THE RECRIMINATIONS BEGIN: Top Dems blame the Squad for the party’s problems. “Why it matters: The push to defund the police, rename schools and tear down statues has created a significant obstacle to Democrats keeping control of the House, the Senate and the party’s overall image. . . . House Democrats’ own polling and focus groups show many swing voters think the party is too “preachy,” “judgmental” and “focused on culture wars,” according to documents obtained by Politico. An Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll found crime and gun violence are leading worries for Hispanics, whose once-reliable support for Democrats has cooled in part because of “fears of Democrats embracing socialist policies,” The New York Times reported.”

Related: The Squad’s own-goals led Dems down primrose path. “There’s nothing terribly mystifying about this. Democrats didn’t even have the blinding spectacle of a landslide election to excuse their fantasy-politics adoption. In 2020, they barely won the presidency, actually lost seats in the House, only gained control of the Senate when Donald Trump and his allies ruined GOP efforts in Georgia’s runoff election, and made no significant gains in state legislatures. From that mess, progressives somehow convinced themselves that they had their collective finger on the political pulse of America. Even worse, they convinced the utterly incompetent Joe Biden of the same thing — even though he had campaigned explicitly as a centrist. Instead of focusing on meat-and-potatoes issues that matter daily to voters such as the economy, crime, and in this case the pandemic, Democrats went all-in on climate change, federalizing elections, and wild spending that predictably touched off a massive inflationary wave that hadn’t been seen in 40 years.”

Plus: “The Washington Post points out that the Squad politics adopted by Joe Biden has resulted not in fights between suburban and rural Republicans, but urban-core Democrats who are looking for some law and order, among other basic deliverables.”