Kari Lake (I think? Or some similarly crazy maga person) was making the same anti-persuasion argument from the right and the anti-persuasion right wing candidates also lost! What nobody can bring themselves to admit or emulate about Trump is that he actually did persuasion directed at swing voters on entitlements and non-culture war stuff, in addition to the more publicized culture war BS. Sort of like Fetterman on the left who did persuasion on fracking, but also said the right things to keep the lefty base engaged
People on the far left are going to keep insisting that the mobilization fairy is real, because they gain more power within the party if they can get people to believe it. It's a fantasy, and a childish fantasy, but zombie ideas keep on shambling because they're getting resurrected by someone who benefits when others believe them.
Fortunately, the rest of us are under no obligation to humor this nonsense. Once a critical mass of Democrats are thoroughly disabused of it, the crazies will stop getting a hearing.
The real key to turnout is shoe leather. You get non-voters registered, and sporadic voters to the polls, by knocking on their doors and talking to them. It takes a human, making contact with them in meatspace, to get their attention.
This is best the Yglesias article on this topic yet and I think it has the chance at being the most persuasive to reluctant progressives. This is the key bit that I've been waiting for the popularists to say:
"It’s a shitty reality, and I totally understand why folks resist facing up to it. And that’s what makes the mobilization myth so perennially tempting"
This is obviously a "them's the breaks" situation but people don't want to hear that. Just like Trump voters don't want to hear that we aren't importing illegal immigrants so we can give them sex change operations. As Yglesias often says of MAGA types, you have to meet people where they are at. The same goes with persuading progressives to moderate their rhetoric and to be less sanctimonious. Saying "people hate your views, get over it cupcake" isn't going to persuade a progressive and is just going to fire them up and cause them to double down on their rhetoric. These people may be misguided but they have good intentions and have some of the same end goals of better economic outcomes for everyone and and a more free and open society.
David Shor has been trending in this direction as well and I am glad to see Yglesias extend an olive branch. I realize it's just one little blurb, but that little blurb is a big fucking deal to progressives. It communicates that you realize it's hard to moderate your expectations about things your passionate about.
Sometimes I get on a partisan high horse and think in general Democrats are smarter and more reasonable than Republicans. But then Stacey Abrams is always there to remind me Democrats also live in their own delusional worldview. Stacey Abrams is a terrible candidate. She's lost two elections, and she famously refused to concede due to unfounded allegations of voter fraud. Yet my entire twitter timeline has somehow convinced itself she's a political superstar. She's not! Can we please, please put this one to bed and let her go write books or whatever.
Can I bring up a name that I think is incredibly relevant to the whole persuasion/turnout/popularism debate? Kyrsten Synema.
As has been pointed out by many people (including recently Jonathan Chait and previously by Matt), Sinema's voting record is one that appeals to basically no one. Swing voters are for the most part lean right on social issues and lean left on economics. It's donors, inside the beltway journalists and Wall St. who represents the small sliver of people who are lean right on economics and lean left on social issues. And her voting record seems entirely designed to appeal to that small (but powerful) segment of the electorate.
I bring this all up because there use to be a many more Democrats with this kind of voting record. I'm probably especially sensitive to this dynamic because my senator for many years was Joe Lieberman. Then there are the centrists Democrats who helped cut the stimulus from $1.2 trillion to just under $800 billion because this was the "sensible" fiscally responsible thing to do to get the good graces of WaPo editorial board and inside the beltway commentators. This is where the Left had a decent point. So much of Democrats appeals to swing voters pre 2016 are moves that....are not going to appeal to many swing voters (think Josh Gottheimer today). Or moves that make policy worse and make the economy worse which are much more impactful on your re-election prospects (see again the undercooked stimulus). Sinema isn't the first Democratic politician to stand up for the carried interest loophole. I think the point is while you're calls to Democrats to moderate their positions is well taken. I think the Left can come back and say "the problem is in the past, the places where Democrats moderate their positions are on issues most likely to repel swing voters or infrequent voters AND oh yeah, they were wrong on the merits as well". I think they can also then say that they were the ones pushing for $15 wage which is guess what, an electoral winner. Where they fall down is taking that observation waaaay too far and saying not only is all of the far left agenda secretly popular, but that infrequent voters can be "activated" if Democrats weren't so squishy and went unabashedly hard left to appeal to this voter. Which has proven to be pretty off base as you noted.
By the way, do you know which Democrat is a north star as far as following Matt's advice? Pre 2016 Bernie Sanders! Populist on economics but also anti-gun control, critical of mass immigration (while not engaging in the more repugnant nativist arguments against immigration) and critical of free trade (Something Democrats became indistinguishable from GOP on from 1992 to 2016).
