Bill Scher

Why Memory Hole the Biden-Harris Successes?  | Washington Monthly Democrats have an odd history of throwing out the good and the bad when it comes to their presidents. They shouldn’t repeat that mistake.

"Democrats are now in the familiar position of casting about for a charismatic savior ... A better use of time and energy from Democrats is reminding voters that their party has a long and deep track record of economic repair..."

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/08/06/w...

Why Memory Hole the Biden-Harris Successes?  | Washington Monthly Democrats have an odd history of throwing out the good and the bad when it comes to their presidents. They shouldn’t repeat that mistake.

Why look to the past at all? Because Democrats have a story to tell that’s relevant to the future. Time and time again, Republican presidents leave behind economic messes, and Democratic presidents clean them up -- @billscher.bsky.social:

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/08/06/w...

Thanks! (But the URL got changed.)

Thank you!

Why Memory Hole the Biden-Harris Successes?  | Washington Monthly Democrats have an odd history of throwing out the good and the bad when it comes to their presidents. They shouldn’t repeat that mistake.

Could not agree more with @billscher.bsky.social: Why Memory Hole the Biden-Harris Successes? Democrats have long been the party that takes governing seriously and the party Americans can trust when Republicans take the economy off the rails. Talk about that! 
washingtonmonthly.com/2025/08/06/w...

“‘The Republican Party is going to lose a lot of votes around here,’ said Ricardo Sandoval, 35, a trucking and warehousing businessman in Laredo who supported Mr. Trump in November.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/u...

CBO: Republican megabill to cost $4.1T, due to higher borrowing costs The measure is also expected to add trillions to the federal deficit.

"the Congressional Budget Office estimated the [Republican budget reconciliation bill] will increase the federal deficit by $4.1 trillion over a decade. Because the bill’s red ink is not offset ... the legislation will drive up interest rates."

www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

Uhhhhh

The Presidency of George H. W. Bush After George H. W. Bush lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton in 1992, John Robert Greene’s verdict on the 41st president of the United States was t...

@tricksybelden.bsky.social kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700620791/

Kevin Hassett is having a brutal time during this Meet the Press appearance. Completely unequipped to defend the firing of the head of labor statistics

Time to renew your trust in ADP jobs reports

How the Republican Texas Redistricting Scheme Could Backfire   | Washington Monthly Texas Republicans are betting on Latino voters to flip five districts red. But Trump’s policies may drive them left.

“How the Republican Texas Redistricting Scheme Could Backfire” — my latest for @washingtonmonthly.com

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/08/01/t...

Just learned tonight that "Bloom County" is still going and Opus got deported to Alligator Alcatraz

Henry Ford vs. Elon Musk: A Century of Hate Speech | Washington Monthly Each auto mogul paid a price for their hate speech. Will the Tesla and SpaceX CEO find a way to learn Ford's lesson?

From “Fuck Oil” to A Flame War with Trump: The evolution of Elon Musk, with a look back at his awful ancestor, Henry Ford. @washingtonmonthly.com @billscher.bsky.social @mattizcoop.bsky.social washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/31/h...

Another weird thing about the Commerce Department website: no press releases in over month. Is anybody working there? www.commerce.gov/news/press-r...

I'm sure this isn't new but I just noticed this on the Commerce Department homepage

How many times have Democrats won elections by defending Social Security?

“Democrats Get Lowest Rating From Voters in 35 Years” began the headline from The Wall Street Journal. “The new survey finds that 63% of voters hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party,” the Journal reports, “the highest share in Journal polls dating to 1990 and 30 percentage points higher than the 33% who hold a favorable view.” The newspaper’s poll is far from the first survey to show the party’s brand in the dumps. In an NBC News poll from March, just 27% of voters had positive opinions of the Democratic Party, its “lowest positive rating in NBC News polling dating back to 1990.” A CNN poll this month put the party’s favorability at 28%, the lowest since 1992.

