Good morning:
Voters delivered a sweeping rebuke to Republicans during Tuesday’s midterm elections, and progressives immediately claimed a mandate. In City Journal, MI’s Jesse Arm and Matthew Shor advise that the left proceeds with caution.
They argue that voters clearly punished a president whose tariffs, war with Iran (including the spike in gas prices), and fixation on grievances like the performing arts Kennedy Center, undercut his promise to address affordability and lower the cost of living. But as political scientist Robert Dahl argued decades ago, a vote tells us which candidate a voter preferred, not which set of policies he wanted or why. Arm and Shor point out that the five Sanders-backed Senate candidates collectively underperformed their fellow Democrat candidates. The election results, therefore, are not an endorsement of democratic socialism or similarly progressive policies. Democrats may have won a chance to show what they can do, the authors write, but a party that mistakes its own preoccupations for the public’s interests and priorities will not hold on to that chance for long.
California offers the clearest example. Voters elected Xavier Becerra governor but appear poised to reject Proposition 40, the nation’s first statewide billionaire wealth tax. Senior fellow Shawn Regan notes in City Journal that the residents across the state will pay a price regardless. The departures of just seven prominent billionaires, including Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have already removed $540 billion in wealth from California. On Tuesday, Rep. Ro Khanna promised to be “first in line” supporting the measure next cycle, and backers of the proposition have publicly said that their real goal is a federal wealth tax. California’s lesson, Regan writes, is that ideas have consequences, even when they don’t pass.
Affordability was the marquee issue of the midterm cycle, and the hard questions are far from resolved. Writing in USA Today, director of research Judge Glock argues that House Democrats’ two most concrete proposals, reinstating the enhanced Obamacare tax credits and reversing Republican Medicaid cuts, would return the country to the historic inflationary highs of the Biden era. President Trump’s tariffs handed Democrats a real opening, Glock writes, but the Democrats’ answer is just a rerun of Bidenomics.
Manhattan Institute scholars will have more to say about the midterm results in the coming days. In the meantime, continue reading for all these insights and more. Kelsey Bloom Editorial Director Manhattan Institute |
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What Universities (Say They) Teach: The Spread of Progressive Language in College Course Catalogs
By Iván Marinovic | Manhattan Institute | Photo by kolderal/Moment via Getty Images
Critics of the modern university system argue that these institutions have shifted their mission from the pursuit of truth to the promotion of social justice; but there is little evidence on what universities actually teach.
A new Manhattan Institute report by Stanford professor Iván Marinovic fills that gap. He studies the curricular language directly—titles and descriptions of 7.3 million course records from 111 universities between 2000 and 2025. He evaluates whether courses cover progressive themes such as race, gender, identity, equity, and social justice; or whether they study the authors, texts, and traditions of the Western canon.
As Marinovic documents, the share of courses using progressive language over that time frame more than doubles, from 4.8% to 10.8%, while the Western-canon share drifts from 4.8% to 4.4%. Where these progressive themes are taught also matters: The progressive course share rises in every broad academic area and more than triples in professional schools. Universities may differ widely, but unfortunately this trend is something they have in common. Read the full report, here. |
The Billionaire Tax Is on Its Way to Defeat. California Will Still Pay a Price.
By Shawn Regan | City Journal | Photo by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
“California voters appear poised to reject Proposition 40, a ballot initiative that would have imposed the nation’s first-ever statewide wealth tax. As of Wednesday morning, the proposal was trailing by more than 10 percentage points, with roughly 60 percent of votes counted.
“Backed by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the measure sought to levy a one-time 5 percent tax on the wealth of California residents with more than $1 billion in net worth. It faced opposition from business groups as well as Governor Gavin Newsom and Governor-elect Xavier Becerra.
“Californians may have spared themselves a costly experiment. The measure would have imposed a tax that numerous European countries have tried and abandoned after finding its economic costs too difficult to justify. But even if Prop 40 is rejected, the result will be less cause for celebration than it seems. The mere threat of a wealth tax has already inflicted lasting damage on California’s economy, prompting many high net-worth individuals to flee the state, taking their taxable income with them. Other state lawmakers considering a wealth tax should take note.”
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Midterm Election Results: Voters Punished GOP, but Didn’t Endorse Far Left
By Jesse Arm and Matthew Shor | City Journal | Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP via Getty Images
“Before the 2026 election results had even begun trickling in, progressives were already claiming a mandate. In an email to supporters, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote that ‘if the pundits are correct and Democrats are able to take back the House and even the Senate, the Democratic Party must undergo fundamental and immediate reform.’ … Sanders called for Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, and cuts to military spending.
“The problem for Sanders, and for others who will interpret Tuesday’s results as an endorsement of a sweeping socialist agenda, is that Democrats won without resolving their own ideological disagreements. Americans delivered a rebuke to the party in power, but they did not demonstrate an appetite for its most extreme opponents’ agenda.
“At the same time, Republicans shouldn’t dismiss their loss as a standard midterm rout. President Trump returned to office promising to lower the cost of living, then made price-busting tariffs the centerpiece of his economic agenda.” |
Federal Scholarship Tax Credit Expands What School Choice Means for Families
By Jennifer Weber | The 74 | Photo by Alexander MacDougall/Albany Times Union via Getty Images
“School choice has traditionally meant the opportunity to pick a different type of school, like a charter, private or parochial school in another part of town. Families who want their child to stay in their neighborhood public school have frequently been left out, even if the school alone can’t help their child catch up or get ahead.
The new federal scholarship tax credit was also specifically written to include these families. It covers expenses like tutoring, services for students with disabilities, curriculum, transportation and computer equipment. The Treasury’s proposed rules would also automatically qualify low-income children already receiving public benefits or school-based tutoring, making sure families who need help most get it first. … “Governors who hesitate to join should consider the benefits for those children. It’s becoming harder to find a good reason to turn it down.” |
Democrats’ Affordability Plan Is Just a Bidenomics Rerun
By Judge Glock | USA Today | Photo by cbies / iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images
“Democrats lost the 2024 election for one main reason: the high cost of living. After a flood of pandemic-era deficit spending, inflation under President Joe Biden hit a four-decade peak. …
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promises the party's agenda will ‘drive down the high cost of living in every possible area.’ But the Democrats' plans will fail, because they treat Trump as the sole cause of inflation and refuse to reckon with the legacy of the Biden years.
“The two most concrete planks in Jeffries' affordability agenda are reinstating the enhanced Obamacare tax credits and reversing Republican Medicaid cuts. In other words, Democrats want to return to the Biden-era status quo, the same policies in place when inflation hit a four-decade high. Democrats created the enhanced Obamacare tax credits in 2021 as a temporary response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they want to make them a permanent part of America's safety net.” |
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