I tried to wrap my head around it—by looking at some of my favorite things in the world: sweeping policy plans citing similarly huge numbers.
1. The Green New Deal, a Bernie Sanders-backed climate plan that’s en vogue on the left, would endeavor to decarbonize the U.S. economy—and would dedicate trillions toward climate investment.
2. Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax—a 2 percent tax on multi-millionaires—has become such a rallying cry for her candidacy that “two cents!” is a popular chant at her campaign rallies. If enacted, it would make the tax code a whole lot more redistributive, as my colleague Annie Lowrey writes, raising about $200 billion per year.
3. If I had to choose one phrase that encapsulates the fissures within the 2020 Democratic primary, it’s probably this: Medicare for All. Support for single-payer health care has become something of a litmus test for the party’s left flank. Are Warren and Sanders, the plan’s biggest cheerleaders, being realistic about its cost?
To borrow from my colleague Robinson Meyer: Billions? In this climate??
—Saahil Desai
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« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(TODD HEISLER / THE NEW YORK TIMES)
1. “Sanders escaped with many fewer bruises and bumps.”
With former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg on the debate stage last night, most of his primary rivals seemed to have forgotten who the front-runner is; Bernie Sanders essentially skated through unscathed. Ron Brownstein runs through the next scenarios.
2. “Willful, preventable ugliness is always a problem to one degree or another.”
A new draft executive order, informally known as “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again,” is making the rounds. Good use of government resources; bad use of government resources? Andrew Ferguson debates.
3. “Dignity binds together progressives and moderates opposed to Trump. It can also bring together constituencies who now find themselves opposed to each other.”
The denial of dignity—respect, honor, and self-worth—is the unifying theme among Americans in the Trump era, the writer E.J. Dionne argues: To drive out Trumpism, Democrats need to build a movement on the dignity of the American worker.
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« EVENING READ »
(MIKHAIL SVETLOV / JOE RAEDLE / DREW ANGERER / KATIE MARTIN / THE ATLANTIC)
Russian trolls have a next favorite candidate
Russia is reportedly interfering again, backing President Trump’s re-election. But the foreign government meddling doesn’t need to do much to get its other wish: dividing the U.S.
The Special Counsel investigation uncovered Russia’s work to boost Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump during the 2016 election. This time, there’s no Hillary Clinton. The . Democratic field is squabbling. Both Sanders and Trump profess interest in focusing the U.S. inward.
But that doesn’t mean Russians have less of a reason to interfere this year, Kathy Gilsinan reports. “Luckily for the Russians, then, the two current front-runners for the presidency, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are both polarizing figures,” she writes.
So what are Russia’s motives this time around?
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Today’s newsletter was written by Saahil Desai, an editor on the Politics desk, and Christian Paz, a Politics fellow. It was edited by Shan Wang, who oversees newsletters.
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is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he covers politics and policy.
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is an editorial fellow at The Atlantic.
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