1) most people have a shockingly low belief in their ability to change things, seeing themselves as victims of circumstances. Think the term is agency. This may be an alien concept to many slow boring readers, but that seems like the human default these days.
2) this is compounded by the elite overproduction thing, which once you see you cannot unsee. Most people would rather jockey for status within group as opposed to being the agents of change they want to see.
I think those two things explain most of the infuriating behavior that Matt writes about.
Yes, “you can just do things”. But deep down, most people don’t believe they can, so look to the next best way to win the status game.
I had a somewhat similar reaction to “(m)ost of us choose jobs and careers that give us not just money but also a sense of self-actualization and value.” Not true, actually, even for college graduates! Most of the people I know have at least one graduate degree and also really dislike their jobs. I don’t really understand their attraction to “resistance” but I think they experience “standing up and speaking out” as a statement of values.
Matt and his Harvard buddies might really enjoy their jobs, but most of my state flagship peeps are pretty meh about work and enthusiasm drops stochastically as you go down the ladder.
This is unfortunately the biggest blind spot of the proprietor here. He has no conception of being broke and without connections. He’s basically never failed at anything important. He understands the DSA because they are his people, just less successful. But the rest of the country doesn’t have the connections of a Mamdani or a Yglesias.
When there are 333 million people in my country, 11 million in my state, 110k in my county and 39k my smallish city, believing in my political efficacy would be delusional.
This is not what I meant by agency. I meant people in position of leadership who are choosing to do what they do versus doing things that Matt suggesting.
Your opening words were “most people” and your second paragraph focused more on leaders.
Leaders tend to have a high belief in their efficacy. Platner was apparently so confident in his personal awesomeness he thought his scandals wouldn’t come out, and he’s hardly the first politician to make that miscalculation.
Agency is complicated; individuals have little agency (and as a hard determinist I think that's basically zero agency). One of those circumstances is having been born with the genes that they have.
That said, throwing up your hands and being upset that other people won't do what you want them to is really all you can do on the internet.
I don’t understand why you keep asserting a premise where being moderate or appealing to swing voters is in tension with being a charming person? Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were both moderate Democrats who were compelling and charming politicians. Very little of what makes Mamdani a likeable person has to do with his ideological positions. As you yourself say it’s all about issue positioning, why is it hard to imagine a version of Mamdani that has all the same qualities but he’s just more moderate. There are some universal skills that make for a good politician like public speaking, retail campaigning. Is there a universal law that moderate establishment democrats have to be old and unimpressive speakers?
Yeah, I mean I agree with the piece on its merits, but it also feels a lot like complaining that the evil left is winning too many primaries right now. To which my answer would be: Run better centrist candidates!
I find it incredibly bizarre that it’s been memory holed that a huge reason Mamandi became mayor is because “centrists” put up Andrew Cuomo as their alternative.
I’m sorry Matt, centrists are clearly plenty capable of putting up terrible people and terrible alternatives.
And also that Cuomo's case for election was "Don't vote for Mamandi because we need to beat Trump." Trump wasn't on the ballot, you can't use him as a war cry for everything. Matt is saying they're war cry should be affordability, but that's not what I hear most of the time.
Centrist Democrats need a better line than "We're the only option for defeating authoritarian. Vote for us Or Else." It's nit entirely wrong, but it's also not convincing.
I don't interpret Matt to be saying there's an *inherent* tension between "moderateness" and "ability to inspire."
I believe he's just putting forth the observation that, right now, most of the political pyrotechnics are coming from the hard left, whereas quiet competence is more the order of the day among the moderates who actually stand a snowball's chance of winning over normies.
But sure, there's no law of physics saying centrists and mainstream liberals can't make you tingly. Obama did it. Clinton also had the knack. So does Jon Ossoff in my view. JB Pritzker likewise has a terrific "attack Trump" game.
Yes, there's nothing saying being charming and a natural politician (mass level) is in contrast to being median-voter centered.
There is perhaps an over strong tendency of "establishment" democrats to go to Committee type people, but that's not centrism that's proceduralism and administrative personalities, which can align but are not the same thing.
I think Matt definitely implies that there’s a regional variation on what different groups perceive as “inspiring”. I’m making the argument that while there be some geographic difference in taste for certain politicians, charm and likability is pretty universal and public speaking is an objective skill. There is no reason why moderate Democrats can’t be charming and good public speakers and still appeal to their specific local constituents.
I also wonder if any competent moderate would really want to take the reigns of a country with a virtually unsolvable economic infrastructure problem--somebody will have take the heat for the near $40 trillion debt and all options to navigate it are political suicide (hyperinflation, default, severe austerity).
Moderation is not inconsistent with charm but is inconsistent with being cool in many upscale xenial spaces, where expressive hand ringing about climate change and advanced views on gender are table stakes for entering the discourse.
