"This is a two-party system, so both parties have extreme members — that’s life. Democrats’ problem isn’t that AOC and Zohran Mamdani are too left-wing on guns, climate change, immigration, and trans issues, it’s that Democrats everywhere are expected to share these positions."
I love this framing, especially in light of Dean Phillips coming out with the strategically pointless stance of "Mamdani isn't a Democrat". Let our left wing freaks be freaks in their safe districts, and let's continue to tolerate democrats of all stripes who are doing what they need to do to win seats. And when the leftists inevitably try to shriek about moderate national democrats, party leaders need to just ignore them and let them occupy their niche echo chamber in isolation.
What is perplexing to me is not that Democrats are rediscovering the virtues of big tent politics, but that Democrats needed to rediscover "big tent" politics at all. One could argue that ALL successful political parties are "big tent" parties as Democracy actually requires parties to attempt to appeal to that magical 51% needed to secure victory.
The Democrats of the last 10 years seem to believe that the "universe will reward us for being right" which is at best an unproductive fallacy. The frequent comparison of American progressives to a fundamentalist religous sect is not without some truth. Only a "religion" could allow people to have such blind faith and such uncompromising beliefs.
There should be a massive effort to place a billboard on every major highway on the outskirts of every major town in every Red District in the Country identifying by name the U.S. Representative who voted for the Big Ugly Bill listing the eventual damages it will do to its citizens. The same should be done in every State with a Republican Senator up for reelection. Much of the bad stuff will not be apparent to voters until after the midterms; consequently, Democratic Party messaging between now and then is critical!
It seems to me like the public is broadly supportive of the work requirement for Medicaid, but Dems point out (correctly) that the Deep Red states that have implemented them made it incredibly tedious to jump through bureaucratic hoops and cut a lot of working people off of Medicaid… is it not incumbent on Dems to implement a better system in one of the states they govern? To say to the voters “yes we will give you what you want (Medicaid work requirements), and unlike Republicans we won’t use it as a pretext to do something you don’t want (broad cuts to working people on Medicaid)”
Seems like something that would be up Josh Shapiro’s alley…
What worries me here is that the OBBBA is sneakily designed to delay health care cuts until after the midterms. It seems like the Democrats' only strategy will be to trumpet the coming cuts with dramatic ads that fully follow MAGA's fear-fomenting style.
The media is offering scary stories now about cuts in Medicaid (rural hospitals bailing early in anticipation of the cuts), but all of that will have scrolled off the screen by the time the election heats up.
Generally a good article and persuasive argument, but I don't get why Matt always has to parrot these progressive talking points about "tax fairness". The US Federal Tax Code is steeply progressive, even after the OBBA. High earners in high-tax areas are already facing top rates well over 50%. Our top rates are already among the highest in the world. It's our mid-range rates that are outliers. The OBBA was not an "orgy of regressive tax cuts". It basically just lowers every bracket by about 2 points. It's a uniform tax cut, everyone keeps an extra 2% of income, give or take. Democrats perhaps would have let the 2 point cut expire for the very highest bracket. They also would have wanted to do a very regressive tax cut in the form of eliminating the SALT cap. There's really not much difference (apart from the Medicaid and green energy items).
The progressive talking point comes from looking at who gets what $ savings. And the $ savings do disproportionately accrue to higher earners, but that's because higher earners are already paying vastly more tax.
I'm very much not a fan of the OBBA. I would prefer to just let the marginal rate cuts expire and, all of us would just pay a bit more, towards the collective goal of deficit reduction. I don't think the hyperbole is helpful here though. It's simply not a crazy giveaway to the rich. The rich still pay for nearly the entire Federal government, they got no bigger cut (in % terms) than any other income group. Get a grip!
I get that "make the rich pay their fair share" polls well and is probably good messaging for democrats to win elections, but I expect a bit more from this blog. I am not above telling lies to win elections, but let's at least admit to ourselves that we are telling lies.
The US income distribution is also an outlier. The top 1% gets 23% of national income in the US but under 13% in all the major European nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_income_of_the_richest_one_percent. Thus the US should be taxing the top 1% more relative to the middle class than European nations—that’s where the money in America is.
More importantly, relative to my other reply here, I think your argument is just a non-sequitur. The US has higher pre-tax inequality. So what?
Your conclusion just doesn't follow from your premises. Your argument is "that's where the money is". But how does that imply we should have higher top rates? If the 1% makes more income, then the same %-rate on that income generates more revenue. If anything, Europe should need higher rates, across the board, since they are taxing smaller incomes.
But even more importantly, I don't think "that's where the money is" is... justice. The presence of other high earners shouldn't morally justify a given high earner being taxed more heavily. Similarly, the existence of more high earners doesn't remove the moral obligation for the middle class to contribute to the cost of their government. High earners in America pay a ton of tax. Most of the country pays very little. That's the truth, and the rest is hyperbole.
Your notion of fair share is pretty outlandish. You seem to assume that having more high earners means they owe something to everyone else. As if their high earnings were at other's expense. Nice little bit of zero sum marxist thinking.
And on that note, I think that American has a lot of high earners precisely because we have been more hospitable to high earners. Look how many of our top CEOs and richest people are immigrants. Your plan, my friend, is to kill the golden goose. You'll make the people you claim to want to help poorer, but you took the "feel good" position, put emotions over economics, and you can self-righteous grandstand all the way home. Congrats! Look how easy is to be righteous when you can be so generous with other people's money. This is the moral rot at the core of the Dem party. Turning plunder into a virtue. It's worse than just amoral pandering though, it actually makes us all poorer!
Virtually every country has progressive tax rates so it seems like there’s a consensus that richer people should pay a higher %.
If taxing rich people discourages rich people from making lots of money, the same logic applies to taxing middle class people. Your libertarian argument are arguments against all taxation, they don’t explain why the US should tax its middle class more and rich people less. Countries should of course tax different things depending on circumstances. Saudi Arabia gets most of its government revenue from taxing oil because that’s what it has the most of. Well thanks to agglomeration and first-mover advantages what America has the most of are the ultra-rich.
"If taxing rich people discourages rich people from making lots of money, the same logic applies to taxing middle class people."
Yes, indeed, it does. I am not arguing that we should not have progressive taxation. I am arguing that we already do, and that we need to broaden the tax base. It's not right that half off taxpayers pay zero federal taxes (OK- perhaps a few points of payroll taxes). It's contributing massively to our deficit woes. Raising revenue by increasing already high taxes on high earners will have negative consequences for growth. Raising revenue by increasing the low taxes on the masses also has some negative consequences for growth, but they are far less, because the starting rate is much lower, because the masses are less internationally mobile than are high earners, and because rich people can usually just choose to retire.
