Ultimately, I think we’re going to have to play a long game to break the power of the groups by destroying their reputations.
Point it out when the groups are advancing ideas that are bad on the merits. Call them out when they are not being team players. Call them out when they behave badly.
The path to power in a democracy goes through persuading the public. If we can convince Democratic primary voters that the groups are bad and not worthy of their trust, that would destroy their power. Failing that, we could perhaps get enough scrutiny on them to get them to behave better.
This is an uphill battle and requires playing the long game. But uphill battles for public opinion have been won before by people who were persistent, strategic, and correct on the merits.
I’m inclined to believe that Platner is the right candidate to challenge Susan Collins even though he wouldn’t be correct in a different race. The usual playbook for winning tough races - run a nice, clean moderate whose issue positions appeal to the median voter - will not work against Collins because that is exactly what she herself is. The voters who could normally be won over by a clean moderate candidate are loyal to her.
The way to peel voters away from Susan Collins is to appeal to anti-establishment, anti-system voters. She cannot avoid being coded as an establishment candidate. Platner’s issue positions are on the left but his vibes are about as anti-establishment as it gets, and that can win him votes that Sara Gideon couldn’t get.
When the answer to "how to you reform from Trump's corruption" is Stop the Progressive! the shark has been jumped and Matt's brain has taken a vacation from politically useful thoughts.
While I agree that the left wing of the Democratic Party is a lot more interested in wresting control from moderates than they are in anything else, I would not want the lack of focus on First Amendment rights to get lost in that generality.
From what I can tell, the Left has come to grips with the fact that unfettered freedom of expression really does run up against their conception of various group rights, and as a result they no longer place freedom of expression so high in the pantheon of human rights.
There was not much immigration to what’s now Israel until the late ottoman years primarily because of disease. The population had declined tremendously and only began to grow when modern technology was introduced, spearheaded by the ideologically motivated Zionists (who would generally only be sold land in malarial swamps). They died in droves and many left but did succeed in building a larger agricultural and economic base for greater population growth (85% of the tax revenues of the British mandate came from the Jewish monitory). But even so Yemeni Jewish immigrants often outnumbered European Jewish immigrants during many of the early years.
"This is why, even though I do not personally find the “anti-oligarchy” framing that the left-populists are running with very compelling, I do think you could work with it. You’d just have to take it seriously."
This is pretty much where I am now. I largely disagree with site on economic issues, although I am supportive of many abundance-style measures. I detest neoliberalism, Wall Street-first policies, and "orthodox economics". But I also don't care for the cultural neoliberalism we have seen from the so-called "Groups". I didn't appreciate it at the time, but Bernie Sanders in 2016 was detested by the Dem establishment not just for his economic policies, but also his cultural ones. Bernie a decade ago wasn't for open borders, he put class over identity, he was willing to tolerate pro-lifers and people of faith (even went to Liberty U) in his coalition.
I suspect that Graham Platner knows this, given his past controversial reddit posts. But he can't say it yet because he needs the wealthy culturally liberal cosmopolitan older women in order to beat Susan Collins. Although I think he would win over a non-negligible number of Trump voters in rural Maine, especially this year, if he did move toward away from cultural neoliberalism. He might anyway this year, we'll see.
Perhaps a better example here is Dan Osborn, the independent in Nebraska. Run moderates closer to Osborn, not Michael Bloomberg. Someone like MGP frustrates me a lot less than any number of neoliberal Dems sitting in blue states who do the bidding of corporate donors.
Platner absolutely hits the right themes on many issues, particularly the scourge of private equity (especially in the care industry), Wall Street, and monopolies. And while neoliberals love to praise Obama, it is worth noting the main reason why Obama won in 2012 was his willingness to expose the evils of private equity and Mitt Romney's behavior at Bain. That disqualified Romney among much of the working class, won over (or at least kept at home) enough white working class voters and gave Obama a second term.
So yes I think it is time the left and the Democrats in general move to a post-neoliberal framework. But not just on economics but also on culture. What that means is no more making cosmopolitanism as your central value, no more identity first politics, no more open borders immigration policies, no more ignoring crime which hurts the very people you claim to help, no more environmental extremism over jobs and labor, no more putting elite professional credentials over everything else.
