As Yglesias has said repeatedly, a lot of this comes down to Democrat staffers being far more progressive than the median Democrat voter; let alone the median voter. This strong bias filters what accomplishments that they focus on and shapes their own perception of events. The result is counterproductive messaging.
I’ve been hoping that fear of electoral victories for Trump and his compatriot politicians would focus Democrat staffers on winning at all costs; even if that meant compromising and moderating on policy and messaging. My personal thinking has definitely been influenced that way. It’s one thing to lose due overly ambitious political goals when the downside is four years of Romney and a Republican congress cutting taxes and deregulating. When it's Trumpism the cost of losing is higher.
Yet such a change in strategy and tactics among Democrat staffers hasn't happened. And I think a lot of that can be attributed to the “progressive mobilization” delusion. As long as staffers and activists continue to believe that there is a large number of demotivated potential voters yearning for revolutionary progressive changes then I don’t think we'll have a more productive messaging discipline. We need to do anything and everything that we can do to push back on this false narrative and correct staffers’ mental model of the American electoral landscape.
The number of Real Americans I've interacted with (text messaging for Movement Labs, etc) who say things like: "Get lost, I wouldn't vote for a Democratic if you paid me."
As a kid during the 1968 Democratic convention I "demanded" universal primaries. I now think the current primary system is a major destabilizing factor that drives the extremes.
I don't think the staffers are crazy, I think they're trying to rationalize a vast coalition of interests and if you were in charge of the modern Democratic party coalition, you'd end up in mostly the same spot. The Democratic party has always had a softer spot for revolutionary ideas because it's the less conservative party, these are kinds of people who ended the Federalists. If you think it's bad enough, you vote for the other party. But after watching the party from 2012 to 2022, it seems naive to think this is a matter of a bad mental model. It's now the price of doing business.
Do Republicans ever adjust to the median voter? Have they done that on abortion? I suppose the example will be Trump and entitlements even though he endorsed a budget that would have cut entitlements. Not only left-of-center people have agency. I am totally fine with moderating positions if it's also paired with messaging that aims to persuade. The median voter shouldn't just be viewed as a fixed, unpersuadable object that means we always have to move right. That just seems like pure nihilism to me. What's the point of winning elections if you can only do what the median voter wants?
Sorry, I am ranting here. I get where you are coming from and I am ALL for pragmatism. I just think popularists need to understand that, to at least some extent, what we are calling for is extremely demotivating. "Hey, the median voter hates your views! You should change them and be excited about it!"
I think an argument could be made that Trump (yes he’s a lying jackass) did move toward the median voter. He took positions on immigration and trade policy that were quite popular. Trade was a change for Republicans. He also took a more median voter position on war (the use of US military around the world) than recent Republicans.
If Trump took similar policy positions and was a reasonably good person - He would still be President and the Democrats would be in trouble.
Well put. I don't necessarily disagree but it does highlight a critique I have of populism. I'm a neoliberal @$$hole like most of us in this here comments section but I notice very few calls for Dems to hold their trade positions (which are arguably with the median voter). Most of the calls I see from Yglesias, Barro, Noah Smith, etc. is for Biden to ditch the tariffs to combat inflation (which I agree he should). Doing so, however, would open Dems up to attacks from the GOP charging Dems with being soft on China - an attack that could resonate with the free trade skeptic median voter.
I don't highlight this to as a "ha gotcha!" thing but just to note that a not insignificant portion of popularism prescriptions are driven by people that selectively point out median voter preferences. A lot of these guys think woke stuff is cringe and they just so happen to be in alignment with the median voter in that regard. I just think this underscores why it's hard to sell popularism to progressives because there are inconsistencies that can be rather blatant.
