First State slate romps

I guest-hosted our podcast Deconstructed again this week, and was joined by my colleague Nausicaa Renner (whose twitter is here) and the heterodox economist Jamie Galbraith, who has the wisdom not to tweet. If you read his essay earlier at The Intercept, you know that he has a series of proposals that he persuasively argues are required if we’re ever going to get the economy running again. It’s interesting that both the Biden and Trump campaigns more or less agree that once we get through the coronavirus pandemic, the economy will return to how it was. The difference between the two is that Trump insists it will simply just “go away,” while Biden argues for a forceful combination of state and federal intervention, increased personal responsibility, and the advent of mass testing and ultimately a vaccine. 

But what about the other side of all this? Galbraith argues that the pandemic’s multiple shocks to the system require a response that is both different in approach and more aggressive in its application than the actions taken in the 2008 financial crisis. You can listen here.

If you missed my note last week, I covered the progressive wave that rolled through Rhode Island. This week, another one stormed through Delaware’s primaries.

The Working Families Party, which played a major role in both, had quite a year. All told, in Delaware, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas, they helped elect 33 new progressive state legislators, the kinds of wins that can have exponential effects, as other lawmakers see which way the wind is blowing and shift their own orientation in response. 

Programming note: My book We’ve Got People is now being stocked at Shop TYT, meaning that if you haven’t bought it or need a gift for somebody, you can get it through there while also supporting independent media.