Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Kenny Stancil at Common Dreams writes—
Shedding more light on a significant electoral trend that progressives have drawn attention to in the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. election, a new analysis by Earther found that of the 93 House co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution who ran for reelection this year, only one lost their congressional race.
"Simply put," wrote journalist Brian Kahn in Earther, "the Green New Deal is not a political loser," including for representatives in swing districts.
Kahn identified four House co-sponsors who represent districts that "range from very slightly Democratic to moderately Republican," according to Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index.
Of those four, three—Reps. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), Jahana Hayes (D- Conn.), and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.)—have already "decisively won their reelection bids," while the fourth, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D- N.Y.), is projected to win handily "once all mail-in ballots are counted."
"This quick-and-dirty analysis," Kahn said, "aligns with other data showing that representatives who have sponsored and voted for progressive policies were not punished by voters."
As Common Dreams reported this weekend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and others pointed out that every single congressional member who ran for reelection this year as a supporter of Medicare for All won their race.
Ocasio-Cortez hinted that her team would be "running numbers" on the Green New Deal—of which she is the lead House sponsor—next. As Earther's analysis showed, the reelection rate for representatives who co-sponsored the Green New Deal resolution was nearly 100% as well, with 92 out of those 93 congressional members retaining their seat.
"Saying progressive policies held Democrats back from expanding their House majority/taking the Senate just doesn't hold water with data available so far," Kahn noted on Twitter.
THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING
John Kasich Contributed Nothing to Biden’s Election, So Why Should Democrats Listen to His Claptrap? by John Nichols. Kasich claims the left harmed Democrats. Wrong. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and movements boosted turnout and helped swing key states.
Another Election, Another Round of Poll Bashing. Is That Fair?, by Michael Shulson. Forecasts once again substantially underestimated the extent of support for Trump. But does that mean they failed?
The El Paso Experiment, by Melissa del Bosque. A Public Defender’s Lonely Fight Against Family Separation.
TOP COMMENTS
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
~~Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship In A Republic,” (April 23, 1910)
At Daily Kos on this date in 2016—Reminder: Donald Trump has made a lot of promises for his first day in the Oval Office:
Exactly what a Donald Trump presidency would look like is something that the media rarely grappled with in the run-up to the election. Because issues and governance are boring, amirite? But Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy compiled a list of things Trump had promised to do on his first day in office, and that’s worth revisiting. Here’s a taste:
- "Repeal every single Obama executive order." (He has also pledged more specifically to "eliminate every unconstitutional executive order.")
- "Repeal Obamacare." (On Trump's campaign website, he's less bullish, promising only to "ask Congress" on day one to repeal Obamacare immediately.)
- "End the war on coal."
- "Begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country." (More specifically, Trump has promised to do this in his "first hour" in office, "day one, before the wall, before anything.")
- "Begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall."
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