Crime down in 2025

Crime dropped between 2024 and 2025. That is good for America.

It is also a pending political problem for Democrats.

Trump will take credit for the drop.

I expect to see more charts like these in Republican ads this fall:

Sharp drop last year in homicides

And this one, charting a drop in all crime categories:

Drop in all crime categories in 2025

Crime data is complex and cannot be summed up by a simple statement that crime declined immediately after Trump took office. Crime has been trending down from the Covid years of 2020 and 2021. Closed schools and businesses, and a country in lockdown, created idle hands so crime rates peaked. 

Moreover, Canada showed the same trend, and Trump can't take credit for that.

Source: Major Cities Chiefs Association

Trump is already selling the message that rough policing and removing immigrants are responsible for reduced crime. It will be a persuasive message if Democrats fall into the trap of being defined as anti-police. 

Trump succeeds by being a fierce partisan with blunt, absolutist positions -- tariffs on every country, pardon all J6 criminals, deport everybody here illegally, climate change is a total hoax, "wonderful clean coal," and don't wait around for consultants, just bulldoze the East Wing of the White House because he can. To the delight of his base, Trump isn't nuanced.

Tempting as it is for a Democrat to be the opposite of Trump on crime and immigration enforcement, that is a fatal misstep and exactly what Trump wants. He wants Democrats to be his opposite -- in other words -- to favor open borders, and ignore street crime, lawlessness, and disorder. It is going to require some courageous and deft Democratic candidates and message-leaders to voice a middle ground of better policing. It will require a message of nuance. 

Democrats face a test. Is there someone among the potential candidates for president who sees the requirement to be not-Trump, while avoiding being Trump's policy opposite. There is a middle-ground in the U.S. that wants ethical, professional policing, and which wants immigration to be well-regulated and some -- maybe many -- current immigrants to stay. But not all of them. Americans do want some deportations. It will require the oratorical skills of a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. It will take someone who can take a position that seems to meet voters where they are: angry about ICE, but smart about it. It won't be the kind of position that gets enthusiastic clicks. It will seem mushy. Nuance and moderation looks weak when Trump is shaping the issues. 

That Democrat has a difficult task, and angry voices within the parry will make the task harder. A Democrat who can succeed in this environment would have rare political talent that I do not see quite yet on the party's bench. It may be there. I hope so. The situation requires it.

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Watergate déjà vu

"If you took all the girls I knew when I was single
And brought 'em all together for one night
I know they'd never match my sweet imagination
Everything looks worse in black and white."
        Paul Simon, "Kodachrome," 1973

I remember the Watergate era, 1972 to 1974, as a story with a happy ending. 

American democracy was preserved. Justice was done. Republican senators did the right thing and told Nixon that he had crossed the line, and must leave. Nixon's co-conspirators went to prison. This memory isn't my "sweet imagination." Things really did work out for America.

The Epstein matter is in progress. The outcome is unknown. Reality feels gritty and sleazy. Real life plays out in black and white.

The Epstein matter reminds me of Watergate. Both instances start with denial by the president.

The Watergate and Epstein denials fell apart because some people were caught, proving something needed explanation. Police arrested men who were burglarizing the Watergate offices of the Democratic Party. The men had incentives to talk.  Ghislaine Maxwell faces almost 20 more years. She had a story to tell. The coverup required keeping people quiet and documents secret.

In both instances the crime was too awful to confess. Nixon's campaign burglarized the DNC on instructions from Nixon's top people. That is a felony. A high crime. Donald Trump is up to his eyeballs in evidence showing he was part of Epstein's circle of participants in sex play with underage girls. 

The "limited hangout" approach failed in both cases. The slow dribble of revelations preserves the drama in an unfolding mystery. A metamessage emerges, that the president is fighting to hide the truth. He must be guilty of something. Nixon needed to claim "I am not a crook." Trump is in the same position, slowly retreating behind the moving wall of new revelations.

Trump is losing credibility, even with deep MAGA believers. People see things. Images of Trump and Epstein ogling women at a party. Emails and documents mentioning Trump. Video footage showing Trump bragging about behavior and desires that fit the Epstein narrative. It looked bad twenty years ago.

It looks very bad in the context of the Epstein revelations.

Click: One minute

We don't yet know exactly what Trump is guilty of, but it is undeniable that Trump was deep inside a culture of sexuality and privilege of wealthy men with young girls.

