Democrats

In a long thread this past weekend, I called on the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates, the DNC and the State Parties to band together to fight disinformation and illicit campaign tactics in the Democratic Presidential primary.  Among the things I called for is for the Presidentials to sign a pledge committing to forgo use of bots, trolls, troll farms, fake accounts, fake sites, deepfakes and faked images, hacking and use of hacked materials; and for the campaigns to be vigilant about reporting illicit activity to the proper authorities, the platforms and the Party, and to discourage the use of these tactics by their supporters. My hope is that either the DNC or the State Parties will demand they sign such a pledge, or for the campaigns to make their own pledges now, without delay, and not wait for the Party to get involved. 

I know the DNC is in the process of standing up a disinformation unit - it should be given ample funding and broad support to become a leader in this space and not a laggard.  This unit can help all the campaigns stand up their own disinformation teams, something which is now, unfortunately, a requirement in today's politics - a must to have, not a nice to have. 

Simply, we cannot let what happened in 2016 happen again.  As we learned at the DCCC in 2018, we are not powerless.  We got the social media platforms to do takedowns, refered illegal activity to the FBI and helped train our campaigns how to protect themselves and win in a fast changing information landscape.  Healthy democracies cannot accept the poisoning of their discourse, and must do everything they can to let the residents of their nation drive the daily debate not inauthentic voices from inside or outside the country.  

For more on the work we did at the DCCC this past cycle battling disinformation, see this NBC News op-ed I wrote with DCCC Chief of Staff Aaron Trujillo; this Washington Post article about our strategy to first "flood the zone" to make it harder for disinfo to work; a Reuters story which looks into one of our major take downs; and a great NBC News piece recounting right wing trolls complaining about the more aggressive countermeasures coming from the platforms - in this case the take down they were complaining about was a multi-platform campaign the DCCC found and worked with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to mitigate.  Here is a link to the DCCC's pledge" from the fall of 2018, and a smart deep dive from the Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand on the pledge and the GOP's refusal to sign on even after months of negotiation. 

NDN originally dove into this world through a paper we published back in the fall of 2017 on bots and disinformation, and I worked on a project in the fall of 2017 which deployed bot detection technology for the Democratic candidates in both the Virginia Governor's race and the Alabama Senate race.  Articles about that work in Virginia can be found in the Washington Post and Politico.  And this Alabama work should not be confused with the illicit campaign waged as a test by some Democrats - we were working for Doug Jones not the other guys. 

Finally, my vision for how we counter disinformation and illicit tactics goes far beyond a pledge.  What we learned in 2018 is that we are not powerless; using modern tools and being smart about hunting disinfo organizations and campaigns can provide an effective counter.  It is my belief that what must happen in the next two years is that parties, campaigns, governments, NGOs, and even the media must go on offense here, be louder and smarter on the Internet and social media, and learn how to better manage the discourse in their own particular areas of debate and discussion.  If all of us do our part we can together eliminate a lot of the low hanging fruit, the easy stuff.  The platforms while they have much more to do have made things harder.  But we can't wait for them, or for governments, to act.  We all need to do our part to clean up our areas of the Internet and social media, and ensure that authentic and well intentioned voices prevail.  The tools to counter disinformation are cheap and readily available - it is more about learning how this all works and making a true commitment to win debates in a very new and changing information landscape. 

Fri, 2/1 Update - Justin Hendrix has taken this pledge concept and turned into a thought piece on the Internet.  Go check it out and offer feedback.  He also discusses this idea in this new piece on Just Security.

Mon, 2/4 Update - Got to talk about all this stuff on Joy Reid's MSNBC program on Saturday.  Check it out - was a very good segment. 

This analysis was originally posted on Friday, October 12th.  It will be updated as things warrant over the final few weeks of the election.  Latest update - Election Day, 7am.  And be sure to check out Simon's 2018 election predictions, as submitted Monday am to The Hill.  He predicts Dems pick up 40 House seats, get to 50 in the Senate, rout the Rs in the Rustbelt/Midwest and an already deeply unpopular President will sustain a significant political blow.  

Early Vote Sets Records - Professor Michael McDonald looks at the huge early vote and mail ballot returns and thinks turnout this election year could be as high as 44-45%, way up from the 36% we saw in 2014.  Remarkably 30 states plus DC have already hit their 2014 early vote numbers and McDonald thinks all 50 states will outperform their 2014 ev totals. Let's hope these trends continue through election day - there would be much to celebrate on election night if this is the case.  Remarkably 3 states have already passed their entire 2014 totals (early + election day) - AZ, NV and TX. 

