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Vox
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Vox
Biden cost Democrats the 2024 election — but not in the way you think
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. Joe Biden lost it before he even won the presidency. This is the most notable revelation in Original Sin, a new book-length exposé of the Biden White House by Axios's Alex Thompson and CNN's Jake Tapper. Thompson and Tapper mostly fill in the details of a story we already knew: Biden's cognition declined sharply over his final two years in office, and his core advisers schemed to disguise this reality from donors, Democratic officials, and the public. But the authors also vindicate those who believed that Biden was already in rough shape before he ever won the presidency. Their book suggests that the former president's cognitive decline began after the tragic death of his son Beau from brain cancer in 2015. By December 2019, Biden was having difficulty remembering the name of his top adviser Mike Donilon, whom he'd worked with for 38 years, and conducting coherent conversations with voters over Zoom. Original Sin is a sad book, made all the sadder by this week's news that Biden has metastatic prostate cancer. It is also an infuriating read that illuminates the selfishness and self-delusions that led an unwell octogenarian to run for a second presidential term — and a team of sycophantic advisers to conceal his condition from the public (and possibly, even from himself). This story was first featured in The Rebuild. Sign up here for more stories on the lessons liberals should take away from their election defeat — and a closer look at where they should go next. From senior correspondent Eric Levitz. This said, Original Sin's core argument — that Biden's reluctance to retire was the primary cause of Democrats' defeat in 2024 — is unconvincing. Thompson and Tapper argue that had Biden ducked out of the 2024 race in a timely manner, 'a competitive primary and caucus process would have produced a stronger Democratic nominee, one who had more experience with debates and taking questions from reporters, one with a more cogent and precise answer as to why they were running, one with time to introduce themselves to the American people.' But the idea that competitive primaries inevitably elevate strong candidates — and/or make mediocre ones better — is undermined by the book's own reporting. In truth, had Biden dropped out earlier, Democrats plausibly could have done even worse last year. The former president definitely undermined his party. But he made his politically damaging decisions long before the 2024 campaign. Why a 2024 primary might have been bad for Democrats Thompson and Tapper's confidence that competitive primaries inevitably yield strong candidates is bizarre. After all, by their own account, the last contested Democratic primary produced a nominee who was incapable of vigorously campaigning, speaking coherently off the cuff, or remembering the names of close friends. Perhaps, Biden was nevertheless the strongest candidate whom Democrats could have possibly mustered in 2024. But if so, that says nothing good about the party's process for picking presidential nominees. In reality, Biden won the 2020 primary because he had been vice president in 2016. His former post provided him with a degree of name recognition and cachet that no other moderate could match. The vice presidential aura was strong enough to compensate for Biden's dearth of early financing, oratorical incompetence, and stumbles in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Thanks largely to his résumé, Biden triumphed in South Carolina, thereby establishing himself as the only viable alternative to Bernie Sanders. The party's center-left swiftly consolidated behind him. All this has implications for what a 2024 primary would have looked like. Specifically, it suggests that Kamala Harris would have been extremely likely to win such a contest. Harris wasn't merely a former vice president, but a sitting one. She didn't repel donor enthusiasm (as 2020 Biden had) but inspired it. Counterfactuals are impossible to prove. No one can know with certainty how an open 2024 primary would have gone. Knowing how things turned out in our timeline, I wish such a contest had occurred, on the off chance that it would have produced a different outcome. But I think Harris would have probably won the 2024 primary. And there's a decent chance she would have emerged from it worse for wear. A primary could have hurt Harris in 2024 Recall that Harris's 2020 primary campaign rendered her a weaker general election candidate four years later by associating her with unpopular positions on immigration, healthcare, and much else. Harris likely would have taken a more cautious approach to position-taking in a 2024 primary (as she did during her general election bid). But a contested primary would have forced her to either make high-profile concessions to Democratic interest groups with unpopular demands or else loudly reject those stances. Either way, she was liable to engender bitterness among one part of her coalition or another. To be clear, this process may have been valuable. In my view, the Biden administration was complicit in Israeli war crimes in Gaza. It's theoretically possible that a contested primary could have led Harris (if not, Biden) to embrace a more adversarial posture toward the Israeli government. But from a purely electoral perspective, elevating divisive intra-Democratic arguments over Gaza, immigration, and other issues in early 2024 probably wouldn't have been to the party's benefit. All of which is to say, it's plausible that Biden dropping out so late actually redounded to his party's benefit. His tardy departure enabled Harris to immediately focus on appealing to the general electorate. And although Harris's advisers argue that their campaign's truncated timeline hurt them, it's not obvious that this is true. In many cases, presidential nominees have grown more unpopular the longer they've been in the national limelight: Hillary Clinton's favorable rating fell from 64 percent in 2014 to 38 percent in 2016, according to Gallup's polling. And Harris appears to have suffered from the same basic trend: Her favorable rating was 48.8 percent last September but fell to 46.7 percent by Election Day, in RealClearPolitics's polling average. It's therefore possible that Harris benefited from having a shorter campaign calendar. Related This is why Kamala Harris really lost Joe Biden still owns Trump's reelection None of this is meant to exonerate