Trolling is Patriotic

And so are ballot initiatives

Welcome to a Saturday edition of Progress Report.

August has been a very good month for Democrats, and when compared to how the rest of the year has gone, a decent month for working people. It’s an important distinction, because as we barrel toward the midterm elections and political media coverage shifts into full-on partisan horse race mode, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that achieving power doesn’t matter if it’s not being used to make people’s lives better.

The heroic work of activists to convince Joe Biden to cancel student debt through executive action is a perfect encapsulation of why winning elections is important, but only a first step toward progress.

In today’s (mostly) good news edition of the newsletter, we’ll round up the week in political developments, election news, and policy advances and examine what they mean for the crucial months to come. Abortion, education, voting rights, polling, ballot initiatives — this one’s got it all.

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So Much Winning

If it came as a pleasant surprise that Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan included additional provisions to cancel higher loan balances and eliminate future interest, it was downright shocking when the administration pulled out a bat, revved up the Corvette, and publicly whacked a procession of Republicans hypocrites that were complaining about it.

The criticism was predictable enough, as cynical Republicans railed against their go-to cultural war straw men and moaned about elites being provided government handouts for studying gender ideology at their socialist college campuses. The twist came when the administration decided to break from its customary defensive crouch and higher ground approach. Instead, the White House unleashed a Twitter thread that highlighted the six- and seven-figure government loans that were given to ghoulish Republican politicians during the pandemic and then wiped away just last year.

This broke the tacit bipartisan agreement that keeps lawmakers from publicly pointing out the shady and even corrupt business dealings of their colleagues. It’s not something the Joe Biden we know would ever even think about doing, but it’s absolutely the sort of take-no-prisoners justice that has quickly become the calling card of the vigilante known as Dark Brandon.

In just over 24 hours, the thread has become one of the most viral in presidential history, delighting millions of people that either saw it on Twitter or read about it in the ubiquitous coverage that recapped the unexpected response. This has become a pattern over the past month, as Biden and the administration have finally decided to drop the high-minded rhetoric about bipartisanship and instead bludgeon the far-right freaks that have taken over the Republican Party.

In giving on bipartisanship, the administration has actually started to make progress in unifying a perilously fractured nation. Biden has finally recognized — or at least admitted — that the GOP has been overrun by ”semi-fascists,” as he amusingly called them in a speech on Thursday, and that in most of the country, they are remarkably unpopular.

The best part of the Dark Brandon meme is that you don’t actually have to love or even like Biden to buy into it. The sheen of irony allows for people to root for the remorseless stomping of MAGA sickos and enjoy the policy wins while not embracing everything about a president that to many still represents a flawed compromise. Being in on the inside joke gives people a vested interest in Biden’s ongoing success, which in turn helps to amplify achievements and engender loyalty.

As I predicted in this newsletter earlier this month, Democrats have rediscovered the thrill of victory and the momentum it generates. The pugilism now coming from the White House gives voters a way to share in the excitement without having to parse through very technocratic bills, which is how national Democrats generally communicate with the public. What they’re doing now is how you win elections. Make people feel like they’re winners and part of something bigger than themselves, and them that there’s more to come if they turnout in November.

Ballot Initiatives

Idaho: Republicans may hate public education, but judging by the scramble happening in Boise right now, they hate the idea of taxing the rich even more.

As we reported back in May, the progressive grassroots organization Reclaim Idaho has been canvassing the state in support of its latest ballot initiative, the Quality Education Act. Certified for the ballot last month, the initiative, if enacted, would raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy and use the proceeds to fund the state’s beleaguered public education system.

It must be polling pretty well, because Gov. Brad Little just called for a special session of the legislature to pre-empt the initiative with bills to both increase education funding while creating a very regressive flat tax.

The 14-page draft bill, which Little’s office released Tuesday, would provide $500 million in one-time tax rebates, lower the income tax rate from 6% to 5.8%, establish a flat tax rate for all income tax filers and exempt the first $2,500 of income.

The bill would also provide $330 million in ongoing, annual funding for K-12 public schools and $80 million for in-demand career training, with that portion of the money available for career-technical education, community colleges or higher education. 

The $410 annual boost would be the largest investment in public schools in Idaho history, which is an unequivocally good thing; the Quality Education Act called for about $300 million. Unfortunately, the investment would be funded by sales taxes, which is fundamentally regressive.

Little has said that if passed, this bill would effectively end the ballot initiative, though that hasn’t been officially confirmed. The Idaho teachers’ union has come out in favor of the bill, and it’s hard to blame them, given the shape of the state’s schools.

Arizona: After weeks of maneuvering and expedited hearings, the Arizona state Supreme Court ruled that two major progressive initiatives may appear on the ballot this November, while deciding that a third must wait until 2024. There’s a lot to unpack here, both good and worrisome.