That's like saying racism and blatant disregard for basic democratic norms are table stakes for entering the discourse in many right-wing Republican spaces. Which is true and a valid complaint, but it doesn't solve the problem. And it certainly doesn't absolve centrists of their agency.
> I don’t understand why you keep asserting a premise where being moderate or appealing to swing voters is in tension with being a charming person?
What did Matt write that could possibly justify this? I only read today's piece twice, and haven't had a lot of coffee yet, but I can't fathom what prompted this.
I wish the Socialists would have started their own party rather than trying to take over the Democratic Party. We may look back at the decision to welcome Bernie into the caucus even though he ran as an independent as a poor choice. Fox, hen house, etc...
For sure, though this rush to the extremes in both parties is symptomatic, I think, of larger structural issues in the US. They're kind of fantasies to grasp hold of, a kind of denial, psychologically.
John considers open primaries or caucuses *sacrosanct*?
It's the combination of weak parties and first past the post voting along with Presidential system that makes the within party factionalism the rational strategy.
I am less worked up about the difference between what's happening in Germany or France or the UK and here. Especially as a systematic voting structure difference. I think the comparative poli science profs are a bit over their skis.
Preferring expressing politics is *part* of the motivation for *some* people on the left. But a slice of these leftists, many of whom are in leadership, are smarter and more strategic than that. Instead:
1. They genuinely believe some form of there not being a "dime's worth of difference" between mainstream Dems and MAGA (the specific rationale and degree may vary).
2. If mainstream Dem voters despise MAGA, and leftists are more willing to put defeating MAGA at risk, then that gives leftists leverage over mainstream Dems.
3. If you can force American politics into a binary choice between leftists and MAGA, then mainstream Dem voters will be forced to support leftists. Maybe that will increase the likelihood of MAGA winning (they would deny that), but if so, (a) that isn't leftists' problem, see point 1, and (b) it's worth the risk/sacrifice.
Moderate Dems do need to make it clear they won't always support the leftist over MAGA to have leverage. There must be some level of Stalinism, anti-semitism or pro-crime policy where they defect not just as a matter of game theory but to show they have principles.
Dems simply can't serve two master. They can't appease the faction who want to "burn-everything" and "deconstruct-everything" and the contented normies who aren't asking for this shit. So much of the progs resentment of the establishment Dems is a proxy for their resentment of parents, bosses, landlords, that expect them to follow the rules and contribute some sort of value. Trump gets so much mileage out of tormenting these weirdos because a big chunk of the public finds them to be odious bullies and like watching a bigger, meaner, bully take them down a peg.
No. This is Sideshow Bob's campaign ad style reasoning. "Leftists are willing to throw the election to MAGA. Can you trust leftists? Vote MAGA for President."
I get that *you* consider MAGA to be substantively preferable to leftists on the merits, which is your right. But you should just say that. For other people who genuinely find MAGA to be worse than any actually-existing leftist in America today, the only answer is to try harder to persuade people in primaries.
The leftists are looking far more strategic than the moderates. In their view, who cares if Dems take a couple losses in the short term? In the meantime, they'll consolidate power within the party.
Long-term, Republicans will still mess up frequently, letting Democrats win at least 40% of elections. Except it'll be an AOC-Piker ticket instead of Shapiro-Whitmer or something.
I'm loving the specter of the Democratic Party in Maine taking charge. Such a fucking breath of fresh air to see something that looks like a strong party engaged in muscular political operations.
I’m curious why you think the smoke filled room is going to produce better candidates.
The actual historical experience is it produced a lot of trash. Like conceptually I get it on paper it looks good. But we have a pretty underwhelming record.
There is a lot of room between no one at all gets a say and literally anyone gets a say. Trump did not win most caucus states for instance in 2016. We could have more citizens directly engaged with parties but not have either a totally open process or a totally closed one.
I’m not sure hardball is the right tack when you need to convince the other guy to do the right thing. Maybe switch to tough talk after he’s dropped out.
On the subject of things done to stop Trump, regretting actions in 2020 and Platner. Have any democratic politicians reflected on Christine Blasey Ford and whether it was the right approach to stop Kavanugh?
I think the problem is that unless your party controls the Senate, the nominee is almost certain to be confirmed. In retrospect, I think of the energy that went into opposing Kavanaugh, when the best case scenario was that he’d be rejected and replaced by another guy who’d vote exactly the same way. Obviously we don’t want people of low character on the Court, but I fail to see how the juice was worth the squeeze.
I'm not really sure what the "squeeze" was here. You're right that defeating Kavanaugh had little upside, but the flipside of that is how would the Dems have been any better off if Kavanaugh had just sailed through?
Approach or do they not believe her? Seems like if they believed her would also be hard to say she cannot come forward or is the act of coming to belief the approach you mean?
