Be sure to RSVP for our next live showing on Tuesday, March 21st at 1pm ET.
The new House Republican leadership has made it clear that we are going to be having a big economic and fiscal debate this year. To help the center-left family prepare for that debate (and win it!) I will be updating and showing my influential With Democrats Things Get Better presentation throughout the year. With Dems takes a deep dive into decades of data and finds when Democrats have been in power, things have repeatedly gotten better. We've seen growth, lots of jobs created, lower deficits, progress. With Republicans we've seen something very different. The last 3 Republican Presidents have brought recession, spiraling deficits, decline.
As we often say this story - repeated Dem economic success, repeated R economic failure - remains the most important, least understood story in American politics today. It is a story that needs to be told in 2023, a story the center-left needs to be very very loud about.
We've just dropped a new version of With Dems recorded on Thursday, Feb 16th. You can watch it above. Our next showing will be Tuesday, March 21st 1pm ET. (RSVP here). Every time we present With Dems it has new data and analysis, so even if you saw it a few months ago it will feel fresh and new.
To learn more about the big arguments in With Dems start with our recently published analysis The Economy Remains Strong, 12m Biden Jobs, a related thread, and an essay, The Case for Optimism, Rejecting Trump's Poisonous Pessimism, which was the basis of the earliest version of this presentation. We have also frequently written over the past few years about the need for the center-left to get far more intentional about winning the economic argument with MAGA and the Republicans. Given our repeated strong performance we shouldn't be losing the economic argument to these guys.
We strongly recommend reviewing David Leonhardt’s NYT essay "Why Are Republican Presidents So Bad for the Economy?" It makes very similar arguments and has lots of terrific and useful charts. Maria Cardona cites our research in her CNN column, as does David Rothkopf in this USA Today essay. Mike Tomasky’s rave review of With Dems in a recent Daily Beast column is a great read. Mike writes: “Simon Rosenberg heads NDN, a liberal think tank and advocacy organization. He has spent years advising Democrats, presidents included, on how to talk about economic matters. Not long ago, he put together a little PowerPoint deck. It is fascinating. You need to know about it. The entire country needs to know about it." We agree of course!
The deck has been revamped to include a new, longer section on the strong economic recovery under President Biden. Some of the key stats from that section:
GDP growth 3x Trump, 6x as many Biden jobs as last 3 GOP Presidents combined
best COVID recovery in G7
lowest unemployment rate in 53 years
lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever
very elevated wage gains/new business starts
2 job openings per unemployed person, a record
real earnings up in 2022, trade deficit/deficit down
historic investments in our future prosperity (infrastructure, CHIPs, climate, health care)
domestic oil production on track to set records in 2023
Finally, our understanding of the American economy and the role of inflation was heavily influenced over the past year by the writings of our long time collaborator, Rob Shapiro. Rob wrote in January that employment was booming at historic levels, in May that inflation was having little effect on people’s incomes, in July that pundits’ talk about recession was flat-out wrong, in August that Americans were clearly better economically off under Biden, and in October that Democrats should tout their economic record. Like the red wave, we think too many commentators in 2022 bought into the "inflation is killing the Democrats" narrative far too easily.
You can find even more background below. Thanks for your interest, and we hope to catch you at one of our upcoming presentations!
Background on With Dems
The impetus for With Dems comes from the big argument Donald Trump started making in his 2016 campaign - that this new age of globalization ushered in after the end of the Cold War had weakened the United States, leading to his infamous phrase "American carnage."
At NDN we always found that argument misguided and wrong. When Trump came to office the US had a very low unemployment rate, record high stock market, declining deficits and rapidly growing incomes for American workers. The uninsured rate was the lowest of the modern era, crime rates were half of what they'd been, and the flow of undocumented immigrants to the border was a fraction of what it was in the Bush and Clinton years. The world was largely at peace, a great deal of the world was modernizing and growing, and a global effort to address climate change was picking up steam. While things weren't perfect, what President Trump inherited when he came to office were some of the best overall geopolitical, societal and economic conditions America had seen in decades. It is something Simon discusses at length in this Medium essay.
So over the past few years we've been talking about just how wrong former President Trump was about this great country and its achievements. It has driven a great deal of our research and advocacy and the creation of an earlier version of With Democrats Things Get Better called Patriotism and Optimism. In the spring of 2020 we retooled Patriotism and Optimism into our new presentation, With Dems, which is a data filled look at America during this age of globalization, and how each party has navigated its challenges while in the White House.
Central to this presentation is the notion that the Democratic and Republican parties aren't mirror images of one another, but rather that they have followed separate, organic pathways in a big, diverse country like the US. The result of this differing evolution is that the Democrats have been a remarkably successful governing party since 1989, while the Republicans have presided over three straight recessions, historic foreign policy failures and a deeply dangerous embrace of illiberalism.