Biden for Donald Trump's reelection. To the contrary, no Democrat is more responsible for that outcome. It is very difficult for a political party to win another lease on the White House when its president is historically unpopular. And in November 2024, Biden's approval rating sat at 37 percent. We don't live in a just political universe. Much of Biden's unpopularity was undeserved. Any president who happened to be in power in 2022 was all but certain to preside over inflation, thanks to COVID's aftermath and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Given the circumstances, Biden's economic record has much to recommend it. Nevertheless, it remains the case that Biden presided over historically high inflation, which he did virtually nothing to combat. And he also oversaw a historic surge in unauthorized immigration that was politically toxic (despite being economically beneficial), and failed to address majoritarian discontent with record asylum inflows until late in his tenure. Throughout all of this, he saddled Democrats with a standard-bearer who could barely string sentences together off the cuff. All this meant that, in 2024, Democrats needed a nominee who either had distance from the White House or generational political talent (and ideally, both). By choosing a running mate in 2020 who 1) plainly had presidential ambitions and 2) was a suboptimal standard bearer for Democrats nationally, Biden made it extremely unlikely that his party would have what it needed in last year's race. Harris ran a respectable campaign. Given Biden's unpopularity, the fact that she came only 230,000 votes short of an Electoral College majority is an achievement. But she had obvious weaknesses as a general election candidate: She was a California liberal who'd taken some deeply unpopular stances in the past, had never won an election outside of a deep blue area, and struggled to speak cogently and confidently in interviews. That Harris wasn't an ideal Democratic nominee isn't just my opinion — it was also Biden's. The former president's advisers told Tapper and Thompson that his true 'original sin' was 'picking Kamala Harris because his heart was with Gretchen Whitmer.' It is always irresponsible for a presidential nominee to pick a running mate whom they believe would make a weak national candidate. But it is especially reckless for a 78-year-old presidential nominee to do so. Yet that is what Biden knowingly did in 2020, according to his own inner circle. The most important lessons of 2024 have little to do with Biden's age Obviously, one lesson that Democrats should take from the last four years is 'it's bad to conceal the rapid mental deterioration of an elderly presidential candidate.' But that shouldn't be the party's primary takeaway — both because it's unlikely to be relevant again in the near future and because Biden's age ultimately wasn't Democrats' biggest problem last year. Voters didn't reject Harris because her boss was old, but rather, because they believed that Democrats would do a worse job of managing the economy and immigration, and that Trump was closer to them ideologically than Harris was. The more pertinent lessons of 2024 are that 1) Democratic presidential nominees must prioritize political talent over sycophancy or identity when selecting running-mates and 2) Democratic administrations must strive to address the electorate's top concerns when in office. More concretely, Democrats as a party must put distance between themselves and Joe Biden.
Vox
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Vox
Can Democrats win over Trump voters with this one issue?
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. Young voters' priorities aren't that different from the broader electorate's — in one survey, only 8 percent of young voters said climate change as their top issue in 2024. Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images Many liberals would like the Democratic Party to put climate change at the center of its messaging and policy agenda. They would also like Democrats to win more elections. In a recent column in the Washington Post, former Washington governor and presidential candidate Jay Inslee argued that there is no tension between these two objectives: The best way for Democrats to defeat Republicans is to focus more on bold climate action. Inslee's case can be broken down into three claims: Democrats lost in 2024 largely because their support among younger voters fell sharply. Young voters care about climate change. In fact, according to the Associated Press' polling , 60 percent of young Trump voters are concerned about the climate. Therefore, 'to present a compelling vision to the next generation,' Democrats 'should focus on the issue that simultaneously represents the greatest threat to them and the clearest delineation between the two parties' — climate change. Inslee is right that young voters swung hard against the Democratic Party in 2024. AP VoteCast, a high-quality exit poll, showed Kamala Harris winning voters under 30 by just 4 points. By contrast, Joe Biden won young voters by more than 20 points in 2020. And it's also true that young voters are more worried about climate change than older ones. Nevertheless, the evidence for Inslee's fundamental thesis — that the best way for Democrats to win back power is to focus more on climate — is weak. The problem with his argument is simple: Voters — both old and young — do not consider climate change a top priority. And focusing on an issue that voters care relatively little about isn't a great way to win their support. This story was first featured in The Rebuild. Sign up here for more stories on the lessons liberals should take away from their election defeat — and a closer look at where they should go next. From senior correspondent Eric Levitz. Voters – including young ones – do not consider climate change a top priority When Gallup asked Americans last year which issues were most important to their vote, climate change ranked 21st out of the 22 issues tested — above transgender rights but below 'relations with Russia.' A separate Gallup survey right before the election asked Americans to name their country's most important problem, and only 2 percent mentioned climate change or the environment. Similarly, in Pew's polling published in February on the biggest problems facing America today, climate change came in at 17th. In his op-ed, Inslee's prime concern is with winning over young voters, on the grounds that declining youth support for Democrats was 'the dynamic that caused' Trump's election. But this is an overstatement. Democrats