The Hill's Reid Wilson reports that voting seems to be up for all age cohorts, "but turnout has increased the most among younger voters, minorities and people who rarely or never vote. Among voters aged 18-29, turnout is up in 39 of 41 states for which data is available, said John Della Volpe, who directs polling for Harvard University's Institute of Politics. For voters aged 30-39, turnout is up in all 41 states where data is available. As a consequence, the 2018 electorate appears likely to be significantly younger and more diverse than the electorate that voted four years ago — both good signs for Democratic candidates."

And to be clear this increased turnout is as much as about well-funded Democratic campaigns touching far more voters more effectively than in recent years as it is about the fear of Trump.  One of the big stories of 2018 is the Democrats' finally bringing of Presidential level tactical sophistication to Congressional and downballot races - and it marks a huge permanent shift in American politics.  I dive a bit deeper into this issue in a related piece, "38 Million for Beto and Why It Matters." 

Did Trump Blow His Election Close? – In the weeks after the Kavanaugh fiasco, public sentiment stablized with Dems leading the genenic ballot by 8 to 9 points, and Trump's approval in a vastly improved place, coming in between -9 or -10 (had been -14 Labor Day weekend).  Nate Silver offered a very good analysis explaining why Trump's improved standing didn't translate into gains for GOP candidates, adding "Democrats have a generic ballot lead of 8.5 or 9 points. Not sure if people realize how large that is. A bit larger than the 1994 and 2010 waves, when the GOP won the popular vote by ~7 points each time. Similar to 2006, when Dems won by 8.” This election day afternoon Nate has it at 8.7. 

The NYT/Siena/Nate Cohn's House polling project continued to find good news for Democrats all the way through election day. Hard to find many GOPers in competitive races these last few weeks over 45/46, and we know from history that members of the incumbent party in the low to mid 40s a week out seldom win.  Even the Senate has settled down in a relatively postiive place for Dems. Using 538 Democratic candidates lead in AZ, FL and MO and NV remains a toss up (see here for how polls often understate Dem performance in NV, and the early vote is coming in very high for Democrats).  Democrats prevail in these 4 races it will be 50D/49R on election night, with control of the Senate coming down to a December special election in Mississippi. 

What should be worrying for the GOP is that the horrific spate of right wing domestic terror we've seen in recent days may be eroding, deservedly, their already weakened position. Last Tuesday's Gallup's weekly track had Trump going from -6 to -14 (44/50 to 40/54).  538's adjusted polling tool has Trump slipping from -8.9 to to between -10.8 to -11.4 in the past two weeks. The polls in the field after the Florida bomber was caught has Trump's approval at net negative 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 14, 15, 15, 16.  While this may be more noise than signal even a Trumpian fade of 2-3 points could make a big difference in the many close races across the country.  It is something to watch. 

Recent moves by the GOP House campaign committee provide further evidence the GOP position is eroding, as they have started to campaign and advertise for candidates who were thought to be safe.  Adding to the GOP challenge, Democrats have more money than ever before to make their closing arguments, and the failure of the GOP tax cut and the GOP's many years of assault on the health care of working people has given Democrats an awful lot of material to work with in these closing days.

One of the great questions of this election will be - did Trump blow it by focusing in the last few weeks on the fictional threat of the caravan rather than the economy? New reporting makes it clear the call was his (Jeff Zeleny's is perhaps the best take, more here from the WSJ).  The President admitted in an interview last night hat he needs "to soften his tone." Gaslighting? Or tactic admission his martial border close to a series of domestic terror attacks pushed away far more voters than it excited? To have your closing ad pulled down the day before the election for being too racist, even by Fox, should have been giving the President reason to wonder whether he blew it down the stretch; as would the lack of clear improvement for the GOP anyhwere in the country in the final two weeks, and very high turnout and improved Democratic numbers in heavily Hispanic parts of the country like AZ, CA, FL, NV and TX. 

Trump/GOP Weakness in the Rustbelt, Midwest, 2020 States – Throughout these late ups and downs one thing has stayed constant - a remarkable GOP weakness in the parts of the country which responded well to Trump and are critical for his re-election in 2020.  Let's drill down a bit:

GOP struggling in battleground governors races – At this point GOP gubernatorial candidates do not have a lead outside of the margin of error or even a clear lead in FL, GA, PA, OH, MN, MI, WI, IA and NV.  While a few GOPers will make it through this structural weakness in these key states has to be a big concern for Trump and the RNC heading into 2020. 