An updated version of "Bidenomics" is a non-negotiable for me, but so should abandoning cultural neoliberalism expanding the tent to include cultural moderates and even some conservatives.
I understand why people see cultural and economic issues as different dimensions in politics, but there are a lot of issues that have both cultural AND economic implications.
For instance, a white person's opposition race-based affirmative action is cultural because some people may think it's just fundamentally unjust that people of certain races get preferences over people of other races regardless of that individual's personal biography, but it's also economic because affirmative action (which was expanded to Latinos by the 2000s) also diminished chances for that white person's own children.
Concern about crime is also both cultural and economic. It's a cultural issue because a law-abiding citizen is emotionally outraged by another law-abiding citizens being killed, abused, or robbed, but it's also an economic issue because a law-abiding citizen might worry about that happening to themselves. If a law-abiding citizen has property in a high-crime area, their property's value will be significantly reduced by policies which are tolerant of crime & disorder.
For liberals/progressives, there are also combined issues. Wanting abortion to be legal is partly cultural because it about a woman having complete autonomy over her body, but it's also economic because pro-choice people know that a poor, young, unmarried woman who is legally required to have a baby will have a difficult economic future ahead of her. Likewise, support for race-based affirmative action would be cultural and economic, because they demand that institutions represent the US proportionally and they want members of minority groups to have advantages.
Yes, there are some issues that are purely cultural, like the inclusion of transwomen & transgirls in some previously female-exclusive spaces, but there are many issues that have both cultural and economic components.
Regarding Biden on Gaza and his foreing policy in general - Biden, like every president since FDR except for Reagan and the first Bush, had a mixed bag on foreign policy. Also excepting the consensus failures if W, Trump and LBJ, every other post-War president had successes and failures and get debated over whether they were good or bad and whether their wins were actually weakening and paths not taken (thing of Matt's discussion of Eisenhower in Lebanon and the Suez). And yet, before W, America undeniably succeeded in promoting a free world and winning the cold war. So clearly all those controversial presidents somehow did things right in aggregate?
If we look at the 21st century presidents, W and likely Trump will be defined by their failures. Obama won the major engagements of his tenure but gets a lot of flak for being too willing to work with Xi and Putin when they clearly were combative. And Biden's foreign policy is largely defined by October 7th and occasionally the fall of Kabul, despite really successes in building pacific alliances, strengthening American manufacturing, and supporting Ukraine against Russia. The failures are true failures, the other two guys were mixed bags, and ao the trend in American power and the free world is going down - clearly, weve been doing something wrong these last 25 years, in aggregate.
Sadly all Biden's good was immediately and purposefully undone by Trump, leaving his legacy being just the failures in Gaza and Kabul. One of the most damaging things for American foreign policy these last ten years is the lack of a consesnus. But let us be blunt - the big problem is just thst Trump and his team were incredibly arrogant fools. They viewed Obama and Biden as failures without engaging at all with their successes. And they ended up being bigger failures than W.
One other thing to note is that almost no voters actually care about foreign policy, except veterans and political insiders. It's just used as a cudgel to make another point in support or defense, and mostly not the reason people ACTUALLY like or dislike a president. Im pretty sure W is more hated because of the economy and Katrina than Iraq. Sadly, Trump's team isnt filled witj thoughtful veterans and state department types who've engaged with the complexities of American foreign policy. It is filled with idiots.
And it seems sorta off topic for democrats to debate about Gaza while we are losing in Iran after doing Israel's bidding.
What precisely is the left-wing position on Israel? Or China? Or Russia? As I understand it, Israel needs to be castigated for its settler colonialism against Palestinians and potentially eliminated as a country to be replaced by Palestine. But Chinese settler colonialism against Tibetans, Uighers, and Mongols is over played and not serious and the US should mind its own business. Similarly, Russian efforts to erase Ukraine as a country and culture are not a serious focus and the US should mind its own business. It seems like the coherence is that US allies need to respect human rights but US adversaries don’t.