I think an unstated preference for mobilization theory is to support the morale and energy of campaigns. There are a lot of people who care deeply about politics and helping their side and need to be told that their efforts are meaningful. These are the people who are directed toward registration efforts, phone banks and door knocking. It's questionable how effective these efforts really are (especially the last two) but they certainly make people feel good about being part of a larger cause that they believe in. And I suspect they make the candidates, seeing all these mostly young and highly enthusiastic people rallying to an important cause, feel better about themselves and more committed to doing the hard work to win.
But these efforts are directed at mobilization, not persuasion. You don't do persuasion through door knocking and phone calls; you do it through paid and earned media, through debates and candidate speeches and interviews. That said, you don't give up on these mobilization efforts, simply because they're important to the energy and morale they bring to the campaign. Just don't forget as a candidate that the onus of persuasion is on you, and that's how you're most likely to win.
Forgive me, but that sounds patronizing. I don't want to feel good about myself as a terminal goal; I want to be *effective*. Is there an equivalent of door knocking (i.e. something a non-expert can do in their spare time) that is aimed at persuading rather than turnout?
Absolutely agree. I believe relatively few people have personal policy positions that slot neatly into Democrat or Republican. For example, I agree with you that we both need more immigrants. AND we need to weed out illegal gang members. I understand that Unions have helped many people but I also believe in international trade. Swing voters have divergent views particularly about the things that directly affect them, their families or friends.
Just consider how close Frisch came to beating Boebert here in Colorado - a result no one expected under the assumption that Boebert would win easily. If the Democrats had thrown some more money at that race appealing to additional normie voters instead of wasting it on stupid stuff, they might have picked up that seat.
Three polls, one of which had Frisch ahead - granted it was a PAC poll. But it's not clear how 538 turned that into a 97% chance for Boebert and a 14 point margin. There was no polling the entire month before the election.
The Democratic party also didn't spend much effort to actually ascertain if she might be vulnerable or not. And Frisch was a good candidate with wide appeal, not some token progressive out of touch with the district.
Meanwhile, there was tons of polling in Florida that all showed Val Demmings was very likely to get trounced, yet the Democrats poured $68 million into that race which essentially had no effect.
I agree it was a hindsight call, but the point is that it might not have been if more resources - and polling - were deployed to the district initially. Fundamentally there was a failure to recognize that Boebert was vulnerable and the Democratic party and its allies certainly could have done more to accurately characterize the state of the race and adjust resources appropriately.
It's the kind of same bad assumption that led the Clinton campaign in 2016 to not sufficiently resource specific states because of they assumed they didn't need to so they wasted money and resources elsewhere.
Hedging bets, doing the fundamental research and internal polling, and positioning campaigns to take advantage unforseen swings in a contest is just the smart thing to do IMO.
It might be reasonable to suggest that particularly clownish extremists can be defeated even in otherwise unfavorable territory, if you get the correct candidate that appeals to the territory.
Another example I can think of that's local here was Walt Minnick defeating Bill Sali in 2008.
This article is giving me flashbacks to Bernie and DSA types screaming at me for being a "Neoliberal corporatist" when I said that his policies were not actually popular among the median voters and if you wanted to defeat Trump you needed to be aware of that.
I quickly saw in 2018-to present that their operating theory of a tsunami like wave of youth voters that was primed to come out for Medicare for All or Free College, if Dems would stop being so moderate was not based on any read of the evidence. It was its own version of "Conservative beliefs can not fail. They can only be failed." So every defeat of far left candidates was simply "they were not pure enough."
Like unfortunately everything in today's culture but in particular Democratic politics, identitarianism is the rule.
So a debate about this is impossible in left spaces, because to posit persuasion being important is to go against Stacey Abrams who has been sacralized as being above reproach. I have already seen the "Shut up white man!" when people bring up the Warnock's team success relative to her.
The same card was played by the ultimate mobilize theorist, Rachel Bitcofer. When people have been critical of her shaky methods and models she has pulled, the "patriarchy" card.
Kari Lake (I think? Or some similarly crazy maga person) was making the same anti-persuasion argument from the right and the anti-persuasion right wing candidates also lost! What nobody can bring themselves to admit or emulate about Trump is that he actually did persuasion directed at swing voters on entitlements and non-culture war stuff, in addition to the more publicized culture war BS. Sort of like Fetterman on the left who did persuasion on fracking, but also said the right things to keep the lefty base engaged
People on the far left are going to keep insisting that the mobilization fairy is real, because they gain more power within the party if they can get people to believe it. It's a fantasy, and a childish fantasy, but zombie ideas keep on shambling because they're getting resurrected by someone who benefits when others believe them.
