Business Insider:
Joe Biden just announced the lineup of his climate and energy Cabinet. Meet the key players.
- President-elect Joe Biden has picked former Obama officials and some policy experts from outside of Washington to enact his climate and energy agenda.
- Biden's environmental picks include ex-Obama EPA boss Gina McCarthy, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, and Rep. Deb Haaland, one of the first Native American women elected to Congress.
- They'll be busy enacting Biden's climate agenda while working to unravel many of the policies the Trump administration put in place over the last four years.
- Because prospects for big climate legislation are slim in Congress next year, most of Biden's climate change agenda will be hammered out by officials in the White House and in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.
Matt Yglesias/Slow Boring ($) has an interesting take on the Democratic election performance:
Why Trump's Latino gains matter
A suggestion that progressives' theory of Trump-era politics is wrong
But beyond the surprisingness question, I think Trump gaining in this community is worth paying attention to for the very reason that a lot of people don’t want to pay attention to it: it challenges and complicates the influential progressive view that Trump’s political success was based exclusively on mobilizing white supremacist sentiments.
This is something we’ve looked at in depth over the last few years, which is to say what’s the attraction for Trump voters? Turns out it’s multidimensional but two key related factors are education vs non education in depth (i.e. cultural divide), and a focus on immigration. The education piece has been analyzed since 2016, but in south TX, e.g, it is wrapped up withs jobs vs theory (for example, who can and can’t work from home). When the jobs are in oil, you vote that way.
And In 2016 The Wall was everything, which turned off many BIPOC voters. In 2020 it was downplayed down the memory hole, partially thanks to a media that forgot about kids in cages as old news.
David Shor did a fascinating podcast with Chris Hayes this week (no paywall) that took a similar crack at it. he makes the case that overwhelmingly, persuasion mattered.
Jeremy Samuel Faust, Harlan M. Krumholz And Rochelle P. Walensky/NY Times:
People Thought Covid-19 Was Relatively Harmless for Younger Adults. They Were Wrong.
New research shows that July may have been the deadliest month for young adults in modern American history.
Young adults are dying at historic rates. In research published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, we found that among U.S. adults ages 25 to 44, from March through the end of July, there were almost 12,000 more deaths than were expected based on historical norms.
In fact, July appears to have been the deadliest month among this age group in modern American history. Over the past 20 years, an average of 11,000 young American adults died each July. This year that number swelled to over 16,000.
EJ Dionne/WaPo:
Joe Biden may be tougher than the GOP expects
True, Biden’s visit this week on behalf of the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff reflected differences in the stakes involved. Democrats already enjoyed a solid majority in the Senate after the election 12 years ago. This year, they need to win both Georgia races to get to 50 seats and control the Senate, thanks to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.
But by campaigning, Biden is also signaling that however strong his affection might be for an older, less polarized politics, he understands that it’s not the 1970s — or 2008 — anymore. The radicalization of the Republican Party is a fact he is coming to accept.
Thus, he pulled no punches in his tough attack Monday on the efforts of President Trump and his GOP allies to discredit this year’s election outcome. He called it “an unprecedented assault on our democracy” that “refused to respect the will of the people, refused to respect the rule of law and refused to honor our Constitution.
Dan Diamond/Politico:
‘We want them infected’: Trump appointee demanded ‘herd immunity’ strategy, emails reveal
Then-HHS science adviser Paul Alexander called for millions of Americans to be infected as means of fighting Covid-19.
A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a "herd immunity" approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by a House watchdog and shared with POLITICO.
“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD," then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.
Axios:
Scoop: Top Biden aide's "f--ker" quote under fire
Between the lines: This is one of the first signs of division in a team that's prided itself through the campaign and transition on unity, message discipline and minimal leaks, and is now preparing to govern.
- "For those of us who, from Day One, bought into Biden's calls for civility and a return to normalcy, this isn't just beyond the pale — it's plain stupid," said one Biden donor.
The other side: "Could she have used a different adjective, sure," said one Biden official. "But if you know Jen ... she is real, she is authentic, she says it how it is."
O'Malley Dillon didn't respond to a request for comment.
Guess what? It’s a nothing story! The beauty is how many reporters repeated the comment uncensored and how many others said, oh fuck this, they are. I mean, after Trump’s outrages, you have to work to find something to be mad about with Biden.