Politicians, pundits, and pollsters are all trying to figure out what Democratic voters really want. With the extremely high stakes of the 2026 and 2028 elections before us — potentially including Supreme Court picks — divining the answer could set the course of the nation for the next decade, and longer.

But, as G. Elliott Morris writes at Strength in Numbers, the precise problem may just be that voters do not know what they want — or, to be more exact, what they say and what they mean can be very different. And that makes political strategy — and policy — nearly impossible to get correct.

Morris points to a recent New York Times poll that found a plurality of potential Democratic primary voters (47 percent) want the Democratic Party to move toward the center. But that very same poll of the same respondents also found that nearly half (49 percent) have a favorable opinion of socialism. And, to make matters even more difficult, a majority (55 percent) of those same voters say the party is neither too far to the left nor to the right.

“So what we’ve got here,” Morris writes, “is a Democratic electorate that is evidently pro-moderate, pro-socialist, and favors the party’s ideological status quo.”

Looking at a different poll, from May, Morris found that what all voters — not just Democrats — want are “middle-class tax cuts, higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and a crackdown on corporate price-gouging.”

“Either the electorate is hopelessly confused,” he continues, “or the ‘move left or center’ question isn’t measuring what pundits think it measures — or both.”

Morris digs deeper.

“Voters aren’t strategists, and asking them whether the party should move to the center doesn’t measure the electoral payoff of moving to the center — it measures whether they’ve absorbed, and agree with, the conventional wisdom that says moving to the center is how parties win,” he writes. “Those are different things.”

Morris goes one step further: “it’s not clear Americans have a good understanding of ideology anyway — or, at the very least, that that understanding translates in any way to policy and other outcomes.”

He notes that in the Times poll, nearly one-third of Democratic voters couldn’t explain what they thought about socialism —which means that this finding “indicates a low level of engagement with these subjects among the general public.”

Finally, Morris really gets to the heart of the matter.

He explains that he showed in April that only 8 percent of “self-described ‘moderates’ actually want moderation when you let them describe their politics in their own words.”

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Emergency workers swarmed the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to investigate massive numbers etched into the grass that appeared to spell out an “86 47” message.

U.S. Park Police, the Washington, D.C. Fire Department, and the National Guard responded to the appearance of the numbers, which could only be read from a distant height, such as the top of the Washington Monument, according to The Washington Post. A large “8” can distinctly be seen from an Earth Cam atop the structure.

“The numerals 8, 6 and 7 were visible, but the 4 wasn’t clearly etched into the grass,” the Post reported. “It remains unclear how the markings were made. The term ’86’ is restaurant industry slang that generally refers to the unavailability of an item or a customer’s removal. Trump allies have argued it can also mean to kill someone.”

Trump is the 47th president.

In its indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, the Trump Justice Department suggested that the term “86 47” could be interpreted as intent to harm President Trump.

On the ground, the numbers only appeared as brownish patches in the grass.

“Multiple emergency vehicles could be seen encircling the grass around 1 p.m. A team of officers stood over brown patches in the grass, wearing gloves, and appeared to be testing the grass with materials from a yellow case,” the Post reported. “Pedestrians were not permitted to walk on the grass, and a Park Service helicopter circled overhead.”

A White House spokesperson in an email to the Post said, “Anyone who engages in or endorses political violence or assassination culture must be condemned in the harshest terms possible.”

They added: “They should also immediately seek psychiatric help to treat their severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has warped their brains and made them sick in the head.

CBS News reported that an Interior Department spokesperson called it “deranged vandalism” that “will not be tolerated.”

“Any threat against the President is taken very seriously by the Department, and our U.S. Park Police will investigate this incident and hold those responsible accountable,” they added.

Image via Reuters 

CNN fact checker Daniel Dale is scorching President Donald Trump for employing a “time-tested conspiracist tactic,” namely, altering his conspiracy theory when the facts disprove it.

Dale reminds readers that when then-President Barack Obama in 2011 had to publish his long-form birth certificate, which proved decisively that he was, in fact, born in the U.S., Trump didn’t cease and desist — instead, he changed tactics and suggested that the birth certificate itself was fake.

“It’s a time-tested conspiracist tactic,” Dale writes. “And he’s now using it again when trying to explain why Steve Hilton succeeded in the California primary elections Trump had baselessly declared were a fraud and were being rigged against Hilton.”

“If you’re pushing the baseless conspiracy theory that the results of last week’s California primary elections were rigged against Republicans like gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, it would seem highly inconvenient that Hilton has succeeded in qualifying for the November runoffs,” Dale argues. “But if you’re a seasoned conspiracy theorist, as President Donald Trump is, you don’t just stop telling a fantastical tale when it is contradicted by new facts. Rather, you simply adjust the conspiracy theory so that the new facts now fit within it.”

Trump is now alleging that “he had jawboned the riggers into submission,” says Dale, “but only in Hilton’s case, not the case of unsuccessful Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt.”

For his part, Hilton hasn’t alleged any fraud, and, in fact, “he has said he has ‘seen nothing’ to justify any legal intervention.”

But Trump warned that California authorities had “approved” of Hilton advancing to the top tier for November.

“And then I hit them hard on that (Pratt’s defeat), but I started talking about Steve Hilton, who’s a fantastic guy,” Trump said, as Dale noted. “And I saw them say it was going to be two weeks before they knew, and I started hitting them. ‘It’s going to happen to Steve Hilton, too.’ It’s – ‘Watch, you gotta watch’ – and they approved Steve Hilton very quickly. They didn’t want, there was too much heat on them. The only reason he got approved – he had all the votes he needed, probably to be first place – but the only reason they approved Steve Hilton, it was going to be two weeks, they said, and then they approved him that night. Because the heat was on them, because they’re cheatin’ dogs.”

Dale calls Trump’s allegations “complete hogwash” and a “new round of foolishness.”

Image via Reuters