Fortunately, the rest of us are under no obligation to humor this nonsense. Once a critical mass of Democrats are thoroughly disabused of it, the crazies will stop getting a hearing.
The real key to turnout is shoe leather. You get non-voters registered, and sporadic voters to the polls, by knocking on their doors and talking to them. It takes a human, making contact with them in meatspace, to get their attention.
We used to have to deal with the myth of the “50 million unregistered evangelicals.” They don’t exist.
This is best the Yglesias article on this topic yet and I think it has the chance at being the most persuasive to reluctant progressives. This is the key bit that I've been waiting for the popularists to say:
"It’s a shitty reality, and I totally understand why folks resist facing up to it. And that’s what makes the mobilization myth so perennially tempting"
This is obviously a "them's the breaks" situation but people don't want to hear that. Just like Trump voters don't want to hear that we aren't importing illegal immigrants so we can give them sex change operations. As Yglesias often says of MAGA types, you have to meet people where they are at. The same goes with persuading progressives to moderate their rhetoric and to be less sanctimonious. Saying "people hate your views, get over it cupcake" isn't going to persuade a progressive and is just going to fire them up and cause them to double down on their rhetoric. These people may be misguided but they have good intentions and have some of the same end goals of better economic outcomes for everyone and and a more free and open society.
David Shor has been trending in this direction as well and I am glad to see Yglesias extend an olive branch. I realize it's just one little blurb, but that little blurb is a big fucking deal to progressives. It communicates that you realize it's hard to moderate your expectations about things your passionate about.
Bravo!
Sometimes I get on a partisan high horse and think in general Democrats are smarter and more reasonable than Republicans. But then Stacey Abrams is always there to remind me Democrats also live in their own delusional worldview. Stacey Abrams is a terrible candidate. She's lost two elections, and she famously refused to concede due to unfounded allegations of voter fraud. Yet my entire twitter timeline has somehow convinced itself she's a political superstar. She's not! Can we please, please put this one to bed and let her go write books or whatever.
Another epic post. And one that actually practices what it preaches: Matt is trying to persuade progressives into a new way of thinking. Good work.
Can I bring up a name that I think is incredibly relevant to the whole persuasion/turnout/popularism debate? Kyrsten Synema.
As has been pointed out by many people (including recently Jonathan Chait and previously by Matt), Sinema's voting record is one that appeals to basically no one. Swing voters are for the most part lean right on social issues and lean left on economics. It's donors, inside the beltway journalists and Wall St. who represents the small sliver of people who are lean right on economics and lean left on social issues. And her voting record seems entirely designed to appeal to that small (but powerful) segment of the electorate.
I bring this all up because there use to be a many more Democrats with this kind of voting record. I'm probably especially sensitive to this dynamic because my senator for many years was Joe Lieberman. Then there are the centrists Democrats who helped cut the stimulus from $1.2 trillion to just under $800 billion because this was the "sensible" fiscally responsible thing to do to get the good graces of WaPo editorial board and inside the beltway commentators. This is where the Left had a decent point. So much of Democrats appeals to swing voters pre 2016 are moves that....are not going to appeal to many swing voters (think Josh Gottheimer today). Or moves that make policy worse and make the economy worse which are much more impactful on your re-election prospects (see again the undercooked stimulus). Sinema isn't the first Democratic politician to stand up for the carried interest loophole. I think the point is while you're calls to Democrats to moderate their positions is well taken. I think the Left can come back and say "the problem is in the past, the places where Democrats moderate their positions are on issues most likely to repel swing voters or infrequent voters AND oh yeah, they were wrong on the merits as well". I think they can also then say that they were the ones pushing for $15 wage which is guess what, an electoral winner. Where they fall down is taking that observation waaaay too far and saying not only is all of the far left agenda secretly popular, but that infrequent voters can be "activated" if Democrats weren't so squishy and went unabashedly hard left to appeal to this voter. Which has proven to be pretty off base as you noted.
By the way, do you know which Democrat is a north star as far as following Matt's advice? Pre 2016 Bernie Sanders! Populist on economics but also anti-gun control, critical of mass immigration (while not engaging in the more repugnant nativist arguments against immigration) and critical of free trade (Something Democrats became indistinguishable from GOP on from 1992 to 2016).
I made this same argument going the other way.
For Republicans to win they need moderates and independents and even RINO'S and conservative democrats.