GOP Rustbelt wipeout -  Rs head into election day trailing in every competitive statewide race in IA, WI, IN, MN, MI, OH and PA.  Dems lead by 10 or more (!) in the PA Gov and Sen, OH Senate, MI Gov and Sen, MN Gov and Sen (2) and WI Sen.  that the GOP could have not been competitive in this many races in these critical battleground states, icludes 4 Trump won, remains just mindboggling. 

Part of what is driving this newfound GOP weakness is this region the very significant unpopularity of Trump’s tariffs, which remain among the most unpopular of all Trump’s policy initiatives. NDN's Chris Taylor has a smart new piece diving a bit deeper into this important dynamic, and another new analysis which found by almost every measure the economy is worse today than it was when Trump took office.  Critical the 2020 Dems study these economic trends carefully as the Presidential gears up. 

Domestic Terrorism and the 2018 Election - As the nation attempts to recover from a series of domestic terror incidents, time now to discuss and confront our most significant domestic security threat - rising right wing political violence.  I speak to this need in this Washington Post article and this new Twitter thread.  But more than anything Donald Trump should be a President these last few weeks, stood down from his absurd wag-the-dog caravan charade, and focused the nation's attention on combatting rising right wing political violence here at home and protecting Tuesday's elections from interference of any kind.  I know, it didn't happen. Rather, as we discuss above, to close the election with explicit calls for violence, to "fight back" against his political opponents - calls which I worry aren't really about winning the election but about something far more sinister. 

A New and Exciting Democratic Party Is Emerging - Many new Democratic stars have emerged since Trump was elected - Kamala Harris, Andrew Gillum, Beto O'Rourke, Mikie Sherill, Stacy Abrams....the list goes on and on.  To me what we are seeing emerge is a whole set of leaders who will guide and direct the next Democratic Party, a post Clinton/Obama, a post Trump party.  This is my 14th election day as a Democratic operative and strategist, and I will say I have never seen such a talented and capable crop of candidates running and winning across the country.  The future of the Party feels like it is in very good hands.   

For those of us in DC I think this incoming House freshman class has the opportunity to be an historic class.  The DCCC recruited an extraordinarily accomplished and compelling group this cycle, and it is the deepest and most talented class I've seen since I came to Washington (the 1996 class was pretty great). I discuss the potential of this class in a smart new piece by Ron Brownstein and counsel everyone to be very slow at assigning ideological labels other than pragmatist to many of these new arrivals. 

Having said all that, I think there are three groups arriving in January with the power to shape and influence the direction of the caucus for years to come:

Women - Women brought energy and passion to our politics this cycle, huge number of votes and an historic number of women ran and won/will win their elections.  We will have better numbers in the next few days but expect this new dynamic to be central to everything that happens in the Democratic Party in the House and more broadly across the Party in the coming years.

Patriots/National Security Democrats - Next will be a very large group of veterans and former national security officials. Joining current Members like Seth Moulton, Stephanie Murphy, Conor Lamb and Ruben Gallego, this group could become a deeply consequential one, forging American foreign and security policy for decades to come.  To me this group feels like a the type  of Democrat we haven't seen in a long time - a pre Vietnam War Democrat, a WW II and Cold War Democrats, pragmatic patriots, similar to the class full of veterans which came in 1946 after the war to serve their country again but in another way. 

The reason this new type of Democrat will be with us for some time is just the sheer number of Americans who have served in the war on terror and other military conflicts over the past 17 years.  Many of these young soldiers and security officials have now reached the age and a stage in their life where running for office became an option for them.  This is why I think this a permanent trend at least for the next 10-15 years, and one of those trends which makes the emerging Democratic Party very different from the Party of Clinton and Obama.

NDN has been writing and speaking for some time now about the Democratic Party's very real opportunity to reclaim "patriotism" from the right.  Let us hope this will be the case in the years to come.

The Democratic Socialists - While there is no doubt this new sensibility has resonance in the center-left family, it remains to be seen how powerful it will be next year.  This movement has a compelling, emerging champion in future Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, but there just aren't that many candidates running this cycle with this label as their primary affiliation.  The first two groups we discussed - women and the national secrurity Dems - will likely be much larger in number in the Senate and House next year.  Regardless of numbers, expect this new post-Bernie tribe to be loud and influential. 

