Last year, Americans took over 10 billion trips on public transportation. These were trips to work, to school, to stores, to health care, to places of worship, and elsewhere. For millions of Americans, their quality of life rests on the quality of public transit.
This report presents findings on the use of public transit by people of color and on the potential jobs benefits that people of color can gain from investments in public transit.
Simply put, black families in the District overall have less wealth and income than white families — and therefore have less ability to give to political candidates. This helps explain why black D.C. residents are underrepresented year after year in political donations.
Studies have shown that policy most reflects the preferences of the most wealthy members of society and that those preferences do not reflect the greater public opinion on issues including the economy.
Democrats have all kinds of ways of addressing this problem. One would be to cultivate the class identity of white voters by embracing populist rhetoric that paints “the billionaire class” as an out-group they can define themselves against. Another would be to invest more resources into registering nonwhite voters. According to the Census Bureau, 74 percent of non-Hispanic whites are registered to vote in the United States.
Chicago, IL – Today, Heather McGhee, president of Demos, spoke during the Opening Session of the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit, a gathering of civic leaders in Chicago. The following are her remarks, as prepared for delivery.
The economy is not the weather. Economic news may come to us like a weather report—the stock market going up or down like the temperature—but it’s not actually unseen natural forces that dictate the way the wind will blow economically.
With only the wealthy funding and communicating with the campaigns of elected officials, politicians are incentivized to make policy decisions that align with their donors’ interests, not those of their broader constituency. But the elite donor class holds views that don’t align with the general public’s, as a 2016 Demos study detailed.
The Congressional Black Caucus budget should be implemented because it calls for racial equity in future infrastructure and investments; improving public transit infrastructure, noting that people of color are heavy users of it; and school infrastructure, saying that modernized buildings held reduce achievements gaps.
The Department of Justice abandoned a principled position that it has held for decades through three presidencies. By reversing course and choosing to stand with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and his practice of purging countless eligible Ohioans from the rosters, the DOJ has confirmed many peoples’ worst fears that it will no longer work to protect and expand the right to vote, but instead undermine it.
That kind of polarization may only intensify in coming years. In a blog post today at Demos, a left-leaning think tank, Sean McElwee points out that young Democratic primary voters and donors are both more liberal than other democrats their age and more liberal than older primary voters and donors. All of that means that the Democratic party will soon be pulled further left, McElwee predicts. [...]
Washington, DC – Today, Adam Lioz, Demos Counsel and Senior Advisor of Policy & Outreach, released the following statement in support of the Fair Elections Now Act, introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin.
“Demos applauds Senator Durbin and his colleagues for re-introducing the Fair Elections Now Act, the strongest public financing legislation in the U.S. Senate.
To succeed in 2018 and 2020, Democrats need to run campaigns that actually motivate people to get out and vote, especially 20-somethings and struggling people of all races.
That means running unapologetically on the belief that inclusion and diversity is our nation’s strength, that government can and should ensure opportunity and a decent standard of living for its people and that democracy should work for the people, not just the wealthy and corporations.
NEW YORK, NY – In response to the “Better Deal” proposal that Congressional Democrats laid out today, Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Research at Demos, released the following statement: