You don't really think people who write articles like the later believe that saying the economy is bad will persuade conservatives to vote for Biden do you? Surely the charitable interpretation of them is they fear that if we repeat that perspective too much the left will start to act like it's true no?
This really hits home for me and is why I find myself on Threads arguing with socialists more these days. "Hey, things are pretty good!" "Yeah, well not for EVERYBODY".
I agree with your thesis here, but I want to raise a critique that I request you consider:
You write: "I think the fundamental right-wing belief is 'I should be more selfish.'"
This to me reads like a fundamental attribution error. I know many conservatives, and while their policy ideals feel more selfish, they're not any more motivated by selfish beliefs as any progressive policy ideals.
The benefit of progressive selfish beliefs is that they end up manifesting themselves as helpful to others who are not like them. Maybe this is what you're referring to. But this is not what you said.
As you continue in your quest to challenge the CW, I just think it would be good if you avoided impugning personal beliefs.
I am always surprised that government leaders believe that funding programs to remove children from home are somehow beneficial. I’d like to see funding parents the option of having one parent stay home for a period of time. This would not only help in child attachment it would increase the bond between parents and kids which in turn helps us reconnect with the actual goal of parenting. Leaving little room for governmental/institutional influence on the family. A great goal
Re: "Because in the modern world, I think the fundamental right-wing belief is “I should be more selfish.”
Really? Does that truly distinguish them from the 'cancel student debt, bring down drug prices, unionize for higher pay' side of the aisle?
I think Matt was right earlier with:
"The signature idea of right-wing politics isn’t that all is well in the world, it’s that society is going to hell in a hand basket..."
IOW, (and I am describing, not endorsing!) 'I am losing my place in the world due to... immigrants taking jobs (or curtailing raises), criminals taking lives, government taking my paycheck, schools teaching my kids nonsense' and whatever. Making America Great Again was marketed as reversing, or at least slowing, the many evils.
Hence the need for a border wall, access to guns, lower taxes (but for corporations?!? Trump's tax cut made limited populist sense) and general outrage on culture war issues. (I'm sidestepping abortion because that is (IMHO) an add-on for the religiously oriented, not a libertarian/ conservative self-reliance thing. IOW, I'm in denial about its importance to the right.)
Generally on-point as usual. Perhaps because of my age, I'm bothered by your toggling between "liberal" and "progressive" as synonymous. To me they are different and their practical meanings have become "differenter" over the past ten years.
Once this election is over, I would love for pundits to talk about how we're going to grow the economy while cutting deficits. There's a lot of happy talk about moving the progressive agenda forward but with 34 trillion in debt and 1.7 trillion in annual deficit in an economy that's growing at 3+%, I don't see a way to fix the deficit without deep cuts in spending and tanking the economy.
Representative quote from piece on why Biden can’t “tame” the radical climate left: “If we see a Trump administration, that's where I think things will be kind of interesting. Because then there's a common enemy again. It's much easier to build a coalition around that, I think that we'll see a lot more opportunity for folks to work together in that setting. I also would expect more of the moderate greens to be willing to get more confrontational, and take on more disruptive tactics, if we have a Trump administration. I'm not sure that they're going to go back to this whole thing like, the very staid, controlled legally permitted marches, which were the hallmark of the first Trump administration.” Link: https://www.eenews.net/articles/qa-why-biden-cant-tame-the-radical-flank/
You have always had a significant enough contingent of the left who would vote for a 3d party candidate at risk of electing a Republican - the thinking described here is just a little different packaging and alignments.
And Matt is 100% correct on the 3 potential outcomes to the election. The below point is just a continuation of an unserious and unrealistic approach:
“If Biden is reelected, it will be harder to push for higher taxes on the wealthy, more affordable higher education, limits on corporate power, increased labor and union rights, and other much-needed policies if Democrats have spent 2024 saying everything is going spectacularly in the United States economically.”
>The idea that we should all own up more boldly to our private indifference to the problems of the poor and the marginal, to the long-term future of the global environment, to the plight of refugees, etc. is bad.