While some of these new Members will get absorbed into existing groups like the New Dems, Blue Dogs, Future Forum, Hispanic/Black/AAPI Caucuses, my sense is that this class is going to be so large and its sensibilities new enough that it will itself become a force perhaps equal to any of these existing factions.  Will be fascinating to watch.  And watch this new video which brings together, powerfully, two of these trends - women and national security experience.  Hard to watch this and not sense the emergence of a new post-Clinton, post-Obama Democratic Party. 

More - If interested feel free to review my 2014 post-election analysis, "A Wake-Up Call for Democrats," and the one from 2016, "A New Generation of Democrats Will Have to Rise." I am also proud to be a two time winner of The Hill's Election Prediction contest, and look forward to competing again this year. 

Simon recently joined Nathaniel Pearlman, host of The Great Battlefield podcast, for an interview about his time in Democratic politics and his thoughts on the future of the party. Simon recounts his time working on the Dukakis and Clinton campaigns, establishing NDN and details the organization's history, and reflects on the state of the Democratic Party – Simon is bullish on the party's future.

Be sure to listen to this fun, inspiring account of Simon's experience in politics. This interview is Episode 57 of The Great Battlefield Podcast, "The state of the Democratic Party – it's not all bleak – with NDN's Simon Rosenberg."

Today, US News published Simon's latest column, “Make ACA Sign-Ups an Annual Civic Ritual.”  An excerpt –

.....Somewhere around 1 in 12 Americans of any age – about 25 million people – get their health insurance and health care through provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The annual period to sign up for insurance starts on Nov. 1, and it is critical that responsible members of both political parties – but particularly Democrats – commit time and resources to help people sign up this year.

Why is this so important? Because, remarkably, President Donald Trump's administration has taken a series of dramatic steps to make it harder for his fellow citizens to sign up under the health care law this year. It has cut the enrollment window to sign up from 12 to just six weeks, and is spending far less money marketing the enrollment period to the public (TV ad spending is dropping from $100 million to $10 million). Regional directors in the Department of Health and Human Services were told not to participate in outreach events and administrators will take down healthcare.gov on most Sunday mornings during the already shortened enrollment period. It is likely that without a significant push by office holders, community leaders, health care providers and regular citizens, millions of Americans could miss the deadline this year and end up without insurance. It is hard to believe that our government is taking such aggressive steps to make it harder for American citizens to get affordable care – but it is so. And those of us who believe in the ACA, as the law is known for short, should do something about it.

To continue reading, please refer to the US News link. You can Simon's previous US News columns here.

NDN President Simon Rosenberg has recently been quoted in several pieces about the current state and future of the Democratic Party.  While they cover a lot of ground, Simon's argument throughout is the same - we are in the early stages of a new post-Clinton/Obama Democratic Party that will be different from the one we've known for the last generation of American politics.  

Simon has also weighed in quite a bit on this topic in his own writings.  You can a collection of those articles here. 

Interviews

The state of the Democratic party - it's not all bleak - with NDN's Simon Rosenberg, Nathaniel Pearlman, October 20th, 2017, The Great Battlefield podcast.

The Articles

In 2020, Julián Castro could be one of 30 or more Democratic presidential candidates, Bill Lamrecht, November 11th, 2017, San Antonio Express-News.

Democrats rising? Early statehouse wins test new faces, Letitia Stein, October 12th, 2017, Reuters.

The Democrats' Pipeline Problem, Ronald Brownstein, October 12th, 2017, The Atlantic.

Democrats Tiptoe Around Universal Basic Income, Haley Byrd, October 2nd, 2017, Independent Journal Review.

What Do Centrist Democrats Even Stand For? Graham Vyse, September 18th, 2017, The New Republic.

With anti-'Dreamer' base outraged, Trump keeps adding to the confusion, Joe Garofoli and Hamed Aleaziz, September 14th, 2017, San Francisco Chronicle.

Democrats Must Take a Shot at Texas, Francis Wilkinson, September 12th, 2017, Bloomberg.

Democratic infighting between establishment, progressives sweeping the country, John Wildermuth, September 2nd, 2017, San Francisco Chronicle.

Could Arizona Be An Important Presidential Battleground in 2020, Mark Brodie, August 25th, 2017, KJZZ 91.5.

Veterans lining up for the Democrats in congressional races, Bill Lambrecht, July 17th, 2017, San Antonio Express-News.

If you would like to read additional articles on the topic, be sure to check out our backgrounder, "Future of the Democratic Party."