I have some skin on both sides of the free trade argument. I grew up on the fringe of the rust belt in a small town in Ohio. Free trade has hurt those communities. Most free market economist will now (not before when the policies were being implemented) admit this. I also got an undergrad in Econ and took the trade class so I know the basic models about how trade is mutually beneficial. I still buy that argument but it has to be acknowledged not for everyone in that country. Many Americans live high quality lives because of free trade. Some Americans standard of living has not progressed at the same rate because they are competing directly with low wage foreign workers. Both seem true to me. Trump speaks to the factor workers in Ohio, Penn, Mich, Indiana in a way previous Republicans did not. Dems have abandoned those voters in favor of the more educated. I think Republicans (Trump) have moved more to the median voter than a previous commenter gives him credit for. The median voter is not the median voter in your social circle.
Saying democracy is in danger is extremely useful for them. If you can't vote for the other party and you're a moderate, you have no credible threat to defect. Huge loss in bargaining power. It's no wonder the party has moved further left as the description of the GOP as a threat to democracy has gained steam.
The poll I was thinking of didn't ask that question exactly, but did ask which party was the greatest threat to democracy, and among independents (and voters overall), Democrats were rated as more of a threat than Republicans.
Which is pretty profoundly stupid, but when the Democrats won't act like they genuinely believe this is true of the GOP, then they certainly can't expect median voters to do so.
I don't think the threat is huge, but it's absolutely not evenly distributed.
Right, you will have a credible threat to defect if the GOP nominates DeSantis instead of Trump. And instead of Elizabeth Warren proposing very ambitious policy agenda, you have Joe Biden proposing an ambitious policy agenda, and accordingly he's going to have surrogates and supporters talk about IRA/other stuff like it's the biggest thing in the world.
I'm saying this isn't really going to change, and it ultimately has little to do with blaming young staffers talk a certain way or not appreciating the stakes. They believe there are enormous stakes; look into how left-wing people talked about the Reagan administration. They think the stakes are always fascism and democracy. That's what they believe, and the party shifts to accommodate accordingly. Whether or not this velocity changes mostly depends on whether the GOP can get its act together and win with a center-right leader.
I think what some of us are saying is: the non-normie, progressive base of the Democratic Party doesn't need high powered messaging about how transformative this or that piece of legislation is. They're already on Twitter. Or on blogs like this. Or they read Krugman. Or what have you. They're quite capable of reading about legislation specifics.
The people whose votes are up for grabs *don't* to hear about "transformation." They want to know they'll be able to heat their homes, fill up their pickup trucks, and afford their blood thinners. Folks who get paid to advance the Democratic Party's agenda (that includes getting Democrats elected, obviously) should tell them that's what Democrats are doing for them.
I think there's a fair amount of evidence scaring persuadable voters can be effective. Obviously you have to execute the messaging strategy well to pull it off...
I'm not sure that scaring voters is identical to trying to get them to hate on the other party. Semantics aside, I believe we saw this in action in Kansas.
The part about the earned media reminded me of my frustrations with the child tax credit. Instead of framing it as "a tax cut for families with children" it was talked about as this broad, sweeping, transformative, anti-poverty program that was *so progressive* (squeeee!), which is not what most people wanted to hear.
I think that this is kind of a downside to the influence/stranglehold that the more progressive folks tend to have on the media.
If not for that, the moderates could tout how reasonable and moderate it is to their constituents, and the progressives could tout how progressive it is to their districts, and all would be well.
But because the progressive voices seem to automatically get amplified, it becomes a hindrance for the moderates and the party as a whole nationwide.
One could probably design a good game of guessing people's ages based on the cultural/political references they include in their comments.
Citing this meme puts you in the camp of definitely being older than 45.
(I, on the other hand, in yesterday's discussion about how bad primaries are, was going to reminisce about how primaries were such a breath of fresh air in 1972 after the horrors of the 1968 Democratic race.)
This is pretty much spot on, but I still think we could emphasize even more Biden’s achievement in refuting the very toxic notion that bipartisanship is forever more dead and gone. Polarization is such a dangerous force in the country and while we are very very far from solving the issue, knowing and proving that bipartisan legislation on a wide variety of issues is still totally possible is a huge achievement in and of itself.