also lost ground with voters over 30 in 2024. And since older voters far outnumber younger ones, Democrats can't afford to give exclusive consideration to the latter's concerns. This said, young voters' priorities aren't actually that distinct from the broader electorate's. According to AP VoteCast data — which Inslee himself cites — only 8 percent of young voters listed climate change as their No. 1 issue in 2024, while 40 percent named the economy and jobs. The share of younger voters who considered climate change a top three issue is more substantial. In Tufts University's post-election survey of the youth vote, 26 percent of respondents put climate as one of their top three priorities. Yet this still constitutes a small minority of the under-35 voting population. Notably, young Americans who did not cast a ballot in 2024 were especially unlikely to prioritize climate, with only 18 percent putting the issue in their top three. Voters already know the Democratic Party cares a lot about climate change (and that may be a problem) A proponent of Inslee's strategy might blame Democrats for the public's limited concern about climate change. After all, political parties have influence over which issues are and are not salient. If Democrats centered climate change in their messaging, perhaps voters would start prioritizing the issue. But there are a couple problems with this reasoning. First, as Inslee himself writes, Democrats did put climate at the center of their agenda under Biden, making 'historic investments in clean energy' through the Inflation Reduction Act. And Biden and Harris spoke frequently about the need to combat the climate crisis. Yet none of this was sufficient to turn climate change into a top 15 issue for the American public. Second, and most critically, Americans are well aware that the Democratic Party deems climate change a policy priority. In January, when the New York Times and Ipsos asked voters to name the issues that are most important to Democrats, climate came in third. In other words, the party does not need to put greater emphasis on climate in order to convey its commitment to decarbonization — that message is already coming through. And last year, Harris won voters who considered climate change one of their top three issues by 70 points, according to Navigator Research. The problem is simply that such voters aren't very numerous. This is a point that progressive donors and activists are liable to miss, since voters who prioritize climate change are heavily overrepresented in their social circles. According to polling from Democratic data firm Blue Rose research, wealthy and/or 'very liberal' Democrats are much more likely than the broader public to name climate as a top concern. Meanwhile, on the issues that Americans do broadly prioritize — such as the cost of living, the economy, and inflation — Republicans boasted a double-digit advantage in 2024. Focusing more rhetorical energy on climate change is unlikely to enhance Democrats' credibility on bread-and-butter issues. To the contrary, there's reason to fear it would hurt that cause. One of the party's biggest challenges today is that voters don't think Democrats share their priorities. In the Times's poll mentioned above, voters were asked to name their top five issue priorities and then those of the Democratic Party. Respondents said their top issues were the economy, health care, immigration, taxes, and crime — while the Democrats' were abortion, LGBT policy, climate change, the state of democracy, and health care. In other words, they suggested that Democrats weren't focused on their top concerns, with the exception of health care policy. This sense that Democrats are more preoccupied with niche social causes than the middle-class's core material needs surfaces in other survey data. For instance, even after Trump engineered an economic crisis in April with his unpopular tariffs, Quinnipiac still found the public evenly split on the question of which party 'cares more for the needs of people like you.' Making progress on climate requires removing the GOP from power. Thus, were Democrats to put greater emphasis on climate change, they would risk perpetuating the idea that the party does not share ordinary Americans' priorities. And doing so would also risk directly undermining the party's standing on the cost of living. Inslee rightly notes that it is possible to reduce emissions and raise living standards simultaneously. But it's nevertheless true that there are some tensions between cutting carbon pollution and increasing affordability in the near term. The climate movement has sought to block new fossil fuel extraction and transport projects, an objective that would limit the supply of energy in the near term, thereby potentially increasing costs. Therefore, if Democrats signal that climate change is their overriding concern, some voters may conclude that the party isn't committed to keeping gasoline or home heating oil cheap. Or so some polling would suggest. During the Biden administration, Blue Rose gauged the persuasive impact of hundreds of Republican messages by polling voters, exposing them to a conservative argument, and then polling them again to see if any had switched their voting intentions. The firm found that one of the GOP's best attack lines — one that outperformed 90 percent of all other Republican messages — was, 'Since Day 1, Biden has waged war on energy independence. His failed policies, like canceling the Keystone Pipeline, have led to Americans paying higher heating costs.' Related This is why Kamala Harris really lost Getting Democrats to focus rhetorically on climate – and making actual progress on decarbonization – may be conflicting goals To be fair to Inslee, he acknowledges that young voters are preoccupied with the cost of living. And his vision for climate policy foregrounds direct material benefits for ordinary people: He touts the fact that Washington's 'cap-and-investment' program has subsidized working families' electric bills and provided young people with free access to transit. This is a fine program. And a national version might deserve a place on Democrats' laundry list of policy proposals. But the idea that the party's most electorally expedient message is one that centers climate change just isn't plausible. This doesn't mean that Democrats should never discuss the climate crisis, or advocate for emissions-reducing policies. But the party should not overestimate the political utility of the issue. Climate change is a top priority for progressive donors and activists — but not for swing voters, old or young.