[citation needed]. As someone who places high value on revealed preferences, opposes Noble Lies, and generally thinks we'd be in less of a mess if people were more honest about what they *and others* think...this just seems straightforwardly correct? You yourself have written a bevy of columns about the inferential distance between the Actual True Median Voter and the image of the electorate, especially as held by progressives. The People are not actually clamoring for a vigorous welfare state, carbon taxes, reformed asylum/increased legal immigration - acting like they are is just different permutations of the Progressive Mobilization Delusion. (Which also springs from these same roots, of misunderstanding youth and immigrant votes. I don't worry too much about ME dissatisfaction costing some left-flank votes, since such sentiment often correlates with...demographics that generally don't vote anyway. Mobilizing them might have unintended consequences!)
I also object to the framing of conservatism* as fundamentally about selfishness. It's not wholly wrong, but it's a...weakman, I suppose. What fundamentally appeals to me is a sense of caution and security mindset, of deliberate incremental steps and respecting the status quo when it's going well. Which it sometimes objectively is, as you note about the economy! It's the old-fashioned standing-athwart-history thing much more than fighting yesteryear's Civil Rights battles or whatever. Of looking around and feeling that, actually, things are pretty okay, let's not break that. Part of what makes your "Abundance Agenda" attractive is that so many of the key changes involve deregulation, letting markets do their thing, and dismantling parasitic rentier fiefdoms. All of which are quite compatible with a conservative outlook, at least as I see it.
*If you want to make a specific argument about wayward incarnations like the GOP, AfD, etc, then make that argument. Reducing that feeling of political-homelessness is important for getting "classical liberal/old-timey conservative" persuadable swing voters back into the fold. We do exist!
This is the piece I have been waiting for! Progressives need to be approached calmly and persuaded why their rhetoric is hurting things. This piece does that in a way I think a lot of other center-left perspectives don't. Just like when you are trying to convince Trump voters that there is a better way, you have to meet people where they are at and calmly start to persuade. Left-of-center discourse would be a lot more productive if we all took this approach. Instead far too many center-left writers choose to be condescending and dismissive. In the next breath, they knock progressives for being condescending towards Trump voters. Hello!?! Can you not see this is the same thing!?! Shockingly progressives then double down on their harmful rhetoric. Who would have thought that condescension and mockery would be ineffective?
Matt took an interesting position on Covid and politics during his podcasts. Matts pragmatism shines through his leftist views. That’s why I read and listen. A pragmatist and honest slightly left of center politics would be winning big right now.
Matts podcasts partner takes the typical self apologizing and forgiving view that is frustrating to so many.
Low engagement, low information voters, by definition, are not consuming large amounts of progressive messaging. And telling the public the economy is great when they feel differently is not a "popular" message. The problem is not leftie Cassandras. If you find yourself exposed to, or consuming, leftie doomsaying, that doesn't mean everyone else is, too. It means you're in the same bubble as the leftie doomsayers.
I think Biden has three problems. He's losing some support on the left due to his age and, for lack of a better word, entitlement, and his position on the war in Gaza. He's losing some support from the middle due to the inflation "hangover" and the border. And he's unable to gain much ground because, after 8 years, Democrats still don't know how to attack Trump. Biden has to solve all three problems without his solutions making any one problem worse.
It's too late to fix his Gaza position. I think there was a time a few months ago when he could have mollified his leftier critics (his own voters, not blue state yahoos who were always going to vote for Cornel West regardless) by stiff-arming Netanyahu in public and keeping the money spigot to Israel flowing, but I think that window has closed. As for his age... that's tough. I haven't seen much from Biden about why he WANTS to be president, just background reporting in which he thinks he's the "only one" who can defeat Trump. He needs to do more interviews, more town halls, and talk candidly about his age. And drop the "chosen one" act immediately.
