The saying about New England’s fluid weather – wait a minute, and it’ll change – could also apply these days to the pronouncements coming out of Washington.
Donald Trump
Posted inState Government
Mass. scrambles to understand, react to fed funding freeze
The Trump administration’s move to pause trillions of dollars in federal spending triggered an avalanche of uncertainty, panic and outrage, including a lawsuit from Attorney General Andrea Campbell and several of her counterparts.
Posted inOpinion
Trump, MLK and the power of grace in an age of division
For all the cognitive dissonance we might feel as one of our country’s most divisive figures takes office on the holiday celebrating one of its great healers, we all should consider one way to help bridge the chasm of misunderstanding and conflict in our society: the power of grace.
Posted inHealth Care
Second Trump term has Mass. abortion advocates on edge
Rebecca Hart Holder, the president of Reproductive Equity Now, says Massachusetts needs to brace for possible assaults from the incoming Trump administration on the state’s ability to offer services not only to its own residents but to the thousands who have turned to Massachusetts for abortions in the past two years.
Posted inBy The Numbers
To understand 2024 results, hindsight is not 2020
This year’s Massachusetts results are much more on par, in terms of turnout and outcome, with every other presidential election so far this century — other than 2020. In that way, they represent more of a reversion to the mean than a shift to the right.
Posted inOpinion
The politics of subtraction
Democrats face two major structural headwinds on the path to regaining a majority coalition. First is governance in blue states, which have not exactly created a progressive utopia in recent decades. The second problem is interest groups that dominate the party coalition by practicing a politics of subtraction, whereby policy purity tests seek to narrow the big tent required for progressives to wield power nationally.
Posted inPolitics
Cracks form in Mass. Democratic strongholds, led by heavily Latino cities and towns
Vice President Kamala Harris, who carried the state and its 11 electoral votes by 61.3 percent to President-elect Donald Trump’s 36.5 percent, not only won Massachusetts by a smaller margin than her Democratic predecessors. She won almost every single town by less, a sign that the Democratic coalition is weakening even in its strongholds.
Posted inPolitics
Economic concerns drove shift to Trump, Healey says
Voters “were making a statement in part about how they were feeling in terms of their own personal welfare,” Healey said.
Posted inPolitics
Looming second Trump term dawns on Mass.
The first Trump administration and its fallout was marked, in Massachusetts, by a scramble to shore up protections for marginalized groups and double down on commitments to Democratic priorities that looked imperiled. Trump’s next term could be even rockier for the Bay State.
Posted inPolitics
Study finds use of gender-neutral ‘Latinx’ by Democratic pols is costing them votes
Democratic politicians have gravitated toward use of the more inclusive, gender-neutral term “Latinx” in recent years, but a new study says it’s costing them votes and helps explain some of Donald Trump’s gains with this population.