The Nixon and Trump presidencies lost critical public support because the public was offended by a matter of personal behavior. Evidence that Nixon had corrupted the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA didn't move the needle of support. Knowing that Nixon swore casually and frequently, did. Nixon leaned on people's respect for the office, if not himself personally.

Americans of polite sensibilities, good Republican churchgoers, were offended that Nixon swore in a sacred space.

Trump's well-established dalliances with models, beauty queens, and porn stars did not have the creepy illegality of sex acts with 12-and-13-year-olds, and this week, a new email the addition of a nine-year-old to Epstein's harem. The revelations passed a tipping point. Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis (R) announced that the news about models in their young teens had her questioning "what the big deal is?" Now she says she knows. A nine-year-old victim crosses the line for her.

John Dean narrated the story of Nixon's involvement in the immediate aftermath of the Watergate burglary. Ghislaine Maxwell is no John Dean. Her incentive is to lie, but the open quid-pro-quo "I will absolve you, President Trump, if you pardon me" is so open that it has no real value other than to document that Trump would happily corrupt the pardon power for personal gain. Both cases rely on documents, not testimony. Watergate had tapes. Epstein has emails, texts, and videotape. The documents paint a picture that even a Wyoming Republican officeholder cannot ignore.

I would have preferred that Trump lose credibility and power because of his crimes against democracy. That is his affront to the republic. Maybe Republican officeholders and Fox News viewers will rediscover that they care about laws and the Constitution and limits on presidential power once Trump is gone from office. But for now, the Epstein revelations that Trump is even sleazier than people realized is a catalyst for Trump's losing public support. It will serve.

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The dollar has lost value.

Americans have gotten poorer. 

The dollar buys less in the marketplaces of the world than it did a year ago.

This is a five-year chart of the U.S. dollar. It rose as the U.S. recovered from Covid shutdowns and hit a high at the end of Biden's term. It has fallen 10 percent since Trump's inauguration, with a sharp fall after Trump announced "Liberation Day." tariffs.

A falling dollar helps some people and hurts others. An economist sorts this out in a guest post.

Jim Stodder is a college classmate. After his junior year, he left college for a decade to knock around as a roughneck in the oil fields. Then he returned to formal studies and received a Ph.D. in economics from Yale. He taught international economics and securities regulation at Boston University. He has his own website at www.jimstodder.com.

Stodder

Guest Post by Jim Stodder

                       The Dollar Matters

The U.S. dollar has fallen by about 10 percent relative to major currencies since Trump’s 2025 inauguration. As we will see, there are good reasons for this. The currency markets bet “real money” – trillions wagered on the future value of the greenback. The dollar regained a few percent with Trump’s late January announcement of Kevin Warsh as his choice for Fed chairman when Jerome Powell’s term ends in May. But many commentators are concerned that Warsh may be swayed by Trump to cut interest rates, despite his previous reputation  as a monetary "hawk" – i.e., tough on inflation.

Most Americans earn their dollars through labor, and want them to be worth as much as possible. That’s why the Trump administration – and every U.S. administration – announces a “strong dollar” policy. That is usually BS, because most U.S. exporters benefit from a cheaper dollar. Trump, who is very pro-manufacturing, understands this, but he can’t say it too loudly. So he lets Scott Bessent, his treasury secretary, go on about our strong dollar policy.

Yahoo Finance

 Most U.S. exports – goods and services – have exchange rate sensitivity (economists call it an exchange rate elasticity) greater than one. This means that if the value of the dollar goes down by one percent, the quantity of U.S. exports goes up by more than one percent. Recent estimates of exchange rate sensitivity of demand for U.S. exports are much greater than one in the long run – between 1.75 to 2.25.

You might think that means that the U.S. trade deficit will shrink – and that is what Trump clearly believes. But this ignores the effect on imports. With a weaker dollar, imports will cost the U.S. more. Good, you say, then we’ll buy less of them. But some imports are vital inputs that are too important to do without (like Chinese rare earths). So a weaker dollar’s effect is ambiguous, and recent studies show it does not improve the U.S. trade deficit.