With the middle, he needs to talk about how the first four years were about securing the job market, and the next four need to be about making the American dream affordable again. Lower housing costs, lower childcare costs, empowering Americans with the right to repair. Protecting our natural resources from rapacious multinational corps. The border is tougher; I worry that executive actions will be stymied by Abbott in such a way that the feds wind up looking like the bad guys. I think he's just got to be clear that there are no easy answers, that Trump only wants to use the issue to scare people rather than work towards real solutions, and repeat that we need to secure the border but we don't need to harm people to do that. Maybe? Just turning down the temp on the border would be a big help.
Lastly, he needs to hit Trump back hard. Ignore the high road. It'll just make Biden look arrogant. Biden needs to laugh at Trump. Make him look small and petty. Send the message that Trump is so desperate to be loved, he'll use the government to punish all the people who don't like him. Remind people Trump had four years in office and used that time to play golf and tell people to drink bleach. Never argue about the things Trump wants to argue about. Remind voters that in two separate elections, most people didnt vote for Trump, because most people don't like him or trust him. The point of the attacks is not to sway voters to your side; it's to create opportunities for Trump to overreact and make mistakes. It's enough to make Trump's supporters less enthusiastic.
Life is a lot better for young people in many ways than when Obama was elected, employment, tolerance, civic life. It feels like the dire economics of academia and media, two glaring exceptions in the college educated urban world, are created a distorted vibe among the thinking class that is hard to break.
The state of the economy is that you can get a job as an Amazon delivery driver, but everything in the truck is made in China. That by itself is not necessarily a problem, but the monetary distortions created by our huge budget deficits put our exports at a disadvantage, inhibiting the creation of higher paid, higher value-added jobs.
Our self-inflicted trade disadvantage worsens inequality by creating a “missing middle” between high-paid techies and low-paid grunt workers.
We are maintaining a superficial appearance of prosperity by running up the national credit card. This is true now and it was true during the pre-COVID Trump years. And no, I don’t think you can paper over this problem with tariffs and subsidies.
You don't really think people who write articles like the later believe that saying the economy is bad will persuade conservatives to vote for Biden do you? Surely the charitable interpretation of them is they fear that if we repeat that perspective too much the left will start to act like it's true no?
This really hits home for me and is why I find myself on Threads arguing with socialists more these days. "Hey, things are pretty good!" "Yeah, well not for EVERYBODY".
Very common theme, and it's tiring.
Matt,
I agree with your thesis here, but I want to raise a critique that I request you consider:
You write: "I think the fundamental right-wing belief is 'I should be more selfish.'"
This to me reads like a fundamental attribution error. I know many conservatives, and while their policy ideals feel more selfish, they're not any more motivated by selfish beliefs as any progressive policy ideals.
The benefit of progressive selfish beliefs is that they end up manifesting themselves as helpful to others who are not like them. Maybe this is what you're referring to. But this is not what you said.
As you continue in your quest to challenge the CW, I just think it would be good if you avoided impugning personal beliefs.
I am always surprised that government leaders believe that funding programs to remove children from home are somehow beneficial. I’d like to see funding parents the option of having one parent stay home for a period of time. This would not only help in child attachment it would increase the bond between parents and kids which in turn helps us reconnect with the actual goal of parenting. Leaving little room for governmental/institutional influence on the family. A great goal
Re: "Because in the modern world, I think the fundamental right-wing belief is “I should be more selfish.”
Really? Does that truly distinguish them from the 'cancel student debt, bring down drug prices, unionize for higher pay' side of the aisle?
I think Matt was right earlier with:
"The signature idea of right-wing politics isn’t that all is well in the world, it’s that society is going to hell in a hand basket..."
IOW, (and I am describing, not endorsing!) 'I am losing my place in the world due to... immigrants taking jobs (or curtailing raises), criminals taking lives, government taking my paycheck, schools teaching my kids nonsense' and whatever. Making America Great Again was marketed as reversing, or at least slowing, the many evils.
Hence the need for a border wall, access to guns, lower taxes (but for corporations?!? Trump's tax cut made limited populist sense) and general outrage on culture war issues. (I'm sidestepping abortion because that is (IMHO) an add-on for the religiously oriented, not a libertarian/ conservative self-reliance thing. IOW, I'm in denial about its importance to the right.)