One thing we discuss in With Democrats is how Americans who have grown up in this post-1989 era - those under 45 - understand this divergence, and view the parties very differently as a result. In 2018, voters under 45 voted for Democrats by a margin of 25 points, whereas in the seven elections from 1992 to 2004, voters under 45 (who had grown up in a fundamentally different political era) voted for Democrats by an average margin of just 0.3 points. This trend has continued in both the 2020 and 2022 elections.
We hope you enjoy this new project and do note that one of our existing programmatic areas, Countering Illiberalism's Rise, has some overlap with the work you will find here. Simon's 2020 essay, "Build Back Better/Reconstruir Mejor - Joe Biden's Historic Opportunity" in the Mexican-based intellectual journal Letras Libres, addressed many of the themes we explore in With Dems and offered some thoughts on the big challenges facing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. A passage: "A President Biden would have an extraordinary opportunity to do what he calls “build back better” here in America, and around the world. It would be wise for Biden to view this moment as the beginning of a new era, a generational long project to reset America and the world after a collective trauma. Perhaps the most analogous moment in our history would be the years after World War II in which new institutions were established around a new vision for humankind."
We hope you enjoy With Dems, and if you do, please invite others to come experience it too. It is free and open to the public – all are welcome.
Related Readings
Build Back Better/Reconstruir Mejor - Joe Biden's Historic Opportunity - Simon Rosenberg, Letras Libres, 10/1/20 - In a new essay for the influential journal Letras Libres, Simon offer his thoughts about what Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrats should fight for if they prevail in the election this fall (English and Spanish).
Crossing the Rubicon - Simon Rosenberg, NDN, 1/29/20 - The GOP's increasing acceptance of illiberalism and actions at odds with our democratic tradition to gain/maintain power has become the most important political story of our time.
To Defeat Illiberalism, Democrats Must Embrace Their Success As A Governing Party - Simon Rosenberg, NDN, 12/14/19 - Over the past 30 years, the Democratic Party has been the most successful center-left party in the developed world. It is time it started acting like it, and begin to far more purposefully lead the fight against rising illiberalism here and abroad.
Americans Under 45 Are Breaking Hard Toward The Democrats - And For Good Reason - Simon Rosenberg and Chris Taylor, NDN, 8/2/19 - Among the most significant political developments of the Trump era is the dramatic shift of under 45 year old voters towards the Democrats. From 2000 to 2016 D margin w/under 45s was 6 points. In 2018 it was 25.
In New Global Age, Dems Have Produced Prosperity, the GOP Decline - Chris Taylor, Medium, 1/29/19. Since 1989, Democrats have overseen strong and inclusive economic growth when in the White House, while the Republican Presidents have repeatedly seen economic under-performance and even recession and decline.
The Case for Optimism: Rejecting Trump's Poisonous Pessimism, Simon Rosenberg, Medium, 6/2/17. In an essay that originally was published on Medium, Simon argues that the great rationale of Trump's Presidency – that America is in decline – simply isn't true, and must be challenged more forcefully.
Chin Up, Democrats, Simon Rosenberg, US News and World Report, 1/20/17. In his column, Simon argues that Democrats should have pride in their historic accomplishments and optimism about the future of their politics. This one is very relevant to the presentation itself.
A Center-Left Agenda for the Trump Era - Simon Rosenberg, US News and World Report, 12/9/16. In the early days after Trump's election, Simon layed out a possible agenda for the Democrats centering on prosperity, security, shoring up the American led liberal order and ambitious efforts to reform our political system.
Older, Related Work
An Enduring Legacy: The Democratic Party and Free and Open Trade Jan 21, 2014 - The global system created by Presidents FDR and Truman has done more to create opportunity, reduce poverty and advance democracy than perhaps any other policies in history.
TIME Features NDN Economic Analysis, Chart, Labels It "Most Important Chart in American Politics" Feb 5, 2013 - Michael Scherer of Time reports on the influence Dr. Rob Shapiro's analysis has had on shaping recent thinking about how the American economy is changing.
"Forward, or Backward?" - The Descent of the GOP Into A Reactionary Mess 10/25/12 - In a new magazine essay, Simon argues that the more the world moves away from the simplicity of the Reagan moment the more angry and defiant the Republican offering is becoming. In both Spanish and English.
Crafting an American Response to the Rise of the Rest, January 21, 2010, Cross posted on NDN.org and Salon.com. Simon argues that the second generation Obama narrative must be a strategic response to the most significant transformation taking place in the world today, the rise of new global economic powers, or what Fareed Zakaria has called the “rise of the rest.”
The 50 Year Strategy, November/December 2007, Mother Jones. Simon and Peter Leyden offer a landmark vision for how progressives can win and prosper in the decades to come.
"With Democrats Things Get Better"- My Most Important Presentation