Your argument that more pre-tax income inequality justifies more steeply progressive taxes just doesn't add up. As I've pointed out, the opposite is more sensible. If the 1% in America makes more money, we can generate a given amount of tax revenue from that 1% with *lower* rates then if that 1% had lower incomes. Indeed, this is what we do now. The only reason our budget deficit isn't even larger is because we extract more than 40% of federal tax revenue from the top 1% of earners. Read that again, 40.1%!
Your view is literally that the 1% of people that pay 40% of Federal taxes aren't doing enough. The middle 50%, not the poorest 50%, the middle, pays just 30.7% of federal taxes. This is wildly, wildly progressive system.
My point is that further "taxing the rich" takes us into bad tax territory. We would be experimenting with rates that other nations tried and then reversed after they failed to raise additional revenue. Rich Americans already pay among the highest taxes in the world. The rest of American pays very low taxes. It's also just fundamentally unjust. The existence of more rich people in America does not take away the moral obligation of everyone else to contribute to the cost of the benefits they receive. Full stop.
I understand that, under majoritarian politics, "redistribution" is popular. People want something for nothing. Your position is the popular one. Tax those evil rich! I am saying the rich already pay a ton of tax, and could perhaps pay a bit more, but what we really need is broad-based taxation to sustainably fund our government. Lefties like you do damage to our republic by insisting that funding our government should be solely the responsibility of the 1% and actually convincing yourselves and others that this is virtuous. Not virtuous of the rich, who pay for everything, but virtuous of activists, voters, and politicians, who are so upstanding an righteous when doling out the fruits of other people's labor.
We are already taxing the 1% far more relative to the middle class than Europe. Vastly, vastly more. Even post OBBBA. Top tax rates above 60% are counterproductive and we’re already there.
Also, countries having far fewer rich people don’t seem like ones whose policies we should be emulating.
Who is saying 60%? The top tax bracket is 37%. The top 1% don’t pay that much more than the middle class—the 32% tax bracket begins at just $190,000! The real jump is from the 24% to 32% tax bracket.
And the top 1% has a higher portion of income from capital gains which are taxed at a lower rate.
* Federal top rate of 37% isn't the whole story. There is also Medicare taxes which are 3.8% (inclusive of employer contribution, for obvious reasons. That's 40.8%.
* We'll use NYC (MA, CA, etc. are similar). Top NYS tax rate is 10.9%. Additionally, the top city rate is 3.8%. 40.8+14.7 = 55.5%.
This is not quite 60% but it's much closer to that than the incomplete 37% figure you refer to. I understand that congress only sets federal rates, but clearly all tax levels need to be taken into account when determining optimal tax policy, or making cross-country comparisons.
Moreover, add in sales taxes, mansion taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, etc. and you easily get over 60%.
* "Just $190,000"?? That is a very high income by any standard. Not middle class at all. With the built-in deductions and exemptions, this figure is really more like 250k of actual income. This is already the upper decile. It seems totally reasonable to me that these folks will pay 32% on income up to 244k (minus deductions), which is a lower rate than the 35% that is paid on the next rung of income. You defined "middle class" as 5X the median income. You seriously did that!
Summarizing things you are wrong about- No, 37% is not the true top tax rate in the US. No, you can't argue that the middle class pays a lot of tax by simply defining the middle class as the 10th through 1st percentile of income.
The obvious problem on the Not Left side, re Mamdani, is that their House and Senate leaders will be Mamdani constituents if he wins. So they need answers when asked about his ideas/statements/policies. When reporters (or GOP groups) demand that random Dems outside NY respond to Mamdani it's a little sillier. I was at a Glenn Youngkin rally last week where he compared the Dem nominee for governor of Virginia to Mamdani and nobody really bought it. (I had asked her about Mamdani and she had a reasonable, I'm not from New York, I'm running my own race response.)
Small irony that Cuomo did this to the Democrats. One, by sleepwalking through a race he started out as the favorite to win, two by calling in favors from Jim Clyburn and Bill Clinton and making "do you endorse the Dem nominee for mayor of NYC" more of a litmus test.
All makes sense. But why not also cut deals in the current Senate? There are some Republicans who can be peeled off now. Maybe give a little on issue X (immigration) to get something on issue Y (climate)? Even if it doesn’t work it helps demonstrate a more moderate image for 2026.
I agree with you 100%. Not only as a way to wrest back control in upcoming elections -- though that is crucial -- but also as a necessary outlook on politics. The party cannot simultaneously be the defender of American democracy AND intolerant of fellow Democrats who speak for at least 51% of their constituency.
However, it would require a near-miracle to bring about anything resembling a big tent mentality.
Almost all the political conversations that matter now happen online, particularly on social media. And, as Marshall McLuhan said, "It's the medium, stupid." (Well, okay, not exactly.)
Television turned politics towards the visual and the entertaining. During the heyday of network television dominating national politics, you never, ever wanted to bet on strategies and campaigns that bucked that trend.
Well, our current dominant media emphasizes a) self expression, and b) the right to your own niche choice.
We expect toothpaste and video games to conform to our individual exacting specifications -- a dramatic shift perhaps only stark to the elderly. The chances of accepting candidates, even in other states, who do not conform to all expectations... I find it difficult to imagine how this could be accomplished.
Especially given that social media life is all about expressing self. It is performative. It may not be honest -- there's a lot of posing for likes and adulation. But it is most definitely NOT about conforming to some uniform sense of what is good for the group.
In fact, the most influential voices online have strong incentives to stand out from the crowd in order to grab attention. That's where the money and the power is. And we are not talking about small amounts of money and power.
And, sadly, it won't be enough if lots of Dems understand the need for a big tent. Not even if most do. It will be the ones who don't who get all the attention. Especially from our rivals.
I’m a life long (30+ years) Democrat until I gave up in 2022. Obama isn’t left enough for today’s Democratic party. Nor was he incompetent, dishonest, or led around by non profits. But that’s all the Democrats are now, plus socialism. But yeah anyone who expresses that out loud is just a MAGA to be dismissed. Enjoy the Trump years, you earned them.
There should be a massive effort to place a billboard on every major highway on the outskirts of every major town in every Red District in the Country identifying by name the U.S. Representative who voted for the Big Ugly Bill listing the eventual damages it will do to its citizens. The same should be done in every State with a Republican Senator up for reelection. Much of the bad stuff will not be apparent to voters until after the midterms; consequently, Democratic Party messaging between now and then is critical!