I taught international economics for many years to aerospace engineers in big companies, including United Technologies, Sikorsky, and GE. They understood their jobs will be more secure and their salaries will grow if the U.S. dollar got a bit weaker. Not only does it help such companies’ exports, it also pushes up the dollar value of their foreign investments. Let’s say GE has a plant in Poland worth $10 billion where it makes turbine blades for its jet engines. If the U.S. dollar loses half its value, that plant is now worth $20 billion. More U.S. inflation would be a small price to pay!

When Trump yells about the Fed keeping interest rates too high, he knows perfectly well – as does everyone on Wall Street – that a lower interest rate almost always means a weaker dollar. That’s why Trump’s pestering Fed Chairman Powell for not cutting rates has spooked financial markets this year. Foreigners won’t want their savings in U.S. dollars if that currency is falling or likely to fall – and neither will an American who has other options.

Big international banks like Citibank and Goldman Sachs have a more complicated relation to the value of the dollar than do export manufacturers. Whatever they gain from the rising value of U.S. exports they are likely to lose even more from lower foreign investment in the U.S.

This is especially true because the U.S. has run an overall trade deficit since the early 1990s. Trade deficits mean we have to pay for those goods and services by selling financial assets to foreigners and/or by borrowing money from them. This is contrary to the intuition of most Americans, but it is a consequence of the strong dollar – strong enough to be the main reserve currency for most countries.

Think about it – if another country keeps most of its foreign exchange (or FX, as the financial bros say) in U.S. dollars, that usually means it’s selling more to the U.S. than it buys from the U.S. The world as a whole has a big surplus with us, so about 60 percent of all FX reserves are in dollars and nearly 90 percent of FX transactions use dollars, even if only as the "middle term" between other currencies.

So Trump faces an obvious conflict around the U.S. dollar. On one hand, he wants a weaker dollar to promote U.S. exports and (he hopes) shrink our trade deficit. On the other hand, he wants a strong dollar because it gives the U.S. power over other countries - like the assets of Russia or Iran frozen by the U.S. Those assets are largely in dollars, even if they are stashed in European banks.

Faced with this conflict, Trump’s loyal economists have different ways to "square the circle." Take the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” of Stephen Miran, a Trump appointee who just left the Federal Reserve Board. This would involve either taxing foreigners for the privilege of holding U.S. Treasury bonds, or else forcing them to convert the U.S. bonds they hold – mostly with maturities less than 30 years – to ultra-long maturities of up to 100 years.

Either of these means lower net payouts on those bonds – an explicit breach of their contract with the U.S. So this would have to be forced on them by threats. Some "accord!" It’s just one more way Trump is ripping up the worldwide military and economic alliances the U.S. has built over the last 80 years.

A final word about the short-term prospects of the U.S. dollar. Dollar FX may decline, but no foreign currency can take its place in the near future. The Central Bank of China controls the yuan’s value too closely and won’t allow it to exchange in large amounts. So, it’s no good for big international settlements. The Eurozone economy is about 75 percent as big as the U.S., but its bond market is about 1/3 the size. And the bond market of its biggest economy, Germany, is about 1/10 the size. 

So, as Margaret Thatcher used to say, “There is No Alternative” -- The world is stuck with the dollar as the reserve currency, at least for now. But Trump’s weakening of the U.S. dollar is still weakening something else – our nation as a whole.

 

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Bad Bunny. America for Americans.

Trump's decision to trash-talk Bad Bunny was a foolish mistake.

"Foolish mistakes" are the ones that best teach us what is really going on.

I draw the analogy from biology and evolution, especially the peacock's improbably large tail. That tail flummoxed Charles Darwin for a while. 

The huge tail is cumbersome. It draws the attention of predators. One would think that in the competition for survival, peacocks with such a disadvantage would be bred out of existence. But the tails persist. There must be some value to the "mistake." That premise led to considering sexual selection as part of reproductive survival. Peahens are attracted to males with a big tail. The "mistake" clarifies what is really going on.

So, too, with Trump. 

Trump had every opportunity to nurture the constituent realignments of the political parties, with Hispanics voting for the GOP in increasing numbers. Democrats presumed that Hispanic voters would identify with their ethnicity and support mass immigration of Hispanics, whether legal or illegal. That was wrong. A great many Hispanic voters chose to vote like people who wanted laws enforced, including immigration laws. 

