I know that you are a partisan Democrat, but come on. While Trump is an overbearing ass, his power relies upon Congress remaining partisan and ineffectual. He is short-term pain.
The genuine threat to democracy resides in the far left of the Democratic Party, which has advocated terminating free speech, confiscating private property, and ending our constitutional structure. This has gone on for at least a decade, accompanied by silence from the liberal left that believes none of those things.
I would be interested to see Matt write a follow up to this piece- what would it look like if we miss the "narrow" path. I live in a very conservative county, and I don't see it becoming Hungary or Hungary light here -on a local level anyway. A coalition has beaten back far right county commissioners. Still, would love to read Matt's take.
Mostly good analysis, but I think you're overthinking one or two things.
No Democratic "rebrand" would have been credible or sincere. Democrats largely do not believe they did anything to deserve losing to Trump again.
Overwhelmingly, though they cannot say it, they believe the problem is that the information environment is f!cked. Voters are increasingly glued to their phones and unhappy no matter what--that is why it seems like Trump is losing because of his "blunders".
While there's some truth to the "Trump is blowing it" hypothesis, voters were just as mad at Biden, and largely, backfilling excuses for it. "He's old", "there's too much woke stuff", "the economy is AWFUL"--take all this stuff together, and you start to sense a pattern of politics driven by generalized boredom and inability to be satisfied, with a whole bunch of fig-leafs produced to cover that embarrassing fact up.
I do think Trump is supercharging Democratic and independent anger with his evil policies and attempts to destroy democracy, but honestly, I don't think the backlash is going to be that much bigger than it would have been anyway.
He's the "status quo", he's the Man In Charge. Our information environment is geared toward making us unhappy and rageful at "The System" no matter what.
The next Democratic administration--assuming there is one--will learn that to their grief. Unless, of course, the information environment changes again.
Have been waiting for this piece. Still very unclear what will, if anything, force a change in the party as a whole. It’s disheartening to watch around me locally the growth of rent control and eat the rich. The party will continue to get what it deserves.
Reading this comment section, its pretty clear that the Dems are in their Tea Party era, and we Slow Borers are in the denial/bargaining phase of the stages of grief.
Brown got another good poll today (up 48-45, AARP) so that’s good news. Interesting to see Matt outright say Pelota is favored in Alaska; polls have been limited but all show her up a solid amount yet handicappers have it at Lean R or Toss-Up. Throw in Cooper cruising to the win in NC and the map expanding to TX and IA, and the Senate picture would actually be looking good if ME and MI were handled better and not potentially going sideways.
I realize all this sounds really good and true in your head, but politicians had to convince normies that the real actual government shutdown that was ongoing was worth it.
And they even semi-succeeded at that, better then i ever expected them to, given that it was in fact, BS. But Republicans decided not to fold in a major way either, and that was that.
Your theory is that somehow hurting normal people was gonna be something Republicans either cared for, or were blamed for, and that only happens to a minimal degree. E.g. see the Iran war.
The only true answer is to realize that a big chunk of the country finds the Left’s cultural agenda threatening enough to make them abandon any standards they once had for Republican officeholders.
That may bum you out, but we kind of owe it to our fellow citizens (and to our nation as a whole) to recalibrate our political ambitions to fit within more of a consensus minded framework.
Is the democratic electorate ideologically way to the left of the average American?
Yes.
Are the lefties recruiting younger, more charismatic candidates than the establishment dems?
Also yes.
Had a similar thought when reading your Schumer intern post earlier this week: isn't having energetic candidates a big part of appealing to the lower information voters (and winning more)? Not sure how much this would help in the primaries, but I've been surprised how much better the left populists are doing at this in 2026
Let's be real here for a moment. The reason that the Progressive Left is doing so poorly in fighting Trump is that deep down they actually like him. They like his protectionist trade policies, his inflationary monetary policy, his interference in business and markets, and especially his corruption. The only thing that they don't like is that they think the wrong faction is in charge. They want to replace the MAGA right, not stop it.
You’re asking me to vote for the party with the objectively larger antisemite caucus in the House. Thanks, but I’m not voting for people who are invigorated at the prospect of my death.
I feel like this post does a good job of capturing a core truth of Matt's position and what I think is the core lie.
The core truth is that the Democratic party is farther left than a majority of the county. The party needs to accept that and act accordingly. (I don't have much to add here because I think Matt has the problem well defined).