Generally on-point as usual. Perhaps because of my age, I'm bothered by your toggling between "liberal" and "progressive" as synonymous. To me they are different and their practical meanings have become "differenter" over the past ten years.
Once this election is over, I would love for pundits to talk about how we're going to grow the economy while cutting deficits. There's a lot of happy talk about moving the progressive agenda forward but with 34 trillion in debt and 1.7 trillion in annual deficit in an economy that's growing at 3+%, I don't see a way to fix the deficit without deep cuts in spending and tanking the economy.
Let's be real, a lot of these people will become Republicans if they aren't already
Representative quote from piece on why Biden can’t “tame” the radical climate left: “If we see a Trump administration, that's where I think things will be kind of interesting. Because then there's a common enemy again. It's much easier to build a coalition around that, I think that we'll see a lot more opportunity for folks to work together in that setting. I also would expect more of the moderate greens to be willing to get more confrontational, and take on more disruptive tactics, if we have a Trump administration. I'm not sure that they're going to go back to this whole thing like, the very staid, controlled legally permitted marches, which were the hallmark of the first Trump administration.” Link: https://www.eenews.net/articles/qa-why-biden-cant-tame-the-radical-flank/
You have always had a significant enough contingent of the left who would vote for a 3d party candidate at risk of electing a Republican - the thinking described here is just a little different packaging and alignments.
And Matt is 100% correct on the 3 potential outcomes to the election. The below point is just a continuation of an unserious and unrealistic approach:
“If Biden is reelected, it will be harder to push for higher taxes on the wealthy, more affordable higher education, limits on corporate power, increased labor and union rights, and other much-needed policies if Democrats have spent 2024 saying everything is going spectacularly in the United States economically.”
Baffling, wrong, but not new craziness.
I want to like this post, but...
>The idea that we should all own up more boldly to our private indifference to the problems of the poor and the marginal, to the long-term future of the global environment, to the plight of refugees, etc. is bad.
[citation needed]. As someone who places high value on revealed preferences, opposes Noble Lies, and generally thinks we'd be in less of a mess if people were more honest about what they *and others* think...this just seems straightforwardly correct? You yourself have written a bevy of columns about the inferential distance between the Actual True Median Voter and the image of the electorate, especially as held by progressives. The People are not actually clamoring for a vigorous welfare state, carbon taxes, reformed asylum/increased legal immigration - acting like they are is just different permutations of the Progressive Mobilization Delusion. (Which also springs from these same roots, of misunderstanding youth and immigrant votes. I don't worry too much about ME dissatisfaction costing some left-flank votes, since such sentiment often correlates with...demographics that generally don't vote anyway. Mobilizing them might have unintended consequences!)
I also object to the framing of conservatism* as fundamentally about selfishness. It's not wholly wrong, but it's a...weakman, I suppose. What fundamentally appeals to me is a sense of caution and security mindset, of deliberate incremental steps and respecting the status quo when it's going well. Which it sometimes objectively is, as you note about the economy! It's the old-fashioned standing-athwart-history thing much more than fighting yesteryear's Civil Rights battles or whatever. Of looking around and feeling that, actually, things are pretty okay, let's not break that. Part of what makes your "Abundance Agenda" attractive is that so many of the key changes involve deregulation, letting markets do their thing, and dismantling parasitic rentier fiefdoms. All of which are quite compatible with a conservative outlook, at least as I see it.
*If you want to make a specific argument about wayward incarnations like the GOP, AfD, etc, then make that argument. Reducing that feeling of political-homelessness is important for getting "classical liberal/old-timey conservative" persuadable swing voters back into the fold. We do exist!