It would have made sense for Trump, upon learning that Bad Bunny would be the Super Bowl halftime show star, to embrace a show with a heavy Latin American vibe. It would have given nuance to his ICE policy of heavy-handed in-your-face policing. It would have sent a message that ICE enforcement was about illegality, not ethnicity. It would be reaching out to Hispanic citizens saying that they are fellow Americans, that he respected them -- but not the criminals hiding among them. 

Trump did not do that. 

Trump led a revolt against the halftime show. He posted on Truth Social after the show: 

The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World. This "Show" is just a "slap in the face" to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day. . . .

Trump encouraged a competing halftime show conservative media defined as the "All American" alternative. That defines the Bad Bunny show as the un-American show. Trump defined the Bad Bunny show not as additive to American culture; it is an insult to it. Spanish is unintelligible. Its dance arrangements are "disgusting."

Political scientist and psychologist Jonathan Haidt uses the word disgust to describe one of the deep moral instincts of American political conservatives. It is moral and physical revulsion against defilement, a reaction to rotten meat, vermin, putrefaction, infection or invasion by an insidious outsider. Trump is communicating that Hispanic culture does not belong here. 

Trump is repeating the message he used to scold Europeans, that immigration by the wrong people is destroying the ethnic unity and identity of their countries. It resembles the message that kicked off Trump's campaign a dozen years ago, that Obama is illegitimate and foreign. He can never really be one of "us." Then in 2015, in Trump's campaign kickoff, immigrants from Mexico were other. Then Muslims. Then people from Central and South America. Then Africans and people from Caribbean islands, especially Haitians. And "low-IQ" Black Democrats. Get out. You are unwelcome. 

Trump is saying that Hispanics in the country, including Puerto Ricans who are U.S. citizens by birth, are "other," too, speaking Spanish and having a bad folkways. Maybe they are outsiders forever, as long as they are brown. Maybe they are "other" only until they learn to speak un-accented English and drop markers of Hispanic culture. The USA is a melting pot, so melt already. Become a real American.

Long term, I suspect the unnecessary insult to Latin culture is a mistake, but it may work for him for one or two more elections, especially if the Democratic message comes across as being against effective enforcement of immigration laws. Unregulated immigration from 2021 to 2023 branded Democrats as permissive to immigration scofflaws -- with parallel scenes in conservative media of blue-city homeless encampments and California shoplifters casually walking out while stealing just under $950 in goods. This is a brand problem for Democrats, and it will haunt Gavin Newsom as he attempts to campaign in middle America. Voters may be slow to give Democrats credibility as willing to enforce the law. Democrats can fix this, but they might not want to.

Trump is selling a simple, clear idea, even if it narrows the GOP base: Crime is caused by outsiders, and Trump has no respect for them. Fear them. Ridicule them. Disempower them.

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Easy Sunday: Trump really, really doesn't want to be booed.

Trump won't be at the Super Bowl today.

He doesn't want to be booed. 

"Boooooooo!"

Or perhaps the most effective chant would be an accusation Trump would try to deny:

"Pedophile! Pedophile! Pedophile!"

Donald Trump has a weak spot. He needs the adoration of crowds. 

Sparks, Nevada,  2015

Turning Point USA, 2024

There is a flip side to Trump's neediness. He is notoriously thin-skinned. 

My career as a financial advisor taught me that people perceive loss with about five times the intensity that they perceive gain. It works that way for narcissists seeking adoration. Trump would hate widespread jeers from a crowd.

A crowd at an AWE network wrestling match in Los Vegas this week broke out in a chant: "Fuck ICE, Fuck ICE, Fuck ICE." 

Click. Eleven seconds

This chant is a political "tell." It is one thing when ICE loses the support of urban liberals in coffee shops and bookstores. But ICE got jeers at a professional wrestling event.

The political left has a tool that I have not yet seen employed: chants at public events. It is non-violent. Chants are unlikely to get people killed. They strike at Trump's weakness, his desire for affirmation and his assertion that he is the legitimate representative of the American people. 

A chant arises organically. I regret that the chant most likely to emerge is one that echoes "Fuck Joe Biden" or "Fuck ICE," but I suspect that is inevitable and unstoppable. "Fuck Trump" fits a mood. I would prefer Democrats try something else.

 A chant of the word "Resign" or "Resign Now" combines disapproval and Trump's increasing physical and mental deterioration. "Resign" forces Trump to insist that he won't resign, but it puts his competence and impermanence on the table. As I have written, Trump seems "off." His billionaire backers surely see this.