When Donald Trump returns to Arizona tomorrow, he is returning to a state that is now among the most important Presidential battlegrounds in the country.

Though it was not heavily contested by the Clinton and Trump campaigns in 2016, a combination of Trump’s structural weaknesses with Hispanic and Millennial voters and the growing share of the vote in Arizona of both these groups have made this state far more competitive than it has been in the past. Some background, and data:

Arizona now a large, core Presidential battleground state. Of the 15 expanded 2016 battleground states (AZ, CO, FL, GA, IA, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NV, OH, PA, VA, WI), Arizona was Clinton’s 11th best (losing by a margin 3.5% points). Clinton performed worse in NC (3.7), GA (5.2), OH (8.4) and IA (9.1). Arizona has more Electoral College votes (11) than 6 of these battlegrounds – WI (10), CO (9), IA (6), NV (6), ME (4), NH (4) – and almost as many as VA (13) and NC (15).

Arizona is trending Democratic. In an election that swung 1.8 % points from 2012 towards Trump, the GOP margin slipped in AZ from 9.1% points in 2012 to just 3.5 in 2016. This 5.5 point shift was the 3rd largest shift towards the Democrats of any medium to large state in 2016, only outpaced by CA (7.0) and TX (6.8). According to the 2016 exit polls, 18-29 year olds went 53-35 for Clinton and 18-44 overall went 49-39. Non-white voters, making up a quarter of the electorate, and growing rapidly, went 61-31 for Clinton. This number could clearly get much worse for Trump and Rs given Trump’s embrace of a politics seen as anti-immigrant and anti-Latino.

Arizona a sign of continued Democratic gains in the “Latin Belt.” While much attention has been given in recent months to the Rust Belt, it is important to also pay attention to what I call the “Latin Belt” – AZ, CA, CO, FL, NM, NV and TX – states with large, growing Hispanic/Latino populations. The slow migration of these states from Nixon/Reagan Sunbelt Republican states to more competitive and even now Democratic states have been one of the most important demographic stories in American politics in recent years. This region includes the 3 biggest states in the country and has 29% (153) of all the nation’s Electoral College votes. According to 538, it will add another 7 Electoral Votes in 2024 due to reapportionment.

As recently as 1984, all of these states voted Republican. All but California voted Republican in 1988. Florida remains a contested battleground. New Mexico has moved solidly into the Democratic column. Colorado (4.9) and Nevada (2.4) gave Clinton two of her four biggest margins of victory in the battleground. The remaining two – AZ and TX – moved dramatically towards Democrats in 2016.

As I wrote prior to the election, it is possible that Texas joins Arizona as a new Presidential battleground in 2020. Texas has among the highest Millennial and Hispanic share of population of any state in the US, comparable to the shares of each of these fast growing and Democratic-leaning groups in true blue California. Trump did very poorly with both of these groups in 2016 – losing 18-29s 55-36, 18-44s 49-43 and Hispanics 61-34. In a recent Texas Tribune/UTexas poll Trump’s job approval was 43-51, one of the most dramatic drops of approval he has seen in any state (TT/UT poll has similar findings as the Gallup poll referenced here).

While Trump should be comforted that he won Texas by 9 points in 2016, if Texas sees a shift in 2020 comparable to its 2016 shift of 7 points Texas could indeed join Arizona as a new Presidential battleground.

Trump’s Presidency Has Been Hostile To The Southwest/Border Region In Ways Which Are Already Causing Him Problems – While focused like a laser beam on the industrial north, Trump’s Presidency has been hostile to much of the Latin Belt, the southwestern/border region in particular. The demonization of Mexico, the border wall, the renegotiation of NAFTA, the anti-Hispanic/anti-immigrant /intolerant stances are controversial and difficult positions for him in a region of the country with many recent immigrants and which has deep cultural and economic ties with Mexico.  According to the exit polls, 2016 Presidential voters in Arizona choose legal status over deportation by 76-18 (higher than the nation), and opposed a border wall 51-45.  A new poll just released in Arizona has Trump at a dangerously low 42-55 approval, and a clear majority opposing a possible Arpaio pardon. 

I warned the White House about misunderstanding these politics in a recent US News column, "Steve Bannon Meet Russell Pearce." 

It should be instructive that among the most important opposition to Trump in both parties is coming from this region of the country. Senators Flake and McCain have become perhaps Trump’s most important GOP opponents in the US Senate, and Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Ruben Gallego have become nationally recognized leaders of the Democratic opposition.