The DSA has a retarded platform on Ukraine to be sure, but the most left wing folks I know are pro-Ukraine, think what’s going on in Sudan is awful, and are against the way China treats the Uyghurs, but are more outraged about Gaza bc our hands are dirtier when it comes to Gaza
I want to comment on Matt's answer about progressives not really caring about anything that does not happen in "progressiveland" - meaning that races in red states do not interest them, only intra-fighting between centrist Dems and left Dems matter.
I think he is 100% right here. But I would go even further. Something I've noticed online for years and years (as a red state liberal), but have never really put mcuh thought to until now, is that a lot of progressives seem to have a sort of chauvanism towards people who live in red states, even liberals in red states. They seem to view us at best as buffoons and losers, and worst as bigots and fundamentalists.
So it makes sense that they don't really care about Roy Cooper in NC or Andy Beshear in KY. It's pretty clear that they don't want another Bill Clinton to come out of the woodwork from a red state and lead the party to victory. They don't want victory. There is only one way to victory in their minds - left wing revolution.
But this is a pipe dream. And it ensures post-2016 that Democrats will only be able to tenuously hold power after Republican disasters.
I put this together with Matt's other point about Hillary Clinton essentially centering "wokeness" in 2016 to beat Bernie Sanders. The progressives went deep into their own cultural chauvanism, and there might not be a way back.
As a fellow flyover state liberal who spent some college years among the coastal elites, I have to agree that a lot of them are not very nice people. I’d still rather have them in charge than MAGA, and generally the uber-careerist types (who tend to be mainstream liberals) are even worse than the ideological progressives. But this is the reality; I prefer the earnest nice-seeming Talarico or Tim Walz types that are more commonly found among flyover state liberals.
Essentially they are defeatists. There is no future. If most of America is the irredeemable shithole that they think it is, then what the hell is even the point?
This is why I think we should actually write the progressives off. Most of them don't even vote reliably anyways (meanwhile people like me never miss a chance to vote Democratic).
We bend ourselves over backwards to please them, and they just hate us anyways - we're never woke enough for them. And all the ways we vainly contort ourselves into their shape just makes us that much more toxic to swing voters and disaffected Republicans.
I'm just so damn tired of making excuses for these people. I think we're better off pandering to swing voters - you know, what Obama and other Democrats used to do before the Great Awokening.
Bennet was underrated in 2020. What a missed alternative future.
I was wondering and even thinking about asking how this site was going to navigate coverage of the Colorado elections given the obvious conflict of interest.
This is just my opinion, and I am far from an expert on the norms of journalism ethics, but I would be fine with a simple disclosure of Halina's relation. I'm glad that Matt was willing to give some takes on Michael Bennet, and I hope to hear more in the future if Matt has them.
“There is definitely a difference between climate donors leaning on Chuck Schumer to whip a vote about whether or not to allow California to ban gasoline-powered cars and a member taking an envelope of cash from an oil company to vote a certain way on that measure.”
Wait, what’s the difference here? Whether the money arrives in an envelope or electronically?
The issue the democrats have on culture war issues is that they've adopted a framing of these issues on which they aren't primarily consequencislist policy outcomes to be achieved but non-negotiable signifiers of good character. Affirmative action or trans-women are women claims aren't really evaluated in terms of net costs and benefits -- it just feels to many progressives like what a good, compassionate person believes.
So not only do you suspect those canidates who moderate on these issues, you are really motivated not to have to admit that is the right direction. That makes it really hard because you tend to just not like the canidates who make the right tactical call so they do worse with donors, staff etc etc
And even when -- as I do in many cases -- agree that some democratic cultural view is actively harmful of the people it is designed to help I can't help but feel a bit of suspicion at the people literally voicing my view.
The Israel/Gaza stuff is pure uncut copium, on everyone's part. The far left wants to fantasize that taking a harder line with Israel would have magically turned out the mythical Left Wing Base while not losing votes from the center. The center wants to fantasize that had the dastardly far left just Stayed in Line and Voted Blue No Matter Who they could have beaten Trump through the power of... I dunno, positive thinking? Media? Even though Harris already was like +20 on voters who watch/read traditional media? I think everyone is just mentally refusing to deal with the fact that voters had decided to throw the Dems out of power by early 2024, which requires the fantasy that later choices about who to invite to the DNC or whatever made some key difference. They didn't.