Still don't know why you are so sure Schumer did "the right thing" with respect to the funding/shutdown negotiations. He did a thing and it was risk averse.
This whole article misses the point about why someone votes for populist candidates. If you have nothing then taking a risk might seem like it’s worth it. Where are the risky candidates who speak to the Midwest, rather than if we just bang on about Medicaid we’ll get voted in.
I think you mischaracterize the conservative position on health care. I think this is a fairer characterization:
Conservatives contend that because health-care resources are not infinite, rationing is inevitable—and the best route to both efficient allocation and future breakthroughs is to let price signals and individual choice drive some of the process. When patients share costs, they curb low-value demand; when providers can earn more by meeting that refined demand, capital flows toward the most promising drugs, devices, and care models. Competition among insurers and hospitals then rewards those who cut costs and invent better treatments, creating a virtuous cycle of productivity gains. Government’s role is limited to financing a lean safety net—catastrophic coverage, risk-adjusted subsidies—so no one is left untreated, while the market’s profit motive supplies the oxygen that keeps medical innovation burning hot. Government medical care will do a poorer job of allocating capital towards the future.
The most silly people in the world are the libertarian and socialist theorizers.
They have elaborate theories about how the world ought to be but when someone points out that empirically what they propose tends to be unpopular, they say "that's only because the purest form of what we are proposing has never been tried".
Almost all OECD countries have a universal healthcare guarantee because healthcare has very high information asymmetry and high psychological salience to actual human beings and exploitative price discovery is fundamentally immoral and tends to be highly unpopular. But sure, the GOP can believe whatever it wants to believe.
Yes most OECD countries do it already. Government does broad based care rationing via a transparent approval process managed by a non-profit board of medical experts instead of rationing or denial of care micromanaged by a CEO whose sole fiduciary responsibility is to make sure his company stock price goes up next quarter.
I don't completely disagree yet I thought it a fairer characterization of their thinking than Matt's characterization. Also, if you talk to people in the UK and Canada, there is definitely a form of government rationing that is ongoing and I think a perception that while the current form of delivery seems fairer that it may not drive much innovation for the future. Personally, I like a middle ground approach here. How a finite good or service is resourced, provided, and delivered is fair grounds for discussion in my opinion.
1. Innovation as in discovering new drugs and medical cures and figuring out how to efficiently deliver them in the physical world.
2. Innovation as in figuring out who can be denied care under what novel pretext (which led to the United Health CEO being assassinated).
A broad based rationing by a government or non-profit is preferrable over micromanaged rationing/denial of care especially by an exploitative profit maximizing entity as a matter of trust in an environment with high information asymmetry but even empirically US health outcomes for most people except the wealthy are poorer and cost more compared to OECD averages.
Hey Das, I get where you’re coming from—very few want people going broke or dying because they can’t afford care—but I still think we want at least some prices and choice in the mix.
First, “universal” coverage doesn’t have to mean one big government plan. Places like Switzerland and the Netherlands cover everyone while still using private insurers and modest copays. Second, governments ration too—they just do it differently. In the U.K. or Canada you might wait months for a hip replacement or be told a new cancer drug isn’t approved yet; that’s rationing by waiting line instead of by price, and waiting half a year for an MRI is probably not what most Americans want either. Third, profits fund breakthroughs: drug companies pour most of their R & D money into markets where they can earn it back, and like it or not that’s mainly the U.S. If every country paid Canada-level prices, we’d see fewer new medicines and that is probably not what most Americans want either.
I don't think there are easy pat answers here but casting your opponents arguments in the worst faith way while not acknowledging some truth in their approach is not the way to win middle voters is what i think Matt Y is getting at.
I did not say that a "big government plan" is the only way or that there should not be "modest" co-pays.
Trade-offs exist in all directions but we can categorically state the US health system is simultaneously the most right-wing and most Rube-Goldberg like while empirically yielding worse outcomes statistically. So directionally we should move towards the OECD average instead of being such a negative outlier except on how well rich people do within it.
That companies spend money on R&D is mostly a canard as a big chunk of fundamental research in medicine is done using Tax payer funds at Universities (at least until now) and only the last mile costs are borne by private companies. But let's say we grant your argument about R&D, then instead of concentrating the cost of medicines on US patients who need them we should spread the cost among a bigger pool that includes other OECD countries instead of allowing them to free-ride.
Mostly I am arguing that there is a good faith argument to be had around the right mix of government(equity/fairness) and markets(efficiency, innovation) in the way health care is delivered. I think at least part of the success in other countries you mention is their free riding on some things we create. If you want to win elections, this is not a terrible approach.
Rep Marie Gleusenkamp-Perez still lacks rhetorical polish in some areas, but she more than makes up for it in sincerity, authenticity, and deep understanding of and respect for her constituency, even (especially?) where their wants and needs fall outside the Dem platform. She said something in this interview with a local tv station that made my ears perk up. At the 17:40-ish point:
“…(making things in this country) where people are able to raise a family, and own a home on a single income again, that’s what we want.”
If I were Dem leadership, I’d have the party run on that, pure and simple. Frame all the other policies as subsets/ necessary conditions for that fundamental goal.
“But Miss Waterlow, this excludes childless people!” No. At its most basic, the vision is of all Americans feeling secure (again*) - relief from the feeling of living on the edge and the constant stress that comes with it. Whom does that alienate?
*Nods to the past can be fraught but play well to a majority.
“on a single income” is a phrase that could, and perhaps should, put every working woman in the Democratic party on the defensive; if i didn’t know which politician had said it, i’d have guessed it was a particularly culture-war-poisoned deep-MAGA republican. consider that, right now, the socialmediariat is coyly batting proposals like “ban higher education for women” around the public square in connection with the fertility panic. in this discursive context, what exactly does that specific rhetorical moment achieve for the Democratic party that could possibly be worth the downside?
Yes, it has that conservative sound but that’s the point. Last cycle, Dems were all about reappropriating patriotism. I say we reappropriate the family. “On one income” doesn’t inherently mean the woman stays home, obviously. It certainly wouldn’t in the Dem vision. It doesn’t even mean that’s the ideal - both parents working is great if they want to. What it’s really about is giving people a cushion. Years ago Elizabeth Warren gave some fascinating lectures at Harvard about household economics over the last century. When wives and mothers entered the work force, at first those families earned more money. Over time, as the number of “necessities” grew (two cars, tv’s, appliances, phones, etc) that margin was eaten up and, boom, the family budget now *requires* both incomes. “The “one income” idea is to buy you back that margin.
Ain’t nobody gonna ban women from higher education in this country. I mean, in the post climate catastrophe dystopia maybe, but otherwise, no.