Whatever Trump does in Arizona tomorrow – pardon Arpaio, endorse Flake’s GOP primary challenger – he returns to a core 2020 battleground state that appears to be slipping away from him and more broadly, the Republican Party. He is right to be concerned.  Whether what he does tomorrow in Arizona helps or hurts him remains to be seen.

Note: Earlier this year Simon did a longish interview with Phoenix's KJZZ 91.5 on Trump, Arizona and immigration.    

This essay was originally published on Medium.

Much of the structure of the government of the United States was designed and built in the middle part of the last century. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of 9/11 was the last big structural change. In a time of rising global competition and technological change, it is time to fashion a new government department focused solely on creating good jobs for Americans, and helping American succeed in a new world of work that requires very different skills. Let’s call it the Department of Jobs, Skills and Economic Development.

It is remarkable to consider that the executive branch of our government has no one person or department truly responsible for creating good jobs for the American people, and ensuring our workers have the skills to succeed in a changing world. These responsibilities are scattered throughout the federal government, residing in the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Education and Agriculture, the United States Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Small Business Administration and throughout the White House itself. A new Department of Jobs, Skills and Economic Development would consolidate these many disparate activities and programs in a single place, allowing for greater efficiency but also far greater strategic focus and coordination. The process of building the Department would force a debate about all the programs it would inherit, and whether they are working or can be improved. Redundant or under-performing programs could be eliminated, freeing up resources for higher priority projects. It would be a powerful department, but also should by design be a modern and skinny one — lean and mean.

Congress and the White House would ultimately decide what would end up in this new department and what would remain in other places, but certainly one could imagine some of these other departments and agencies getting subsumed entirely into this new mission. This new department (DJSED) would work closely with the economic development agencies and other agencies of the states, and learn from their best practices. Policymakers can also study how other nations tackle these challenges, and draw from their experience. The balkanization of these responsibilities in Congress would also end, and allow far greater strategic focus from our elected representatives.

One of the things this new Department can focus on is what I call a “safety net of skills and knowledge.” In the industrial age we created a safety net for our people, one that included health care and income support. It is also now time we committed to create a true system of lifetime learning, one that anticipates our citizens will need the acquisition of new skills to become routine and persistent throughout their lives. There are many ways this new 21st century safety net can get constructed and built, many pieces of it already exist, and it will evolve and mature over time. But it is something that our emerging Millennial politicians should put their minds to and help build over the coming decades. Like the Department itself, this new digital age safety net would be about taking things that are already getting done and organizing them in a way that makes them far more focused and effective.

The Department could also expand the small Economic Development Administration currently in the Commerce Department, and give it a more expansive mission that could even include national infrastructure and transportation planning and travel, tourism and trade promotion. It would work closely with the fifty states, supporting their ongoing locally driven initiatives. All fifty states have an economic development agency focused on creating growth and good jobs for their communities for a reason. It works. It is long past time the federal government and the nation had one too.

Perhaps the most important reason to create this new Department is that in my mind the only way we can respond to both the enormity of the task in front of us, and its urgency. We simply have to do more than we are doing today to help the American people succeed. And whatever we do needs to be dramatic, something real and tangible, not something that is nibbling around the edges of what is perhaps the most important challenge America faces today. We need to let the American people know we hear them, and are changing the way we do business here in Washington to make their lives better. There may be other ways of attacking this problem but creating a super-sized but lean and mean Department would be an important first step that will give us a chance of coming up with approaches commensurate to the size of the problem itself.

And the problem is real. With billions of people today contributing to the advancement of knowledge every day, our already fast world will continue to speed up. Skills and knowledge acquired in high and school and college will be far more likely to become obsolete in one’s lifetime in the 21st century, and we need ways to make continuous learning more than a slogan. Additionally, with nations across the world rising and growing modern companies, global competition for our businesses and workers is likely to get more far more intense. The time when America stood like a conquering giant above the economies of the world is long in the past, and a new age of competition and progress is with us. Our government must help its own institutions become as fast and innovative as the global economy itself, and to do far more to effectively support good, deserving Americans who work hard and play by the rules and expect more from all of us.

Perhaps this project is the Kennedy Moonshot of our time, something we know we have to do but are not quite sure how to get there. Creating a new Department with a new mission and lots of capacity and focus is a good way to start. Perhaps it is old Washington think — a reorganization! — but am open to better ideas on how we can get this done in the years ahead. Whatever you think let the debate begin. The good people of the United States deserve more from all of us in Washington as they look to compete and prosper in a far more challenging 21st century global economy.