In fact, surveys mostly show Israel ranking toward the bottom of relevant issues. One particularly funny one that I recall showed that voters would have reacted more negatively to either a stronger pro-Israel position OR a stronger pro-Palestinian one. This whole thing is just pundit's fallacy after pundit's fallacy. What voters want is a. to stop wasting money on it and b. for it to go away as an issue. They do not care about your 20-point plan for Middle East peace. Perhaps that's not cosmopolitan of them, but you go to an election with the voters you have, not the ones you want.
One take I heard from Holly Mathnerd was that there actually was a negative impact on reach from pro-Gaza leftists punishing regular Democrats for not being more pro-Gaza. Let me get the exact quote, one sec…
Voters may not care about Israeli domestic issues, but they do care about high gas prices caused by the Iran war. I agree with you in the sense that voters just want this issue to go away, but I think it’s rational that voters are swinging against Israel right now (and why it’s been a big issue in these primaries).
Sure, if you want to say that Trump's slavish bootlicking of Netanyahu is having domestic consequences for people's bottom lines, have at it. There's a pretty straight line connection there. Same, on the other hand, with stories about chaos and violence on college campuses.
What I don't want to see is all these bankshot theories about how if Genocide Joe had been non-specifically less genocide-y then he would magically have rolled to reelection.
The left should be fine with “do nothing” here. It will take longer but I think that still leads to good results in the long term. Israel is the most unpopular country in the world according to most polls. If the US just doesn’t get involved either way, other countries will eventually start sanctioning Israel, enforcing ICC warrants against Israelis who participated in war crimes, and that will pressure it to change. Most Israelis like their international travel and modern luxuries and aren’t going to be willing to turn into North Korea just so they can keep stealing land.
Ultimately, I think we’re going to have to play a long game to break the power of the groups by destroying their reputations.
Point it out when the groups are advancing ideas that are bad on the merits. Call them out when they are not being team players. Call them out when they behave badly.
The path to power in a democracy goes through persuading the public. If we can convince Democratic primary voters that the groups are bad and not worthy of their trust, that would destroy their power. Failing that, we could perhaps get enough scrutiny on them to get them to behave better.
This is an uphill battle and requires playing the long game. But uphill battles for public opinion have been won before by people who were persistent, strategic, and correct on the merits.
I’m inclined to believe that Platner is the right candidate to challenge Susan Collins even though he wouldn’t be correct in a different race. The usual playbook for winning tough races - run a nice, clean moderate whose issue positions appeal to the median voter - will not work against Collins because that is exactly what she herself is. The voters who could normally be won over by a clean moderate candidate are loyal to her.
The way to peel voters away from Susan Collins is to appeal to anti-establishment, anti-system voters. She cannot avoid being coded as an establishment candidate. Platner’s issue positions are on the left but his vibes are about as anti-establishment as it gets, and that can win him votes that Sara Gideon couldn’t get.
When the answer to "how to you reform from Trump's corruption" is Stop the Progressive! the shark has been jumped and Matt's brain has taken a vacation from politically useful thoughts.
While I agree that the left wing of the Democratic Party is a lot more interested in wresting control from moderates than they are in anything else, I would not want the lack of focus on First Amendment rights to get lost in that generality.
From what I can tell, the Left has come to grips with the fact that unfettered freedom of expression really does run up against their conception of various group rights, and as a result they no longer place freedom of expression so high in the pantheon of human rights.
Color me seriously disenchanted.
There was not much immigration to what’s now Israel until the late ottoman years primarily because of disease. The population had declined tremendously and only began to grow when modern technology was introduced, spearheaded by the ideologically motivated Zionists (who would generally only be sold land in malarial swamps). They died in droves and many left but did succeed in building a larger agricultural and economic base for greater population growth (85% of the tax revenues of the British mandate came from the Jewish monitory). But even so Yemeni Jewish immigrants often outnumbered European Jewish immigrants during many of the early years.
Indiana Republicans seem to be slightly safer than average for some reason.
"This is why, even though I do not personally find the “anti-oligarchy” framing that the left-populists are running with very compelling, I do think you could work with it. You’d just have to take it seriously."
