I consider this chart to be the clearest indictment of our country’s path over the last several decades: In 1980, the U.S. had a typical life expectancy for an affluent country. Today, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy of any affluent country:

For anyone thinking about immigration policy, I recommend this year-old piece by Michael Kazin: "How the GOP’s Hard Line Will Make America More Pro-Immigrant, Not Less." https://t.co/we5otoVgkN

@JakeMGrumbach The funny thing about the traditional contact theory discourse is that now immigrants themselves are swinging pretty right

The numbers matter too. The two countries that border Denmark — Germany and Sweden — each have a foreign-born population of 20%, not 12%. Germany and Sweden have weak center lefts and strong far rights. Denmark has a center-left government and a hobbled far right.

More from Starmer: “This happened by design, not accident. Policies were reformed, deliberately, to liberalise immigration…. To turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders. Global Britain – remember that slogan. That is what they meant. A policy with no support.”

Here’s PM Keir Starmer in November: “Nearly one million people came to Britain in the year ending June 2023… What the British people are owed is an explanation. Because a failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck…. No, this a different order of failure.”

Indeed. The UK Labour Party won last year partly by criticizing the Tories for being too lax on immigration.

Immigration is now roiling politics in the U.S., Canada, Australia, South Africa and Europe. The left's recent strategy -- lecturing working-class voters and ignoring the burdens on their communities -- hasn't worked. Denmark points to an alternative.

Consider this: Around the world, there is not one clear example of a country that has accepted large numbers of newcomers in recent decades while marginalizing the far right and reducing inequality.

As Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told me, immigration is the #1 reason that the Danish left still governs even when the left is in retreat almost everywhere else.

The key difference between Denmark's center-left and the center-left in the U.S. and much of Europe is that Danish progressives listened to working-class voters on immigration -- and reduced immigration levels. https://t.co/wsGeOyhueh

The Danish Social Democrats have also: * Spent more on Ukraine aid, as a share of GDP, than any other country. * Reoriented the retirement system to be more progressive and more favorable to lower-income workers. * Cracked down on housing speculation by private equity.

First, it's worth emphasizing just how progressive Denmark's center-left party -- the Social Democratic Party -- is: * It's expanded abortion access, both earlier in pregnancy and for teens. * It's passed among the world's most ambitious climate laws, on agriculture...

The left has lost power in the U.S., Germany, Italy and Sweden. Canada and Australia may be next. And the far right is growing across the West. But there is one European country where the left has won re-election and marginalized the far right: Denmark. Why? 🧵

What a run for Ian. We are really sorry to lose him — but proud and excited that @BostonGlobe has hired him for this role. Sign up if you care about Boston or New England!

She performed better in swing states relative to *her own performance elsewhere* (because she campaigned there). She lost NV, WI, MI and AZ, all of which Dem Senate candidates won.

Harris has many strengths. A successful prosecutor. Excellent in debates and Senate hearings. Solid at giving speeches. But they don't add up to being a presidential nominee who maximizes a party's chances of victory.

There is a long list of Democrats who've shown they can win swing voters -- Whitmer, Warnock, Shapiro, Gallego, Slotkin, Baldwin, Spanberger, Golden, Gluesenkamp Perez and more. Harris doesn't have any such history. Not in California, not in 2020.

The most obvious form of Democratic wishcasting in 2024 involved Biden, of course: the age denialism and the over-reading of midterm results. But the tendency to exaggerate Harris's strengths mattered too.

Kamala Harris's biggest 2024 weaknesses - her struggle to articulate a vision, her dearth of swing-voter appeal, her discomfort in unstructured settings - were evident when Biden choose her as VP. It's a reminder of the costs of political wishcasting.

I often find @jasonrileywsj columns thought-provoking, but I disagree with his latest. The NYT wrote many stories about the Biden immigration surge before the election, starting in 2021 and through Oct. 2024. A partial list of links is below.