There is an accusation built into a chant of "Pedophile! Pedophile." "Pedophile" overstates the hard evidence, but it has the same sneering power of Trump's very successful branding of "Sleepy Joe," "Lyin' Ted," "Shifty Schiff" and "Pocahontas."  

"Pedophile" is an accusation that demands a denial. 

The evidence you have of me being a pedophile is circumstantial, and my slow-walking release of the Epstein files does not imply I have something to hide. Your suspicions prove nothing! 

Democrats are winning when Trump is claiming reasonable doubt as a defense. 

Is it unfair to force Trump to deny an accusation? It is less unfair than Trump asserting that Barack Obama was lying about being born in Hawaii. At least Obama released his birth certificate; Trump's Justice Department redacts documents that reference Trump.

I cannot script the chant. It will arise organically. A small group of people will start booing and it will catch on, and somehow a chant will start. I hope it is something other than "F-Trump."

I suspect that chants and boos can become a new feature of Trump's public appearances, and it will change Trump's public brand from "Conquering Hero" into "Besieged Trump." Trump would appear weak. He can avoid chants but cannot stop them. 

Displays of Trump's loss of popular support might give Republican congressmen and senators the courage to begin to exercise the power of their offices.

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Extortion

     "I'm gonna' make him an offer he can't refuse."
          Mafia Don Vito Corleone, in "The Godfather", 1972

Trump has power and leverage. He is ruthless. He is squeezing money and tribute out of his enemies.

Republicans are OK with that. He was targeting Democrats and left-coded institutions.

Heads up to Republicans. Trump has wider ambitions. 

I have sympathy for Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. He owns The Washington Post and he is dismantling it. Journalists and pundits and concerned citizens are piling on, expressing disapproval. What is the use of having $200 billion if you care about losing $100 million a year by owning an essential public good in a democracy?

He is under duress. Trump made him an offer he couldn't refuse. 

In his first term Trump threatened to raise Amazon's postal rates for package delivery. He warned that he would double, triple, even quadruple those rates, to punish him for owning The Post. Trump directed a $10 billion dollar defense contract for computer services away from Amazon as punishment. Trump is open about it. He will use the power of the federal government to destroy Amazon as leverage against the troublesome newspaper. In October of 2024 Bezos could see that Trump might return to office vowing "retribution." Bezos chose to be smart rather than noble. He pulled the planned Post editorial endorsing Harris.

Bezos is thinking about Amazon. Bezos is doing what every owner of a big enterprise is doing. He is obeying. 

Trump doesn't hide his extortion. Extortion works best if everyone sees it so they can fear it. Crucifixion and public hangings serve the same purpose. 

Friday's headlines:

CNN

Trump blocked congressionally-approved funding for work on a tunnel under the Hudson River. Crews are standing by. Trump insists two conditions be met: Dulles International Airport must be renamed the Donald J. Trump International Airport, and Penn Station must be renamed the Donald J. Trump Station. 

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal avoided a blunt headline but its news story reports the same extortion:

“Whatever DOT’s shifting official reasons, statements by the President and other officials tell the true story,” New York and New Jersey said in court papers. “DOT suspended project funding to punish New York officials for opposing unrelated Presidential demands.”

Trump administration officials told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, N.Y.) in January that the funds would be released if he helped name New York’s Pennsylvania Station and Washington Dulles International Airport after President Trump. . . .

At some point Trump becomes an indefensible embarrassment to Republicans. U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R, NJ) and Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) both said that funding should not be conditional on this renaming. However, some Republicans are on board with Trump, filing legislation to approve the name changes. Others want his face carved onto Mt. Rushmore.

Trump is inviting trouble with Republicans. He has gone further afield in his retribution. ABC, Disney, and CBS are "mainstream media" and therefore "in the arena."  Maybe they are fair game. This summer he sued The Wall Street Journal for $10 billion for reporting on the famous birthday card Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein. There is a message there: You need to be fully aboard the Trump team.

This week he sued JPMorgan Chase for $5 billion for "reputational harm" to Trump when the bank cut business ties to the Trump organization in the aftermath of the January 6 coup attempt. JPMorgan is the country's largest bank; its CEO, Jamie Dimon, is the country's leading spokesperson for the financial industry. Dimon has taken care to present himself and the bank as outside and above politics, concerned about financial stability and economic prosperity, neither for nor against Trump. Dimon spoke generally favoring Fed independence, a consensus, anodyne position. But not to Trump.