This is the piece I have been waiting for! Progressives need to be approached calmly and persuaded why their rhetoric is hurting things. This piece does that in a way I think a lot of other center-left perspectives don't. Just like when you are trying to convince Trump voters that there is a better way, you have to meet people where they are at and calmly start to persuade. Left-of-center discourse would be a lot more productive if we all took this approach. Instead far too many center-left writers choose to be condescending and dismissive. In the next breath, they knock progressives for being condescending towards Trump voters. Hello!?! Can you not see this is the same thing!?! Shockingly progressives then double down on their harmful rhetoric. Who would have thought that condescension and mockery would be ineffective?
Matt took an interesting position on Covid and politics during his podcasts. Matts pragmatism shines through his leftist views. That’s why I read and listen. A pragmatist and honest slightly left of center politics would be winning big right now.
Matts podcasts partner takes the typical self apologizing and forgiving view that is frustrating to so many.
Low engagement, low information voters, by definition, are not consuming large amounts of progressive messaging. And telling the public the economy is great when they feel differently is not a "popular" message. The problem is not leftie Cassandras. If you find yourself exposed to, or consuming, leftie doomsaying, that doesn't mean everyone else is, too. It means you're in the same bubble as the leftie doomsayers.
I think Biden has three problems. He's losing some support on the left due to his age and, for lack of a better word, entitlement, and his position on the war in Gaza. He's losing some support from the middle due to the inflation "hangover" and the border. And he's unable to gain much ground because, after 8 years, Democrats still don't know how to attack Trump. Biden has to solve all three problems without his solutions making any one problem worse.
It's too late to fix his Gaza position. I think there was a time a few months ago when he could have mollified his leftier critics (his own voters, not blue state yahoos who were always going to vote for Cornel West regardless) by stiff-arming Netanyahu in public and keeping the money spigot to Israel flowing, but I think that window has closed. As for his age... that's tough. I haven't seen much from Biden about why he WANTS to be president, just background reporting in which he thinks he's the "only one" who can defeat Trump. He needs to do more interviews, more town halls, and talk candidly about his age. And drop the "chosen one" act immediately.
With the middle, he needs to talk about how the first four years were about securing the job market, and the next four need to be about making the American dream affordable again. Lower housing costs, lower childcare costs, empowering Americans with the right to repair. Protecting our natural resources from rapacious multinational corps. The border is tougher; I worry that executive actions will be stymied by Abbott in such a way that the feds wind up looking like the bad guys. I think he's just got to be clear that there are no easy answers, that Trump only wants to use the issue to scare people rather than work towards real solutions, and repeat that we need to secure the border but we don't need to harm people to do that. Maybe? Just turning down the temp on the border would be a big help.
Lastly, he needs to hit Trump back hard. Ignore the high road. It'll just make Biden look arrogant. Biden needs to laugh at Trump. Make him look small and petty. Send the message that Trump is so desperate to be loved, he'll use the government to punish all the people who don't like him. Remind people Trump had four years in office and used that time to play golf and tell people to drink bleach. Never argue about the things Trump wants to argue about. Remind voters that in two separate elections, most people didnt vote for Trump, because most people don't like him or trust him. The point of the attacks is not to sway voters to your side; it's to create opportunities for Trump to overreact and make mistakes. It's enough to make Trump's supporters less enthusiastic.
To be fair to Trump, I believe you were supposed to INJECT the bleach rather than drink it:
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/07/13/fact-check-did-trump-tell-people-to-drink-bleach-to-kill-coronavirus/113754708/
Life is a lot better for young people in many ways than when Obama was elected, employment, tolerance, civic life. It feels like the dire economics of academia and media, two glaring exceptions in the college educated urban world, are created a distorted vibe among the thinking class that is hard to break.
The state of the economy is that you can get a job as an Amazon delivery driver, but everything in the truck is made in China. That by itself is not necessarily a problem, but the monetary distortions created by our huge budget deficits put our exports at a disadvantage, inhibiting the creation of higher paid, higher value-added jobs.
Our self-inflicted trade disadvantage worsens inequality by creating a “missing middle” between high-paid techies and low-paid grunt workers.
We are maintaining a superficial appearance of prosperity by running up the national credit card. This is true now and it was true during the pre-COVID Trump years. And no, I don’t think you can paper over this problem with tariffs and subsidies.