If there's more bipartisanship in a Democratic presidency than a Republican presidency, that actually suggests that from 2016-2022, >10 Republican senators and <10 Democratic senators get this.
See also: which presidency the infrastructure bill passed in.
“…Biden’s achievement in refuting the very toxic notion that bipartisanship is forever more dead and gone”
You’ve been watching a different movie than I have. The one I saw featured a script that had lines like,
“Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things: voter suppression and election subversion. It’s no longer about who gets to vote; it’s about making it harder to vote. It’s about who gets to count the vote and whether your vote counts at all. It’s not hyperbole; this is a fact.”
Why *after* IRA? Have you forgotten about the first gun legislation and infrastructure legislation in a generation?? If these are not huge bipartisan breakthroughs , what is?
That's the point. Passing stuff that bipartisan majorities agree on rather than focusing on the controversial stuff. Secret congress is more productive than twitter congress.
Only one bipartisan thing per week that is "hardly consequential to progressives" sounds like a fine rate of action, especially if there's a couple things that are consequential to progressives every year or two.
I mean, this is all true, but haven't we been listening to 12 months of "DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY!!!1!!" from the Beltway media? They just passed a bill (well, the Senate did at least) with zero GOP votes that will materially improve the lives of many Americans. If Democrats are going to make the argument that the point of winning elections is enacting their favored policies, shouldn't they emphasize this?
Yes, just not the "sweeping climate" part in their public-media-facing statements--the activist groups can just use that language in their fundraising emails to me, and I'm delighted with it. But Dems can emphasize the "cheaper energy" "cheaper prescription drugs" "better health care" "lower deficit" "tax billionaire corporations that dodge taxes" stuff. They passed a very common sense bill, and should emphasize it! (When Republicans passed the Trump tax cuts, did they emphasize the small middle-class tax cuts or the big upper-income and corporate tax breaks?)
I agree with Matt's overall view here, but man, after listening to Extremely Online Progressives dismiss the ACA as a "center-right Heritage Foundation" plan that didn't do much, I kinda like the vibe shift.
One argument for trumpeting achievements, and even exaggerating them, is that some percentage of your voters are demoralized by failures and energized by success.
Your stance in this piece suggests that you think "rev up the base!" is a less important part of winning elections than "don't scare the normies!"
Is that ranking of importance dependent on this being a midterm in which the Dems have a (tenuous) trifecta? Would it change if this were a presidential year, or a year in which Dems were the party out of power? Or is it always good advice? How important is normie-calming compared to base-revving in other scenarios?
There are two variations on the "turn out the base" hypothesis that I see get conflated:
1. The idea that you can win by mobilize infrequent or non-voters* with bold progressive policies, because they have been simply disillusioned by government inaction and lack of meaningful change in their lives. This idea has been thoroughly debunked, by Matt and others (See here: https://www.slowboring.com/p/progressives-mobilization-delusion).
2. The idea that if your "base" votes you into power and they don't get what they voted for, they will get mad and either stay home or vote third-party out of protest. These voters, unlike the ones in the first category, are regular voters who don't need to be "energized" to vote, but may defect from the party if they get mad enough. This category includes the typically Democratic voters who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016. This theory feels more plausible than the first one, but I haven't seen any political science on it. My guess is the effect exists in some capacity but it not very electorally significant.
*These voters get termed the "base" mainly because they share demographic characteristics with the actual Democratic "base", and due to the assumption that they would never vote Republican, and are simply choosing between voting for Democrats and not voting. These assumptions have been proven false.
Feels to me like these are base calming statements not base activating. ‘We did the thing now get off our back’. Suggests a focus on primaries, fundraising, intra caucus politics. The base is activated most by the same thing that helps with normies: fear of conservatives. So you rev up both the same way and should focus on calming the centers skepticism of you and not the lefts.
The fact that we need to “calm” these idiots in the hopes of them shutting up for five whole minutes while the party runs a normie-centric campaign is… sad.