The problem with that line is that it feeds irrational nostalgia. The average house in 1950 was <1000 square feet without modern amenities in some boring suburb of Cleveland. You can still easily buy something like that on a single income. But people today want a nice modern 2500 square foot house with new smart appliances where kids don’t share rooms in a neighborhood with cool ethnic restaurants. It’s going to be harder to afford that on a single income and it’s going to set people up for disappointment when Democrats can’t deliver that impossible feat.
Most people today prefer a two-income lifestyle and there’s nothing wrong with that. Democrats should act with that as the “default” and not a frugal single-income lifestyle that most people wouldn’t like.
“The problem with that line is that it feeds irrational nostalgia.” That’s also its strength? But we leave out the “again” cuz we’re not an ahistorical party. The point is to reclaim the family as a center of Dem politics (like we did/tried to do with patriotism) and recognizing the constant financial stress many Americans live with. Stress isn’t exclusive to people with kids, obviously, but the stakes are of a different kind and magnitude when kids are involved. Most people want some kind of career. But they don’t necessarily want to be working one job outside the house and, simultaneously, a second one at home. It’s too much. The option to open that release valve is priceless (remote work turned out to ease some pressure). In our current economy, people simply can’t.
"“…(making things in this country) where people are able to raise a family, and own a home on a single income again, that’s what we want.”
OK, this is basically snake oil unless you say HOW you are going to get there and MGP has no clue.
We are faced with an economic system where large scale forces, like technology, economies of scale and Baumol's Cost Disease naturally lead to concentration of wealth and services inflation. This is what makes life tenuous for average Americans even as headline growth is sustained.
I haven't heard anything sensible from MGP regarding HOW to solve actual problem other than a heavy dose of resentment towards the notion of cities. "I wish I had a pony" is not a plan.
Also, this is about getting Dems elected. Not about explaining to the average American why they’re doomed, especially not with words like “Baumol’s Cost Disease.”
Agree to some extent. There’s a bit of “America needs to learn whittle again” in there. However, a) Trump has shown plans are superfluous if the message - and the messenger - is compelling enough. b) Such Democratic policies as protecting healthcare, creating good jobs, raising wages, making housing affordable (tricky but plans need not be entirely practicable, just have the proper valence - sticking it to the man sort of thing), and subsidizing preschool and childcare are inherently stress relieving. If presented correctly, maintaining a clean, healthy, beautiful and *public* environment can be good. c) Resentment of cities can actually play well, to the extent it evokes the dignity of independence and physical labor/working with your hands, as well as some implied questioning of the value of high-paid desk jobs (and questioning why those guys get to tell you what to do). Needs to not be overtly hostile to urban living, particularly to cities’ blue collar and service workers (including govt sector like teachers, firefighters, police, and sanitation).
I still think it plays: Dems are the party of family. It sounds anti-modern, but for most people family is still central to their lives.
I am totally open to the idea of a charismatic (snake oil) salesman that can expand the coalition by connecting with voters using as dumbed down rhetoric as needed (see Mamdani in NY).
Let us say we all agree with MGP's desire for the kind of idyllic country we want and we also agree that all "the Groups" should be banished and anyone uttering the phrase "trans rights" will be scolded by Schumer.
But is our goal to actually solve problems or is to gain power momentarily, to do Matt Y style incremental nip and tuck and lose the election again in 2 years because the voters still have the same if not worse problems because we haven't made a single reform that addresses the big structural issues?
Per Matt, our goal is first to win elections by (almost) any means necessary and, second, to then pass polices that help people *while staying on message* and, third, to PR the hell out of the rollout.
Re: this “single reform that addresses the big structural issues,” my first thought is perhaps such a thing isn’t possible and, like an aging human on its way to death, nipping and tucking is the best we can do - call it palliative care. In any case it certainly wouldn’t be a single reform (what do you envision?).
However, it’s not at all out of the realm of possibility that Democrats could enact significant tax hikes on the wealthy as a means of reducing inequality. In the current environment, it might be best sold as deficit reduction which doesn’t directly redistribute wealth - and certainly not power - but does make the wealthy slightly less wealthy as well as shoring up an economy that has the possibility of helping people directly. I’m not sure by what means we could undo Citizens United. Is the only route a constitutional amendment? What else?
To some extent Martin’s point (and mine) is that if nipping and ticking is all you can do without screwing your chances of reelection, then all you try to do is nip and tuck. We’ve seen what these people do. We have no excuse for suggesting incremental progress isn’t sufficient where it’s necessary to keep them out of power.
" nipping and ticking is all you can do without screwing your chances of reelection" is a false theory of politics.
Paradigm shifts happen repeatedly: FDR was a Paradigm shift, LBJ was a Paradigm shift, Reagan was Paradigm shift, Trump is a Paradigm shift.
Proposition 1:
You cannot create a paradigm shift without owning the culture. This is clearly true. FDR had both Blacks and Southern whites in his coalition (It was a gigantic tent).
Proposition 2:
We do not aim for paradigm shifts because we are incapable of owning the culture. This is the DLC mindset. We just follow and nip and tuck.
However Matt Y is saying we should do more to own the culture. (I agree with this. Throw all (hated out-group) activists under the bus)
But if you have no theory about what Paradigm shift you wish to create, then why do you even need to own the culture? Just be a follower, let the river take you where it will and nip and tuck until you die.
How do we address the big structural issues? And how do we address them in ways that keep getting us elected?
I don’t love the throw-them-under-the-bus metaphor, but, yeah, we need to be real with the groups and they need to just be real.
I absolutely don’t think enacting legislation that helps people, even when it doesn’t cause your big paradigm shift, is letting the river take you. It’s helping people when you can. Further, paradigm shifts are rarely if ever planned. The ones you mention happened in response to historical circumstances and events, and they were each defined by a charismatic person. Does it take such a figure to “own the culture?” (Btw, conservatives would say libs have owned the culture for the last sixty years. They’d say, too, that it’s what got us into this pickle. Culturally, we got way out ahead of our skis.)
"This is a two-party system, so both parties have extreme members — that’s life. Democrats’ problem isn’t that AOC and Zohran Mamdani are too left-wing on guns, climate change, immigration, and trans issues, it’s that Democrats everywhere are expected to share these positions."
I love this framing, especially in light of Dean Phillips coming out with the strategically pointless stance of "Mamdani isn't a Democrat". Let our left wing freaks be freaks in their safe districts, and let's continue to tolerate democrats of all stripes who are doing what they need to do to win seats. And when the leftists inevitably try to shriek about moderate national democrats, party leaders need to just ignore them and let them occupy their niche echo chamber in isolation.
