‘A Crisis Coming’: The Twin Threats to American Democracy

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… American democracy is facing two distinct threats, which together represent the most serious challenge to the country’s governing ideals in decades.

The first threat is acute: a growing movement inside one of the country’s two major parties — the Republican Party — to refuse to accept defeat in an election. …

The second threat to democracy is chronic but also growing: The power to set government policy is becoming increasingly disconnected from public opinion.

The run of recent Supreme Court decisions — both sweeping and, according to polls, unpopular — highlight this disconnect. Although the Democratic Party has won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections, a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees seems poised to shape American politics for years, if not decades. And the court is only one of the means through which policy outcomes are becoming less closely tied to the popular will. CONTINUED

David Leonhardt, New York Times

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The Economic Pit and the Political Pendulum: Predicting Midterm Elections

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We were given the following prompt in July 2022 and asked to write a response: “The Economy, Stupid: Accepted wisdom has it that it’s the economy that matters to voters. Will other issues matter in the upcoming midterm elections, or will it really be all about the economy?”

In the Gallup poll taken that month, 35% of Americans listed the economy as one of the most important problems facing the country today, a value which is neither high nor low from a historical perspective. What does this portend for the 2022 midterm elections? The quick answer is that the economy is typically decisive for presidential elections, but midterm elections have traditionally been better described as the swinging of the pendulum, with the voters moving to moderate the party in power. CONTINUED

Andrew Gelman (Columbia) & Chris Wlezien (U. of Texas at Austin), Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

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Christian Nationalism on the rise

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An Idaho town grapples with questions about the role that religion should play in the public square as Christian rhetoric rises in American conservative politics.

Meet the Press, NBC News

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A hard 2020 lesson for the midterms: Our politics are calcified

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… Voters are increasingly tied to their political loyalties and values. They have become less likely to change their basic political evaluations or vote for the other party’s candidate. This is not just polarization but calcification. And just as it does in the body, calcification produces rigidity in our politics — even when dramatic events suggest the potential for big changes. …

Paradoxically, a calcified politics co-exists with frequent changes in who controls the government. This is because of the increasing parity in the two parties’ electoral strength. …

Calcified politics and partisan parity combine to produce a self-reinforcing cycle. When control of government is always within reach, there is less need for the losing party to adapt and recalibrate. And if it stays on the same path, voters have little reason to revise their political loyalties. CONTINUED

John Sides (Vanderbilt), Chris Tausanovitch (UCLA) & Lynn Vavreck (UCLA), Washington Post

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The political numbers that explain the Abbott and DeSantis migrant decisions

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Republican governors like Greg Abbott of Texas, and more recently Florida’s Ron DeSantis, have been making a habit of sending migrants located in their Sun Belt states to northern Democratic-voting cities. While there may be policy reasons for their decisions, there are clear political considerations as well.

Both men, especially DeSantis ahead of a potential 2024 presidential bid, are using one of the most potent issues in Republican circles — immigration — to play to the base of their party in a number of ways. …

Worries about immigration at large are reaching new heights for Republicans. Gallup polling from earlier this year showed that 87% of Republicans were dissatisfied with the level of immigration into the country. That’s higher than any point this century. …

But the GOP governors’ actions aren’t only about immigration. It’s also about making Democrats look bad, especially considering they tend to support far more liberal policies on immigration. CONTINUED

Harry Enten, CNN

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Americans are paying more and getting less as inflation hits home

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… Despite a strong job market and near record-low unemployment, 37% of Americans say their personal finances have gotten worse in the last year, according to a new NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll. That’s an 8-point jump since February. Twice as many people now say their economic situation has worsened as say it has improved.

Most blame the worst inflation the United States has seen in four decades. Consumer prices across the board rose 8.3% in August from a year earlier, according to government data released this week. Price increases in some areas were even steeper. CONTINUED

Scott Horsley, NPR News

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