Schumer and Biden should be taking lessons from LBJ and systemically *destroying* the various activist organizations and their leadership rather than shushing them gently.
This is the LBJ who signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts with MLK Jr standing next to him, and who destroyed the up to then solid Democratic base in the South which has persisted until today?
Jesus H Christ. Why?!? I have no love for the more woke/far-left/"America sux" activists, but to say that the government should *destroy * them is hideously un-American. This isn't the USSR!
It is entirely reasonable for these people, in their role as senior party officials, responsible for winning power, to decide that these organizations are harming that goal and start moving money around to marginalize them, end their influence, and ultimately dig them up root and branch.
I'm not proposing assassinating anyone, just trying to make it the kiss of death to a would-be political career to have been involved in one of these shitshows, and doing our utmost to sideline and muffle anyone who dares give them money.
Destroying an organization is not a crime, nor should it be. Was it un-American for the original crop of Progressives to destroy the various urban political machines?
David, I've been reading your comments for a while, and you come across as a decent and reasonable person. I know you're not proposing assassinating anyone!
Just, when you say that any organization that reduces a politician's chance of attaining power must be dug up root and branch, that's... not a good look. [Insert gif of Emperor Palpatine cackling, "UNLIMITED POWAH!!!" and shooting lightning from his fingertips]
And I don't know much about the history you're referring to, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the original Progressives destroying "urban political machines" was due to those machines' *corruption*, not ideology. That's good! Rooting out *corruption* is the kind of thing good politicians should do! It's very different from saying, I don't like your ideology, so I'm going to destroy you.
In a free society, there should be room for people with all sorts of ideologies, as long as none of them advocate for physical violence or oppression of rival ideologies (the paradox of tolerance).
"Corruption" was a useful cudgel that the Progressives used to destroy their intra-party rivals.
However, the "notoriously corrupt" Tammany Hall built the massive Catskill aqueduct that supply NYC's water supply roughly on time and roughly on budget for $5 billion in 2021 dollars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Aqueduct, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDLkOWW0_xg), while modern day California spent $70 billion on high speed rail that hasn't yet produced a single mile of operating high speed rail line but has lined the pockets of hundreds of highly paid lobbyists and other specialists.
I don't think it a matter of free speech for an organized political party to try to marginalize and ultimately break the power and prestige of an internal faction.
Even if I did believe this was a free speech issue, when that faction is, IMO, preventing the party from exercising power, and potentially putting the well-being of the nation as a whole at risk, I might well just say "fuck it" anyway.
I believe that the Democrats are objectively better than the GOP on basically every issue of substance, and the few where they're wrong, the GOP is as well. That pretty much requires me to believe that the party's left dragging it down with insane pseudo-academic gobbledygook and miserably unpopular opinions about the nature of the country makes them the bad guys too.
Isn't it the woke left who are fond of saying "free speech doesn't mean no consequences?"
Well, I'm not proposing to police anyone's speech, I'm just proposing that the 85% of the party which doesn't believe this horseshit has the right and indeed the duty to inflict some *consequences* on those who do believe it.
People can believe whatever they want; if their beliefs are harming the interests of the people and causes they purport to care about, they shouldn't be surprised when folks get pissed off and boot them in the ass.
To stick around long enough to make it to the leadership requires being re-elected. These days that means occupying a safe seat, which means the only real threat is a primary challenger from you ideological flank. And that means playing footsie with activist organizations whose rhetoric (and often goals) are unpopular and hoping the broader electorate doesn't notice.
I think this relationship should work in reverse, where the activists have to moderate their message in order to get politicians on board. Instead, on the left, they threaten to sic AOC on Schumer if he doesn't waste time bringing over-the-top progressive wish-list legislation up for a vote. This dynamic is why I am not a fan of our currently political parties; they serve as extremism ratchets that disincentivize solving problems.
Oh, we should absolutely do away with primaries and go back to smoke-filled rooms.