What is perplexing to me is not that Democrats are rediscovering the virtues of big tent politics, but that Democrats needed to rediscover "big tent" politics at all. One could argue that ALL successful political parties are "big tent" parties as Democracy actually requires parties to attempt to appeal to that magical 51% needed to secure victory.
The Democrats of the last 10 years seem to believe that the "universe will reward us for being right" which is at best an unproductive fallacy. The frequent comparison of American progressives to a fundamentalist religous sect is not without some truth. Only a "religion" could allow people to have such blind faith and such uncompromising beliefs.
The Democrats need to rediscover rationality.
There should be a massive effort to place a billboard on every major highway on the outskirts of every major town in every Red District in the Country identifying by name the U.S. Representative who voted for the Big Ugly Bill listing the eventual damages it will do to its citizens. The same should be done in every State with a Republican Senator up for reelection. Much of the bad stuff will not be apparent to voters until after the midterms; consequently, Democratic Party messaging between now and then is critical!
It seems to me like the public is broadly supportive of the work requirement for Medicaid, but Dems point out (correctly) that the Deep Red states that have implemented them made it incredibly tedious to jump through bureaucratic hoops and cut a lot of working people off of Medicaid… is it not incumbent on Dems to implement a better system in one of the states they govern? To say to the voters “yes we will give you what you want (Medicaid work requirements), and unlike Republicans we won’t use it as a pretext to do something you don’t want (broad cuts to working people on Medicaid)”
Seems like something that would be up Josh Shapiro’s alley…
Aa/e Rd seehunterseyaQ rasas ct wf f know Z
What worries me here is that the OBBBA is sneakily designed to delay health care cuts until after the midterms. It seems like the Democrats' only strategy will be to trumpet the coming cuts with dramatic ads that fully follow MAGA's fear-fomenting style.
The media is offering scary stories now about cuts in Medicaid (rural hospitals bailing early in anticipation of the cuts), but all of that will have scrolled off the screen by the time the election heats up.
Thanks for supporting low-income families impacted by the Texas floods 💸
Generally a good article and persuasive argument, but I don't get why Matt always has to parrot these progressive talking points about "tax fairness". The US Federal Tax Code is steeply progressive, even after the OBBA. High earners in high-tax areas are already facing top rates well over 50%. Our top rates are already among the highest in the world. It's our mid-range rates that are outliers. The OBBA was not an "orgy of regressive tax cuts". It basically just lowers every bracket by about 2 points. It's a uniform tax cut, everyone keeps an extra 2% of income, give or take. Democrats perhaps would have let the 2 point cut expire for the very highest bracket. They also would have wanted to do a very regressive tax cut in the form of eliminating the SALT cap. There's really not much difference (apart from the Medicaid and green energy items).
The progressive talking point comes from looking at who gets what $ savings. And the $ savings do disproportionately accrue to higher earners, but that's because higher earners are already paying vastly more tax.
I'm very much not a fan of the OBBA. I would prefer to just let the marginal rate cuts expire and, all of us would just pay a bit more, towards the collective goal of deficit reduction. I don't think the hyperbole is helpful here though. It's simply not a crazy giveaway to the rich. The rich still pay for nearly the entire Federal government, they got no bigger cut (in % terms) than any other income group. Get a grip!
I get that "make the rich pay their fair share" polls well and is probably good messaging for democrats to win elections, but I expect a bit more from this blog. I am not above telling lies to win elections, but let's at least admit to ourselves that we are telling lies.
The US income distribution is also an outlier. The top 1% gets 23% of national income in the US but under 13% in all the major European nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_income_of_the_richest_one_percent. Thus the US should be taxing the top 1% more relative to the middle class than European nations—that’s where the money in America is.
If you look at wealth it’s even more stark: the US is #4 in the world by average wealth but only #15 by median because our wealth is so skewed towards the rich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
More importantly, relative to my other reply here, I think your argument is just a non-sequitur. The US has higher pre-tax inequality. So what?
Your conclusion just doesn't follow from your premises. Your argument is "that's where the money is". But how does that imply we should have higher top rates? If the 1% makes more income, then the same %-rate on that income generates more revenue. If anything, Europe should need higher rates, across the board, since they are taxing smaller incomes.
But even more importantly, I don't think "that's where the money is" is... justice. The presence of other high earners shouldn't morally justify a given high earner being taxed more heavily. Similarly, the existence of more high earners doesn't remove the moral obligation for the middle class to contribute to the cost of their government. High earners in America pay a ton of tax. Most of the country pays very little. That's the truth, and the rest is hyperbole.
Your notion of fair share is pretty outlandish. You seem to assume that having more high earners means they owe something to everyone else. As if their high earnings were at other's expense. Nice little bit of zero sum marxist thinking.
And on that note, I think that American has a lot of high earners precisely because we have been more hospitable to high earners. Look how many of our top CEOs and richest people are immigrants. Your plan, my friend, is to kill the golden goose. You'll make the people you claim to want to help poorer, but you took the "feel good" position, put emotions over economics, and you can self-righteous grandstand all the way home. Congrats! Look how easy is to be righteous when you can be so generous with other people's money. This is the moral rot at the core of the Dem party. Turning plunder into a virtue. It's worse than just amoral pandering though, it actually makes us all poorer!
Virtually every country has progressive tax rates so it seems like there’s a consensus that richer people should pay a higher %.
If taxing rich people discourages rich people from making lots of money, the same logic applies to taxing middle class people. Your libertarian argument are arguments against all taxation, they don’t explain why the US should tax its middle class more and rich people less. Countries should of course tax different things depending on circumstances. Saudi Arabia gets most of its government revenue from taxing oil because that’s what it has the most of. Well thanks to agglomeration and first-mover advantages what America has the most of are the ultra-rich.
"If taxing rich people discourages rich people from making lots of money, the same logic applies to taxing middle class people."
Yes, indeed, it does. I am not arguing that we should not have progressive taxation. I am arguing that we already do, and that we need to broaden the tax base. It's not right that half off taxpayers pay zero federal taxes (OK- perhaps a few points of payroll taxes). It's contributing massively to our deficit woes. Raising revenue by increasing already high taxes on high earners will have negative consequences for growth. Raising revenue by increasing the low taxes on the masses also has some negative consequences for growth, but they are far less, because the starting rate is much lower, because the masses are less internationally mobile than are high earners, and because rich people can usually just choose to retire.