But there is a corrollary: Just as Democrats need to recognize the country is more moderate, moderates need to recognize that the core of the Democratic party is very liberal (especially primary voters) and they need to act accordingly.
If there is a time honored way to get people to do something they don't really want to do it's flattery. Seems to me it's time for Matt to start kissing some progressive a**. Doing so won't be emotionally satisfying. But the goal is to win, not just post emotionally satisfying content.
Moderates need to find a way to rally the party that isn't just more progressive policy. Maybe that's rallying the party around spirit of "fighting Donald Trump's corruption." I tend to think that moderates need to be more creative and find a way to communicate a general agreement with progressive values that isn't just progressive policy. This is where I think moderates can learn from Mamdani - there are significant portions of his campaign that were about affordability without directly being about policy (there were also parts that were explicit bad policy - but that shouldn't stop them from taking some meaningful lessons).
Matt's seems to have adopted a position that politics without policy is impossible. And gotten stuck as a result. Maybe he's just afraid of giving Progressive's an opening to push more progressive policy. But either way I think it's harmful to his overall mission.
To me this is the core lie of Matt's writing: that it is impossible for moderates to win a Democratic primary without adopting abandoning their moderate policy. I refuse to accept that this is true and I wish Matt was willing to actually try to look for solutions to this problem instead of just complaining about it.
>I think operatives tend to massively overrate paid media and direct-to-camera videos relative to strategic position-taking.
And *I* think strategic position-taking is overrated in a world where the Median Undecided Swing Voter doesn't know fuck-all about policy, doesn't care to learn, and votes mostly based on memes, vibes, and the price of gasoline and/or groceries.
Look, I know I'm to the left of the median Slow Borer, and I'm 100% Team Tuck Frump. But I actually agree with most of Matt Y's Common Sense Democratic Platform (don't call it a Manifesto, you sound like a commie) and I think it would be great if more Democrats signed on to it. But I'm a weirdo freak who cares enough about politics to read and comment on Slow Boring. How representative am I? (Narrator: not at all)
Here's the voter population breakdown: the hardcore MAGA won't vote for a Democrat no matter how Common Sense our Platform is. The Median Disengaged Voter won't hear about the Platform and won't care. The informed liberals will vote for the Democrat anyway, because Tuck Frump, minus a few fringe lefties who will stay home because the CSDP is too anti-immigrant or anti-trans rights or whatever. That leaves the mathews of the world, intelligent, informed conservatives who are like "I hate Trump, but I also hate lefty Democrats, give me a sensible centrist Democrat to vote for, otherwise I'm staying home." How representative are the mathews? I genuinely don't know.
I don't know, guys, maybe I'm being too pessimistic about this. Many elections have very narrow margins, if we can turn a few mathews from "I hate both MAGA and lefty Dems, I'm staying home" to "hmmm these Common Sense Centrist Dems are actually not too bad, I'll vote for them" maybe that will be enough to win? I do think we need some kind of Yglesias-Beutler synthesis of "yes, policy positions are important, but so is propaganda/messaging/having the better memes, and for Cthulhu's sake, stop doing the Republicans' work for them by publicly pointing out how XYZ Democrat is stupid/bad, the Republicans can do that just fine by themselves."
As an Ohioan I want to talk a little bit about Sherrod Brown. I don't blame Chuck Schumer for picking Brown, who exactly was he going to call? There are no statewide elected Democrats in Ohio. The mayors of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati are not exactly electoral juggernauts (and all three primarily run against other Democrats). There are 5 Democrats currently in the House from Ohio and they are:
-Greg Landsman (1st district, Cincy)
-Joyce Beatty (3rd district, Columbus)
-Marcy Kaptur (9th district, Toledo)
-Shontel Brown (11th district, Cleveland)
-Emilia Sykes (13th district, Akron-Cleveland)
Beatty and Brown are factional Progressive Democrats. None would have been good choices. Marcy Kaptur is 80 years old and, while a known electoral overperformer, would have thrown away the 9th district and reminded voters of Joe Biden. that leaves Sykes and Landsman. Both won legitimately tough races, and are solid politicians. If I had to pick between the two I'd probably pick Landsman who, I think, more consistently over performed (granted in two races).