This summer I began giving a presentation that has evolved into a new 30 minute deck called "On Patriotism and Optimism, Not Pessimism - Thoughts On The Future of America's Center-Left." The presentation, a lively talk with filled with nerdy charts and graphs, will attempt to make the case that America is not in decline and is in fact doing as well as it has in any point in our history. It is meant to be an implicit rebuttal to the core argument Trump is making about America and its decline, an argument which is malevolently selling America and its people short every day.

This deck, and the arguments within it, are my effort to help fashion a comprehensive response to the rise of Trump’s new politics. It has evolved over dozens of showings over the web and live in person to policy makers here in Washington and around the country.

There are several ways to tap into the thinking in this deck:

Watch – We show the deck live on the Internet a few times each month and do an in-person presentation once a month. Use this registration page to sign up for an upcoming webinar and this registration page for our July 11th luncheon. For additional showings, be sure to review the full schedule here.  All are welcome.

Read – We’ve put together some background reading for those who want to join us by diving into this space. It starts with the article I wrote on Medium this summer which got the ball behind “Patriotism and Optimism” going.

Review Core Slides – Below you can find some of the core slides in the deck, in PDF form. Take a look. Will give you a sense of where we are going with this, and of course leave you wanting more.

We have been pleased with the response the big arguments in this deck have received. Check it all out, and if you are interested in having me do a private showing for groups of 20 or more, please contact Chris Murphy here at NDN at cmurphy@ndn.org.

Best,
Simon

This essay was originally published on the website Medium.

So, imagine if you lived in America at a time when:

• Incomes of everyday people are at an all-time high, have been rising for at least four years now and saw their largest annual increase in recorded US history just a year ago.
• The unemployment rate is 4.3%, about at what economists consider “full employment.” This rate is historically low — over the past 70 years (821 months), the rate has only been lower in 130 of those months or just 16% of this 70 year stretch. A reminder that the unemployment rate never dipped below 5.3% during the entire Reagan Presidency.
• More people have health insurance and access to quality than any time in American history. A recently implemented health care law has materially improved the lives of tens of millions Americans in a very short period of time.
• The US stock market is at an all-time high, and 33% percent higher than any sustained high in US history and between 5 and 10 times higher than where it has been most of last 50 years. So really high.
• The high school graduation rate is the highest ever recorded.
• Violent crime rates are half of what they were a generation ago, and cities across the US are blossoming, seeing growth, investment and people once again living “downtown.”
• Teenage pregnancy rates are plummeting, and now are at all-time low.
• There has not been a foreign fighter terror attack on US soil in 16 years, few American troops are dying overseas and the US faces no true existential threat from a foreign power.
• Due to smart policies and years of investment, the flow of undocumented immigrants into the US has dramatically slowed, seeing no net increase for a decade now.
• The US is taking control of its energy future, seeing a sharp decrease in foreign oil imports and sharp, even historic, increases in the production of renewable energy.

Would that America sound like a good America to you? I think so. And of course this list describes the America of today, early June, 2017. America is not without its problems, of course. Despite our economic success, we are still leaving too many behind. Growing levels of inequality are corrosive to the social fabric and bad for the economy too. We have too much public and private debt. Tribalism, racial strife and social coherence remain daunting challenges. Mass incarceration too. The opioid epidemic is tragic, and needs far more attention and action. Too few people vote in America, and our civic life needs renewal on many fronts…..

But it is the premise of this essay that while America has very real challenges, somehow the positive side of the nation’s balance sheet — and there is a lot there — has been recklessly ignored in our national discourse. It is my contention that contrary to the claims of our President, America hasn’t lost its greatness, and that by many historical measures there has never been a better time in all of America history to be alive. Certainly better than the Great Depression, or when we held millions of slaves in cruel bondage, or when kids worked and didn’t go to school, or before there was a minimum wage or a social safety net, or when little black kids and little white kids couldn’t drink from the same water fountain, or when hundreds of thousands were dying in Vietnam, or a Cold War could lead to nuclear annihilation at any moment? Or when sky high interest rates prevented us from buying homes, or women couldn’t vote or work or pursue their dreams, or when OPEC decided to punish America, forcing us to wait in lines for hours just to buy gas? Or especially, my Republican friends, when Ronald Reagan was President and the unemployment rate never dipped below 5.3?