This is pretty much where I am now. I largely disagree with site on economic issues, although I am supportive of many abundance-style measures. I detest neoliberalism, Wall Street-first policies, and "orthodox economics". But I also don't care for the cultural neoliberalism we have seen from the so-called "Groups". I didn't appreciate it at the time, but Bernie Sanders in 2016 was detested by the Dem establishment not just for his economic policies, but also his cultural ones. Bernie a decade ago wasn't for open borders, he put class over identity, he was willing to tolerate pro-lifers and people of faith (even went to Liberty U) in his coalition.
I suspect that Graham Platner knows this, given his past controversial reddit posts. But he can't say it yet because he needs the wealthy culturally liberal cosmopolitan older women in order to beat Susan Collins. Although I think he would win over a non-negligible number of Trump voters in rural Maine, especially this year, if he did move toward away from cultural neoliberalism. He might anyway this year, we'll see.
Perhaps a better example here is Dan Osborn, the independent in Nebraska. Run moderates closer to Osborn, not Michael Bloomberg. Someone like MGP frustrates me a lot less than any number of neoliberal Dems sitting in blue states who do the bidding of corporate donors.
Platner absolutely hits the right themes on many issues, particularly the scourge of private equity (especially in the care industry), Wall Street, and monopolies. And while neoliberals love to praise Obama, it is worth noting the main reason why Obama won in 2012 was his willingness to expose the evils of private equity and Mitt Romney's behavior at Bain. That disqualified Romney among much of the working class, won over (or at least kept at home) enough white working class voters and gave Obama a second term.
So yes I think it is time the left and the Democrats in general move to a post-neoliberal framework. But not just on economics but also on culture. What that means is no more making cosmopolitanism as your central value, no more identity first politics, no more open borders immigration policies, no more ignoring crime which hurts the very people you claim to help, no more environmental extremism over jobs and labor, no more putting elite professional credentials over everything else.
An updated version of "Bidenomics" is a non-negotiable for me, but so should abandoning cultural neoliberalism expanding the tent to include cultural moderates and even some conservatives.
I understand why people see cultural and economic issues as different dimensions in politics, but there are a lot of issues that have both cultural AND economic implications.
For instance, a white person's opposition race-based affirmative action is cultural because some people may think it's just fundamentally unjust that people of certain races get preferences over people of other races regardless of that individual's personal biography, but it's also economic because affirmative action (which was expanded to Latinos by the 2000s) also diminished chances for that white person's own children.
Concern about crime is also both cultural and economic. It's a cultural issue because a law-abiding citizen is emotionally outraged by another law-abiding citizens being killed, abused, or robbed, but it's also an economic issue because a law-abiding citizen might worry about that happening to themselves. If a law-abiding citizen has property in a high-crime area, their property's value will be significantly reduced by policies which are tolerant of crime & disorder.
For liberals/progressives, there are also combined issues. Wanting abortion to be legal is partly cultural because it about a woman having complete autonomy over her body, but it's also economic because pro-choice people know that a poor, young, unmarried woman who is legally required to have a baby will have a difficult economic future ahead of her. Likewise, support for race-based affirmative action would be cultural and economic, because they demand that institutions represent the US proportionally and they want members of minority groups to have advantages.
Yes, there are some issues that are purely cultural, like the inclusion of transwomen & transgirls in some previously female-exclusive spaces, but there are many issues that have both cultural and economic components.
Thank you for answering my question!
Regarding Biden on Gaza and his foreing policy in general - Biden, like every president since FDR except for Reagan and the first Bush, had a mixed bag on foreign policy. Also excepting the consensus failures if W, Trump and LBJ, every other post-War president had successes and failures and get debated over whether they were good or bad and whether their wins were actually weakening and paths not taken (thing of Matt's discussion of Eisenhower in Lebanon and the Suez). And yet, before W, America undeniably succeeded in promoting a free world and winning the cold war. So clearly all those controversial presidents somehow did things right in aggregate?
If we look at the 21st century presidents, W and likely Trump will be defined by their failures. Obama won the major engagements of his tenure but gets a lot of flak for being too willing to work with Xi and Putin when they clearly were combative. And Biden's foreign policy is largely defined by October 7th and occasionally the fall of Kabul, despite really successes in building pacific alliances, strengthening American manufacturing, and supporting Ukraine against Russia. The failures are true failures, the other two guys were mixed bags, and ao the trend in American power and the free world is going down - clearly, weve been doing something wrong these last 25 years, in aggregate.