Vox
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Vox
Democrats can afford to fight for Kilmar Abrego Garcia
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. A rally in support of Kilmar Abrego Garcia takes place outside the US District Court for the District of Maryland on April 15, 2025, in Greenbelt, Maryland. Maansi Srivastava/The Washington Post via Getty Images President Donald Trump has been sending undocumented immigrants to a mega prison in El Salvador without due process. Most of these deportees have no criminal record, yet our government has condemned them to indefinite incarceration in an infamously inhumane penitentiary. In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration admits that its deportation order was unlawful. In 2019, a court had ruled that Abrego Garcia could not be sent to El Salvador, as he had a credible fear of being persecuted in that country. The White House attributed his deportation to an 'administrative error.' The Supreme Court has ordered Trump to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the United States, but the White House refuses to comply and has publicly vowed that Abrego Garcia is 'never coming back.' Some Democrats believe that their party must call attention to this lawless cruelty. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and four progressive House members have traveled to El Salvador in recent days to check on Abrego Garcia's condition and advocate for his due process rights. But other Democrats fear their party is walking into a political trap. After all, voters are souring on Trump's handling of trade and the economy, but still approve of his handling of immigration. Some Democratic strategists therefore think that Van Hollen and other progressive advocates for Abrego Garcia are doing the president a favor: By focusing on the plight of an undocumented immigrant — instead of the struggles of countless Americans suffering from Trump's tariffs — they have increased the salience of his best issue and reinforced the narrative that Democrats care more about foreigners than about the American middle class. This story was first featured in The Rebuild. Sign up here for more stories on the lessons liberals should take away from their election defeat — and a closer look at where they should go next. From senior correspondent Eric Levitz. As one strategist told CNN, 'The impulse among lots of Democrats is to always crank the volume up to 11 and take advantage of whatever the easiest, most obvious photo opportunity is. In this case, you get a situation where you're giving the White House and the Republicans a lot of images and visuals that they think are compelling for them.' Some progressives have declared this argument morally bankrupt. But I don't think that's right. Democrats have a moral responsibility to defend both America's constitutional order and its most vulnerable residents. It does not follow, however, that they have a moral duty to hold press events about Abrego Garcia's case — even if such photo ops do nothing to abet his liberation, while doing much to boost Trump's political standing. In my view, the argument that Democrats are doing more harm than good by taking a high-profile stand in favor of due process is not immoral, but simply mistaken. Van Hollen's trip has plausibly benefited US residents unlawfully detained in El Salvador. And the political costs of such dissent are likely negligible, so long as Democrats keep their messaging about immigration disciplined and eventually shift their rhetorical focus to Trump's economic mismanagement. The case for Democrats to dodge a high-profile fight over Trump's deportations So far as I can tell, no Democrat is arguing that the party should acquiesce to Trump's lawless deportations. The concerned strategist who spoke with CNN stipulated that 'Democrats should stand up for due process when asked about it.' Rather, the argument is that 1) the party should not go out of its way to elevate immigration as an issue, or invite the impression that the rights of undocumented immigrants are its chief concern, and 2) congressional delegations to El Salvador risk doing precisely that. The case for this position is fairly simple. Voters are much more supportive of Trump's handling of immigration than of his economic management. In data journalist G. Elliott Morris's aggregation of recent issue surveys, voters approve of Trump's handling of immigration by 2.7 points, while disapproving of his approach to inflation and the cost of living by 21.8 points. Therefore, anything Democrats do to increase the salience of immigration plausibly aids Trump. What's more, elevating Abrego Garcia's cause above other issues could give voters the impression that Democrats are not prioritizing their own economic concerns. Or at least, this is what Republican strategists seem to believe. Following House progressives' trip to El Salvador, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement, 'House Democrats have proven they care more about illegal immigrant gang bangers than American families.' The NRCC proceeded to air digital ads against 25 swing-district Democrats, in which it offered to buy the representatives' airfare to El Salvador if they promised to 'livestream the whole thing and snap plenty of selfies with their MS-13 buddies.' For those urging Democrats to embrace message discipline, focusing on the due process rights of the undocumented is a lose-lose proposition, accomplishing nothing of substance while damaging the party politically. In this view, Van Hollen's trip to El Salvador did not actually help Abrego Garcia, whose fate still lies with America's court system and the White House. To the contrary, Democrats are effectively giving Trump an incentive to ship more undocumented immigrants to a foreign prison without due process. After all, the president wants his opponents to take high-profile stances in defense of the undocumented. If Democrats teach him that they will do precisely that — so long as he violates immigrants' due process rights — then they will have made such violations more likely in the future, not less. Meanwhile, this faction of wary strategists insist that their party has a genuine image problem. Yes, Trump's tariffs are deeply unpopular. And as their economic impacts surface, the president's trade policies are liable to become more salient, no matter what Democrats say or do. But thus far, the public's declining confidence in Trump is not translating into rising confidence in the Democratic Party. Historically, Democrats always outperformed Republicans on the question of which party 'cares more for the needs of people like you,' outpolling the GOP by 13 points on that score as recently as 2017. Yet in a Quinnipiac poll taken after Trump single-handedly engineered an economic crisis with his 'Liberation Day' tariffs, the two parties are tied on that question. What's more, even as the public sours on Trump, the GOP remains more popular than the Democratic Party. In a new Pew Research survey, voters disapproved of Trump's job performance by a 59 to 40 percent margin. Yet the Republican Party's approval rating in that same survey was 5 points higher than the Democrats', with only 38 percent of voters expressing support for the latter. Democrats have time to improve their image; the midterms are well over a year away. So some might wonder why the party should fret about increasing the salience of an unfavorable issue so far from Election Day. But there's an argument that the party should be doing everything in its power to increase its popularity — and reduce Trump's — right now. Businesses, universities, and various other civic institutions will need to decide in the coming weeks and months whether to comply with the president's illiberal attempts to discipline their behavior. The weaker Trump appears to be, the less likely it will be that American civil society acquiesces to authoritarianism. Thus, from this vantage, message discipline is a moral imperative. Centering Democratic messaging on Abrego Garcia's case might help ambitious Democrats earn small-dollar donations and adoration among the party's base. But it undermines effective opposition to Trump's authoritarian regime. Related How Trump could defeat himself Why Democrats should learn to stop worrying and love standing up for due process This argument is reasonable. But in my view, it understates the potential benefits of vigorous advocacy against Trump's lawless deportations and overstates the political harms. On the substance, Democratic officials flying to El Salvador to check on Abrego Garcia's condition could plausibly deter abuses against him and other immigrant detainees in that country. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele may be a reactionary aligned with Trump, but he is surely aware that the United States has a two-party system. His government therefore must give some thought to its relationship with a hypothetical future Democratic administration. Thus, by advocating so forcefully for US residents unlawfully imprisoned in El Salvador, the Democratic Party has given Bukele some incentive to, at a minimum, keep Abrego Garcia and others like him alive (something that his government routinely fails to do with its prisoners). Meanwhile, bringing a measure of comfort to an American unlawfully disappeared to a foreign prison is a clear moral good. In an interview with Vox's Today, Explained podcast, Van Hollen said that Salvadoran authorities have not allowed Abrego Garcia to communicate with his family or his lawyers. Rather, they had kept him isolated from the entire outside world, until a US senator demanded a meeting with him. Only through Van Hollen's intervention was Abrego Garcia's wife able to send her greetings to him, or even confirm that her husband was still alive. If an elected official has the power to serve a constituent in this way, it seems worthwhile that they do so. The prospect that Van Hollen might have effectively encouraged more unlawful deportations by taking this course of action — since Trump wants his opponents to do photo ops on behalf of undocumented immigrants — merits consideration. But it strikes me as far-fetched. One could just as easily posit that Democrats ducking this issue entirely would have emboldened Trump to ramp up unlawful deportations. Ultimately, I think the president's ambitions on this front will be determined by the scope and persistence of the judiciary's opposition, not by Democratic messaging. It seems possible — perhaps, even likely — that Democrats loudly advocating for Abrego Garcia is politically suboptimal, relative to a monomaniacal focus on the economy. But so long as Democrats act strategically on other fronts, I think the political costs of taking a stand on due process are likely to be negligibly small, for at least five reasons: First, as far as progressive immigration positions go, 'The Trump administration should honor court orders and the due process rights of longtime US residents' is pretty safe territory. In March, a Reuters-Ipsos poll asked Americans whether Trump 'should keep deporting people despite a court order to stop?' — they said no by a margin of 56 to 40 percent. And an Economist-YouGov poll released Wednesday found voters specifically agreeing that Trump should bring Abrego Garcia back by a 50 to 28 point margin. If Democrats frame Abrego Garcia's case as a question of Americans' civil liberties — while reiterating their party's commitment to enforcing immigration law and securing the border — they should be able to mitigate any political cost inherent to elevating this issue. And that has largely been Van Hollen's message. As the senator argued at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, 'I keep saying I'm not vouching for Abrego Garcia. I'm vouching for his constitutional rights because all our rights are at stake.' Second, there does seem to be some scope for eroding Trump's advantage on immigration. On March 1, polls showed voters approving of the president's immigration policies by more than 10 points. Surveys taken in the last 10 days, by contrast, show that margin has fallen to 2.5 points. It is unclear whether Democrats' messaging on the Abrego Garcia case had any impact on this decline. But given the timing, that possibility cannot be summarily dismissed Third, some influential right-wingers endorse the Democratic position on Abrego Garcia. Last Thursday, pro-Trump podcaster Joe Rogan detailed his misgivings about the president's violations of due process: What if you are an enemy of, let's not say any current president. Let's pretend we got a new president, totally new guy in 2028, and this is a common practice now of just rounding up gang members with no due process and shipping them to El Salvador, 'You're a gang member.' 'No, I'm not.' 'Prove it.' 'What? I got to go to court.' 'No. No due process.' Defending a principle mutually endorsed by Joe Rogan and the Roberts Court does not seem like the riskiest stand that Democrats could take. Fourth, I'm not sure that the media's coverage of this controversy looks all that different in the alternate dimension where Democrats voiced opposition to Trump's actions when asked, but otherwise spoke exclusively about his failed economic policies. The president exiling US residents to a foreign prison — and refusing to attempt to repatriate one of them, in defiance of the Supreme Court — is a huge news story. This is a much more shocking and unprecedented event than the House GOP's quest to cut Medicaid, even if the latter will ultimately inspire more voter backlash. In a world where Van Hollen and his House colleagues never go to El Salvador, the general subject of immigration might have received marginally less media attention over the past week. But I think the effect here is quite small. Fifth, Democratic officials are not speaking out on this entirely at their own direction. Their party's base is understandably alarmed by the president's lawlessness. Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost said he traveled to El Salvador because he had received 'hundreds and hundreds' of emails and calls from his constituents demanding action on this issue. Thus, there might be some cost to Democratic fundraising and morale, were the party's officials to uniformly avoid calling attention to the controversy. All this said, I think it's true that the optimal political strategy for Democrats is to focus overwhelmingly on economic issues. Voters are more concerned with prices and economic growth than with due process. And Trump is most vulnerable on tariffs, Medicaid cuts, and his economic management more broadly. I just don't think that dedicating some time and energy to championing bedrock constitutional principles — 19 months before the midterm elections — is by itself a perilous indulgence. In any event, to this point, it has proven entirely compatible with driving down Trump's approval rating, which has fallen by 7 points since February in Pew's polling. Related Trump has two options after a wrongful deportation Democrats need to find the economic equivalent of going to El Salvador Going forward, Democrats do need to convey that their top concern is Americans' living standards. If Trump moves ahead with anything resembling his current trade policy, his approval is likely to fall, irrespective of Democratic messaging. But the party needs to make sure that voters see it as an effective alternative on economic issues — one that cares more about the needs of people like them.
