A Red-District Conqueror Wants Fellow Democrats to Look in the Mirror
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who is on track to win re-election in a rural Washington district, says her party needs to stop demonizing others and change the candidates it supports.
That North Carolina rep cited at the link really was a traitor. Republicans really do seem to have a better record at turning people in their favor through interpersonal manipulation . Looking at her, she looks like a superficial could-have-been-a-pageant-queen type, who maybe never really believed in much of anything besides herself. I think Andrew Yang was right about how running for office starts messing with people's heads and starts turning people into prima donnas even if they weren't before. I don't know if there's anything parties can do to recruit more grounded candidates from the beginning and try to screen out the egomaniacs and keep their candidates grounded.
With the whole range of tools Republicans use to keep their own people in line, and entice people over, from threatening murder, hangings, shootings, to offering jobs and internships and implicit offers of later employment, Republicans and conservative just have a lot more persuasive tools at their disposals than Democrats or Progressive movements or writers with their limited range of scolding, disapproval, protest, and snark.
against their own - Mike Pence and others - "do the right thing" on Jan 6.
against election officials
against the opposition - Paul Pelosi, Barack Obama
against the opposition (long time ago, after assault weapons ban) - John Dingell
"to offering jobs and internships and implicit offers of later employment"
Sinema
Former soft Dems like Max Baucus, Dave McCurdy, Tennessee's Jim Cooper who rode in every few Democratic wave elections to water down health care initiatives and bargaining positions and then worked corporate gigs in between.
"and the Republican tools of flattery, being nicer, and ego-stroking"
....applied in the case Matt Y. linked to of Ms. North Carolina legislature party switcher, and abortion rights flip-flopper.
I am most familiar with Alexander Sammon from the American Prospect. He illuminates some interesting stories there, but I tend to prefer the old timers there, Harold Meyerson, Robert Kuttner, and David Dayen. Alexander Sammon seems a little too quick to accept it as simply self-evident that someone being well networked in any manner with private business or even government in the past is prima facie evidence of corrupt influence and their advice, decisions, instincts, policies being automatically wrong and corrupt.
To the extent Sammon is misrepresenting MGP on abortion or her real positions, that is not cool at all, although he is perfectly fine to disagree with her on the student loan issue.
On the student loan issue, I understand the economic critique, and I also get why its support base would be narrow. And I don't think any progressive advocate should burn the house down over it. But I don't begrudge a lot of Dems for wanting it. From their optic, Republicans give their base spoils goodies all the time, and Democrats deny or fail to give their base anything similar so much of the time. Getting it done would show a power to reward.
Also, isn't there some messaging mileage to be gained by questioning the motives, and the humanity, and normalcy, of the people (ie the busybodies) who've sued in court to stop the loan forgiveness? I mean what kind of a$$hole, who isn't owed money themself, sues to make somebody pay a debt to a third party? Busybodies I tell ya! And a lot of the judges who've seen the cases have dismissed plaintiffs as having "no standing", which basically means their telling them, "nunya".
Sure, I agree. There's also the concentration affect. You get kids who might have been the smartest kids in their class, but with very few friends who could keep up, and put them together with lots of other kids who are just as smart.
MGP is a Reed* graduate who voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary; I think that there’s a decently chance that her private political views are somewhat further left than her public persona is— but adopting that posture will probably be instrumentally useful for advancing her (real) policy priorities.
The 10-D chess galaxy brain interpretation of the Slate piece is that its author knows this too, and it’s just kayfabe to help her burnish her image with slightly right-of-median voters.
*think Swarthmore or Oberlin, but more academically hardcore, more substance-loving, and with a Portland, OR vibe
"Abortion is now banned in North Carolina precisely because of this kind of betrayal"
This is inaccurate. Abortion is banned after 12 weeks, with exceptions through 20 weeks for rape and incest. So a more accurate phrasing would be - about 10% of abortions are now illegal.
The student loan thing is really cringy. I think it *comes* from progressives who look longingly at Europe, and want university tuition to be (virtually) free. So they think of student loan forgiveness as "righting a wrong".
It's absurd on a whole host of merits, though.
- Most of those countries with free tuition have far fewer universities (meaning fewer student choice on where to attend), far stricter admissions (so fewer students can attend), and quality that sticks pretty close to average (you won't find many German universities outcompeting ivy-league schools, or even top-tier state schools, on research).
- Many people with student debt have it because they attended a school far more expensive than the median. No one forced them to do this.
- Many more people with student debt have it because they attended an expensive grad school that led to a higher-paying job (doctors and lawyers, for instance, generally have lots of student debt)
- And of course, finally, if you don't like the way the system works, you should try to change it, not cheat it. The fact that they cannot change it (because the proposed change of "free tuition, but much higher taxes" would be incredibly unpopular) is their problem, not everyone else's.
