The DSAs demographic sweet spot, trouble in two countries and other commentary

Liberal: The DSA’s Demographic Sweet Spot“The most Democratic voting group in America,” notes Silver Bulletin’s Nate Silver, is “voters with postgraduate degrees but lower-to-middle household incomes of $30K to $60K per year.” And it is “very much also the sweet spot for the DSA,” whose own “most recent member survey” revealed that “80 percent of members aged 25 or older had bachelor’s degrees” while “45 percent had household incomes below $60,000 per year.” (In contrast, “the most Republican voters in the country” are “high-earners who didn’t attend college.”) As “college-educated, mostly younger, mostly white progressives who are disillusioned by their economic opportunities,” this group “typically uses ‘post-material’ cultural issues as their rallying points” — meaning “gay rights, trans rights, the environment, race relations and Israel/Palestine.” They want “to feel as though they’re part of some greater, more altruistic struggle against corrupt elites or injustice.”Wildfire watch: Trouble in Two CountriesSmoke from Canada’s wildfires last week “shrouded cities from Minneapolis to New York in an apocalyptic haze” as “more than 3.9 million acres have burned this year,” note Shawn Regan & Sean Speer at City Journal.Climate change is the typical “scapegoat” for wildfires, but President Trump “blamed Canada’s “Willful Negligence” in failing to manage its forests” and “threatened to add the smoke’s “incalculable” costs” to Canada’s tariffs.

In fact, “the charge of negligence” on wildfires applies to both countries as they neglect crucial work like “forest thinning, brush clearance, and prescribed burning.” Canada has started to “recognize the problem,” with some provinces doing more.“American forests need the same attention,” but three prevention measures “await Senate action.” Argh! “Managing these forests is better and cheaper than watchi...