Vox
11-04-2025
- Business
- Vox
The problem with the 'progressive' case for tariffs
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. Or at least, they are bitterly bickering over what their party's stance on trade should be. Last week, as 'Liberation Day' unraveled global markets, House Democrats defended several aspects of Trump's trade ideology on social media. In a video posted by the caucus's X account, Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania explained that Washington's failed 'free trade' consensus — the steady lowering of tariff barriers over the past 80 years — had constituted a 'race to the bottom' that 'hollowed out our industrial power' and 'cost us good jobs.' Nevertheless, Deluzio argued that Trump's 'trade strategy has been chaotic' and 'inconsistent.' America did need tariffs — but ones that were carefully targeted and paired with pro-union policies and government subsidies. This story was first featured in The Rebuild. Sign up here for more stories on the lessons liberals should take away from their election defeat — and a closer look at where they should go next. From senior correspondent Eric Levitz. Some progressives, on the other hand, appreciated Deluzio's nuance. In their account, acknowledging the failings of free trade — and the necessity of supporting domestic manufacturing — was a precondition for persuading working-class voters to trust Democrats on the issue. This debate collapses together two distinct questions: 1) Is Deluzio's analysis right on the merits? 2) Is his message a politically optimal one for Democrats at the national level? I think the answer to both of these is 'mostly, no.' Free trade did not hollow out American industry Deluzio's case for moderate protectionism can be broken down into (at least) three different claims: Free trade agreements hollowed out America's industrial capacity. Free trade has been bad for American workers. Tariffs are a useful tool for advancing economic justice, since they help prevent a global 'race to the bottom,' in which corporations search for the world's cheapest and most exploitable labor. I think these claims are all largely — though not entirely — wrong. Let's examine each in turn. It's not clear precisely what it means for a nation's 'industrial power' to be 'hollowed out.' But presumably, Deluzio means that trade has sapped America's power to produce industrial goods. And it's certainly true that foreign competition and offshoring have shuttered many US factories, depressed manufacturing employment, and reduced domestic production of some goods. Still, Deluzio's rhetoric is misleading on two levels. First, trade has not been the primary cause of falling manufacturing employment. Rather, this is mostly attributable to economic development: When countries get richer, consumers spend a smaller share of their incomes on goods, and a higher share on services (people only need so many dishwashers, while their appetite for better health or longer lives is nearly inexhaustible). Which means that, over time, the economy needs fewer people to work in factories, and more to work in hospitals, nursing homes, child care centers, and other service-sector industries. Meanwhile, automation has progressed more rapidly in goods production than in services. Together, these two forces have dramatically reduced manufacturing's share of employment in all wealthy countries, including those with the most protectionist trade policies. Second, although US manufacturing employment has fallen precipitously, US manufacturing output has not. In fact, such output is much higher today than it was in the 1980s, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data. Courtesy of Federal Reserve Economic Research And America remains the No. 2 manufacturing power in the world: Despite being home to only 4.2 percent of the global population, the United States is responsible for roughly 16 percent of global manufacturing output. One can quibble with these figures, which conceal major shifts in the types of goods that America produces. But I don't think most people would look at this data and conclude that America's industrial power had been 'hollowed out.' Free trade has benefited US workers as a whole Deluzio also implies that free trade has been bad for American workers. And there is little doubt that some US communities have been devastated by trade-induced factory closures. But evidence suggests that globalization has been beneficial for American workers as a whole. Even the famous 'China shock' paper — which alerted economists to the concentrated harms of trade liberalization with China — found that most Americans benefited from such liberalization, as access to cheaper goods increased their real wages. In fact, the median US worker's real personal income — in other words, their annual income adjusted for inflation — was about 18 percent higher in 2023 than it had been when America normalized trade relations with China in 2000, and 38 percent higher than when NAFTA took effect in 1994. This reality cuts against many popular narratives. But it is intuitive. One hundred percent of Americans consume goods, while less than 10 percent produce them. Even in the 1990s, less than 20 percent of Americans worked in manufacturing. Therefore, trade policies that reduced prices of goods were always likely to materially benefit the vast majority of US workers, even if they did take a toll on American manufacturing. Tariffs aren't a great tool for making the global economy more just Deluzio, like many progressives, suggests that tariffs can advance economic justice. After all, free trade enables corporations to 'exploit their workers' abroad, while eliminating good jobs in the United States. Sen. Bernie Sanders recently put the point more explicitly, arguing that America must stop large corporations from moving jobs to 'low-wage countries.' There may be some circumstances in which trade restrictions — or at least, the threat of them — can yield progressive outcomes. For example, during Trump's first term, the US threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico if it did not agree to a new version of NAFTA, which included enhanced labor rights for Mexican workers. Mexico ultimately embraced this new trade agreement, and its workers have seemingly benefited. But as a general rule, putting tariffs on goods from 'low-wage countries' does not save poor workers abroad from exploitation so much as it condemns them to more severe poverty. Wages in Vietnam and Bangladesh are extremely low by American standards. Yet they are much higher than they were before those countries became major exporters. In fact, as Vietnam and Bangladesh have become more integrated into the global economy, their poverty rates have fallen dramatically. As the progressive economist Joan Robinson once quipped, 'The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.' We should aspire to a world with higher baseline labor standards. Workers in poor nations should not have to choose between hyper-exploitation and impoverishment. But slapping high tariffs on goods from low-wage countries will not change the fundamental dynamics of global capitalism. Rather, such a policy would simply increase global poverty, while raising consumer prices in the United States, thereby reducing the real wages of almost all American workers. It is hard to see a progressive case for prioritizing the interests of some small subset of US workers (such as those facing low-wage, foreign competition in manufacturing) over the interests of both the global poor and the American working class, especially since there are other ways of improving blue-collar Americans' economic fortunes, such as expanding collective bargaining rights and social welfare benefits. There is no reason in principle why working-class Americans can't earn good salaries in service-sector jobs. As policy analyst Matt Bruenig notes, McDonald's workers in Denmark earn higher wages than autoworkers in Alabama. Tariffs are increasingly unpopular Even if Deluzio's argument is substantively misguided, it could still be politically wise. And there is a case for Democrats to signal skepticism of free trade, even as they oppose Trump's approach to curtailing it. Voters have often expressed sympathy for protecting US industry and skepticism of trade's benefits. In a 2024 Pew Research survey, 59 percent of Americans said the United States has 'lost more than it has gained from increased trade with foreign nations.' And yet, around the same time, a Gallup poll showed 61 percent of American adults saw 'foreign trade' as more of 'an opportunity for economic growth through increased U.S. exports' than as 'a threat to the economy from foreign imports.' The public's apparently contradictory sentiments about trade had a simple explanation: Most people simply did not have strong opinions about trade policy. In Pew's polling, trade ranked near the bottom of Americans' 2024 priorities. But Trump's tariffs have changed this. In the last few weeks, America's average tariff rate has jumped from historically low levels to the highest mark since 1909. It would not be remotely surprising if a policy change this gigantic rapidly shifted public opinion on trade. And the available survey data suggests that it has. In Gallup's current polling, the percentage of Americans who see trade primarily as 'an opportunity' has jumped to 81 percent. Meanwhile, a new survey from Navigator Research shows that Americans disapprove of tariffs by a 28-point margin; last August, they had disapproved by only 11 points. And even before Trump's 'Liberation Day' announcements, the Wall Street Journal's polling showed support for his tariffs falling sharply. If Trump persists with his current policies, America will likely see both a recession and surge of inflation. And this economic pain will be directly attributable to tariffs. In that scenario, we should expect Americans' weakly held ideological sympathy for protectionism to erode even further. Related America may be headed for this rare type of economic crisis For these reasons, Democrats likely don't need to caveat their criticisms of Trump's tariffs, at least at the national level. The party would probably be better off with a more focused message. This doesn't mean defending the ideological abstraction of 'free trade,' but rather, emphasizing that a Republican president has just enacted a historically large middle-class tax hike, which is increasing prices and risking recession. Ultimately though, I'm not sure that Democrats need to sweat the details here. Swing voters tend to be more politically disengaged than partisans, and are not hanging on every word posted from the House Democrats' X account. For them, rising prices and falling 401(k) values are likely to make the case against Trump's trade policies more eloquently than any Democrat ever could. Deluzio's argument might still be the right one for his district. But at the national level, his hyperbolic claims about free trade's costs do not look politically necessary. And since such hyperbole arguably helped bring about today's economic woes, Democrats shouldn't needlessly engage in it.
Vox
10-04-2025
- Business
- Vox
Trump's tariffs are Democrats' golden opportunity. Are they botching it?
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. Or at least, they are bitterly bickering over what their party's stance on trade should be. Last week, as 'Liberation Day' unraveled global markets, House Democrats defended several aspects of Trump's trade ideology on social media. In a video posted by the caucus's X account, Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania explained that Washington's failed 'free trade' consensus — the steady lowering of tariff barriers over the past 80 years — had constituted a 'race to the bottom' that 'hollowed out our industrial power' and 'cost us good jobs.' Nevertheless, Deluzio argued that Trump's 'trade strategy has been chaotic' and 'inconsistent.' America did need tariffs — but ones that were carefully targeted and paired with pro-union policies and government subsidies. This story was first featured in The Rebuild. Sign up here for more stories on the lessons liberals should take away from their election defeat — and a closer look at where they should go next. From senior correspondent Eric Levitz. Some progressives, on the other hand, appreciated Deluzio's nuance. In their account, acknowledging the failings of free trade — and the necessity of supporting domestic manufacturing — was a precondition for persuading working-class voters to trust Democrats on the issue. This debate collapses together two distinct questions: 1) Is Deluzio's analysis right on the merits? 2) Is his message a politically optimal one for Democrats at the national level? I think the answer to both of these is 'mostly, no.' Free trade did not hollow out American industry Deluzio's case for moderate protectionism can be broken down into (at least) three different claims: Free trade agreements hollowed out America's industrial capacity. Free trade has been bad for American workers. Tariffs are a useful tool for advancing economic justice, since they help prevent a global 'race to the bottom,' in which corporations search for the world's cheapest and most exploitable labor. I think these claims are all largely — though not entirely — wrong. Let's examine each in turn. It's not clear precisely what it means for a nation's 'industrial power' to be 'hollowed out.' But presumably, Deluzio means that trade has sapped America's power to produce industrial goods. And it's certainly true that foreign competition and offshoring have shuttered many US factories, depressed manufacturing employment, and reduced domestic production of some goods. Still, Deluzio's rhetoric is misleading on two levels. First, trade has not been the primary cause of falling manufacturing employment. Rather, this is mostly attributable to economic development: When countries get richer, consumers spend a smaller share of their incomes on goods, and a higher share on services (people only need so many dishwashers, while their appetite for better health or longer lives is nearly inexhaustible). Which means that, over time, the economy needs fewer people to work in factories, and more to work in hospitals, nursing homes, child care centers, and other service-sector industries. Meanwhile, automation has progressed more rapidly in goods production than in services. Together, these two forces have dramatically reduced manufacturing's share of employment in all wealthy countries, including those with the most protectionist trade policies. Second, although US manufacturing employment has fallen precipitously, US manufacturing output has not. In fact, such output is much higher today than it was in the 1980s, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data. Courtesy of Federal Reserve Economic