Sadly all Biden's good was immediately and purposefully undone by Trump, leaving his legacy being just the failures in Gaza and Kabul. One of the most damaging things for American foreign policy these last ten years is the lack of a consesnus. But let us be blunt - the big problem is just thst Trump and his team were incredibly arrogant fools. They viewed Obama and Biden as failures without engaging at all with their successes. And they ended up being bigger failures than W.
One other thing to note is that almost no voters actually care about foreign policy, except veterans and political insiders. It's just used as a cudgel to make another point in support or defense, and mostly not the reason people ACTUALLY like or dislike a president. Im pretty sure W is more hated because of the economy and Katrina than Iraq. Sadly, Trump's team isnt filled witj thoughtful veterans and state department types who've engaged with the complexities of American foreign policy. It is filled with idiots.
And it seems sorta off topic for democrats to debate about Gaza while we are losing in Iran after doing Israel's bidding.
What precisely is the left-wing position on Israel? Or China? Or Russia? As I understand it, Israel needs to be castigated for its settler colonialism against Palestinians and potentially eliminated as a country to be replaced by Palestine. But Chinese settler colonialism against Tibetans, Uighers, and Mongols is over played and not serious and the US should mind its own business. Similarly, Russian efforts to erase Ukraine as a country and culture are not a serious focus and the US should mind its own business. It seems like the coherence is that US allies need to respect human rights but US adversaries don’t.
The DSA has a retarded platform on Ukraine to be sure, but the most left wing folks I know are pro-Ukraine, think what’s going on in Sudan is awful, and are against the way China treats the Uyghurs, but are more outraged about Gaza bc our hands are dirtier when it comes to Gaza
Ok, but they probably support DSA and implicitly its foreign policy stances. There is more to foreign policy than Gaza.
Yeah, but a lot of folks support DSA because they want America to be more like Denmark without even knowing the platform on this stuff
I want to comment on Matt's answer about progressives not really caring about anything that does not happen in "progressiveland" - meaning that races in red states do not interest them, only intra-fighting between centrist Dems and left Dems matter.
I think he is 100% right here. But I would go even further. Something I've noticed online for years and years (as a red state liberal), but have never really put mcuh thought to until now, is that a lot of progressives seem to have a sort of chauvanism towards people who live in red states, even liberals in red states. They seem to view us at best as buffoons and losers, and worst as bigots and fundamentalists.
So it makes sense that they don't really care about Roy Cooper in NC or Andy Beshear in KY. It's pretty clear that they don't want another Bill Clinton to come out of the woodwork from a red state and lead the party to victory. They don't want victory. There is only one way to victory in their minds - left wing revolution.
But this is a pipe dream. And it ensures post-2016 that Democrats will only be able to tenuously hold power after Republican disasters.
I put this together with Matt's other point about Hillary Clinton essentially centering "wokeness" in 2016 to beat Bernie Sanders. The progressives went deep into their own cultural chauvanism, and there might not be a way back.
An oldie but goodie:
https://x.com/zackkanter/status/1201259377816027138
Perfect encapsulation of this mindset
As a fellow flyover state liberal who spent some college years among the coastal elites, I have to agree that a lot of them are not very nice people. I’d still rather have them in charge than MAGA, and generally the uber-careerist types (who tend to be mainstream liberals) are even worse than the ideological progressives. But this is the reality; I prefer the earnest nice-seeming Talarico or Tim Walz types that are more commonly found among flyover state liberals.
Just donated to Talarico's campaign and I don't even live in Texas!
Yes, a rather large number of progressives begin by writing off half the country and whittle down from there.
Essentially they are defeatists. There is no future. If most of America is the irredeemable shithole that they think it is, then what the hell is even the point?
This is why I think we should actually write the progressives off. Most of them don't even vote reliably anyways (meanwhile people like me never miss a chance to vote Democratic).
We bend ourselves over backwards to please them, and they just hate us anyways - we're never woke enough for them. And all the ways we vainly contort ourselves into their shape just makes us that much more toxic to swing voters and disaffected Republicans.