While I dislike progressives as much as anyone, and I very much believe that their political tactics are counterproductive, there’s something a bit funny about moderate liberal pundits lecturing leftists on how to fight strategically.
Overall, these guys have had pretty terrible instincts about how to fight the civil war within their party. They basically just beg the left not to fight them.
Maybe appeasing the lefties one more time will work? Last time it was “The Abundance movement should bring the ‘I want to kill landlords’ guy into the tent.” And then a bit of “Do you think Platner is a member of the (now-defunct) Nazi Party, moron?”
Oh, the left still hates Democrats and is trying to eat the party from within? Perhaps the moderate pundits don’t actually have the best instincts about how to win.
Are you saying here that moderates should spend more resources fighting the left here instead of focusing on growing the caucus? Will fighting the left itself grow the caucus?
In the long run, yes. If moderates don't beat the left, then the Democrats become the "socialists obsessed with weird cultural stuff" party. Anyway, if your top strategists can't win in little league, they're probably not going to do very well in the big leagues.
Wouldn't the Republicans be doing better today if MAGA hadn't taken over the party?
This article contains towards the start a sentence saying 'by all means, you should endorse the expenditure of time and attention and resources needed to fight safe-seat primary battles against incumbents who are way too left-wing to win races in Iowa and Texas and Ohio if you actually agree with the candidates challenging them', which acknowledges that there people who are indeed sincerely left of the author, but then ends by saying 'When you insist on fighting Trump on questions like who should play on women’s sports teams or whether you should need an ID to vote, you are not playing to win', which seems to suggest that said voters are engaged in entirely 'expressive' politics. But lots of people sincerely disagree that trans women should be unable to participate in sports, to take the example that's constantly chosen on here. You can disagree with them, you can think they're stupid, but they really believe what they believe and they are indeed 'fighting to win' on the issue they care about with the only party that they can influence.
I get that it's *inconvenient* that people engage in politics in ways other than moderating their preferences through despair about the median voter, but they do participate in other ways and are going to continue to do so.
Jonah Goldberg at The Dispatch has made this argument for some time. The argument is this: you need mentally healthy parties. When one party is crazy, as the MAGA movement has shown, it just leads the other party to crazy town.
You can’t just have one crazy party and one sane party; that is not how it works. Both parties have grabbed onto populist drivel. Promises made that cannot be kept, only to end up blaming the other side, which creates more hatred, more fear, more anger, in order to keep primary voters engaged and keep the small-dollar donations flowing.
From what I can see, populism is an opioid. No tax on tips, no tax on SS all expire soon. I’m going to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. I can end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Drivel.
The DSA is involved in an internecine war with progressives who they feel are not extreme enough.
Bernie Sanders is leaving his mark on the Democratic Party. In effect, the DSA will be the Democrats' version of the Freedom Caucus. They will be a headache for Jeffries. The poison they are using is antipathy against Israel.
Whatever they do with Israel, from cutting off military sales or funding support, none of it will go to government-provided health insurance. It won’t go to child care. It is so minuscule it will have no effect. We are currently juicing the economy with a two-trillion-dollar deficit. A stimulus, effectively. How much bigger do they want the stimulus to be, and how high a price in higher interest rates do they want to pay to borrow more money?
Slavish loyalty to a bad man isn't crazy, it isn't good or principled but it can be rational. The crazy wing of the GOP are the RFK supporters and the MTGs.
Rubio, Vance, Burghum and Graham represents sane unprincipled MAGA, Gabbard is nuts.
Another odd thing about the turf wars is WHAT people don't like about Trump. Tariffs that are not only economically stupid but actualy illegal? The deficit-exploding tax cuts in the "One Budget Bashing Bill? The Pro Russia tilt in policy toward Ukraine? The economic damage of deportations? Centralizing control of the economy with Unitary Executive actions, partial nationization of private firms?
Can't speak for Gordon here, but sometimes it seems like whatever mythical designer baby moderate some of the centrist crowd wishes existed would be that sort of individual.
ACtually I'd prefer your Democratic party sabotage completely be told to go off and pound sand so the Democrats can actually win instead of engage in PSUC sabotage
One thing about Marshall (whose work I largely like and admire) is that he's been on record for years denying that "resource diversion" is a real thing. In his view, the affluent people who are giving money are, in the aggregate, not allocating a fixed budget. The limit for them is how engaged they are, and when they get more passionate about what's happening, they increase the size of the pie. I don't think this is 100% wrong, but it's more wrong than right - regardless, it's going to be part of his response.
Even in he’s 100% accurate, it’s still true that incredible amounts of money/energy are being spent on replacing left wing members of the caucus with different ones, not on growing the caucus - maybe a zero sum view of political organizing is a bad model, but the underlying point that the left has no interest in growing the pie to defeat Trump is still accurate.
Attention is finite though, so as long as they get passionate about replacing leftists with far leftists rather the flipping GOP seats to the Dems, that's where the donations will go.
I don't think (political) attention is finite either.
A LOT of people are paying attention to Trump and Mamdani, and paying attention to "politics" because of that - if Pence were president and Cuomo were mayor, they would be spending less attention on politics, not paying attention to other poltiicians.
I get your point that the key to a functioning Democratic majority lies in putting money and resources into moderate swing state races. And I also get your point that “fighting” does not need to mean “extreme left policy”.
But where i vehemently disagree with you is the supposed lack of blame centrists have for everything that’s happened. But I think the issue is a nomenclature issue; it’s not “centrists” it’s “establishment”. The conflating of the two is the category error that Josh Marshall is committing. But also, I don’t think it’s wrong to say the Venn Diagram overlap is strong.
Because I’m sorry the “establishment” deserves a ton of blame for the fact that Trump and his cronies never got the punishment they deserved for their actions. I think Nancy Pelosi was one of the best speakers of the House ever. But I’m sorry, the most important decision of her life she fucked it; not bringing impeachment charges on January 6th itself and instead slow walking it. Then there is putting Merrick Garland in charge as AG. It’s just astonishingly clear that “establishment” position on Trump was “this is over, we’re just moving on”.
There’s something else too. This isn’t just “establishment” or “centrists”. This is “get these old farts who should have retired years ago off the goddamn stage”. You know why Mills lost in Maine and probably deserved to? She was old! I’m sorry didn’t we just have this discussion in 2024 that maybe it’s not a good idea to have octogenarians in key positions of power anymore?
I second the first half of this - "establishment" vs "non-establishment" is a meaningfully different axis than "centrist" vs "leftist."
One possibly useful framing: "establishment" is the party of some group of stationary bandits - Brandon Johnson in Chicago and Lina Khan are establishment leftists, Biden was an establishment moderate; on the Right, Romney and the Bush family are establishment centrists, Trump is a non-establishment centrist, some of the Sagebrush Rebellion would be establishment right-wingers.
M.D.C.'s 1982 self-titled album is a masterpiece and not a bad song on the album. That being said, yelling 'John Wayne was a Nazi' to the median voter will not win more votes for Democrats.
Perhaps "John Wayne was a bigoted proto-fascist faux-superpatriot who was a World War II chickenhawk, and with a giggly-funny real-world first name, to boot, and did not magically become a good guy just because Joan Didion wrote something flattering about him" has greater truth value but just couldn't fit even into MDC's relatively free blank-verse song format.
Surprised to see that no one has brought up the pathetic example of Cory Booker's fake 25 hour "filibuster" that did nothing (since cloture had already been invoked in Whitaker's nomination for NATO Ambassador before CB started speaking), followed by a vote (as the sole Dem) to confirm Charles Kushner, a literal felon, to be Trump's ambassador to France.
That's the inverse of "know when to hold 'em." It's expressive where fighting is free and capitulation where Dems actually held a card. And that's part of why "fighters vs. folders" resonates with normie Dems who have zero interest in DSA; the establishment validated it through their repeated behavior.
Then there's the most recent shutdown, where Senate Dems genuinely held strong cards, with a popular demand (ACA subsidies), an unpopular opponent position, and polling showing the public blamed Republicans. Forty-three days in, eight centrist Dems folded for a promise of a future vote that everyone knew would fail (and it did). Whatever you think of the shutdown fight as strategy, folding after paying the full political cost of the fight and before extracting anything is the worst possible line.
MattY may be right that the left's primary campaigns aren't about beating Trump, but until Dems treat procedural leverage as seriously as they treat floor speeches, "know when to fold 'em" will (and should) be understood as a euphemism for "fold always," and the left will predictably benefit; he gestures at this in his last paragraph, but treats it as a footnote when it's really the main story.
1) most people have a shockingly low belief in their ability to change things, seeing themselves as victims of circumstances. Think the term is agency. This may be an alien concept to many slow boring readers, but that seems like the human default these days.
2) this is compounded by the elite overproduction thing, which once you see you cannot unsee. Most people would rather jockey for status within group as opposed to being the agents of change they want to see.
I think those two things explain most of the infuriating behavior that Matt writes about.
Yes, “you can just do things”. But deep down, most people don’t believe they can, so look to the next best way to win the status game.
I had a somewhat similar reaction to “(m)ost of us choose jobs and careers that give us not just money but also a sense of self-actualization and value.” Not true, actually, even for college graduates! Most of the people I know have at least one graduate degree and also really dislike their jobs. I don’t really understand their attraction to “resistance” but I think they experience “standing up and speaking out” as a statement of values.
Matt and his Harvard buddies might really enjoy their jobs, but most of my state flagship peeps are pretty meh about work and enthusiasm drops stochastically as you go down the ladder.
I like my job, but you'd have to pay me to do it.
