In his newsletter today, suggests a simple heuristic for Dems when making strategy or policy: Republicans will make things worse in order to hurt political enemies. Instead of being shocked by it again & again, Dems should *plan for it*.
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One example: any financial aid programs should have automatic stabilizers, such that the respond automatically to economic conditions. Do not pass a policy that requires getting Republicans to agree to help people; they won't, as along as not doing so hurts Dems.
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This really gets at a theme I've been hammering ever since I started writing about politics: the GOP will always be worse than you can predict, no matter how bad your predictions. For so long, so many on the Dem side have had a weird kind of pride in their naiveté about this ...
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... as though their determination to assume good faith on the other side is a virtue. It's not. It just leads them to walk into foreseeable traps over & over again. Today's GOP is rotten to the core: accept it, take it on board, plan around & against it.
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