This is a warning for Republicans. He isn't going after solely left-coded institutions like Harvard or law firms with the temerity to hire Democrats. Neutral is not good enough.

Independent voters tell pollsters that Trump is "going too far." Maybe suing JPMorgan is too far, coming on top of the Trump crypto grift, Trump putting his name to precede Kennedy's on the performing arts center, ICE's military-style policing, the proposed federal takeover of elections, and the raid on election offices in Georgia, a state run by Republicans. Maybe the speech at Davos and then the one at the National Prayer Breakfast went too far. He sounded "off." Something is wrong.

I can sense some Republicans who enable Trump doing a mental calculation. Maybe Trump is a liability. Maybe Vice President JD Vance would be a better president. Maybe Trump should go, sooner rather than later.

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Democratic candidates in Oregon's Second Congressional District

They aren't just candidates with an uphill battle.

They are content creators with an opportunity.

Democratic Candidates for Congress for Oregon's bright-red Second District

A political party isn't shaped by a central leadership. There is no "official voice" for Democrats. The Democratic National Committee put its heavy thumb on Democrats in the past decade, with disastrous results. They forbade a Democratic primary in the 2024 election, thereby letting Biden sleepwalk into the nomination and eventual disaster.

I get solicitation calls for money from the DNC approximately weekly. I tell the unfortunate callers to quit their jobs, that the DNC gaslit America by cosseting Biden. Then I hang up. The DNC doesn't represent the Democratic Party.

So who does speak for the Democratic Party? Anybody, but especially candidates for office, including the four women in the photograph above.

Political candidates are performers. People with the talent, insight, and luck might meet a certain moment in the culture. They catch on. Other performers get on the bandwagon. No central authority created the Southern California "beach" sound.The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean sang about a certain lifestyle and that genre became popular. The Beatles led what became "the British invasion."  Bob Dylan re-invented Woody Guthrie. There was no central authority, no musical DNC. Talented practitioners create brands. Bernie Sanders caught on and reshaped Democrats. Trump caught on and reshaped Republicans.

The Texas U.S. Senate primary pits two brands, and the success of one of them will get noticed and copied. 

Jasmine Crockett

Jasmine Crocket is a young, sassy, in-your-face confrontational voice, an AOC-type figure, saying things that pissed-off Democrats think. As a Democratic member of Congress, she creates viral moments in hearings. She doesn't talk about bridge-building. 

James Talarico, currently a Texas state representative, embodies earnestness. He is overtly Christian, talks about faith, and cites Biblical virtues. Clips of him shaming Texas Republicans by pointing out moral hypocrisy have made him a celebrity.

James Talarico

His "what would Jesus do?" arguments re-position the Democratic brand by recentering the moral basis of politics away from an urban secular-humanist perspective toward a religious one familiar to traditional church-goers. 

Voters will look them over and make choices. The betting site Kalshi gives Talerico a 1% chance of being the Democratic nominee for president. A $10 bet will pay off at $991 dollars. It could happen. Fifty years ago, in response to corruption in the Nixon administration, voters picked among the various Democratic candidates and chose an unknown Jimmy Carter, a former governor who taught Sunday School. For a while Democrats were the party of soft-spoken do-gooders, who turned down their thermostats and cared about human rights in foreign affairs.

Successful candidates define the brand.

Candidates for Congress in Oregon's Second District have nothing to lose by being bold and shedding old ideas and policies. The Democratic brand is unpopular.

The District

The partisan skew

A rural county in the district

There are districts in America where one might think, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." This isn't one of them.

These candidates are not stuck. They can slough off  Democratic brand baggage of unpopular ideas that persist out of inertia. The Democratic brand is currently shaped by people in bright blue urban districts. It doesn't have to be that way.

These candidates could push reset. They could fix what is broke, take the criticism -- because reformers always get it --  and make their case boldly anyway. People might credit their authenticity and courage.  Or not. In any case, they can define themselves by trying out policies that connect with this constituency, and on their own authority as a Democrat and a citizen, claim to be a legitimate voice of Democrats in 2026. 

Put it out there. Sell it.

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