How the left’s rage at Joe Manchin crystallizes the Democrats’ 2022 dilemma

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From the moment Sen. Joe Manchin III started raising concerns about President Biden’s social spending bill, the outrage hurled at him from some fellow Democrats was pointed and personal. …

The intensifying anger directed at Manchin in recent weeks has brought renewed attention to a fundamental divide roiling the Democratic Party over its ideological identity. While Manchin represents an exception among Democrats in Congress — a right-of-center senator from a state that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump — some in the party fear the bitter feelings toward him mirror Democrats’ broader disconnect with voters outside of liberal urban and suburban enclaves.

At stake is whether the Democratic Party in 2022, with control of Congress on the line, has morphed into a far-left force energized by its push for a progressive agenda, or a center-left coalition with a broader appeal in rural and small-town America and other communities with centrist or swing voters. CONTINUED

Tyler Pager, Washington Post

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‘An American Tradition’: Lessons from a year covering conspiracy theories

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… I have spent this year thinking and writing about the draw to conspiracy theories, the perverse comfort they provide and the damage they can cause. Today in the United States, we are living in an era of segregated belief, of divergent realities, at a time when social media has brought us nearer to one another than ever before. It is not just that there is disagreement. Certified and recertified elections are in dispute. Viruses and their lifesaving vaccines are in dispute. So often, facts themselves are in dispute. …

I have come to understand that conspiracy theories are about certainty, about belonging and about power. They do not function like spells; they do not lull people into a trance. They are only as widespread as they are resonant. And I have also learned that the facts of people’s lives can make them more susceptible to embracing conspiratorial fallacies.

To understand the lure of conspiracy theories and alternate realities, you have to interrogate what people get out of believing such things. You have to understand the human emotions — fear, estrangement, resentment — that underlie them.

And you need to appreciate the whole story: We are not living in the age of conspiracy theories in America. We are living in America, a country with a deep tradition of them. CONTINUED

Jose A. Del Real, Washington Post

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‘Slow-motion insurrection’: How GOP seizes election power

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In the weeks leading up to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a handful of Americans — well-known politicians, obscure local bureaucrats — stood up to block then-President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn a free and fair vote of the American people.

In the year since, Trump-aligned Republicans have worked to clear the path for next time.

In battleground states and beyond, Republicans are taking hold of the once-overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a “slow-motion insurrection” with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year. CONTINUED

Nicholas Riccardi, Associated Press

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This is the worst economy we never had

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… The economy is going gangbusters — historically so. Yet Americans, particularly Republicans, express a gloom not matched by economic reality — or by their own spending behaviors. Polls and consumer-confidence indices show an economic pessimism as grim as when millions lost jobs in the pandemic shutdown. This is, in large part, because disinformation has prevailed. Partisanship long colored economic views, but now Republicans, in addition to occupying a parallel political reality, are expanding an alternate economic universe. CONTINUED

Dana Milbank, Washington Post

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An Early Midterm Forecast

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Political observers seem to be treating a Republican takeover of the US House next year as an inevitability. And maybe that’s true, but I wanted to apply a bit of simple modeling to it to see if we can get some handle on how likely that is to happen. The quick version is that yeah, a Republican takeover is quite likely. But please bear with me, as there are some important details and caveats here.

To come up with a forecast, I’m using a model that predicts House seats loss for the President’s party using a measure of economic growth — real per capita disposable income. CONTINUED

Seth Masket (U. of Denver), Mischiefs of Faction

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Harry Reid Had a Rare Political Superpower

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Senator Harry Reid, who died a few weeks after his 82nd birthday, possessed a quality unique among politicians: profound comfort in his own skin. In his personal life, this brought him peace of mind. In politics, it was practically a superpower. …

Mr. Reid’s deep-rooted sense of self had a huge impact on politics and federal policy, allowing him to identify and pursue strategic goals with clarity, unmuddied by ego. He evaluated tactics based on whether they would advance his goal. If they gained him an inch of advantage, that was enough. CONTINUED

Adam Jentleson, New York Times

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