In truth, student loan forgiveness is a thing that 1000% would be a Republican issue (it's like a nice give-back to rich people), except that Republicans have positioned themselves so anti-academic and anti-elite that they can't push it. When progressives continue to push it, they are just handing Republicans a win-win -- if it works, young doctors and lawyers get richer (yay Republicans!), and Republicans get to beat on Democrats about inflation and irresponsible spending (yay Republicans!). If it does not work, Democrats look like ineffectual, out of touch idiots (yay Republicans!).
She is also really charismatic, energetic, positive, and very obviously not corrupt! She is an incredible find for the Dems and we need to run candidates like her in every purple/red district and state. These "perfection or bust" liberals are going to doom us all!
'I also think she — and her colleagues Jared Golden and Mary Peltola, among the younger cohort of House Blue Dogs — are important for Democrats’ long-term prospects in the Senate. To an extent, you can take or leave these R+4 House seats, but with the current Senate map, Democrats have to win in Republican-leaning states to get a majority.'
This is an excellent case for why Golden and Peltola are worth protecting in the discourse, but an extremely bad one for Gluesenkamp Perez, since Democrats very clearly do not need to nominate heterodox centrists to win Washington state Senate races.
'Need' is a stretch here. That argument presupposes that enough voters in Alaska or North Carolina or whatever are following the fortunes of a House member from Washington. Some will be - we're not talking zero people I grant - but she is clearly much less important than Peltola or Golden.
1. All of the votes mentioned are good and correct.
2. Joe Kent is a truly insane person who was explicitly pro-Russia and liked to rant on Twitter about things like how it's gay to watch sports. Even against a MTG type I expect she would have lost. Though now that she has incumbent advantage she might have a shot at holding on. For a Democrat her views fit the rural West very well.
I can understand the bread and circuses argument from someone like Lyman Stone who actually puts in the hard work to put out that hot take, even if I stridently disagree with that take. But this is just a bunch of angry word salad.
I have long believed that the progressive outrage over a centrist Democrat taking a right-wing or centrist position is a feature not a bug. How else do you convey that you're meaningfully independent from the progressive groups without them getting mad at you? It may hurt campaign contributions from outside one's district but I'd hope (perhaps naively) that the Democrats are competent enough to get them funded.
In a weird post from the future, ie, Nov 8 2024: MGP did run against Kent again, and WON!
Got a nice write-up in the Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/marie-gluesenkamp-perez-interview.html
A Red-District Conqueror Wants Fellow Democrats to Look in the Mirror
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who is on track to win re-election in a rural Washington district, says her party needs to stop demonizing others and change the candidates it supports.
MGP 2028!
I wish we had someone like Perez in TN. I assure you, she's MUCH better than Sen Marsha Blackburn . . .
That North Carolina rep cited at the link really was a traitor. Republicans really do seem to have a better record at turning people in their favor through interpersonal manipulation . Looking at her, she looks like a superficial could-have-been-a-pageant-queen type, who maybe never really believed in much of anything besides herself. I think Andrew Yang was right about how running for office starts messing with people's heads and starts turning people into prima donnas even if they weren't before. I don't know if there's anything parties can do to recruit more grounded candidates from the beginning and try to screen out the egomaniacs and keep their candidates grounded.
With the whole range of tools Republicans use to keep their own people in line, and entice people over, from threatening murder, hangings, shootings, to offering jobs and internships and implicit offers of later employment, Republicans and conservative just have a lot more persuasive tools at their disposals than Democrats or Progressive movements or writers with their limited range of scolding, disapproval, protest, and snark.
"...threatening murder, hangings, shootings..."
Woah.
"...threatening murder, hangings, shootings..."
against their own - Mike Pence and others - "do the right thing" on Jan 6.
against election officials
against the opposition - Paul Pelosi, Barack Obama
against the opposition (long time ago, after assault weapons ban) - John Dingell
"to offering jobs and internships and implicit offers of later employment"
Sinema
Former soft Dems like Max Baucus, Dave McCurdy, Tennessee's Jim Cooper who rode in every few Democratic wave elections to water down health care initiatives and bargaining positions and then worked corporate gigs in between.
"and the Republican tools of flattery, being nicer, and ego-stroking"
....applied in the case Matt Y. linked to of Ms. North Carolina legislature party switcher, and abortion rights flip-flopper.
I am most familiar with Alexander Sammon from the American Prospect. He illuminates some interesting stories there, but I tend to prefer the old timers there, Harold Meyerson, Robert Kuttner, and David Dayen. Alexander Sammon seems a little too quick to accept it as simply self-evident that someone being well networked in any manner with private business or even government in the past is prima facie evidence of corrupt influence and their advice, decisions, instincts, policies being automatically wrong and corrupt.
To the extent Sammon is misrepresenting MGP on abortion or her real positions, that is not cool at all, although he is perfectly fine to disagree with her on the student loan issue.
On the student loan issue, I understand the economic critique, and I also get why its support base would be narrow. And I don't think any progressive advocate should burn the house down over it. But I don't begrudge a lot of Dems for wanting it. From their optic, Republicans give their base spoils goodies all the time, and Democrats deny or fail to give their base anything similar so much of the time. Getting it done would show a power to reward.
