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The New York Mayor's Race Sucks

2 weeks ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Four years ago, New York City Democrats held a ranked-choice primary for the election to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio, and everyone knows the winner was Eric Adams, a moderate with no real administrative experience and a casual attitude about compliance with the law. What a lot ofpeople have forgotten about that primary is that Adams won very narrowly. In the last round of ranked choice calculations, he won 50.4% of votes to 49.6% for former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia.
Bluesky Isn't a Bubble. It's a Containment Dome.

2 weeks ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,My friend Megan McArdle warns in a column that the social media platform Bluesky is a harmful bubble for liberals. By decamping together for Bluesky, she writes, liberals have cloistered themselves in a place where their views won’t be challenged. And because the conversational norms on Bluesky are so hostile and obnoxious — do you ever use AI?
In Blue Cities, Abundance Will Require Fighting Labor Unions

3 weeks ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Yesterday, I interviewed Rep. Ritchie Torres at WelcomeFest, an annual conference for centrist Democrats in Washington, D.C.Midway through our conversation, we were interrupted by protesters from Climate Defiance, who have apparently moved on to Gaza as their cause of the day. One of the protesters kept screaming that Rep. Torres should be sent to The Hague for his pro-Israel politics. But I wasn’t there to talk with Torres about Israel.
Trump Is About to Learn You Can't Spin The Bond Market

1 month ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Donald Trump’s approval ratings deteriorated steadily during his first three months in office, with their decline accelerating after April 2 — so-called “Liberation Day” — when the president announced shockingly large global tariffs and financial markets puked in response.
If Your Agenda Prioritizes Carbon Reduction, It's Inherently Anti-Populist

1 month ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,It’s been fun watching Ezra Klein patiently ask leftists how, if they hate his ideas so much, they would instead propose to make housing production cheaper. This exchange with Sam Seder is instructive — Seder is all argle-bargle about housing being expensive because it is excessively “commodified,” and yet he has no answer for why Texas builds homes more cheaply than California. Is it because Texas has smashed capitalism and turned housing into a non-market good?
Kamala Harris Didn't Lose Because of Sexism, And Democrats Hurt Themselves When They Say She Did

1 month ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Joe Biden, for some reason, is back on television. This morning, he told the hosts of The View he still thinks he would have beaten Donald Trump if he’d stayed on the ballot last year. He also says he “wasn’t surprised” Kamala Harris lost to Trump — Harris was well-qualified to be president, he says, but she was no match for the powerful weapon of sexism that Trump levied against her.
The Tariffs Are Starting to Hit the Real Economy

1 month ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Today’s GDP report showed the economy shrinking slightly in the first quarter, at an annualized pace of 0.3%. Not great news. But for reasons economist Jason Furman notes, this figure somewhat overstates how weak the economy was in the first quarter. There was a tremendous surge in imports in the first quarter, which signals that firms were acting to get ahead of expected tariffs, which in turn led to a large buildup of inventories.
Business Leaders Are Afraid to Tell Trump He's Wrong, But Won't Be Afraid to Cut Jobs and Raise Prices

2 months ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,Last week, Donald Trump achieved something no president has before: He singlehandedly caused the S&P 500 to fall 10 percent in two days. The declines have continued today, and the signal from the ticker is unmistakable: His harebrained tariff plan is an economic disaster. A recession is now likely, with all the concrete human harms that entails: job losses, business closures, bankruptcies.
'Liberation' Through Massive Tariffs is Not Going to End Well for Republicans

2 months ago | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,While the idea that the imposition of huge tariffs constitutes “liberation” is ridiculous, some of the other descriptors the White House is using for President Trump’s big tariff announcements are accurate enough. His sweeping global tariffs will be “transformative,” “historic,” and “bold,” they say.
'Abundance' Liberals Have a Carbon Problem

Mar 21, 2025 | joshbarro.com | Josh Barro

Dear readers,There’s a conversation — occurring, as these conversations do, mostly among coastal elites — about how Democrats can better promote abundance. But for that conversation to end up being useful, it needs to be connected to what the average American thinks abundance even is. To that end, it’s worth thinking about Sen.