Which brings us to Trump. So much of what he is doing flows from the argument that America isn’t managing this new age of globalization well but being defeated by it. It is the rationale behind stripping health care from tens of millions, dismantling common sense environmental regulations, and getting out of the Paris climate deal and TPP; behind his harsh new immigration enforcement and criminal justice policies; behind his dancing with dictators and distancing himself from democracies. And of course, the data above suggests that this argument — the entire rationale for Trump’s Presidency — just isn’t true. Not even close. Things are far better than he says, or perhaps, understands.

Our new President is the first in our history to be under investigation for treason while in office. Whether he has in fact betrayed our nation to a hostile foreign power (and I think he did) will be determined soon. But to me the greater betrayal of this remarkable nation and its hundreds of millions of decent, hardworking people is the President’s denigration of our collective accomplishments over the past generation. Despite the many headwinds of the modern world America has made true, substantial progress. We are a better and more prosperous nation than we were a generation ago. Our companies lead the world in just about every possible sector, and the innovation and creativity in our private sector remains the envy of the world. Our military has no near peer, and remains the greatest fighting force ever assembled. We are taking control of our energy future, and making great strides against climate change. We are working through our unique challenges with race and tribalism, and while Trump is an obvious setback we just saw a man of color lead our nation successfully for the first time in history. Millions of new Americans are starting businesses, building families and making their mark. Our universities are the best in the world, and our public schools are getting better. I could go on and on and on.

But the bottom line is by selling us short Trump betrays both the greatness of our country and the goodness of the American people every day of his Presidency.

And this is the key. To defeat Trumpism we must be optimists, patriots, pragmatists now. To defeat the man, we must defeat his fallacious arguments about America and what we have become. While he talks down America, we must talk it up. We should be proud stewards of a great nation, but steely-eyed and resolute about tackling the real challenges that remain. In many ways, even in these nasty early days of Trump, I have never been more proud of my country, more in touch with what it means to be an American. For it remains the greatest country on Earth, the inspiration for so many — and it will reclaim that role in the days after Trump if we can together not just defeat the man, but defeat the dark pessimism his brand of politics has unleashed into America and the rest of the world.

Can we do it? In the words of another who came before, there is no doubt in my mind that “Yes, we can.”

Dear Friends,

Some days it is important to note just how unusual, and pernicious, American politics has become. Sally Yates’ testimony today reminds us that our President and his allies are under an unprecedented investigation for treason and active collusion with a hostile foreign power. The House passed ACHA and its emerging budget strategy is an extraordinary betrayal of everything Donald Trump campaigned on; would do clear, measurable harm to tens of millions of Americans in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest among us; and as Paul Krugman argues today in the New York Times represents a degree of direct lying about policy that is also unprecedented in modern American history. More stories of rank and unprecedented corruption by the Trump family once again dominate our headlines this morning. And just this morning our President took to Twitter to discuss golf and once again give clumsy cover to the Russian attack on the American homeland (and French, German and many others) last year. These things are not normal, or okay.

While there is good news out of France this morning, we cannot forget just how extraordinary this moment in American politics is. There is no “business as usual” option here, a sense that things will somehow settle down to something resembling “normal politics.” This is why we’ve so aggressively advocated that Democrats start to make these matters – the appeasement of Russia, the corruption, the epic malevolent lying, the denigration of democratic norms – front and center in their negotiations with Trump and the GOP. We cannot segregate off traditional policy considerations from these broader areas of concern as doing so will be in its own way a form of appeasement and acceptance.

We also have recently advocated that the RNC be challenged to take far more aggressive steps in combating the reoccurrence of foreign attempts to influence our elections that FBI Director Comey predicted will come. The RNC and thus the entire Republican Party and all of its members played a significant role in mainstreaming the Russian operation in the US last year, and were thus critical to its success. This shameful legacy needs to be confronted by the current leadership of the RNC, and steps taken to work with willing Democrats to create a united political front against foreign interference in our elections.

These are no ordinary times. History tells us that in times like these many well-intentioned people will fail to understand how extraordinary the moment is, and to allow wishful thinking to overwhelm good sense. We in America don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of politics, so perhaps it is understandable. But let me be as clear as day – this organization will not stop challenging those in power to meet this worrisome moment head on and with force equal to what is coming at us. Creativity, strategic thinking and good old fashioned courage are required now. And we are going to do our part in making sure that America comes out of this time stronger, wiser and more just than before. We hope you will continue to partner with us in these consequential days ahead to assure that it is so.

Best,

Simon

Monday, May 8th 2017 From Washington, DC