We now have the historical record to understand that the incentives for the politicians in those rooms to win power aligned much more closely with the needs of the mushy middle of the electorate than the new incentives for ultra-ideological nutbag primary voters do.
But in the meantime, we need some means of strangling the life from the Groups before they ratchet us so far out of the mainstream that the GOP mismanages the whole country into the ground over three decades of uninterrupted power.
So, I agree that the smoke filled room aligns better with the will of the electorate. than voting in primaries, I just can't for the life of me think of a way to present that idea to the public in a way that doesn't sound like an evil cabal of elites taking power back from the people.
I take some comfort in the knowledge that the activist problem is not unique to Democrats. Republicans have to content with the anti-abortion, anti-same-sex-marriage, anti-birth-control crowd, which is feeling emboldened. Not to mention the MAGA faction (speaking of what a terrible idea partisan primaries are). Democrats are not savvy enough to do to "Defund the FBI" what Republicans did to "Defund the Police", but at least it reminds centrists that voting Republican is not a panacea.
Rather than strangling the life from The Groups, I'd like to see them have to compete with sensible organizations rather than being the default place rich liberals throw money to feel better about themselves. (At least this is my understand as a not-rich liberal.)
Agreed, as regards the first paragraph. Roe's end might be a blessing in disguise as it will let the single most out-of-the-mainstream GOP faction all the way off the leash and make it so there are real, direct consequences for voting for the more moderate GOP politicians who are nonetheless beholden to the nutjobs.
As regards the second, I don't see much else the leadership can do to stem the tide of post-scarcity politics driven by overly rich, ideological folks and the people they basically pay to talk about their esoteric views loudly all the time. The only thing that seems within reach is to try to destroy the influence those organizations have by denying them any further money and punishing the talent which decides to work with or for them in the hopes of starving them eventually.
The base is more middle aged resistance Dems that voted for Biden, less DSA members in a few cities. Things that normies like are close to things the base likes
I logged off Twitter a while ago and have had blissfully few interactions with those people. Or, better yet, when I've encountered them in meat space they've been on better behavior.
The CHIPS act is important because it represents Republicans moving away from free market absolutism. The old ethos was if Taiwan wants to support TMSC and that means their chips are cheaper, we should just buy our chips from them. Events of the last few years have revealed the flaws in that approach.
Never thought I’d agree with Bernie Sanders on something but this is corporate welfare. Taxpayers should get equity in the semiconductor manufacturers in exchange for these handouts.
Of course it would be too much to ask that policy makers, instead of throwing money at the problem, address the root causes of America’s lack of competitiveness in manufacturing.
The lack of chip competitiveness is due, in large part, because the government of Taiwan lavishly funded and supported TMSC and we didn’t do the same for our industry.
A lot of times when I post online suggesting that a reasoned, moderate approach is the best thing for the progressive movement I will immediately get down voted by a bunch of very online DSA type folks who will insist I am A. A Russian bot B. A secret or overt racist or C. A “squish” who loves Republicans more than Progressives. This is so discouraging! When I then try to explain my position the responses tend to become even more unhinged and weird. It is annoying.
“Legislative accomplishments” seems like the worst way to evaluate a current president. The “accomplishments” part of legislation isn’t generally known until it takes effect. Did it accomplish it’s goals, or was it bungled in execution? Did unintended consequences overwhelm the intended benefits? Passing a bill just isn’t an accomplishment on its own.
Presidents, should be evaluated mostly on execution. How’s the FDA doing? CMS? Military engagements? Military procurement? This is all actually under the president’s control and we’d be much better off evaluating them on those merits. Even “how’s the economy right now?”, which everyone seems to think shouldn’t be a reflection of presidential performs seems like a better gauge - at least it holds them accountable for measurable results vs “passing stuff.”
I think this is wrong about the appetite for change among Americans. If you look at things like the right track/wrong track numbers, or you just talk to people, they think America needs lots of big changes, just none that inconvenience them or really change anything about their life. So framing a giant climate bill as small isn't the right way to go, it's that it's making major progress on climate while bringing down energy costs and not hurting you at the pump.