Whichever side learns thus lesson first will clean up
I think an unstated preference for mobilization theory is to support the morale and energy of campaigns. There are a lot of people who care deeply about politics and helping their side and need to be told that their efforts are meaningful. These are the people who are directed toward registration efforts, phone banks and door knocking. It's questionable how effective these efforts really are (especially the last two) but they certainly make people feel good about being part of a larger cause that they believe in. And I suspect they make the candidates, seeing all these mostly young and highly enthusiastic people rallying to an important cause, feel better about themselves and more committed to doing the hard work to win.
But these efforts are directed at mobilization, not persuasion. You don't do persuasion through door knocking and phone calls; you do it through paid and earned media, through debates and candidate speeches and interviews. That said, you don't give up on these mobilization efforts, simply because they're important to the energy and morale they bring to the campaign. Just don't forget as a candidate that the onus of persuasion is on you, and that's how you're most likely to win.
Forgive me, but that sounds patronizing. I don't want to feel good about myself as a terminal goal; I want to be *effective*. Is there an equivalent of door knocking (i.e. something a non-expert can do in their spare time) that is aimed at persuading rather than turnout?
MY argues for better posting, so there's that. And that would have the ancillary benefit of making social discourse less heated.
Tell me you're subtweeting Will Stancil without telling me you're subtweeting Will Stancil
Absolutely agree. I believe relatively few people have personal policy positions that slot neatly into Democrat or Republican. For example, I agree with you that we both need more immigrants. AND we need to weed out illegal gang members. I understand that Unions have helped many people but I also believe in international trade. Swing voters have divergent views particularly about the things that directly affect them, their families or friends.
SallyJones
Just consider how close Frisch came to beating Boebert here in Colorado - a result no one expected under the assumption that Boebert would win easily. If the Democrats had thrown some more money at that race appealing to additional normie voters instead of wasting it on stupid stuff, they might have picked up that seat.
The DCCC could totally have spent $10k to do a poll and see if Borbert was vulnerable.
The problem with the Boebert race is that everyone assumed she would easily win, so there was very little polling done in the district:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/house/colorado/3/
Three polls, one of which had Frisch ahead - granted it was a PAC poll. But it's not clear how 538 turned that into a 97% chance for Boebert and a 14 point margin. There was no polling the entire month before the election.
The Democratic party also didn't spend much effort to actually ascertain if she might be vulnerable or not. And Frisch was a good candidate with wide appeal, not some token progressive out of touch with the district.
Meanwhile, there was tons of polling in Florida that all showed Val Demmings was very likely to get trounced, yet the Democrats poured $68 million into that race which essentially had no effect.
I agree it was a hindsight call, but the point is that it might not have been if more resources - and polling - were deployed to the district initially. Fundamentally there was a failure to recognize that Boebert was vulnerable and the Democratic party and its allies certainly could have done more to accurately characterize the state of the race and adjust resources appropriately.
It's the kind of same bad assumption that led the Clinton campaign in 2016 to not sufficiently resource specific states because of they assumed they didn't need to so they wasted money and resources elsewhere.
Hedging bets, doing the fundamental research and internal polling, and positioning campaigns to take advantage unforseen swings in a contest is just the smart thing to do IMO.
It might be reasonable to suggest that particularly clownish extremists can be defeated even in otherwise unfavorable territory, if you get the correct candidate that appeals to the territory.
Another example I can think of that's local here was Walt Minnick defeating Bill Sali in 2008.
“In 2022, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas were all closer than Ohio.” I think you meant 2020.
The Bulwark and the Republican Accountability Project would like to thank you for providing support for their whole purpose of being in existence.
This article is giving me flashbacks to Bernie and DSA types screaming at me for being a "Neoliberal corporatist" when I said that his policies were not actually popular among the median voters and if you wanted to defeat Trump you needed to be aware of that.
I quickly saw in 2018-to present that their operating theory of a tsunami like wave of youth voters that was primed to come out for Medicare for All or Free College, if Dems would stop being so moderate was not based on any read of the evidence. It was its own version of "Conservative beliefs can not fail. They can only be failed." So every defeat of far left candidates was simply "they were not pure enough."
Like unfortunately everything in today's culture but in particular Democratic politics, identitarianism is the rule.
So a debate about this is impossible in left spaces, because to posit persuasion being important is to go against Stacey Abrams who has been sacralized as being above reproach. I have already seen the "Shut up white man!" when people bring up the Warnock's team success relative to her.
The same card was played by the ultimate mobilize theorist, Rachel Bitcofer. When people have been critical of her shaky methods and models she has pulled, the "patriarchy" card.
When will nature heal?