As my husband tells my kids, "If it was fun, they wouldn't have to pay you to do it."
This is unfortunately the biggest blind spot of the proprietor here. He has no conception of being broke and without connections. He’s basically never failed at anything important. He understands the DSA because they are his people, just less successful. But the rest of the country doesn’t have the connections of a Mamdani or a Yglesias.
When there are 333 million people in my country, 11 million in my state, 110k in my county and 39k my smallish city, believing in my political efficacy would be delusional.
This is not what I meant by agency. I meant people in position of leadership who are choosing to do what they do versus doing things that Matt suggesting.
Your opening words were “most people” and your second paragraph focused more on leaders.
Leaders tend to have a high belief in their efficacy. Platner was apparently so confident in his personal awesomeness he thought his scandals wouldn’t come out, and he’s hardly the first politician to make that miscalculation.
He still hasn't resigned.
lol
Agency is complicated; individuals have little agency (and as a hard determinist I think that's basically zero agency). One of those circumstances is having been born with the genes that they have.
That said, throwing up your hands and being upset that other people won't do what you want them to is really all you can do on the internet.
Determinism gives me a certain serenity. However, power, oppression and all the other bad things can exist without agency.
I don’t understand why you keep asserting a premise where being moderate or appealing to swing voters is in tension with being a charming person? Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were both moderate Democrats who were compelling and charming politicians. Very little of what makes Mamdani a likeable person has to do with his ideological positions. As you yourself say it’s all about issue positioning, why is it hard to imagine a version of Mamdani that has all the same qualities but he’s just more moderate. There are some universal skills that make for a good politician like public speaking, retail campaigning. Is there a universal law that moderate establishment democrats have to be old and unimpressive speakers?
Yeah, I mean I agree with the piece on its merits, but it also feels a lot like complaining that the evil left is winning too many primaries right now. To which my answer would be: Run better centrist candidates!
I find it incredibly bizarre that it’s been memory holed that a huge reason Mamandi became mayor is because “centrists” put up Andrew Cuomo as their alternative.
I’m sorry Matt, centrists are clearly plenty capable of putting up terrible people and terrible alternatives.
And also that Cuomo's case for election was "Don't vote for Mamandi because we need to beat Trump." Trump wasn't on the ballot, you can't use him as a war cry for everything. Matt is saying they're war cry should be affordability, but that's not what I hear most of the time.
Centrist Democrats need a better line than "We're the only option for defeating authoritarian. Vote for us Or Else." It's nit entirely wrong, but it's also not convincing.
I don't interpret Matt to be saying there's an *inherent* tension between "moderateness" and "ability to inspire."
I believe he's just putting forth the observation that, right now, most of the political pyrotechnics are coming from the hard left, whereas quiet competence is more the order of the day among the moderates who actually stand a snowball's chance of winning over normies.
But sure, there's no law of physics saying centrists and mainstream liberals can't make you tingly. Obama did it. Clinton also had the knack. So does Jon Ossoff in my view. JB Pritzker likewise has a terrific "attack Trump" game.
Obama did it by making everyone feel like he was one of them. And if you can do that well you can probably win a really high majority of the time.
Yes, there's nothing saying being charming and a natural politician (mass level) is in contrast to being median-voter centered.
There is perhaps an over strong tendency of "establishment" democrats to go to Committee type people, but that's not centrism that's proceduralism and administrative personalities, which can align but are not the same thing.
I think Matt definitely implies that there’s a regional variation on what different groups perceive as “inspiring”. I’m making the argument that while there be some geographic difference in taste for certain politicians, charm and likability is pretty universal and public speaking is an objective skill. There is no reason why moderate Democrats can’t be charming and good public speakers and still appeal to their specific local constituents.
I also wonder if any competent moderate would really want to take the reigns of a country with a virtually unsolvable economic infrastructure problem--somebody will have take the heat for the near $40 trillion debt and all options to navigate it are political suicide (hyperinflation, default, severe austerity).
Moderation is not inconsistent with charm but is inconsistent with being cool in many upscale xenial spaces, where expressive hand ringing about climate change and advanced views on gender are table stakes for entering the discourse.
Even a lot of my fellow Olds are like this now…
My mom is cooler than I am, and she and my son sometimes horse shoe me between two generations of progressive tripe.
That's like saying racism and blatant disregard for basic democratic norms are table stakes for entering the discourse in many right-wing Republican spaces. Which is true and a valid complaint, but it doesn't solve the problem. And it certainly doesn't absolve centrists of their agency.
> I don’t understand why you keep asserting a premise where being moderate or appealing to swing voters is in tension with being a charming person?
What did Matt write that could possibly justify this? I only read today's piece twice, and haven't had a lot of coffee yet, but I can't fathom what prompted this.
