THOMAS FRANK: The Democrats’ Davos ideology won’t win back the midwest.

I am a midwesterner too, and I like to think I share the values and outlook of that part of the country. I have spent many of the last 15 years trying to understand my region’s gradual drift to the political right. And I have spent the last three weeks driving around the deindustrialized midwest, visiting 13 different cities to talk about the appeal of Donald Trump and what ails the Democratic Party. I met labor leaders and progressive politicians; average people and rank-and-file union members; senior citizens and Millennials; sages and cranks.

Along the way I gawked at abandoned factory complexes and at Gothic-style water filtration plants. I visited affluent college towns and crumbling relics of twentieth-century prosperity. I ate pork tenderloins in Iowa and ribeye steaks in Indiana and “fast-casual Italian offal” (as a friend called it) in a bohemian zone of Chicago. I saw countless old fighter planes mounted on pedestals. I stood in a union hall in Indianapolis and breathed in that glorious odor of industrial beer mixed with decades of cigarette residue, the sweet fragrance of my youth.

And what I am here to say is that the midwest is not an exotic place. It isn’t a benighted region of unknowable people and mysterious urges. It isn’t backward or hopelessly superstitious or hostile to learning. It is solid, familiar, ordinary America, and Democrats can have no excuse for not seeing the wave of heartland rage that swamped them last November.

They don’t like that America anymore, and the feeling has become mutual.

AND WE’RE ONLY LEARNING OF THIS IN 2017 BECAUSE…? FBI Convened a Grand Jury to Investigate Hillary Clinton in 2016.

HE’S ACCOMPLISHED MUCH FOR THE GOP: The First 117 Days of Chuck Schumer.

Schumer is no dummy when it comes to reading polls and he knows that being labeled a Democrat these days isn’t what it used to be. In fact, recent Gallup tracking of party identification found just 28 percent of Americans identify as Democrats, down 11 points since Barack Obama was elected president.

In a move that can only be described as savvy, Schumer, responding to this polling, has turned over representation of the party to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who by his own admission is not actually a Democrat. Sanders is traveling the country with national party chairman Tom Perez, holding rallies and doing media interviews in which they openly fight about what policies Democrats actually stand for. CNN charitably called the tour “bumpy.”

Schumer is nothing if not responsive. With 40 percent of registered voters in a recent Harvard-Harris poll saying the party has no leader, turning the thing over to people who aren’t actually Democrats is probably the right tactical move.

Heh.

Read the whole thing.

JOSH KRAUSHAAR: Trump Voters’ Loyalties Run Deep.

Here’s the standout item:

Polit­ic­al cor­rect­ness is a big­ger is­sue for Re­pub­lic­ans than his policy po­s­i­tions or busi­ness back­ground. The re­cent ugly fights over con­ser­vat­ive speak­ers be­ing banned or threatened at col­lege cam­puses is front-and-cen­ter in many Trump voters’ minds. Giv­en four choices as to why Trump voters backed him, a clear 48 per­cent plur­al­ity said it was his “will­ing­ness to tell it like it is in­stead of be­ing polit­ic­ally cor­rect.” That ranked much high­er than his “fo­cus on bring­ing change to Wash­ing­ton” (21 per­cent), the fact he’s a busi­ness­man not a politi­cian (18 per­cent), or his spe­cif­ic is­sue po­s­i­tions (12 per­cent).

That’s the long version of last year’s “He fights!”

“PLEASANTLY SURPRISED”: So, as someone who was not #NeverTrump, but certainly #NotFondOfTrump, what do I think now?

HAVE THEY EVER HEARD ONE OF HIS SPEECHES? Obama reportedly pulls in another $400G for speech.

For an extra $50k, he’ll stick to the teleprompter.

ON NOTICE: Trump says ‘major, major’ conflict with North Korea possible, but seeks diplomacy.

“There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely,” Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview ahead of his 100th day in office on Saturday.

Nonetheless, Trump said he wanted to peacefully resolve a crisis that has bedeviled multiple U.S. presidents, a path that he and his administration are emphasizing by preparing a variety of new economic sanctions while not taking the military option off the table.

“We’d love to solve things diplomatically but it’s very difficult,” he said.

The man who coined the phrase “Speak softly and carry a big stick” rarely spoke softly, either.

GOOD MORNING: Liz Sheld has your end-of-the-week Morning Brief.

DON’T HAVE SPACESUIT, WON’T TRAVEL: NASA is running out of space suits — and it’s years away from having new ones ready.

ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION: Spying on Students in the Classroom.

THE PARTY OF NO: Dems threaten to oppose bill to prevent shutdown if health care vote happens before Saturday.

DEADSPIN: ESPN’s Diminished Future Has Become Its Present.

The causes of the layoffs are clear. As ESPN’s subscriber base, and the rate those subscribers paid monthly, grew in the late aughts and early 2010s, Bristol spent flagrantly. They created the Longhorn and SEC Networks, built a massive new SportsCenter studio, hired hundreds of writers to cover specific teams, and, most importantly, spent billions of dollars on live sports rights. They made big bets. They made wrong bets.

Right around the time the ink dried on a $15.2 billion deal to broadcast the NFL, subscribers began fleeing cable television in droves—not because of anything the Worldwide Leader did wrong, but because of secular changes in the way broadcast and video works. Phones, Twitter, and YouTube began instantaneously delivering highlights and entire games to fans, obviating the need for anyone to watch SportsCenter, or any other news shows, to catch up on what happened in sports, or even, in some cases, to watch live games. Terrestrial ad revenue never migrated online, and the revenue to be found there was largely eaten up by Facebook and Google, leaving little to pay those new ESPN.com reporters.