I'm just so damn tired of making excuses for these people. I think we're better off pandering to swing voters - you know, what Obama and other Democrats used to do before the Great Awokening.
Bennet was underrated in 2020. What a missed alternative future.
I was wondering and even thinking about asking how this site was going to navigate coverage of the Colorado elections given the obvious conflict of interest.
This is just my opinion, and I am far from an expert on the norms of journalism ethics, but I would be fine with a simple disclosure of Halina's relation. I'm glad that Matt was willing to give some takes on Michael Bennet, and I hope to hear more in the future if Matt has them.
This is how I’d handle it, too.
“There is definitely a difference between climate donors leaning on Chuck Schumer to whip a vote about whether or not to allow California to ban gasoline-powered cars and a member taking an envelope of cash from an oil company to vote a certain way on that measure.”
Wait, what’s the difference here? Whether the money arrives in an envelope or electronically?
The Hewlett Foundation or Mackenzie Scott or most others don't stand to gain financially from their advocacy.
Messers Mellon or Koch or Scaife or the oil companies directly do stand to gain financially from their advocacy.
The issue the democrats have on culture war issues is that they've adopted a framing of these issues on which they aren't primarily consequencislist policy outcomes to be achieved but non-negotiable signifiers of good character. Affirmative action or trans-women are women claims aren't really evaluated in terms of net costs and benefits -- it just feels to many progressives like what a good, compassionate person believes.
So not only do you suspect those canidates who moderate on these issues, you are really motivated not to have to admit that is the right direction. That makes it really hard because you tend to just not like the canidates who make the right tactical call so they do worse with donors, staff etc etc
And even when -- as I do in many cases -- agree that some democratic cultural view is actively harmful of the people it is designed to help I can't help but feel a bit of suspicion at the people literally voicing my view.
The Israel/Gaza stuff is pure uncut copium, on everyone's part. The far left wants to fantasize that taking a harder line with Israel would have magically turned out the mythical Left Wing Base while not losing votes from the center. The center wants to fantasize that had the dastardly far left just Stayed in Line and Voted Blue No Matter Who they could have beaten Trump through the power of... I dunno, positive thinking? Media? Even though Harris already was like +20 on voters who watch/read traditional media? I think everyone is just mentally refusing to deal with the fact that voters had decided to throw the Dems out of power by early 2024, which requires the fantasy that later choices about who to invite to the DNC or whatever made some key difference. They didn't.
In fact, surveys mostly show Israel ranking toward the bottom of relevant issues. One particularly funny one that I recall showed that voters would have reacted more negatively to either a stronger pro-Israel position OR a stronger pro-Palestinian one. This whole thing is just pundit's fallacy after pundit's fallacy. What voters want is a. to stop wasting money on it and b. for it to go away as an issue. They do not care about your 20-point plan for Middle East peace. Perhaps that's not cosmopolitan of them, but you go to an election with the voters you have, not the ones you want.
One take I heard from Holly Mathnerd was that there actually was a negative impact on reach from pro-Gaza leftists punishing regular Democrats for not being more pro-Gaza. Let me get the exact quote, one sec…
Voters may not care about Israeli domestic issues, but they do care about high gas prices caused by the Iran war. I agree with you in the sense that voters just want this issue to go away, but I think it’s rational that voters are swinging against Israel right now (and why it’s been a big issue in these primaries).
Sure, if you want to say that Trump's slavish bootlicking of Netanyahu is having domestic consequences for people's bottom lines, have at it. There's a pretty straight line connection there. Same, on the other hand, with stories about chaos and violence on college campuses.
What I don't want to see is all these bankshot theories about how if Genocide Joe had been non-specifically less genocide-y then he would magically have rolled to reelection.
The left should be fine with “do nothing” here. It will take longer but I think that still leads to good results in the long term. Israel is the most unpopular country in the world according to most polls. If the US just doesn’t get involved either way, other countries will eventually start sanctioning Israel, enforcing ICC warrants against Israelis who participated in war crimes, and that will pressure it to change. Most Israelis like their international travel and modern luxuries and aren’t going to be willing to turn into North Korea just so they can keep stealing land.