Your argument that more pre-tax income inequality justifies more steeply progressive taxes just doesn't add up. As I've pointed out, the opposite is more sensible. If the 1% in America makes more money, we can generate a given amount of tax revenue from that 1% with *lower* rates then if that 1% had lower incomes. Indeed, this is what we do now. The only reason our budget deficit isn't even larger is because we extract more than 40% of federal tax revenue from the top 1% of earners. Read that again, 40.1%!
Your view is literally that the 1% of people that pay 40% of Federal taxes aren't doing enough. The middle 50%, not the poorest 50%, the middle, pays just 30.7% of federal taxes. This is wildly, wildly progressive system.
My point is that further "taxing the rich" takes us into bad tax territory. We would be experimenting with rates that other nations tried and then reversed after they failed to raise additional revenue. Rich Americans already pay among the highest taxes in the world. The rest of American pays very low taxes. It's also just fundamentally unjust. The existence of more rich people in America does not take away the moral obligation of everyone else to contribute to the cost of the benefits they receive. Full stop.
I understand that, under majoritarian politics, "redistribution" is popular. People want something for nothing. Your position is the popular one. Tax those evil rich! I am saying the rich already pay a ton of tax, and could perhaps pay a bit more, but what we really need is broad-based taxation to sustainably fund our government. Lefties like you do damage to our republic by insisting that funding our government should be solely the responsibility of the 1% and actually convincing yourselves and others that this is virtuous. Not virtuous of the rich, who pay for everything, but virtuous of activists, voters, and politicians, who are so upstanding an righteous when doling out the fruits of other people's labor.
We are already taxing the 1% far more relative to the middle class than Europe. Vastly, vastly more. Even post OBBBA. Top tax rates above 60% are counterproductive and we’re already there.
Also, countries having far fewer rich people don’t seem like ones whose policies we should be emulating.
Who is saying 60%? The top tax bracket is 37%. The top 1% don’t pay that much more than the middle class—the 32% tax bracket begins at just $190,000! The real jump is from the 24% to 32% tax bracket.
And the top 1% has a higher portion of income from capital gains which are taxed at a lower rate.
A lot of errors in your claims here.
* Federal top rate of 37% isn't the whole story. There is also Medicare taxes which are 3.8% (inclusive of employer contribution, for obvious reasons. That's 40.8%.
* We'll use NYC (MA, CA, etc. are similar). Top NYS tax rate is 10.9%. Additionally, the top city rate is 3.8%. 40.8+14.7 = 55.5%.
This is not quite 60% but it's much closer to that than the incomplete 37% figure you refer to. I understand that congress only sets federal rates, but clearly all tax levels need to be taken into account when determining optimal tax policy, or making cross-country comparisons.
Moreover, add in sales taxes, mansion taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, etc. and you easily get over 60%.
* "Just $190,000"?? That is a very high income by any standard. Not middle class at all. With the built-in deductions and exemptions, this figure is really more like 250k of actual income. This is already the upper decile. It seems totally reasonable to me that these folks will pay 32% on income up to 244k (minus deductions), which is a lower rate than the 35% that is paid on the next rung of income. You defined "middle class" as 5X the median income. You seriously did that!
Summarizing things you are wrong about- No, 37% is not the true top tax rate in the US. No, you can't argue that the middle class pays a lot of tax by simply defining the middle class as the 10th through 1st percentile of income.
The obvious problem on the Not Left side, re Mamdani, is that their House and Senate leaders will be Mamdani constituents if he wins. So they need answers when asked about his ideas/statements/policies. When reporters (or GOP groups) demand that random Dems outside NY respond to Mamdani it's a little sillier. I was at a Glenn Youngkin rally last week where he compared the Dem nominee for governor of Virginia to Mamdani and nobody really bought it. (I had asked her about Mamdani and she had a reasonable, I'm not from New York, I'm running my own race response.)
Small irony that Cuomo did this to the Democrats. One, by sleepwalking through a race he started out as the favorite to win, two by calling in favors from Jim Clyburn and Bill Clinton and making "do you endorse the Dem nominee for mayor of NYC" more of a litmus test.
All makes sense. But why not also cut deals in the current Senate? There are some Republicans who can be peeled off now. Maybe give a little on issue X (immigration) to get something on issue Y (climate)? Even if it doesn’t work it helps demonstrate a more moderate image for 2026.
I think the absolute loyalty Trump demands & the devotion from the hard core MAGA base won’t allow this.
Even though lots of moderates had their concerns about the BBB they couldn’t risk voting against
I agree with you 100%. Not only as a way to wrest back control in upcoming elections -- though that is crucial -- but also as a necessary outlook on politics. The party cannot simultaneously be the defender of American democracy AND intolerant of fellow Democrats who speak for at least 51% of their constituency.
However, it would require a near-miracle to bring about anything resembling a big tent mentality.
Almost all the political conversations that matter now happen online, particularly on social media. And, as Marshall McLuhan said, "It's the medium, stupid." (Well, okay, not exactly.)
Television turned politics towards the visual and the entertaining. During the heyday of network television dominating national politics, you never, ever wanted to bet on strategies and campaigns that bucked that trend.
Well, our current dominant media emphasizes a) self expression, and b) the right to your own niche choice.
We expect toothpaste and video games to conform to our individual exacting specifications -- a dramatic shift perhaps only stark to the elderly. The chances of accepting candidates, even in other states, who do not conform to all expectations... I find it difficult to imagine how this could be accomplished.
Especially given that social media life is all about expressing self. It is performative. It may not be honest -- there's a lot of posing for likes and adulation. But it is most definitely NOT about conforming to some uniform sense of what is good for the group.
In fact, the most influential voices online have strong incentives to stand out from the crowd in order to grab attention. That's where the money and the power is. And we are not talking about small amounts of money and power.
And, sadly, it won't be enough if lots of Dems understand the need for a big tent. Not even if most do. It will be the ones who don't who get all the attention. Especially from our rivals.
That’s all Very Online Brain. 80% of the public and all swing voters aren’t mainlining online politics 24/7 - they are watching cat videos.
The risk is that candidates and their staffs are mainlining online politics and it gives them a very skewed idea of the median voter/.
Basically the Democratic Party has gone insane, likes being insane, encourages more insanity, and will not stop.
I’m a life long (30+ years) Democrat until I gave up in 2022. Obama isn’t left enough for today’s Democratic party. Nor was he incompetent, dishonest, or led around by non profits. But that’s all the Democrats are now, plus socialism. But yeah anyone who expresses that out loud is just a MAGA to be dismissed. Enjoy the Trump years, you earned them.