Yes, but it's the pragmatic, smart changes they're looking for. The "Dems get stuff done, and help improve your life" changes: cleaner energy, less lead in pipes, lower prescription drug prices, healthcare for cancer-stricken veterans, fix the bridges, etc. How did Whitmer win in Michigan? Fix the damn roads. The most popular governors are people like Phil Scott, Charlie Baker etc. that emphasize doing practical stuff well.
People want effectiveness, yes. But I think people would be ok with significant change (eg big shakeups in drug benefits or a transition to solar power) if it doesn't have big transition costs or drawbacks for them personally. Plenty of people think that "things" are bad and need lots of change, even if they don't think their own life needs to change.
Matt has written several times that American energy policy is now “technology agnostic.” Really!? If I want to build a nuclear power plant with a cool new design, can I get a permit? Has the Nuclear Regulatory Commission been abolished? Have the commissioners been sacked and replaced with swashbuckling energy abundance enthusiasts? If I want to build wind turbines off Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard, is the permitting process as easy as if I want to sink a well in the Permian Basin? If I want to build a hydroelectric dam, salmon be damned, is that as easy as building a wind turbine in Kansas?
What world exists in which building a dam that will inundate hundreds of thousands of acres of mostly-private property can be as easily permitted as a wind turbine?
So... to be agnostic, the regulatory regime needs to not consider any actual implications of the thing being permitted and just say yes to everything regardless of size, impact, potential or guaranteed impacts/losses to other parties...?
Once you can evaluate “safety” you can de facto ban nuclear. The regulators always have reasons, often decent ones, for their regulations. Maybe technology agnostic is an unfortunate term. what does it mean?
Given that this is a funding bill, the fact that the funding on offer is available to any promising technology for R&D makes it agnostic.
The proposed permitting reforms will apply equally to windmills, power lines, gas wells, pipelines, and nuclear plants, also agnostic.
But when it comes to design requirements, there will always be an additional set of technology-specific considerations. It's not avoidable.
I can't put half a billion PV panels with massive lead contamination outdoors where runoff will enter watercourses and groundwater, but they have basically no structural requirements compared to windmills that have to be designed to, ya know, not fall over, and in turn any gas-or-oil-related infrastructure has to adhere to plant safety design codes to deal with high pressure fluids safely. Obviously, a hydroelectric dam is going to be damned near impossible to economically construct in any location with privately held land, unless you propose to simply take all of it without compensation.
One can make the argument that the NRC is unnecessarily conservative on occupational exposure and plant design issues, and that's an argument I agree with. But even if you toss all those things, a nuclear power plant is still going to be subject to vastly different design constraints from the other technologies.
Any sensible definition of "agnostic" has to make allowances for these differences, but yes, funding and land-use permitting can be made consistent.
The red tape that makes nuclear non-competitive is a problem, but as long as the bills themselves don't specify (or heavily favor) one type of technology, I think that I can still be considered tech agnostic.
It's just good requirements writing. Say what you want, not how you want it done.
“ The NRC’s design approval and related final safety evaluation report (FSER) do not mean that the firm can begin constructing reactors. But utility companies can now apply to the NRC to build and operate NuScale’s design. With almost no new nuclear construction completed in the U.S. over the past three decades, SMRs could help reinvigorate a flagging industry..”
That is not what technology agnosticism looks like
That's from 2020, but the design also passed another hurdle last month:
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has directed the staff to issue a final rule that certifies NuScale’s small modular reactor design for use in the United States. The certification’s effective date is 30 days after the NRC publishes the rule in the Federal Register."
I think the emphasis on the "biggest climate bill ever" at this point is because it still hasn't passed the House and the progressive wing needs talking point cover to vote for it after seeing so much get removed from the original BBB dreams.
I've been getting mass texts and emails from some random environmental groups telling me call Rep. Omar and convince her to vote no because the climate piece doesn't go far enough.