I wish the Socialists would have started their own party rather than trying to take over the Democratic Party. We may look back at the decision to welcome Bernie into the caucus even though he ran as an independent as a poor choice. Fox, hen house, etc...
>I wish the Socialists would have started their own party rather than trying to take over the Democratic Party<
They plan to, eventually, after they've fatally weakened The Democratic Party. I'm 100% serious: AIUI that really is the blueprint.
The thing about a two party system is you have to get to 51%. Once to take evangelicals and racists off the table, you need 4/5 of everyone else.
For sure, though this rush to the extremes in both parties is symptomatic, I think, of larger structural issues in the US. They're kind of fantasies to grasp hold of, a kind of denial, psychologically.
Because the system you worship, consider absolutely sacrosanct says, forming your own party is an utterly losing strategy.
John considers open primaries or caucuses *sacrosanct*?
It's the combination of weak parties and first past the post voting along with Presidential system that makes the within party factionalism the rational strategy.
I am less worked up about the difference between what's happening in Germany or France or the UK and here. Especially as a systematic voting structure difference. I think the comparative poli science profs are a bit over their skis.
Preferring expressing politics is *part* of the motivation for *some* people on the left. But a slice of these leftists, many of whom are in leadership, are smarter and more strategic than that. Instead:
1. They genuinely believe some form of there not being a "dime's worth of difference" between mainstream Dems and MAGA (the specific rationale and degree may vary).
2. If mainstream Dem voters despise MAGA, and leftists are more willing to put defeating MAGA at risk, then that gives leftists leverage over mainstream Dems.
3. If you can force American politics into a binary choice between leftists and MAGA, then mainstream Dem voters will be forced to support leftists. Maybe that will increase the likelihood of MAGA winning (they would deny that), but if so, (a) that isn't leftists' problem, see point 1, and (b) it's worth the risk/sacrifice.
Moderate Dems do need to make it clear they won't always support the leftist over MAGA to have leverage. There must be some level of Stalinism, anti-semitism or pro-crime policy where they defect not just as a matter of game theory but to show they have principles.
Dems simply can't serve two master. They can't appease the faction who want to "burn-everything" and "deconstruct-everything" and the contented normies who aren't asking for this shit. So much of the progs resentment of the establishment Dems is a proxy for their resentment of parents, bosses, landlords, that expect them to follow the rules and contribute some sort of value. Trump gets so much mileage out of tormenting these weirdos because a big chunk of the public finds them to be odious bullies and like watching a bigger, meaner, bully take them down a peg.
No. This is Sideshow Bob's campaign ad style reasoning. "Leftists are willing to throw the election to MAGA. Can you trust leftists? Vote MAGA for President."
I get that *you* consider MAGA to be substantively preferable to leftists on the merits, which is your right. But you should just say that. For other people who genuinely find MAGA to be worse than any actually-existing leftist in America today, the only answer is to try harder to persuade people in primaries.
The leftists are looking far more strategic than the moderates. In their view, who cares if Dems take a couple losses in the short term? In the meantime, they'll consolidate power within the party.
Long-term, Republicans will still mess up frequently, letting Democrats win at least 40% of elections. Except it'll be an AOC-Piker ticket instead of Shapiro-Whitmer or something.
It is amazing that some people think being in favor of the exact opposite of everything trump says or does is a good strategy.
I'm loving the specter of the Democratic Party in Maine taking charge. Such a fucking breath of fresh air to see something that looks like a strong party engaged in muscular political operations.
https://x.com/MaineDems/status/2074653501771194683
It's sad that extraordinary circumstances have to arise for this to be so. But here we are.
If we get the smoke-filled rooms via the backdoor that's a silver lining in a very dark cloud for sure.
I’m curious why you think the smoke filled room is going to produce better candidates.
The actual historical experience is it produced a lot of trash. Like conceptually I get it on paper it looks good. But we have a pretty underwhelming record.
I don't entirely disagree with that but I think its track record of not resulting in catastrophe is pretty good. I may be suffering from presentism.
The open primaries got us Trump twice.
There is a lot of room between no one at all gets a say and literally anyone gets a say. Trump did not win most caucus states for instance in 2016. We could have more citizens directly engaged with parties but not have either a totally open process or a totally closed one.
I’m not sure hardball is the right tack when you need to convince the other guy to do the right thing. Maybe switch to tough talk after he’s dropped out.
I think we should save our cheering until they actually win. That's still a very open question.
On the subject of things done to stop Trump, regretting actions in 2020 and Platner. Have any democratic politicians reflected on Christine Blasey Ford and whether it was the right approach to stop Kavanugh?
I think the problem is that unless your party controls the Senate, the nominee is almost certain to be confirmed. In retrospect, I think of the energy that went into opposing Kavanaugh, when the best case scenario was that he’d be rejected and replaced by another guy who’d vote exactly the same way. Obviously we don’t want people of low character on the Court, but I fail to see how the juice was worth the squeeze.