Research And America remains the No. 2 manufacturing power in the world: Despite being home to only 4.2 percent of the global population, the United States is responsible for roughly 16 percent of global manufacturing output. One can quibble with these figures, which conceal major shifts in the types of goods that America produces. But I don't think most people would look at this data and conclude that America's industrial power had been 'hollowed out.' Free trade has benefited US workers as a whole Deluzio also implies that free trade has been bad for American workers. And there is little doubt that some US communities have been devastated by trade-induced factory closures. But evidence suggests that globalization has been beneficial for American workers as a whole. Even the famous 'China shock' paper — which alerted economists to the concentrated harms of trade liberalization with China — found that most Americans benefited from such liberalization, as access to cheaper goods increased their real wages. In fact, the median US worker's real personal income — in other words, their annual income adjusted for inflation — was about 18 percent higher in 2023 than it had been when America normalized trade relations with China in 2000, and 38 percent higher than when NAFTA took effect in 1994. This reality cuts against many popular narratives. But it is intuitive. One hundred percent of Americans consume goods, while less than 10 percent produce them. Even in the 1990s, less than 20 percent of Americans worked in manufacturing. Therefore, trade policies that reduced prices of goods were always likely to materially benefit the vast majority of US workers, even if they did take a toll on American manufacturing. Tariffs aren't a great tool for making the global economy more just Deluzio, like many progressives, suggests that tariffs can advance economic justice. After all, free trade enables corporations to 'exploit their workers' abroad, while eliminating good jobs in the United States. Sen. Bernie Sanders recently put the point more explicitly, arguing that America must stop large corporations from moving jobs to 'low-wage countries.' There may be some circumstances in which trade restrictions — or at least, the threat of them — can yield progressive outcomes. For example, during Trump's first term, the US threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico if it did not agree to a new version of NAFTA, which included enhanced labor rights for Mexican workers. Mexico ultimately embraced this new trade agreement, and its workers have seemingly benefited. But as a general rule, putting tariffs on goods from 'low-wage countries' does not save poor workers abroad from exploitation so much as it condemns them to more severe poverty. Wages in Vietnam and Bangladesh are extremely low by American standards. Yet they are much higher than they were before those countries became major exporters. In fact, as Vietnam and Bangladesh have become more integrated into the global economy, their poverty rates have fallen dramatically. As the progressive economist Joan Robinson once quipped, 'The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.' We should aspire to a world with higher baseline labor standards. Workers in poor nations should not have to choose between hyper-exploitation and impoverishment. But slapping high tariffs on goods from low-wage countries will not change the fundamental dynamics of global capitalism. Rather, such a policy would simply increase global poverty, while raising consumer prices in the United States, thereby reducing the real wages of almost all American workers. It is hard to see a progressive case for prioritizing the interests of some small subset of US workers (such as those facing low-wage, foreign competition in manufacturing) over the interests of both the global poor and the American working class, especially since there are other ways of improving blue-collar Americans' economic fortunes, such as expanding collective bargaining rights and social welfare benefits. There is no reason in principle why working-class Americans can't earn good salaries in service-sector jobs. As policy analyst Matt Bruenig notes, McDonald's workers in Denmark earn higher wages than autoworkers in Alabama. Tariffs are increasingly unpopular Even if Deluzio's argument is substantively misguided, it could still be politically wise. And there is a case for Democrats to signal skepticism of free trade, even as they oppose Trump's approach to curtailing it. Voters have often expressed sympathy for protecting US industry and skepticism of trade's benefits. In a 2024 Pew Research survey, 59 percent of Americans said the United States has 'lost more than it has gained from increased trade with foreign nations.' And yet, around the same time, a Gallup poll showed 61 percent of American adults saw 'foreign trade' as more of 'an opportunity for economic growth through increased U.S. exports' than as 'a threat to the economy from foreign imports.' The public's apparently contradictory sentiments about trade had a simple explanation: Most people simply did not have strong opinions about trade policy. In Pew's polling, trade ranked near the bottom of Americans' 2024 priorities. But Trump's tariffs have changed this. In the last few weeks, America's average tariff rate has jumped from historically low levels to the highest mark since 1909. It would not be remotely surprising if a policy change this gigantic rapidly shifted public opinion on trade. And the available survey data suggests that it has. In Gallup's current polling, the percentage of Americans who see trade primarily as 'an opportunity' has jumped to 81 percent. Meanwhile, a new survey from Navigator Research shows that Americans disapprove of tariffs by a 28-point margin; last August, they had disapproved by only 11 points. And even before Trump's 'Liberation Day' announcements, the Wall Street Journal's polling showed support for his tariffs falling sharply. If Trump persists with his current policies, America will likely see both a recession and surge of inflation. And this economic pain will be directly attributable to tariffs. In that scenario, we should expect Americans' weakly held ideological sympathy for protectionism to erode even further. Related America may be headed for this rare type of economic crisis For these reasons, Democrats likely don't need to caveat their criticisms of Trump's tariffs, at least at the national level. The party would probably be better off with a more focused message. This doesn't mean defending the ideological abstraction of 'free trade,' but rather, emphasizing that a Republican president has just enacted a historically large middle-class tax hike, which is increasing prices and risking recession. Ultimately though, I'm not sure that Democrats need to sweat the details here. Swing voters tend to be more politically disengaged than partisans, and are not hanging on every word posted from the House Democrats' X account. For them, rising prices and falling 401(k) values are likely to make the case against Trump's trade policies more eloquently than any Democrat ever could. Deluzio's argument might still be the right one for his district. But at the national level, his hyperbolic claims about free trade's costs do not look politically necessary. And since such hyperbole arguably helped bring about today's economic woes, Democrats shouldn't needlessly engage in it.
