

The last time the Democrats took control of the House from the Democrats, in 2006, it was in part by recruiting a few candidates who presented themselves as pro-life Democrats to run in socially conservative districts: Heath Shuler in North Carolina, Joe Donnelly and Brad Ellsworth in Indiana. Democrats also touted theirsupport for Bob Caseys Senate run in Pennsylvania as a sign of their new tolerance. The chairman of the DNC at the time argued for it. His name was Howard Dean.

The party has moved left on abortion, as on other issues, since then.

One question for those Democrats who want to kick any remaining pro-life Democrats out of their party: Are they prepared to withhold all funding for now-senatorJoe Donnelly and Sen. Joe Manchin (W. Va.), both of whom are on the federal advisory board of Democrats for Life of America and up for re-election next year?

(I wrote about the last round of this debate here.)

Read more here:
Democrats Debate: Include Pro-Lifers or Not? - National Review

Democrats are worried President Donald Trump wants to remove the nation's top lawyer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, during the August recess to make way for someone who would be willing to fire the special prosecutor leading the charge into the 2016 election hacking investigation without first being confirmed by the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said Monday on the Senate floor that "if such a scenario were to pass, we would have a constitutional crisis on our hands."

In order to remove the possibility of Trump making a recess appointment while the Senate is out of session during the August state-work period, Schumer said he expects the Senate will hold pro forma sessions throughout the upcoming recess to prevent a recess appointment from happening.

Schumer said he and his colleagues will be ready to block a potential recess appointment by utilizing the procedural tool that has already been used this year during Trump's presidency, most recently during the Fourth of July holiday. Pro forma sessions were also notably used during Barack Obama's presidency to prevent him from making recess appointments.

The pro forma sessions are usually held every three days and while any senator present can open and preside over a pro forma session, the attendance of other senators isn't required. Most pro forma sessions happen before a nearly empty chamber.

If the Senate convenes every three days for a few minutes or seconds, it is not technically in recess, therefore Trump wouldnt be able to push through a recess appointment to replace Sessions.

A senator will have to gavel in and gavel out for a pro forma session to work. The leaders office doesnt usually announce the lineup ahead of time, but the duty usually falls to the senator who happens to be in town that day or in the states closest in proximity to the nation's capital including Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

Democrats and Republican senators came out in droves to defend Sessions last week following Trump's attack on the former Alabama senator and warned Trump from making any moves to replace him.

In a series of tweets aimed at Sessions last week, Trump called the attorney general beleaguered and said he had a very weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes.

But on Monday, the White House walked back the speculation that Trump was thinking of firing him.

There is no announcement on that and the president has 100 percent confidence in his Cabinet, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said during an on-camera briefing.

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Democrats plan to block possible Trump recess appointments - ABC News