Other than that who's left? Tim Ryan who lost in '22? The reality is: there were very few options for Schumer to call, and Brown was probably his best bet. I do think Brown is running a middling campaign. But that's not on Schumer, that's on Brown.
I will say, my bigger critique of Brown is HE is not running for governor. I think the Ohio governor's mansion is worth more to Democrats with Brown in office than 2 years of a senate term. I think 2028 will be VERY hard for any Democrat to win, and I would roll the dice with Landsman over Brown for the Senate. But that's just me.
The things that give me a little hope are: when Republicans have won senate seats here in Ohio, they have underperformed Trump, even in years when Trump was also on the ballot. And Brown did better than Harris in Ohio in 2024. John Husted isn't exactly a household name, and he is linked to a statewide corruption scandal (that frankly Brown should be making more noise about). Ohio is red, but it's mostly Trump red; down ballot things are a bit closer.
There is also a gettable House seat here. I can't remember the guy's name (and I don't feel like searching) but the fellow who has the only NE Ohio red seat is in the middle of an ugly divorce, complete with allegations of physical abuse (also, his soon to be ex-wife is Ohio senator Bernie Moreno's daughter). It's really the only competitive seat in the state.
The governors race is anybody's guess - both candidates have baggage. In Amy Acton's case, it's COVID; in Ramaswamy's case, he's an unpleasant jerk who's barely been in Ohio. We have also never elected a woman governor, or anyone who isn't white. I kind of think both parties whiffed a bit. But there really aren't another good statewide candidates here on the Dem side. I was shocked the Republicans didn't push current lieutenant governor and former OSU coach Jim Tressel. He'd win handily, and by all accounts he's a decent guy (which may be why they didn't push, or perhaps Tressel just wasn't interested). In either case, we've seen the last in our string of semi-reasonable Republican governors in Ohio.
My in-laws live in a suburb of Cincinnati, and they really like and admire Aftab Pureval, the Mayor of Cincinnati. Do you think he'll run for statewide office someday?
I know that you are a partisan Democrat, but come on. While Trump is an overbearing ass, his power relies upon Congress remaining partisan and ineffectual. He is short-term pain.
The genuine threat to democracy resides in the far left of the Democratic Party, which has advocated terminating free speech, confiscating private property, and ending our constitutional structure. This has gone on for at least a decade, accompanied by silence from the liberal left that believes none of those things.
I would be interested to see Matt write a follow up to this piece- what would it look like if we miss the "narrow" path. I live in a very conservative county, and I don't see it becoming Hungary or Hungary light here -on a local level anyway. A coalition has beaten back far right county commissioners. Still, would love to read Matt's take.
Le Sigh.
"The Golden Path demands it. And what is the Golden Path? you ask. It is the survival of humankind, nothing more nor less."
-- *God Emperor of Dune*
Mostly good analysis, but I think you're overthinking one or two things.
No Democratic "rebrand" would have been credible or sincere. Democrats largely do not believe they did anything to deserve losing to Trump again.
Overwhelmingly, though they cannot say it, they believe the problem is that the information environment is f!cked. Voters are increasingly glued to their phones and unhappy no matter what--that is why it seems like Trump is losing because of his "blunders".
While there's some truth to the "Trump is blowing it" hypothesis, voters were just as mad at Biden, and largely, backfilling excuses for it. "He's old", "there's too much woke stuff", "the economy is AWFUL"--take all this stuff together, and you start to sense a pattern of politics driven by generalized boredom and inability to be satisfied, with a whole bunch of fig-leafs produced to cover that embarrassing fact up.
I do think Trump is supercharging Democratic and independent anger with his evil policies and attempts to destroy democracy, but honestly, I don't think the backlash is going to be that much bigger than it would have been anyway.
He's the "status quo", he's the Man In Charge. Our information environment is geared toward making us unhappy and rageful at "The System" no matter what.
The next Democratic administration--assuming there is one--will learn that to their grief. Unless, of course, the information environment changes again.
Have been waiting for this piece. Still very unclear what will, if anything, force a change in the party as a whole. It’s disheartening to watch around me locally the growth of rent control and eat the rich. The party will continue to get what it deserves.
Reading this comment section, its pretty clear that the Dems are in their Tea Party era, and we Slow Borers are in the denial/bargaining phase of the stages of grief.