I think if the "biggest climate bill ever" is the framing it needs to pass and the moderate members are correctly emphasizing the right parts of the bill on the campaign trail that is pretty much the ideal scenario.
Good to know and I guess not terribly surprising. Irregardless of that particular group, I still think house progressives probably needed some talking point cover to help them vote for the bill.
Which is fine for those House Progressives to have talking points for specifically their progressive districts. And agreed we obviously need to keep them on board for this Friday's House vote. But Schumer and other leadership figures of the party should be speaking to try to expand the majority in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and to protect their vulnerable members in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, NH, etc. How should Schumer and other Dem leaders be talking to win those specific states?
I realize that the past is a different country, and there are limits to what we can conclude from an era before polling, etc. — but is there a generally accepted explanation for what happened in 1934?
The 73rd Congress was probably the most radical, productive Congress in US history (possibly exceeded by the 74th). The CCC, the NRA, the TVA, the AAA, the FDIC, are still household names. The amount of legislation was torrential. Exactly what Matt says voters hate.
And Democrats picked up seats in 1934! Sure, the economy was slightly better than it had been two years before (21.7% unemployment, versus 23.6% in 1932) but as you recall, a modestly better economy didn’t help Democrats much in 2010. And however you slice it, the economy in 1934 was *bad*.
Is the answer that the Great Depression was simply off the charts, that it was like The Purge of political science — the laws didn’t apply anymore? Or what?
The one saving grace for Democrats here is that the modern conservative movement really doesn’t care about policy, so Republican earned media will be about some random made-up wokeness controversy instead of boring things like laws
If you’re using phrases like “the patriarchy”, you are absolutely helping them in that goal.
Three-quarters of your intended audience doesn’t know what it means and the other quarter understands that most of the people who talk like that are fools who make no distinction between the United States, India, and Saudi Arabia.
Not a single person who doesn’t already agree with you in every single, solitary particular is convinced of anything by that phrase.
This is a paywalled post on a paid newsletter. I get the idea of trying to convince people, but I don't think it's helpful to not just call a spade a "spade."
Which is funny because it's false. It's a slogan that encapsulates a misguided (and lazy) view that loitering on Twitter accomplishes great deeds.
Whereas apparently the real transformative praxis is in the comments sections of obscure Substacks? Some people don't seem to understand what we're doing here.
And people complain about left-wing language policing...
I agree that progressives need to get better at switching into a less-academic register and be more politically correct when talking to normies or writing articles for a general audience, but I'm skeptical of the need to do that in a comment section for a newsletter for political junkies.
And if I were confident that anyone was actually code-switching comprehensively between here and Twitter or everyday conversation, you'd have a point, but all the evidence says that's *not* happening.
The chattering classes are addicted to pseudo-academic jargon that allows them to seem fashionable; the second the masses understand them, they definitionally *need* to move on and make themselves incomprehensible and annoying again.
So we get "patriarchy" as an elite alternative to "sexism" or "government overreach on women's medical care".
Which, again, most people don't understand, and a significant fraction of those who do find to be stupid.
Not my experience. Men are mostly assholes to other men, and no woman ever bought me dinner. In my household, the cooking is pretty much 50/50 and my dinners are way better.
"I *implore* Democratic movers and shakers to stay grounded in regular real-life crap and not terminology and language from some HBO show or whatever."
Cool. If I ever meet any Democratic movers or shakers then I will pass along your request.
Also, "The Handmaid's Tale" is a book by Margaret Atwood.
I'm not sure what "sexual effervescence" is, but I'm pretty sure that the patriarchy always permitted it's male elites to get their freak on with impunity.
I am pretty sure that by "sexual effervescence" means queer. I think he is referring not to Republican voters but to Republican congressmen. At least, that makes the most sense. \S
They also care a lot about kneecapping labor unions and eviscerating regulations and laws that protect workers, consumers and the environment. Quite a good number of them (though not quite as high a percentage, I reckon) also care about policies that reduce demographic change and reproductive freedom.
