Jared Kushner’s latest bad idea

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/20473306.43705/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9ib3Bpbmlvbg/582c8673566a94262a8b49bdB42ed8ac2 [Kushner Wants to Shrink the GOP Platform. Good Luck With That.]( — Jonathan Bernstein Jared Kushner [has an idea](: He wants a Republican Party platform so short that it can be printed on a “single card that fits in people’s pockets.” This isn’t a new concept, but there’s a reason that platforms have become bloated over time and why this isn’t a fight worth winning. If there’s one thing pundits will tell you about party platforms, it’s that they don’t matter. That’s half correct. As electioneering tools, platforms are in fact about as unimportant as can be. After all, the only people who care about them are activists, organized interest groups and other party actors, all of whom are almost certain to vote for the party ticket in November. The media might pay attention to platform fights, but that’s mostly because there’s very little election news in the weeks leading up to the party conventions. Once the conventions are over, the media will move on and the platforms will be forgotten. Would that change if the platforms were postcard-sized? Of course not. General-election spending is [overrated]( to begin with. The idea that the perfect ad, perfect speech or perfect platform can make much of a difference just isn’t backed up by data. But there’s more to party platforms than that. Read the [whole thing](. [Paul Krugman Is Pretty Upbeat About the Economy]( — Noah Smith [U.S. Politics Is Now Democrats Versus Authoritarians]( — Francis Wilkinson [China’s Crypto Is All About Tracing — and Power]( — Andy Mukherjee [Stocks Have Reached a Tipping Point]( — John Authers [Twitter Has Little to Fear From Trump]( — Timothy L. O’Brien [Trump’s Firing of Watchdogs Must Be Checked]( — Michael R. Bloomberg [Covid-19 Will Make Colleges Prove Their Worth]( — Cathy O’Neil HBO Max’s Biggest Competitor: HBO]( — Tara Lachapelle [How Democrats Became the Party of the Upper Middle Class]( — Ramesh Ponnuru is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion published this week based on web readership, plus some other stuff occasionally thrown in.  Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](.  You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022