I'm not really sure what the "squeeze" was here. You're right that defeating Kavanaugh had little upside, but the flipside of that is how would the Dems have been any better off if Kavanaugh had just sailed through?
Approach or do they not believe her? Seems like if they believed her would also be hard to say she cannot come forward or is the act of coming to belief the approach you mean?
While I dislike progressives as much as anyone, and I very much believe that their political tactics are counterproductive, there’s something a bit funny about moderate liberal pundits lecturing leftists on how to fight strategically.
Overall, these guys have had pretty terrible instincts about how to fight the civil war within their party. They basically just beg the left not to fight them.
Maybe appeasing the lefties one more time will work? Last time it was “The Abundance movement should bring the ‘I want to kill landlords’ guy into the tent.” And then a bit of “Do you think Platner is a member of the (now-defunct) Nazi Party, moron?”
Oh, the left still hates Democrats and is trying to eat the party from within? Perhaps the moderate pundits don’t actually have the best instincts about how to win.
Are you saying here that moderates should spend more resources fighting the left here instead of focusing on growing the caucus? Will fighting the left itself grow the caucus?
In the long run, yes. If moderates don't beat the left, then the Democrats become the "socialists obsessed with weird cultural stuff" party. Anyway, if your top strategists can't win in little league, they're probably not going to do very well in the big leagues.
Wouldn't the Republicans be doing better today if MAGA hadn't taken over the party?
This article contains towards the start a sentence saying 'by all means, you should endorse the expenditure of time and attention and resources needed to fight safe-seat primary battles against incumbents who are way too left-wing to win races in Iowa and Texas and Ohio if you actually agree with the candidates challenging them', which acknowledges that there people who are indeed sincerely left of the author, but then ends by saying 'When you insist on fighting Trump on questions like who should play on women’s sports teams or whether you should need an ID to vote, you are not playing to win', which seems to suggest that said voters are engaged in entirely 'expressive' politics. But lots of people sincerely disagree that trans women should be unable to participate in sports, to take the example that's constantly chosen on here. You can disagree with them, you can think they're stupid, but they really believe what they believe and they are indeed 'fighting to win' on the issue they care about with the only party that they can influence.
I get that it's *inconvenient* that people engage in politics in ways other than moderating their preferences through despair about the median voter, but they do participate in other ways and are going to continue to do so.
Jonah Goldberg at The Dispatch has made this argument for some time. The argument is this: you need mentally healthy parties. When one party is crazy, as the MAGA movement has shown, it just leads the other party to crazy town.
You can’t just have one crazy party and one sane party; that is not how it works. Both parties have grabbed onto populist drivel. Promises made that cannot be kept, only to end up blaming the other side, which creates more hatred, more fear, more anger, in order to keep primary voters engaged and keep the small-dollar donations flowing.
From what I can see, populism is an opioid. No tax on tips, no tax on SS all expire soon. I’m going to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. I can end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Drivel.
The DSA is involved in an internecine war with progressives who they feel are not extreme enough.
Bernie Sanders is leaving his mark on the Democratic Party. In effect, the DSA will be the Democrats' version of the Freedom Caucus. They will be a headache for Jeffries. The poison they are using is antipathy against Israel.
Whatever they do with Israel, from cutting off military sales or funding support, none of it will go to government-provided health insurance. It won’t go to child care. It is so minuscule it will have no effect. We are currently juicing the economy with a two-trillion-dollar deficit. A stimulus, effectively. How much bigger do they want the stimulus to be, and how high a price in higher interest rates do they want to pay to borrow more money?
Slavish loyalty to a bad man isn't crazy, it isn't good or principled but it can be rational. The crazy wing of the GOP are the RFK supporters and the MTGs.
Rubio, Vance, Burghum and Graham represents sane unprincipled MAGA, Gabbard is nuts.
Another odd thing about the turf wars is WHAT people don't like about Trump. Tariffs that are not only economically stupid but actualy illegal? The deficit-exploding tax cuts in the "One Budget Bashing Bill? The Pro Russia tilt in policy toward Ukraine? The economic damage of deportations? Centralizing control of the economy with Unitary Executive actions, partial nationization of private firms?
This is just a big article by a moderate telling leftists to support moderates which is totally not self-serving from a moderate factionalist.
Leftists, instead of supporting your candidates, go with ones that hate gays, immigrants, foreigners so I can feel better about myself.
Be specific, Gordon. Name the moderate Democratic candidates who "hate gays, immigrants, foreigners"?
Can't speak for Gordon here, but sometimes it seems like whatever mythical designer baby moderate some of the centrist crowd wishes existed would be that sort of individual.
Existing candidates, not so much.