And after spending the last few years annoying much of its subscriber base, ESPN doesn’t have any goodwill to lean on while it tries to restructure itself.

GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN’T CRITIQUE HERE — THIS IS A UNIVERSITY! Students Claim Professor Broke Law in Writing Book Critical of Title IX.

VIDEO: Maxine Waters Forgot How to Say ‘North Korea’

It can be difficult to tell if Waters has forgotten many things, or if she just didn’t know much to begin with.

IT NEVER IS: We Will Hit Peak Oil By 2030 But It’s Not What You Think.

In fact, they’re saying will hit “peak oil” by 2030, but it won’t be because our supply of oil won’t be increasing. It’s because they anticipate demand will plummet as electric cars become more and more enticing. Joel Couse, the chief energy economist for Total S.A.—one of the biggest oil companies in the entire world—told a Bloomberg conference that yes, the end is nigh:

The surge in battery powered vehicles will cause demand for oil-based fuels to peak in the 2030s, Total Chief Energy Economist Joel Couse said at Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s conference in New York on Tuesday. EVs will make up 15 percent to 30 percent of new vehicles by 2030, after which fuel “demand will flatten out,” Couse said. “Maybe even decline.”

And it’s not just Total S.A., either. The Bloomberg story notes that the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, Ben van Beurden, has given an even more aggressive estimate, with peak oil coming in the late 2020s.

I look forward to this new version of peak oil, when electric-car owners will make it possible for me to continue putting cheap diesel into my SUV.

WITH ENEMIES LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS FRIENDS? Alt-Right Leader Richard Spencer Turns Against Trump: ‘It’s a Betrayal of His Campaign’

WELL, WE CAN’T HAVE THAT: In Ann Coulter’s Speech Battle, Signs That Conservatives Are Emboldened.

PERVERSE INCENTIVE: California bill would force utilities to give rebates for energy-storage systems.

The Energy Storage Initiative (SB700) was approved last week by the state’s Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee and is awaiting a full senate vote.

The bill, authored by State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat, would require the electric utilities to provide rebates to their customers by Dec. 1, 2018 for the installation of energy storage systems meeting certain requirements.

SB700 would require utilities to collect up to $166 milliion annually from ratepayers from 2018 through 2027 to fund the Energy Storage Initiative, which would then use the funds to provide rebates to customers who install energy storage systems.

People who don’t need batteries to round out peak hour usage — like on the North Coast, where the climate is moderate enough that air conditioning is almost unheard-of — would be incentivized to buy batteries for the sole purpose of not paying for the energy needs of southern and inland Californians.

This looks to me like yet another scheme to subsidize rich battery manufacturers and gentry liberals, all on the backs of California’s poorest residents.

TWO STEPS FORWARD… China Eyes Tighter Sanctions on N. Korea, but Limits Remain.

Analysts in China say the government is already doing all it can to keep the North in check. China cut coal imports from North Korea earlier this year and has been tightening financial flows to the North.

Lu Chao, a North Korea scholar at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences in northeast China says all Chinese banks have stopped banking with their North Korean counterparts.

“China has imposed the harshest sanctions ever against North Korea, the effect of which may take some time to kick in, but they will be effective,” Lu says.

Over the past week, the price of gasoline has surged in North Korea and some suspect Beijing is behind the price hike.

It is not clear what caused the spike. Some analysts say North Korea could be stockpiling gas for fear that imports could soon be banned. Others say that when tensions rise, the military gets priority.

North Korea’s military always has priority.

CHANGE: No NAFTA Withdrawal ‘at This Time’ After Trump Call with Trudeau, Peña Nieto.

THE HILL: 12 GOP no votes on new ObamaCare bill.

Senate support looks wobbly as well.

HMM: On His 97th Day As President, Donald Trump Made Tax Reform Less Likely.

Make no mistake: Thorndike and other veteran tax watchers figure the Republican Congress will ultimately pass a tax cut of some size this year and call whatever they pass tax reform.

“They have to have a tax cut, right? There’s a Republican president and a Republican Congress,’’ says Leonard Burman, a Syracuse University professor and co-founder of the Tax Policy Center. “But I’m not optimistic it will be reform. It’s too bad, because there were a lot of interesting ideas that were bandied about, particularly on the Republican side.”

Reform is arguably even more important than rate cuts, given how Congress and the past three administrations have larded up the tax code with bewildering complexities.

TAILGATERS: Russian navy intelligence ship sinks after collision with freighter off Turkish coast.

A Russian naval intelligence ship sank Thursday after colliding with a merchant freighter in foggy conditions on the Black Sea near Istanbul, the Turkish coast guard said. All 78 crew members on the Russian vessel were rescued.

The crew of the freighter Youzarsif H, a Togo-flagged ship traveling from Romania to Jordan and carrying 8,800 sheep, was unharmed and the ship suffered slight damage to its bow, according to local media reports.

In Moscow, Russia’s Defense Ministry issued a statement confirming that the vessel, the Liman, went down after the collision tore a hole in the hull below the waterline.

And:

The collision occurred about 20 miles northwest of the Bosporus Strait, one of the world’s busiest waterways connecting the Black Sea to the shipping lanes leading to the Mediterranean.

At the time of the accident, the Bosporus was closed because of poor visibility, the Reuters news agency reported, citing the shipping agency GAC.

Maybe not the best time and place for spying.

THIS IS NOT NEWS TO INSTAPUNDIT READERS: Shale Crushes Solar.

PROCUREMENT: Lockheed Sees More F-35, Missile Defense Orders From Abroad.

You read a lot of complaints about the F-35 from people who have never flown one, but the foreign orders keep stacking up.