The Weekly Sift

Polls for the fall election are looking good. Trump is unpopular and Democrats have a sizeable lead in the generic congressional ballot. At the moment, they’re even winning Senate races in states where they shouldn’t, like Texas. It’s now easy to imagine a Democratic House majority next year, and maybe even a Senate majority too. Replacing Trump with a Democrat in 2028 seems more and more likely. The bullet of authoritarianism may only graze us this time.

But this week I paid attention to articles wondering about next time. We thought we had dodged the bullet when we beat Trump in 2020, but somehow that victory didn’t stick. Will this one (if we achieve it) stick? Or will we be right back with a new fascist threat in 2032 or even sooner? Why do Republicans bounce back from defeat faster than Democrats? And why does each rebranding move further out, rather than returning to the center?

The answer is that the conservative movement has an institutional infrastructure powered by patient money. Those institutions will still be in place after Trump is gone, and the money that powers them will be even more motivated. Advocates of democracy need to understand this and prepare to deal with it. That’s the subject of the featured post “Power is more than just votes”, which I hope to get out around 10:30 EDT.

The weekly summary will talk about the war, Todd Blanche’s nomination, this summer’s climate-related wildfires, tomorrow’s Senate primary in Michigan, the demise of the reflecting-pool-vandalism case, and a few other things. I’ll try to get that out between noon and 1.