Opinion: Obama’s tax playbook

Also: A media mea culpa on Trump’s chief of staff. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, February 21, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist First, a media mea culpa. It’s not easy to be self-critical in public. So kudos to Perry Bacon Jr. for his new FiveThirtyEight piece, [“How the media bungled the John Kelly story.”]( Bacon includes himself — and many others — among those who misjudged the goals of President Trump’s chief of staff, and Bacon tries to understand why. His honesty makes his argument more persuasive. Tax politics. The Republican playbook on taxes looks like this: Package a huge tax cut for the rich with a small tax cut for everyone else, and then criticize Democrats for being against middle-class tax cuts. It’s been a mostly successful strategy, too. In 2008, President Barack Obama finally came up with a successful response. He proposed larger middle-class tax cuts than John McCain, his opponent, and kept bragging about those cuts. By the final weeks of the race, Americans saw Obama [as more of a tax cutter]( than McCain was. Today’s Democrats are at risk of being dragged back into the old politics of tax cuts. Since President Trump’s tax bill passed, Republicans keep talking about the middle-class benefits in the law, and the poll numbers for both Trump and congressional Republicans have risen. Recent television ads in Indiana and Missouri — [taken out by the Koch brothers’ advocacy group]( — are typical. They’re meant to damage those states’ Democratic senators, who are both running for re-election. “Senator Claire McCaskill said she’d support tax cuts for hard-working Missourians,” the narrator in one ad says, “but when she had the chance, she said no, voting against tax cuts for you, standing with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, instead of us.” Democrats have been too slow to respond to these attacks. Maybe they’ve been distracted by Russia and everything else. Or maybe they assumed that the tax bill would stay [unpopular]( like it was late last year. Whatever the reason, the inattention has been a mistake. “Every day that Democrats aren’t dedicating the bulk of their paid and earned messaging at the tax bill is a day that helps Republicans hold onto the House,” Dan Pfeiffer, the Pod Save America co-host and former Obama adviser, [wrote this week](. “This gift to the wealthy, Wall Streets, and corporations should be a messaging lay up.” Similarly, a liberal advocacy group and two research groups [released a strategy memo]( that argued: “Democrats continue to have winning messages on health care and the economy, but right now voters are not hearing them. That must change.” There are signs that Democrats are starting to get more aggressive. In doing so, they’re running a version of the 2008 Obama strategy. Democratic groups are now running [their own ads]( in Indiana and Missouri, denouncing “out-of-state billionaires” for misleading attacks on “our senator.” The ads explain that Democrats favored a “middle-class tax cut” rather than one that overwhelmingly favored the rich and that could lead to cuts in Medicare and Social Security. This case is harder to make politically than Obama’s, given that he had a detailed tax-cut plan he could constantly mention. Today’s Democrats do not. Still, they should get more disciplined about making the case against the Trump tax plan. Ultimately, it really is [a bad deal for most Americans](. Gerrymandering, continued. The initial discussion of Pennsylvania’s new congressional map — [including my analysis]( — emphasized “partisan balance”: the idea that the map would make the partisan split of House seats similar to the split in the popular vote. A party that wins about half the vote will win about half the seats. [Emily Bazelon of The Times argues]( that this is the wrong point to emphasize. The bigger priorities in the new plan seem to be creating competitive congressional races and keeping existing geographical boundaries (like county lines) intact. That’s no coincidence. Most states require congressional maps [to respect geographic boundaries]( and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has specifically said the state’s new map should respect boundaries for the sake of promoting competitiveness. Partisan balance is a bit different. It’s a perfectly admirable goal. In fact, it should probably be the No. 1 goal in drawing congressional districts. But it’s not a court-approved reason to throw out a current map. Which would explain why Pennsylvania’s new maps focus on keeping counties intact and creating a bunch of close races. For more, read [Bazelon’s tweets]( or [a piece by Rick Hasen]( a law professor who specializes in election law. On the same subject, Sean Trende, an elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, has [some good thoughts]( about the philosophy of gerrymandering. Programming note. Congratulations to Gail Collins, winner of this year’s George Polk Award for commentary, “for her columns of satiric wit and neighborly wisdom that probe the oddities of American politics and social mores.” [As Frank Bruni added]( Gail is “one of the best colleagues imaginable and an altogether wonderful person.” The full Opinion report from The Times follows. Op-Ed Columnist [Get Out of Facebook and Into the N.R.A.’s Face]( By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Only raw electoral power can beat the gun lobby. Op-Ed Columnist [The Trolling of the American Mind]( By ROSS DOUTHAT The Russian email hacking mattered. Their troll army is a phantom menace. Editorial [Will America Choose Its Children Over Guns?]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Maybe sensible teenagers, sickened by the terror they must live with at school, can at last compel their senseless elders to act. Op-Ed Contributor [The Mental Health System Can’t Stop Mass Shooters]( By AMY BARNHORST There is no reliable cure for angry young men who harbor violent fantasies. The only solution is to keep guns out of their hands. Op-Ed Contributor [I Interned for Senator Rubio. Now I’m Begging Him to Act on Guns.]( By SHANA ROSENTHAL A graduate of Stoneman Douglas High School has been close to four mass shootings in Florida. She wants last week’s to be the last. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [leonhardt@nytimes.com](mailto:leonhardt@nytimes.com?subject=Opinion%20Today%20Newsletter%20Feedback). ADVERTISEMENT Contributing Op-Ed Writer [Will 2018 Be as Revolutionary as 1968?]( By IVAN KRASTEV A new generation of rebels is rising in Europe, this time from the right, with echoes of the huge protest movements of 50 years ago. Contributing Op-Ed Writer [What’s the Right Age to Read a Book?]( By JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN The novel that rocked your world when you were 15 may leave you baffled and disinterested 30 years later. Op-Ed Contributor [What Does a True Populism Look Like? It Looks Like the New Deal]( By DANI RODRIK An honest response to globalization avoids cosmetic gimmicks like tariffs and goes after economic injustice directly. Op-Ed Contributor [The Destructive Dynamics of Political Tribalism]( By AMY CHUA Anti-elite fervor in America bears a striking resemblance to the explosive tension between haves and have-nots all over the world. Op-Ed Contributor [Who Needs Congressional Districts?]( By MICHAEL TOMASKY Requiring candidates for Congress to run statewide could encourage compromise instead of obstruction. Op-Ed Contributor [How to Monitor Fake News]( By TOM WHEELER A software technique could help oversee the spread of disinformation. Op-Ed Contributor [China Dropped Its One-Child Policy. So Why Aren’t Chinese Women Having More Babies?]( By LETA HONG FINCHER The government’s latest demographic program has unmistakably eugenic undertones. Op-Ed Contributor [A Lesson on Immigration From Pablo Neruda]( By ARIEL DORFMAN Politicians in Chile have stoked anti-immigrant sentiment, especially against Haitian immigrants. Chileans would do well to remember our own history. The Stone [What We Owe to Others: Simone Weil’s Radical Reminder]( By ROBERT ZARETSKY She believed we have obligations to attend to our fellow humans. How could that spirit change our politics? Editorial [Closing Rikers Has to Be a Team Effort]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD City and state officials each have roles to play in shuttering New York’s notorious jail complex, once and for all. Op-Docs [Arctic Boyhood]( By SAMUEL COLLARDEY Coming of age on the Greenland tundra. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. ADVERTISEMENT Letters [Young People at the Forefront of Gun Control]( Readers discuss the efforts by the students at the Parkland school and elsewhere. Letters [Trump and Russian Meddling: ‘It Is His Job to Fix This’]( Readers react to the president’s take on the Mueller indictment of Russians. SIGN UP FOR THE VIETNAM ’67 NEWSLETTER Examining America’s long war in Southeast Asia [through the course]( of a single year. FOLLOW OPINION [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytopinion]( [Pinterest] [Pinterest]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »](  | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2018 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018