*Republican
There should be a massive effort to place a billboard on every major highway on the outskirts of every major town in every Red District in the Country identifying by name the U.S. Representative who voted for the Big Ugly Bill listing the eventual damages it will do to its citizens. The same should be done in every State with a Republican Senator up for reelection. Much of the bad stuff will not be apparent to voters until after the midterms; consequently, Democratic Party messaging between now and then is critical!
Still don't know why you are so sure Schumer did "the right thing" with respect to the funding/shutdown negotiations. He did a thing and it was risk averse.
This whole article misses the point about why someone votes for populist candidates. If you have nothing then taking a risk might seem like it’s worth it. Where are the risky candidates who speak to the Midwest, rather than if we just bang on about Medicaid we’ll get voted in.
I think you mischaracterize the conservative position on health care. I think this is a fairer characterization:
Conservatives contend that because health-care resources are not infinite, rationing is inevitable—and the best route to both efficient allocation and future breakthroughs is to let price signals and individual choice drive some of the process. When patients share costs, they curb low-value demand; when providers can earn more by meeting that refined demand, capital flows toward the most promising drugs, devices, and care models. Competition among insurers and hospitals then rewards those who cut costs and invent better treatments, creating a virtuous cycle of productivity gains. Government’s role is limited to financing a lean safety net—catastrophic coverage, risk-adjusted subsidies—so no one is left untreated, while the market’s profit motive supplies the oxygen that keeps medical innovation burning hot. Government medical care will do a poorer job of allocating capital towards the future.
The most silly people in the world are the libertarian and socialist theorizers.
They have elaborate theories about how the world ought to be but when someone points out that empirically what they propose tends to be unpopular, they say "that's only because the purest form of what we are proposing has never been tried".
Almost all OECD countries have a universal healthcare guarantee because healthcare has very high information asymmetry and high psychological salience to actual human beings and exploitative price discovery is fundamentally immoral and tends to be highly unpopular. But sure, the GOP can believe whatever it wants to believe.
The question is what is in that universal health guarantee. These things could be quantified by the government and costed out.
Yes most OECD countries do it already. Government does broad based care rationing via a transparent approval process managed by a non-profit board of medical experts instead of rationing or denial of care micromanaged by a CEO whose sole fiduciary responsibility is to make sure his company stock price goes up next quarter.
I don't completely disagree yet I thought it a fairer characterization of their thinking than Matt's characterization. Also, if you talk to people in the UK and Canada, there is definitely a form of government rationing that is ongoing and I think a perception that while the current form of delivery seems fairer that it may not drive much innovation for the future. Personally, I like a middle ground approach here. How a finite good or service is resourced, provided, and delivered is fair grounds for discussion in my opinion.
I would distinguish two types of "innovation".
1. Innovation as in discovering new drugs and medical cures and figuring out how to efficiently deliver them in the physical world.
2. Innovation as in figuring out who can be denied care under what novel pretext (which led to the United Health CEO being assassinated).
A broad based rationing by a government or non-profit is preferrable over micromanaged rationing/denial of care especially by an exploitative profit maximizing entity as a matter of trust in an environment with high information asymmetry but even empirically US health outcomes for most people except the wealthy are poorer and cost more compared to OECD averages.
Hey Das, I get where you’re coming from—very few want people going broke or dying because they can’t afford care—but I still think we want at least some prices and choice in the mix.
First, “universal” coverage doesn’t have to mean one big government plan. Places like Switzerland and the Netherlands cover everyone while still using private insurers and modest copays. Second, governments ration too—they just do it differently. In the U.K. or Canada you might wait months for a hip replacement or be told a new cancer drug isn’t approved yet; that’s rationing by waiting line instead of by price, and waiting half a year for an MRI is probably not what most Americans want either. Third, profits fund breakthroughs: drug companies pour most of their R & D money into markets where they can earn it back, and like it or not that’s mainly the U.S. If every country paid Canada-level prices, we’d see fewer new medicines and that is probably not what most Americans want either.
I don't think there are easy pat answers here but casting your opponents arguments in the worst faith way while not acknowledging some truth in their approach is not the way to win middle voters is what i think Matt Y is getting at.
I did not say that a "big government plan" is the only way or that there should not be "modest" co-pays.
Trade-offs exist in all directions but we can categorically state the US health system is simultaneously the most right-wing and most Rube-Goldberg like while empirically yielding worse outcomes statistically. So directionally we should move towards the OECD average instead of being such a negative outlier except on how well rich people do within it.
That companies spend money on R&D is mostly a canard as a big chunk of fundamental research in medicine is done using Tax payer funds at Universities (at least until now) and only the last mile costs are borne by private companies. But let's say we grant your argument about R&D, then instead of concentrating the cost of medicines on US patients who need them we should spread the cost among a bigger pool that includes other OECD countries instead of allowing them to free-ride.
Mostly I am arguing that there is a good faith argument to be had around the right mix of government(equity/fairness) and markets(efficiency, innovation) in the way health care is delivered. I think at least part of the success in other countries you mention is their free riding on some things we create. If you want to win elections, this is not a terrible approach.
Rep Marie Gleusenkamp-Perez still lacks rhetorical polish in some areas, but she more than makes up for it in sincerity, authenticity, and deep understanding of and respect for her constituency, even (especially?) where their wants and needs fall outside the Dem platform. She said something in this interview with a local tv station that made my ears perk up. At the 17:40-ish point:
“…(making things in this country) where people are able to raise a family, and own a home on a single income again, that’s what we want.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LvhUHKYupI
17:40 mark
If I were Dem leadership, I’d have the party run on that, pure and simple. Frame all the other policies as subsets/ necessary conditions for that fundamental goal.
“But Miss Waterlow, this excludes childless people!” No. At its most basic, the vision is of all Americans feeling secure (again*) - relief from the feeling of living on the edge and the constant stress that comes with it. Whom does that alienate?
*Nods to the past can be fraught but play well to a majority.
“on a single income” is a phrase that could, and perhaps should, put every working woman in the Democratic party on the defensive; if i didn’t know which politician had said it, i’d have guessed it was a particularly culture-war-poisoned deep-MAGA republican. consider that, right now, the socialmediariat is coyly batting proposals like “ban higher education for women” around the public square in connection with the fertility panic. in this discursive context, what exactly does that specific rhetorical moment achieve for the Democratic party that could possibly be worth the downside?