Brown got another good poll today (up 48-45, AARP) so that’s good news. Interesting to see Matt outright say Pelota is favored in Alaska; polls have been limited but all show her up a solid amount yet handicappers have it at Lean R or Toss-Up. Throw in Cooper cruising to the win in NC and the map expanding to TX and IA, and the Senate picture would actually be looking good if ME and MI were handled better and not potentially going sideways.
I realize all this sounds really good and true in your head, but politicians had to convince normies that the real actual government shutdown that was ongoing was worth it.
And they even semi-succeeded at that, better then i ever expected them to, given that it was in fact, BS. But Republicans decided not to fold in a major way either, and that was that.
Your theory is that somehow hurting normal people was gonna be something Republicans either cared for, or were blamed for, and that only happens to a minimal degree. E.g. see the Iran war.
The only true answer is to realize that a big chunk of the country finds the Left’s cultural agenda threatening enough to make them abandon any standards they once had for Republican officeholders.
That may bum you out, but we kind of owe it to our fellow citizens (and to our nation as a whole) to recalibrate our political ambitions to fit within more of a consensus minded framework.
Is the democratic electorate ideologically way to the left of the average American?
Yes.
Are the lefties recruiting younger, more charismatic candidates than the establishment dems?
Also yes.
Had a similar thought when reading your Schumer intern post earlier this week: isn't having energetic candidates a big part of appealing to the lower information voters (and winning more)? Not sure how much this would help in the primaries, but I've been surprised how much better the left populists are doing at this in 2026
Let's be real here for a moment. The reason that the Progressive Left is doing so poorly in fighting Trump is that deep down they actually like him. They like his protectionist trade policies, his inflationary monetary policy, his interference in business and markets, and especially his corruption. The only thing that they don't like is that they think the wrong faction is in charge. They want to replace the MAGA right, not stop it.
This is pretty dim.
You’re asking me to vote for the party with the objectively larger antisemite caucus in the House. Thanks, but I’m not voting for people who are invigorated at the prospect of my death.
I feel like this post does a good job of capturing a core truth of Matt's position and what I think is the core lie.
The core truth is that the Democratic party is farther left than a majority of the county. The party needs to accept that and act accordingly. (I don't have much to add here because I think Matt has the problem well defined).
But there is a corrollary: Just as Democrats need to recognize the country is more moderate, moderates need to recognize that the core of the Democratic party is very liberal (especially primary voters) and they need to act accordingly.
If there is a time honored way to get people to do something they don't really want to do it's flattery. Seems to me it's time for Matt to start kissing some progressive a**. Doing so won't be emotionally satisfying. But the goal is to win, not just post emotionally satisfying content.
Moderates need to find a way to rally the party that isn't just more progressive policy. Maybe that's rallying the party around spirit of "fighting Donald Trump's corruption." I tend to think that moderates need to be more creative and find a way to communicate a general agreement with progressive values that isn't just progressive policy. This is where I think moderates can learn from Mamdani - there are significant portions of his campaign that were about affordability without directly being about policy (there were also parts that were explicit bad policy - but that shouldn't stop them from taking some meaningful lessons).
Matt's seems to have adopted a position that politics without policy is impossible. And gotten stuck as a result. Maybe he's just afraid of giving Progressive's an opening to push more progressive policy. But either way I think it's harmful to his overall mission.
To me this is the core lie of Matt's writing: that it is impossible for moderates to win a Democratic primary without adopting abandoning their moderate policy. I refuse to accept that this is true and I wish Matt was willing to actually try to look for solutions to this problem instead of just complaining about it.
>I think operatives tend to massively overrate paid media and direct-to-camera videos relative to strategic position-taking.
And *I* think strategic position-taking is overrated in a world where the Median Undecided Swing Voter doesn't know fuck-all about policy, doesn't care to learn, and votes mostly based on memes, vibes, and the price of gasoline and/or groceries.
Look, I know I'm to the left of the median Slow Borer, and I'm 100% Team Tuck Frump. But I actually agree with most of Matt Y's Common Sense Democratic Platform (don't call it a Manifesto, you sound like a commie) and I think it would be great if more Democrats signed on to it. But I'm a weirdo freak who cares enough about politics to read and comment on Slow Boring. How representative am I? (Narrator: not at all)
Here's the voter population breakdown: the hardcore MAGA won't vote for a Democrat no matter how Common Sense our Platform is. The Median Disengaged Voter won't hear about the Platform and won't care. The informed liberals will vote for the Democrat anyway, because Tuck Frump, minus a few fringe lefties who will stay home because the CSDP is too anti-immigrant or anti-trans rights or whatever. That leaves the mathews of the world, intelligent, informed conservatives who are like "I hate Trump, but I also hate lefty Democrats, give me a sensible centrist Democrat to vote for, otherwise I'm staying home." How representative are the mathews? I genuinely don't know.
