Saikat Chakrabarti Runs for Pelosi's Congressional Seat + Thomas Ferguson evaluates Democratic failure

You'll read all about conventional Democrat Weiner running for Pelosi's congressional seat in the "lame-stream" news, but the absolute minimum about the progressive challenger, Saikat Chakrabarti. He's come from AOC's staff, and is very clear about the progressive goals he embraces. For the full story, read or listen to his interview with The Intercept.

One excerpt:"So the thing I’ve been working on at my think tank New Consensus, we’re calling it the “Mission for America.” And it really harkens back to basically what FDR did during the New Deal, but also during the mobilization for World War II to build a whole new economy because I think that’s ultimately the way we defeat authoritarianism. Because back in the 1930s, we had a really powerful, far right in this country. We were actually seeing Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden, it was filling the stadium.

"And the way we defeated that was FDR came in with the New Deal movement. He built this whole new economy and a whole new society that improved people’s lives so dramatically, it just killed this idea that you need an authoritarian to do it for you.

"He proved democracy can work. And he did that through the social safety net. But he also did that by building an industrial base that created the modern-day middle class. So that’s really what the “Mission for America” is. It’s basically taking a lot of the institutions and the lessons from that era and saying, how do we do that today? Because I argue that it’s not just about some policies; it’s actually this whole other kind of governing that we had back then." 

Meanwhile, Thomas Ferguson evaluates Democratic chances here Hint: follow the money.  

Excerpt:

"The old line continues in a new way as people try to understand the Trump economy. Paul Krugman and many others continue to maintain that Biden left a good economy that Trump is ruining. The very last months of Biden’s term were somewhat better, but the dominant tendency is a deepening of the dual economy Storm and I spotlighted with the continuing stock market boom. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston just put out a study of wealth, income, and consumption spending. It concludes that it’s the rich who are benefiting hugely in both wage growth and spending, not the lower-income groups. Other studies confirm this. 

"Indeed, segments of the business press now routinely refer to the “K-shaped economy,” alluding to the divergence between top and bottom in income and wealth. Most stories manage not to mention quantitative easing and the Fed’s role, but they document very clearly the way retail sales and other spending divide in our dual economy. That tendency became stronger during Biden’s term, especially once the relief programs were withdrawn and access to health insurance fell. Even the Wall Street Journal has come around on this point.

"The process has been going on for quite a long time, yet Democratic Party elites mostly felt comfortable discussing it in terms of second-order effects suffused in references to racism and gender. You could see that very clearly in 2016, where virtually everybody’s election analysis focused on race and gender. By contrast, in the analysis that Ben Page and my colleagues and I did, we were very clear that Trump’s ascent was first of all an economic story. You only had to listen to him talk to realize that race and gender were also playing big roles in his electoral appeals. But the importance of the economic squeeze on many Americans was clear from day one, as was the disenchantment of many Democratic voters with the party.

"It’s not getting better. Little in the “abundance agenda” now touted by many Democrats addresses the real problems. The recent paper from economists at the San Francisco Fed showing that supply constraints don’t explain housing construction and prices in US cities is devastating, for example. So is the evidence Storm and I presented about electricity rates; you don’t explain those by NIMBYism. Electricity prices are classic cases of money in politics distorting regulation."

Nick French

"To summarize where that leaves the Democrats right now: They still push this narrative that Biden had a great economy, that he delivered for workers. He only lost because the workers are confused by social media or because they don’t care about economic issues…

Thomas Ferguson

"Or the party has somehow not found a message. That’s another nonsense bromide. The Democrats failed to deliver for most Americans who were not rich, full stop."