Also, isn't there some messaging mileage to be gained by questioning the motives, and the humanity, and normalcy, of the people (ie the busybodies) who've sued in court to stop the loan forgiveness? I mean what kind of a$$hole, who isn't owed money themself, sues to make somebody pay a debt to a third party? Busybodies I tell ya! And a lot of the judges who've seen the cases have dismissed plaintiffs as having "no standing", which basically means their telling them, "nunya".
Sure, I agree. There's also the concentration affect. You get kids who might have been the smartest kids in their class, but with very few friends who could keep up, and put them together with lots of other kids who are just as smart.
George Santos is the American Princess Diana!
MGP is a Reed* graduate who voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary; I think that there’s a decently chance that her private political views are somewhat further left than her public persona is— but adopting that posture will probably be instrumentally useful for advancing her (real) policy priorities.
The 10-D chess galaxy brain interpretation of the Slate piece is that its author knows this too, and it’s just kayfabe to help her burnish her image with slightly right-of-median voters.
*think Swarthmore or Oberlin, but more academically hardcore, more substance-loving, and with a Portland, OR vibe
This is a good piece. For those who disagree, I invite you to cross the river here (Portland) and spend some time in Marie's district.
"Abortion is now banned in North Carolina precisely because of this kind of betrayal"
This is inaccurate. Abortion is banned after 12 weeks, with exceptions through 20 weeks for rape and incest. So a more accurate phrasing would be - about 10% of abortions are now illegal.
Thanks for writing this. I'm from WA and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez' district is tough for a Democrat.
I have lost patience with pundits who haven't absorbed that the Republican lead in rural areas is killing us.
The student loan thing is really cringy. I think it *comes* from progressives who look longingly at Europe, and want university tuition to be (virtually) free. So they think of student loan forgiveness as "righting a wrong".
It's absurd on a whole host of merits, though.
- Most of those countries with free tuition have far fewer universities (meaning fewer student choice on where to attend), far stricter admissions (so fewer students can attend), and quality that sticks pretty close to average (you won't find many German universities outcompeting ivy-league schools, or even top-tier state schools, on research).
- Many people with student debt have it because they attended a school far more expensive than the median. No one forced them to do this.
- Many more people with student debt have it because they attended an expensive grad school that led to a higher-paying job (doctors and lawyers, for instance, generally have lots of student debt)
- And of course, finally, if you don't like the way the system works, you should try to change it, not cheat it. The fact that they cannot change it (because the proposed change of "free tuition, but much higher taxes" would be incredibly unpopular) is their problem, not everyone else's.
In truth, student loan forgiveness is a thing that 1000% would be a Republican issue (it's like a nice give-back to rich people), except that Republicans have positioned themselves so anti-academic and anti-elite that they can't push it. When progressives continue to push it, they are just handing Republicans a win-win -- if it works, young doctors and lawyers get richer (yay Republicans!), and Republicans get to beat on Democrats about inflation and irresponsible spending (yay Republicans!). If it does not work, Democrats look like ineffectual, out of touch idiots (yay Republicans!).
She is also really charismatic, energetic, positive, and very obviously not corrupt! She is an incredible find for the Dems and we need to run candidates like her in every purple/red district and state. These "perfection or bust" liberals are going to doom us all!
One thing to push back on here:
'I also think she — and her colleagues Jared Golden and Mary Peltola, among the younger cohort of House Blue Dogs — are important for Democrats’ long-term prospects in the Senate. To an extent, you can take or leave these R+4 House seats, but with the current Senate map, Democrats have to win in Republican-leaning states to get a majority.'
This is an excellent case for why Golden and Peltola are worth protecting in the discourse, but an extremely bad one for Gluesenkamp Perez, since Democrats very clearly do not need to nominate heterodox centrists to win Washington state Senate races.
Right, but we do need to show that our party welcomes candidates like MGP if we want to win Senate races in states redder than Washington.
'Need' is a stretch here. That argument presupposes that enough voters in Alaska or North Carolina or whatever are following the fortunes of a House member from Washington. Some will be - we're not talking zero people I grant - but she is clearly much less important than Peltola or Golden.
1. All of the votes mentioned are good and correct.
2. Joe Kent is a truly insane person who was explicitly pro-Russia and liked to rant on Twitter about things like how it's gay to watch sports. Even against a MTG type I expect she would have lost. Though now that she has incumbent advantage she might have a shot at holding on. For a Democrat her views fit the rural West very well.
"liked to rant on Twitter about things like how it's gay to watch sports."
I had to look this up just to make sure, and lo and behold...
https://twitter.com/joekent16jan19/status/1493015797916225539
I can understand the bread and circuses argument from someone like Lyman Stone who actually puts in the hard work to put out that hot take, even if I stridently disagree with that take. But this is just a bunch of angry word salad.
I have long believed that the progressive outrage over a centrist Democrat taking a right-wing or centrist position is a feature not a bug. How else do you convey that you're meaningfully independent from the progressive groups without them getting mad at you? It may hurt campaign contributions from outside one's district but I'd hope (perhaps naively) that the Democrats are competent enough to get them funded.