As my colleague Steve Benen noted, the first sign that most Democrats shouldn’t be alarmed comes from the Journal’s same poll. Forty-six percent of voters said that if the midterm elections were held, they’d back a Democrat for Congress, compared with 43% who would back a Republican. The Journal adds that “at this point in 2017, the Democratic lead was 8 percentage points,” but even a 3-point lead would be more than enough to at least flip the House. (And as polling analysts G. Eliot Morris and Mary Radcliffe note, there’s no correlation between a party’s favorability rating this far out and its performance in an election.)

Democratic leaders should be familiar with this dynamic, as it afflicted the most significant Democratic legislation of the last 20 years. After President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats enacted the Affordable Care Act in 2010, polls consistently showed the new law was unpopular. After Republicans swept to victory in the midterms later that year, GOP politicians had every reason to expect the new law’s unpopularity would make Obama a one-term president. But when given the chance to explain their view, a chunk of the bill’s opponents said it didn’t go far enough. Voters for whom Obamacare didn’t go far enough were never going to vote Republican, and indeed the ACA was no obstacle to Obama’s securing a relatively comfortable re-election. Today, the law is viewed more favorably than ever.

Most Democratic politicians, then, shouldn’t be worried. The party is doing even better in special elections this year than it did in the first year of Trump’s first term, according to analysis by The Downballot. The same CNN poll with risible favorability numbers for Democrats also found 72% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters are “extremely motivated” to vote in the midterms, 22 percentage points higher than Republicans. And Trump’s approval ratings are well underwater as he enters the first August of his new term, often a rough month for presidents (think George W. Bush and Hurricane Katrina or Joe Biden and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan).

For @msnbc.com, I wrote about why another poll is showing both the Democratic Party's brand in the dumps *and* the party leading on the generic ballot. Hint: It's Obamacare again.

(with help from @gelliottmorris.com, @aedwardslevy.bsky.social and @the-downballot.com) www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley declines to respond to President Trump’s demand that he scrap the blue slip for district level judicial nominees

The Republican Disaster Relief Disaster and the Democratic Path Forward   | Washington Monthly Trump’s FEMA is gutting disaster relief even for red areas. Democrats have an opening to argue for strong federal support where states can’t.

Trump isn't just saying he'd eliminate FEMA. He's doing it, rejecting requests for disaster aid & passing the buck to cash-strapped state/local govt

Dems have a huge opportunity to remind voters why we need robust federal govt

More in @washingtonmonthly.com

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/28/t...

Too kind, thank you!!!

Always read bill

The Republican Disaster Relief Disaster and the Democratic Path Forward   | Washington Monthly Trump’s FEMA is gutting disaster relief even for red areas. Democrats have an opening to argue for strong federal support where states can’t.

"The Republican Disaster Relief Disaster and the Democratic Path Forward" -- my new @washingtonmonthly.com column

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/28/t...

Democrats Should Get Tough and Quit Negotiating Spending Bills  | Washington Monthly Republicans broke the budget deal. Democrats should stop negotiating and let them keep the government open alone.

I don't like to be too hard on them, but I think the better course of action is to just walk away from negotiations washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/22/d...

Four would be enough to deny a simple majority for a recissions package

What Van Hollen is floating here is that Dems will cooperate on FY26 spending bills that keep the government open IF 4 Senate Republicans publicly state they won’t later vote for a recissions clawback.

Vought accuses Fed of ‘fiscal mismanagement’ Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought accused the Federal Reserve on Sunday of “fiscal mismanagement” amid tensions between the White House and the Fed. “The President has b…

Well.

So.

Who’s gonna tell the…sorry, just checking my notes…director of he OMB, that fiscal management isn’t the Fed’s job it’s…checking again…his.

The gaslighting will continue until forever, I guess

Trump’s Trip to Scotland Echoes an Earlier Visit, When He Applauded Brexit

“Brexit happened, but it’s very hard to argue, even by its most ardent proponents, that it has been anything other than a comprehensive disaster.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/w...

The president is right that tariff revenue is up. What he doesn't talk about is where that revenue comes from. Even if companies are absorbing some of the Trump import taxes in margins, that's money out of shareholders' pockets.
There is no free lunch.