Wednesday Edition

Major banks worldwide are struggling to meet their climate change commitments. (Bloomberg)

Banks have been urged to align their financial moves with the 2015 Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C. A huge wrench in the plan is we're on track for a 2.8C rise.

Bloomberg reporter Alastair Marsh: “The world’s biggest banks can’t live up to the green regulatory ideal unless they start dumping huge numbers of clients worldwide at a reckless pace and also roil economies in large swathes of the globe that primarily rely on dirty fuels. Faced with that dilemma, many lenders are quietly reeling in their climate ambitions.”

Many advocates of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing say there’s no tradeoff between profits and sustainable business practices. “Worries that clean energy costs more, for example, are wildly out of date. More generally, a growing number of studies prove the payoff from focusing on long-term value and ESG,” sustainability experts Paul Polman and Andrew Winston wrote in a 2022 Harvard Business Review article. But the backlash to ESG investing is building quickly in light of evidence showing it’s actually not as profitable.

Bubba’s Two Cents: Businesses supporting worthy causes and making more money in the process — it sounds great on paper. The reality (as more and more companies are learning) is rarely can you have your cake and eat it, too. Acknowledging that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your favorite social cause, but it does put you in a better place to evaluate the challenges long-term.

Bubba’s Two Cents: Right-leaning media hasn’t done a good job of serving its audience. It’s reactive to the mainstream media it rails against and prioritizes commentary over facts and useful information. Too much of it is unserious and sensational, aimed at driving clicks and dollars. This is not providing audiences a trustworthy alternative to the mainstream, it’s just bitching about the status quo or exploiting a bad situation.

The old "Country Club" Republican stereotype is fading, as the GOP and Democrats swap places on donation sources. (Politico)

As the Republican Party’s become more blue-collar it’s become more reliant on small-dollar donors.

• In 2020, 45% of Trump’s campaign funds came from small donors ($200 or less), while Biden got 38% of his campaign cash from this group.

• On the other hand, Democrats now have a significant large donor advantage, racking up $5.2 billion in 2020 compared to Republican big donors' $3.3 billion.

There are some nuances here. Trump’s currently lagging Biden with big donors, but expect the gap to narrow somewhat as Election Day nears and the reality of a Democrat in the Oval Office sets in with GOP billionaires.

But there are also worrying signs for the GOP: Trump's small-dollar donations dropped to $51 million in the last year, significantly less than the $119 million in 2019 and only 18% more than Biden's total. And small-dollar fundraising has declined across the Republican Party, with some donors complaining they’re getting solicited too frequently via emails and texts. In fact, since 2017 Democrats have overall outraised Republicans with small-dollar donors.

Top GOP digital strategists suggest the model is tapped out. There’s only so many times you can go to the same well of donors.

Eric Wilson, a “political technologist” and friend of this newsletter, on the answer to small-dollar burnout: “Recruit more donors! … We haven't really unleashed the power of the internet for fundraising. We're just bringing old direct mail tactics online. The way forward is more like Substack, Patreon, and OnlyFans.”

Bubba’s Two Cents: Political campaigns will learn the same lesson the media has learned — desperate attempts to maximize metrics may work today, but to keep an audience long-term you have to respect them and take more of a “lifetime value” approach. Eric’s right: That will look more like a subscription or membership than clickbait scare tactics. But, as he said to me in a text, “Lifetime value is hard to think about when you’re fixated on quarterly fundraising and 18 month campaigns.”

Since Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the GOP has really tightened its grip on its core supporters. (NBC News)

A new poll from Public Opinion Strategies/NBC News found Republican support has increased among conservatives, rural counties, white men and guys without college degrees (in other words, most of the demographics that come to mind when you think of the Republican base). Democratic support is down among all those groups.

From 2016 to 2023:

• Conservatives went from 68% to 76% Republican.

• Rural counties went from 49% to 57%.

• Non-college whites went from 47% to 52%.

• Non-college men went from 42% to 48%.

Bubba’s Two Cents: Why is the base digging in its heels? Part of is our political environment (aka rising negative polarization) driving partisan hostility and creating an “us vs. them” mentality. Liberals would also probably say white Republicans are reacting to the expansion of rights for women and minorities (although the fact that blacks and Latinos have been flocking to the GOP kind of complicates that narrative). The base would likely say the left’s radicalism is driving them further into the arms of Republicans.

The Rand Corporation is out with a new study on gun deaths. (RAND)

• Firearm mortality is lower in cities than rural areas, mostly due to more gun suicides in rural places.

• Black people are over ten times more likely to be victims of gun homicide than whites.

• White people have higher rates of gun suicide compared to black and Hispanic people.

• The risk of gun homicide decreases with age, while the risk of gun suicide increases as people get older.