I don't know, guys, maybe I'm being too pessimistic about this. Many elections have very narrow margins, if we can turn a few mathews from "I hate both MAGA and lefty Dems, I'm staying home" to "hmmm these Common Sense Centrist Dems are actually not too bad, I'll vote for them" maybe that will be enough to win? I do think we need some kind of Yglesias-Beutler synthesis of "yes, policy positions are important, but so is propaganda/messaging/having the better memes, and for Cthulhu's sake, stop doing the Republicans' work for them by publicly pointing out how XYZ Democrat is stupid/bad, the Republicans can do that just fine by themselves."
As an Ohioan I want to talk a little bit about Sherrod Brown. I don't blame Chuck Schumer for picking Brown, who exactly was he going to call? There are no statewide elected Democrats in Ohio. The mayors of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati are not exactly electoral juggernauts (and all three primarily run against other Democrats). There are 5 Democrats currently in the House from Ohio and they are:
-Greg Landsman (1st district, Cincy)
-Joyce Beatty (3rd district, Columbus)
-Marcy Kaptur (9th district, Toledo)
-Shontel Brown (11th district, Cleveland)
-Emilia Sykes (13th district, Akron-Cleveland)
Beatty and Brown are factional Progressive Democrats. None would have been good choices. Marcy Kaptur is 80 years old and, while a known electoral overperformer, would have thrown away the 9th district and reminded voters of Joe Biden. that leaves Sykes and Landsman. Both won legitimately tough races, and are solid politicians. If I had to pick between the two I'd probably pick Landsman who, I think, more consistently over performed (granted in two races).
Other than that who's left? Tim Ryan who lost in '22? The reality is: there were very few options for Schumer to call, and Brown was probably his best bet. I do think Brown is running a middling campaign. But that's not on Schumer, that's on Brown.
I will say, my bigger critique of Brown is HE is not running for governor. I think the Ohio governor's mansion is worth more to Democrats with Brown in office than 2 years of a senate term. I think 2028 will be VERY hard for any Democrat to win, and I would roll the dice with Landsman over Brown for the Senate. But that's just me.
I will say, it's a shame Kaptur isn't younger
The things that give me a little hope are: when Republicans have won senate seats here in Ohio, they have underperformed Trump, even in years when Trump was also on the ballot. And Brown did better than Harris in Ohio in 2024. John Husted isn't exactly a household name, and he is linked to a statewide corruption scandal (that frankly Brown should be making more noise about). Ohio is red, but it's mostly Trump red; down ballot things are a bit closer.
There is also a gettable House seat here. I can't remember the guy's name (and I don't feel like searching) but the fellow who has the only NE Ohio red seat is in the middle of an ugly divorce, complete with allegations of physical abuse (also, his soon to be ex-wife is Ohio senator Bernie Moreno's daughter). It's really the only competitive seat in the state.
The governors race is anybody's guess - both candidates have baggage. In Amy Acton's case, it's COVID; in Ramaswamy's case, he's an unpleasant jerk who's barely been in Ohio. We have also never elected a woman governor, or anyone who isn't white. I kind of think both parties whiffed a bit. But there really aren't another good statewide candidates here on the Dem side. I was shocked the Republicans didn't push current lieutenant governor and former OSU coach Jim Tressel. He'd win handily, and by all accounts he's a decent guy (which may be why they didn't push, or perhaps Tressel just wasn't interested). In either case, we've seen the last in our string of semi-reasonable Republican governors in Ohio.
I don't have a strong opinion on Acton other than she texts me for money too much.
I agree Brown can beat Husted, but our other senator wasn't exactly great either. Sadly Ohio is becoming more like a southern Red state
My in-laws live in a suburb of Cincinnati, and they really like and admire Aftab Pureval, the Mayor of Cincinnati. Do you think he'll run for statewide office someday?
Maybe Ohio is a dead end right now so I doubt it