Yes, it has that conservative sound but that’s the point. Last cycle, Dems were all about reappropriating patriotism. I say we reappropriate the family. “On one income” doesn’t inherently mean the woman stays home, obviously. It certainly wouldn’t in the Dem vision. It doesn’t even mean that’s the ideal - both parents working is great if they want to. What it’s really about is giving people a cushion. Years ago Elizabeth Warren gave some fascinating lectures at Harvard about household economics over the last century. When wives and mothers entered the work force, at first those families earned more money. Over time, as the number of “necessities” grew (two cars, tv’s, appliances, phones, etc) that margin was eaten up and, boom, the family budget now *requires* both incomes. “The “one income” idea is to buy you back that margin.
Ain’t nobody gonna ban women from higher education in this country. I mean, in the post climate catastrophe dystopia maybe, but otherwise, no.
The problem with that line is that it feeds irrational nostalgia. The average house in 1950 was <1000 square feet without modern amenities in some boring suburb of Cleveland. You can still easily buy something like that on a single income. But people today want a nice modern 2500 square foot house with new smart appliances where kids don’t share rooms in a neighborhood with cool ethnic restaurants. It’s going to be harder to afford that on a single income and it’s going to set people up for disappointment when Democrats can’t deliver that impossible feat.
Most people today prefer a two-income lifestyle and there’s nothing wrong with that. Democrats should act with that as the “default” and not a frugal single-income lifestyle that most people wouldn’t like.
“The problem with that line is that it feeds irrational nostalgia.” That’s also its strength? But we leave out the “again” cuz we’re not an ahistorical party. The point is to reclaim the family as a center of Dem politics (like we did/tried to do with patriotism) and recognizing the constant financial stress many Americans live with. Stress isn’t exclusive to people with kids, obviously, but the stakes are of a different kind and magnitude when kids are involved. Most people want some kind of career. But they don’t necessarily want to be working one job outside the house and, simultaneously, a second one at home. It’s too much. The option to open that release valve is priceless (remote work turned out to ease some pressure). In our current economy, people simply can’t.
Anyhoo. I’m riffing. I still like it.
"“…(making things in this country) where people are able to raise a family, and own a home on a single income again, that’s what we want.”
OK, this is basically snake oil unless you say HOW you are going to get there and MGP has no clue.
We are faced with an economic system where large scale forces, like technology, economies of scale and Baumol's Cost Disease naturally lead to concentration of wealth and services inflation. This is what makes life tenuous for average Americans even as headline growth is sustained.
I haven't heard anything sensible from MGP regarding HOW to solve actual problem other than a heavy dose of resentment towards the notion of cities. "I wish I had a pony" is not a plan.
Also, this is about getting Dems elected. Not about explaining to the average American why they’re doomed, especially not with words like “Baumol’s Cost Disease.”
Agree to some extent. There’s a bit of “America needs to learn whittle again” in there. However, a) Trump has shown plans are superfluous if the message - and the messenger - is compelling enough. b) Such Democratic policies as protecting healthcare, creating good jobs, raising wages, making housing affordable (tricky but plans need not be entirely practicable, just have the proper valence - sticking it to the man sort of thing), and subsidizing preschool and childcare are inherently stress relieving. If presented correctly, maintaining a clean, healthy, beautiful and *public* environment can be good. c) Resentment of cities can actually play well, to the extent it evokes the dignity of independence and physical labor/working with your hands, as well as some implied questioning of the value of high-paid desk jobs (and questioning why those guys get to tell you what to do). Needs to not be overtly hostile to urban living, particularly to cities’ blue collar and service workers (including govt sector like teachers, firefighters, police, and sanitation).
I still think it plays: Dems are the party of family. It sounds anti-modern, but for most people family is still central to their lives.
I am totally open to the idea of a charismatic (snake oil) salesman that can expand the coalition by connecting with voters using as dumbed down rhetoric as needed (see Mamdani in NY).
Let us say we all agree with MGP's desire for the kind of idyllic country we want and we also agree that all "the Groups" should be banished and anyone uttering the phrase "trans rights" will be scolded by Schumer.
But is our goal to actually solve problems or is to gain power momentarily, to do Matt Y style incremental nip and tuck and lose the election again in 2 years because the voters still have the same if not worse problems because we haven't made a single reform that addresses the big structural issues?
Per Matt, our goal is first to win elections by (almost) any means necessary and, second, to then pass polices that help people *while staying on message* and, third, to PR the hell out of the rollout.
Re: this “single reform that addresses the big structural issues,” my first thought is perhaps such a thing isn’t possible and, like an aging human on its way to death, nipping and tucking is the best we can do - call it palliative care. In any case it certainly wouldn’t be a single reform (what do you envision?).
However, it’s not at all out of the realm of possibility that Democrats could enact significant tax hikes on the wealthy as a means of reducing inequality. In the current environment, it might be best sold as deficit reduction which doesn’t directly redistribute wealth - and certainly not power - but does make the wealthy slightly less wealthy as well as shoring up an economy that has the possibility of helping people directly. I’m not sure by what means we could undo Citizens United. Is the only route a constitutional amendment? What else?
To some extent Martin’s point (and mine) is that if nipping and ticking is all you can do without screwing your chances of reelection, then all you try to do is nip and tuck. We’ve seen what these people do. We have no excuse for suggesting incremental progress isn’t sufficient where it’s necessary to keep them out of power.
" nipping and ticking is all you can do without screwing your chances of reelection" is a false theory of politics.
Paradigm shifts happen repeatedly: FDR was a Paradigm shift, LBJ was a Paradigm shift, Reagan was Paradigm shift, Trump is a Paradigm shift.
Proposition 1:
You cannot create a paradigm shift without owning the culture. This is clearly true. FDR had both Blacks and Southern whites in his coalition (It was a gigantic tent).
Proposition 2:
We do not aim for paradigm shifts because we are incapable of owning the culture. This is the DLC mindset. We just follow and nip and tuck.
However Matt Y is saying we should do more to own the culture. (I agree with this. Throw all (hated out-group) activists under the bus)
But if you have no theory about what Paradigm shift you wish to create, then why do you even need to own the culture? Just be a follower, let the river take you where it will and nip and tuck until you die.
How do we address the big structural issues? And how do we address them in ways that keep getting us elected?
I don’t love the throw-them-under-the-bus metaphor, but, yeah, we need to be real with the groups and they need to just be real.
I absolutely don’t think enacting legislation that helps people, even when it doesn’t cause your big paradigm shift, is letting the river take you. It’s helping people when you can. Further, paradigm shifts are rarely if ever planned. The ones you mention happened in response to historical circumstances and events, and they were each defined by a charismatic person. Does it take such a figure to “own the culture?” (Btw, conservatives would say libs have owned the culture for the last sixty years. They’d say, too, that it’s what got us into this pickle. Culturally, we got way out ahead of our skis.)
True. Would probably work on the margin voter tho!