Good News for Trump, but Better New for DeSantis

Ann Althouse repots this poll, where she points out that although Trump has very high negatives, he is still the most popular figure in politics. 

But what I think is more interesting is that DeSantis is the only political figure whose negatives are not higher than his positives. I don't see how more people don't comment on this. 

It is remarkable that there is only one political figure in this poll with negatives that aren't higher than their positives. And this is for a candidate that speaks his mind forthrightly and leans into the culture wars. 

Of course this will likely change as he becomes better known, but it does seem to suggest that it is not the positions of the right that alienate voters--DeSantis is at least as far to the right as Trump--but the way in which the candidate argues for and supports those positions. 

DeSantis argues soberly and cites statistics to support his positions. He tends to focus on one issue at a time and be very well prepared to back up that position with facts. 

Is there a lesson in this for other candidates both from the right and the left? Could we be seeing the initiation of a new style in American politics? Possible extreme but backed with facts and arguments? I hope so. 

 Citizens Talk to Each Other

I link to a National Review article about the reactions of supporters and opponents of abortion. It details some conversations between people on different sides of the issue and it made me think: now those conversations matter. 

What has been so insufferable about this judicial diktat is that it has turned us into subjects instead of citizens. It has turned us into rival mobs shouting slogans at each other. The incentives are all wrong. 

There is no incentive but to make a public spectacle showcasing each side's passionate adherence to their side's most extreme position. There is no incentive to moderate one's position or to compromise. To the extent the public is involved at all, it is only to create the impression that there will be violence and blood running in the streets if the case doesn't go their way. It is a catalyst for extremism. 

In normal politics the incentives run in the other direction. It is in one's best interests to put forward a moderate proposal. It is best to deal amicably on all issues with everyone you deal with because everyone is a potential ally on some issue. 

But the most important thing is that it is a degraded condition. To live under laws that you have no hand, no voice, in making, is the office of a subject, not a citizen. 

Stop Blaming Biden 

The Republicans love to bash Biden and there is certainly a lot to criticize, but I think that focusing on Biden is both an error in tactics and an error in fact. 

It is an error in tactics because someday Biden will be gone. If you concentrate on blaming Biden it implies that if you get rid of Biden you get rid of the problem. 

But it is, more importantly, an error in fact because the problem isn't the decisions that Biden is making it is the decisions he isn't making. What we are seeing with the Biden administration is not the mistakes of one man but the effect of ceding policy making to the permanent bureaucracy and the party apparatchiks. And the problem will attend any Democratic administration. 

It is important to focus not on Biden but on the policies of the Democratic Party and the permanent Bureaucracy. This is the government on auto pilot, and so it attends everything the government does. Laws are now passed that creates an agency which actually creates the law. What is coming out of the Biden administration is what the bureaucracy wants. 

The only way the gains from the upcoming Republican friendly election is the convince people that the republican policies are the right policies. Time spent ridiculing Biden is time not spent making policy arguments to the electorate. 

One way to end the border crisis: Hispanics voting Republican

If the prospect of perpetual Democratic majorities were to fade due to Hispanics voting the "wrong" way then, I predict, all the urgent humanitarian reasons found for letting people come freely across the Southern border will, with promptitude, go missing. All the reasons that we have to let people stream across the border in their millions will suddenly be found to be not so urgent. 

So if you are an hispanic concerned about border security you choice is clear. Vote Republican. Not because of what the Republicans will do, but because of what it will make the Democrats do.