ACtually I'd prefer your Democratic party sabotage completely be told to go off and pound sand so the Democrats can actually win instead of engage in PSUC sabotage
One thing about Marshall (whose work I largely like and admire) is that he's been on record for years denying that "resource diversion" is a real thing. In his view, the affluent people who are giving money are, in the aggregate, not allocating a fixed budget. The limit for them is how engaged they are, and when they get more passionate about what's happening, they increase the size of the pie. I don't think this is 100% wrong, but it's more wrong than right - regardless, it's going to be part of his response.
Even in he’s 100% accurate, it’s still true that incredible amounts of money/energy are being spent on replacing left wing members of the caucus with different ones, not on growing the caucus - maybe a zero sum view of political organizing is a bad model, but the underlying point that the left has no interest in growing the pie to defeat Trump is still accurate.
That is probably correct given that such a tiny share of money in America goes into politics.
Attention is finite though, so as long as they get passionate about replacing leftists with far leftists rather the flipping GOP seats to the Dems, that's where the donations will go.
I don't think (political) attention is finite either.
A LOT of people are paying attention to Trump and Mamdani, and paying attention to "politics" because of that - if Pence were president and Cuomo were mayor, they would be spending less attention on politics, not paying attention to other poltiicians.
I get your point that the key to a functioning Democratic majority lies in putting money and resources into moderate swing state races. And I also get your point that “fighting” does not need to mean “extreme left policy”.
But where i vehemently disagree with you is the supposed lack of blame centrists have for everything that’s happened. But I think the issue is a nomenclature issue; it’s not “centrists” it’s “establishment”. The conflating of the two is the category error that Josh Marshall is committing. But also, I don’t think it’s wrong to say the Venn Diagram overlap is strong.
Because I’m sorry the “establishment” deserves a ton of blame for the fact that Trump and his cronies never got the punishment they deserved for their actions. I think Nancy Pelosi was one of the best speakers of the House ever. But I’m sorry, the most important decision of her life she fucked it; not bringing impeachment charges on January 6th itself and instead slow walking it. Then there is putting Merrick Garland in charge as AG. It’s just astonishingly clear that “establishment” position on Trump was “this is over, we’re just moving on”.
There’s something else too. This isn’t just “establishment” or “centrists”. This is “get these old farts who should have retired years ago off the goddamn stage”. You know why Mills lost in Maine and probably deserved to? She was old! I’m sorry didn’t we just have this discussion in 2024 that maybe it’s not a good idea to have octogenarians in key positions of power anymore?
I second the first half of this - "establishment" vs "non-establishment" is a meaningfully different axis than "centrist" vs "leftist."
One possibly useful framing: "establishment" is the party of some group of stationary bandits - Brandon Johnson in Chicago and Lina Khan are establishment leftists, Biden was an establishment moderate; on the Right, Romney and the Bush family are establishment centrists, Trump is a non-establishment centrist, some of the Sagebrush Rebellion would be establishment right-wingers.
M.D.C.'s 1982 self-titled album is a masterpiece and not a bad song on the album. That being said, yelling 'John Wayne was a Nazi' to the median voter will not win more votes for Democrats.
Surely the main problem with calling a John Wayne a Nazi isn't that it is unappealing isn't that it is unpopular but that it is obviously not true.
Perhaps "John Wayne was a bigoted proto-fascist faux-superpatriot who was a World War II chickenhawk, and with a giggly-funny real-world first name, to boot, and did not magically become a good guy just because Joan Didion wrote something flattering about him" has greater truth value but just couldn't fit even into MDC's relatively free blank-verse song format.
Words mean something, being a conservative in the 1960s doesn't make one a fascist or a Nazi.
Surprised to see that no one has brought up the pathetic example of Cory Booker's fake 25 hour "filibuster" that did nothing (since cloture had already been invoked in Whitaker's nomination for NATO Ambassador before CB started speaking), followed by a vote (as the sole Dem) to confirm Charles Kushner, a literal felon, to be Trump's ambassador to France.
That's the inverse of "know when to hold 'em." It's expressive where fighting is free and capitulation where Dems actually held a card. And that's part of why "fighters vs. folders" resonates with normie Dems who have zero interest in DSA; the establishment validated it through their repeated behavior.
Then there's the most recent shutdown, where Senate Dems genuinely held strong cards, with a popular demand (ACA subsidies), an unpopular opponent position, and polling showing the public blamed Republicans. Forty-three days in, eight centrist Dems folded for a promise of a future vote that everyone knew would fail (and it did). Whatever you think of the shutdown fight as strategy, folding after paying the full political cost of the fight and before extracting anything is the worst possible line.
MattY may be right that the left's primary campaigns aren't about beating Trump, but until Dems treat procedural leverage as seriously as they treat floor speeches, "know when to fold 'em" will (and should) be understood as a euphemism for "fold always," and the left will predictably benefit; he gestures at this in his last paragraph, but treats it as a footnote when it's really the main story.