Click here to receive the Daily Digest via e-mail.

The Democrats' Declaration of Interdependence (Prospect)

Harold Meyerson argues that the first night of the DNC offered a stark contrast to the GOP's themes: Go ahead and fantasize about your Randian paradise of individualist supermen all you want; the rest of us will be over here trying to have a society.

The Different Ways That Republicans and Democrats Want to Divide America (TNR)

Jonathan Cohn writes that by highlighting a Latino man and a black woman in their pitch to white working-class voters, the Democrats aimed to show that our struggles are all the same down here where the safety net doesn't go by the name "Dad."

The Obama Exception (Salon)

Steve Kornacki notes that while Democrats have been tripped up by questions about whether we're better off now than we were four years ago, voters' incredible powers of recall allow them to discern that Barack Obama was not president in 2008.

Are You Better Off Without Dumb Campaign Questions? (Bloomberg)

Ezra Klein argues that asking whether the last four years have left us better off glosses over important details like the fact that the president is not God-Emperor of the United States. Besides, those aren't the four years we need to worry about.

G.O.P. Shift Moves Center Far to Right (NYT)

Eduardo Porter writes that Richard Nixon would be too big a socialist to survive in today's GOP, which has transformed from a party that accepted the role of government into a buzzsaw that Democrats must run through as they push for action.

Middle-Class Secretaries Are Being Pushed Into Minimum Wage Work (The Nation)

NND Editor Bryce Covert highlights a new study that shows the job market for women is shrinking as secretaries become a thing of their past. But while their positions are disappearing, their work has magically appeared right in all our laps.

How We Can Bring Millions of Americans to the Middle Class (HuffPo)

Bob Herbert argues that we already know how to grow America's middle class, because we created it through large-scale public efforts like the WPA and infrastructure investment. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we need to get it rolling again.

Was the decline of American unions inevitable? Not if you ask Canada. (WaPo)

Brad Plumer notes that while many have argued that the death of organized labor is a fait accompli, our neighbors to the north have proved that it's quite a bit easier to sustain union membership if government policy isn't actively dismantling it.

Republicans Must Choose: Less Debt or More Jobs? (Bloomberg)

Michael Kinsley points out that Republicans have a bit of a conflict to resolve in their economic platform: They swear that if Mitt Romney were in charge, we'd have millions more jobs. They also swear he wouldn't do the things that create them.

The Democratic Platform's Dishonest Nonsense on Housing (FDL)

While it's obviously not as high a priority as determining whether Paul Ryan can outrun Usain Bolt, David Dayen notes that the housing plank in the Democrats' platform appears to be a dispatch from an alternate reality in which their plans worked.