What You Need to Read (and Watch) About Politics 11/16
My roundup of the week's most important stories
One dilemma for any news consumer in 2023 is the plethora of partisan and ideological sources, as well as accusations of bias that call into question whether you can trust reporting. It’s a far cry from the days of three networks, a local newspaper or two, and after 1980, CNN.
My general rule of thumb about partisan and ideological sources is to consult them, but with my eyes wide open. There are a lot of sharp partisans or ideologically guided reporters/columnists who have good sources — especially on their respective side of the aisle — good insights, and access to lots of data. So to ignore them would diminish what someone knows about the world.
But I know that what I’m reading is a slant – possibly with an agenda behind it. I consider potential motivations when I’m digesting claims and information and I also try to consult sources across the ideological spectrum so I can balance my understanding and keep from getting sucked into one side’s narrative.
I do exclude the most outrageous or infotainment sources — things like Breitbart or conservative talk radio — unless I am looking for insight into what conservative media is saying about a given topic, or how Republican politicians might approach something.
I raise this issue because two of the 36 links (from 19 different sources) below provide the perspectives of Tom Bonier, a Democratic data guru, and Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, on what the 2023 election results might mean for 2024 and the state of play a year out from the presidential election. I included them because Rosenberg and Bonier were two of the few voices who got the 2022 midterms right. Honestly, besides the two of them, the only person I recall being close was…me. Which isn’t to pat myself on the back so much as a way of saying: people who got 2022 right were few and far between.
Their accuracy indicates to me that in a highly uncertain environment where polling has often been inaccurate and narratives have proved wrong, these are two people with a more accurate grasp of where the electorate is.
But as Rosenberg’s piece reminds, they both want to elect Democrats. So I’ve also been reading far and wide on the election results last week, even though I don’t think they tell us a ton about 2024. Additionally, I’ve read a lot about the Democratic freak out over President Biden’s polling. That’s why you’ll find numerous links below on the 2023 results, and what they tell us about the potency of abortion as an issue, the state of play in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, and what the parties are taking away from the results. There are also some data analyses below.
Moreover, you’ll find several meaty articles on Biden’s standing and the Democratic angst, including a reminder from Barack Obama’s former campaign manager about how little polling means at this stage of an election cycle. I also have several links below tied to last week’s Republican debate. Frankly, I didn't write anything myself, because the debate wasn’t really newsworthy and did nothing to change the basic reality that Donald Trump is the overwhelming Republican favorite. One piece also points to alarming comments Trump made last week that really highlight the stakes of the race.
I’m always tinkering with this column to try to make it more user friendly. So you’ll find articles sub-divided into categories: Congress, 2023 election wrap up, 2024, abortion, etc. This should make it easier to find articles in your particular area of interest. I’ve also included five tweets, because they can often convey a lot of good information in short form, and a bunch jumped out at me in the last two weeks.
The articles on Congress focus primarily on the absolute train wreck that is the House of Representatives and its Republican majority. Things aren’t going any better under new Speaker Mike Johnson than they did under Kevin McCarthy. I’ve selected a bunch of stories that address the situation, dig into the reasons why the House is such a mess, and explain what we might expect moving forward.
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