11 Comments

I don’t usually read the news before breakfast, but your headline grabbed me. I think you’re absolutely correct that the GOP’s rigid adherence to an ideology has frozen them in time. Biden is a good and intelligent president. We should be cheering him forward. What’s so bad about good news?

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I totally agree. He is the right man for the job at the right time. I don't get why his numbers are so bad. They should be soooo much higher than they are.

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I forwarded this Report to the New York Times with the following letter:

As a subscriber I expect to get a full and accurate picture of major news, such as the state of the economy.

I wonder if you and I are on the same planet when I see a report like the attached, by a well-respected political strategist with an impressive record of experience, at ABC News and in a number of Administrations:

In 1985 he moved to New York City to work for ABC News, where he spent two years before joining the Dukakis for President Campaign in Des Moines, Iowa. After Dukakis’ loss in 1988, he moved back to New York to work as a writer/producer for Linda Ellerbee’s Lucky Duck Productions. He left Lucky Duck in late 1991 to join the early Bill Clinton for President campaign in New Hampshire. He went on to play a major role in the general election campaign, serving in the famous War Room. In 1993 he moved from Little Rock, Arkansas to Washington, DC to work at the Democratic National Committee. He left the DNC in the fall of 1993 to join the Democratic Leadership Council, where he worked until starting the New Democrat Network in 1996. The New Democrat Network ceased operating in late 2004 and evolved into NDN and the New Policy Institute, the organization Rosenberg runs today.

In 1993, Rosenberg oversaw the placement of the first American political party on the Internet, putting the DNC on Compuserve. Rosenberg helped found the Congressional Caucus the New Democrat Coalition in 1996. A project he founded and led from 2003 through 2005 eventually became The Democracy Alliance. Rosenberg was a member of the Democratic Platform Committee in 2004, and a leading candidate for Chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2005. He was a high level outside advisor to the Obama White House and Administration more broadly, working on issues from TPP to Immigration Reform to economic policy.

Rosenberg is on the Board of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. In the fall of 2016 Rosenberg was a senior fellow at Tisch, teaching a class for undergraduates on American politics. Rosenberg is a member of the Department of State's Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy (ACICIP). Rosenberg is an Advisory Board Member of the non-partisan Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation. Rosenberg was a member of the 2001 Class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute and remains active in the Fellowship today.

His well-researched stats indicate a far better picture of our economy than the doom & gloom articles consistently published by the Times. He backs it up with facts, actual numbers, hard statistics - not propaganda, and not, to my knowledge challenged or discredited by any legitimate journalists.

Do you see his reports? Don’t you feel an obligation to provide accurate reporting of this information?

I hope your slogan has not been shortened to merely “All The News That Fits”.

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America’s two political parties in the post cold war era summarized.....

Ds: What is this new modern and rapidly changing world showing us we need to invest in to help the American People thrive?

Rs: What do ya think fellas? Should we just try the same shit that we failed with the last three or four times at bat?

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I hope Democrats running for office will use this latest example of good Democratic economic governance to pound the political daylights out of the GOP.

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The purpose of a Republican administration is to steal wealth from the poor and middle class and to use that wealth to engorge the filthiest rich beyond wettest dreams of obese gluttony. Running a successful United States is the last thing on any Republican's mind.

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With another stellar monthly jobs report today the over performance by Dems in managing the US economy just keeps getting more and more overwhelming. Joe Biden has delivered for the American people on almost all important metrics since taking office 28 months ago. His skillful handling of the dangerous effort by the GOP to drive the U.S. into default was absolutely masterful. Wow - what a week ! We all need to loudly use the facts about the democrats’ over performance on all things economic to reclaim the messaging high ground- in any / every way possible. Let’s do this 🎉👍

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The data you continue to gather is very helpful and I agree that we Dems need to do better at telling the story that “things get better” with us. However, I do think that this argument needs to address the orange elephant in the room who has built a dangerous, reactionary movement on the basis of not a little bit of legitimate grievance from our working and middle classes.

Yes, since 1989 (and I would argue earlier than that) things have gotten a whole lot better for an increasingly insulated and privileged college-educated elite, but not so much for just about everyone else. The loss of good jobs and healthy communities throughout our Heartland since Reagan and Trickle-Down economics, has for decades, stripped the heart and soul out of that heartland, leading to the massive disaffection of our working and middles classes and their mass defection from BOTH parties.

The MAGA folks that Trump has catalyzed have rejected the traditional (RINO) Republicans just as strongly as they have the Democratic Party. Both parties failed them and Trump, running as a Republican, basically won on the platform: “A plague on both their houses.” Trump and MAGA have now taken-over the Republican Party, which has now become effectively an outright authoritarian party on the verge of internationally (re-)electing a tyrant.

This is a very important point tat I think can get lost on just looking at the whole period from 1989 as if we are still in some sort of continuity with what was once the Republican Party. It seems almost inarguable that Trump has, at least for the moment, crushed the Grand Old Party. To describe this world-historical development as simply a continuation of the traditional inter-party rivalries seems notis not going to be persuasive to most of the voters we want to win-over or activate to stave-off the strong-arm team of Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, and the current SCOTUS, and the tens of thousands of Republican electeds and officials daily working feverishly to lock down our liberties and lock-out our votes.

Joe Biden has declared a new era wherein the Democratic Party is now dedicated to recasting itself away from policies that primarily benefit the college-educated. This is the most important thing Biden has accomplished and ought to be our most important message. He has described this as building America from the bottom-up and the middle-out. That’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s the most powerful message we can bring forward. It’s righteous and it’s genius. And every day, Biden’s policies and extraordinary legislative accomplishments are proving the point.

If we Dems are going to become once again the party inclusive of our working and middle class, where we are the party of The People, we have to build on the credibility that Biden is creating not just in numbers and talking points about the economy, but in winning back everyday peoples’ trust that we are not just making more promises, but that we are actually doing the work of recasting and refocusing our country on building from the bottom up and the middle-out. If we can really drive and win that message, especially with our own facts-on-the-ground of people getting great jobs and communities rebuilding, etc., then we are sure to be the change that people want -- and demand.

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I suspect it has something to do with the press, but I really don’t understand it either. Biden’s policies make a lot of sense.

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One irony is that the current phase of economic modernization has taken place under the guidance of our much-maligned "geriatric" president. Part of selling Biden to the electorate in 2024 should be showcasing this discrepancy in the popular narrative. Say what you will about his age, his policies have been both progressive and effective.

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Thank you for all the information. I use the graphics a lot.

Mr. Keefe did a great service in writing to the NY Times.

I am focused on studying how to be effective, toning down from thirteenth grade to seventh or eighth grade level writing, using words that people will hear and understand.

I'm preparing to give monthly presentations to our local Democrat group, which is growing. I've used your charts, some of the 3V sentence writing techniques, words from Lakoff and yours as well.

I'm upset with many followers that I left behind when I got off Twitter but that's the way it goes. I do not believe anyone should remain on Twitter. Not because they will be attacked but because of the twisted disinformation, not to be confused with misinformation, that is Twitted. Misinformation is false, is disseminated, regardless of intent to mislead. Disinformation is deliberately disseminated to mislead. In either case repeated information is more likely to be judged true than novel information because it became more familiar. And, most people using Twitter do not differentiate what they read very well.

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