"kneecapping labor unions and eviscerating regulations and laws that protect workers, consumers and the environment... reduce demographic change and reproductive freedom...."
There, you see? They *do* have a legislative agenda after all!
This is fair, it’s just that the GOP knows their policy ideas are unpopular so come campaign time they will talk about Dr Seuss or something instead. I guess I was more thinking of the conservative base and pundit class, which has already moved on from the policy argument to talking about an FBI raid because policy is boring. It’s just a striking difference for me compared to the Tea Party, which was angry about actual laws (specifically, they were angry that poor people might get healthcare)
Isn't that the saving grace for the GOP though? Their anti-wokeness views are more popular than their views on abortion or tax cuts for rich people, so that's what they focus on.
I agree! My non-trolly take is that I suspect this decreases the political risk to the Democrats specifically from passing economic policies. Obviously there’s still a risk if gas prices rise (those can plausibly be blamed on climate policy), but I think that was baked in already
My argument is more that the GOP isn’t going to run on something boring like opposition to a climate law, so I think the risk to Democrats from emphasizing this particular policy win is low. I’m pretty critical when Dems run on culture war issues that aren’t popular, but I think this law is boring enough TV that it won’t materially effect election chances.
I agree that the conservative movement cares about making bad but secret policies, but their campaign style is to whine about “woke corporations” while the policy focus is on cutting said corporations’ taxes and passing unpopular abortion laws. So the political risk from passing laws is a lot less than the risk from squad members saying stupid things about police, because the latter plays into GOP campaign strategy
As Yglesias has said repeatedly, a lot of this comes down to Democrat staffers being far more progressive than the median Democrat voter; let alone the median voter. This strong bias filters what accomplishments that they focus on and shapes their own perception of events. The result is counterproductive messaging.
I’ve been hoping that fear of electoral victories for Trump and his compatriot politicians would focus Democrat staffers on winning at all costs; even if that meant compromising and moderating on policy and messaging. My personal thinking has definitely been influenced that way. It’s one thing to lose due overly ambitious political goals when the downside is four years of Romney and a Republican congress cutting taxes and deregulating. When it's Trumpism the cost of losing is higher.
Yet such a change in strategy and tactics among Democrat staffers hasn't happened. And I think a lot of that can be attributed to the “progressive mobilization” delusion. As long as staffers and activists continue to believe that there is a large number of demotivated potential voters yearning for revolutionary progressive changes then I don’t think we'll have a more productive messaging discipline. We need to do anything and everything that we can do to push back on this false narrative and correct staffers’ mental model of the American electoral landscape.
Democratic*
say it right.
You coastal elites are always trying to use adjectives to modify nouns. In real America…
OMG.
The number of Real Americans I've interacted with (text messaging for Movement Labs, etc) who say things like: "Get lost, I wouldn't vote for a Democratic if you paid me."
One loses faith in humanity.
My mistake. Thanks for correcting me.
Well now I just feel guilty
No need to feel guilty.
Proofing is praxis.
Username checks out. I appreciate Language Corrector Bot.
As a kid during the 1968 Democratic convention I "demanded" universal primaries. I now think the current primary system is a major destabilizing factor that drives the extremes.
You kids ruin everything.
I don't think the staffers are crazy, I think they're trying to rationalize a vast coalition of interests and if you were in charge of the modern Democratic party coalition, you'd end up in mostly the same spot. The Democratic party has always had a softer spot for revolutionary ideas because it's the less conservative party, these are kinds of people who ended the Federalists. If you think it's bad enough, you vote for the other party. But after watching the party from 2012 to 2022, it seems naive to think this is a matter of a bad mental model. It's now the price of doing business.
Do Republicans ever adjust to the median voter? Have they done that on abortion? I suppose the example will be Trump and entitlements even though he endorsed a budget that would have cut entitlements. Not only left-of-center people have agency. I am totally fine with moderating positions if it's also paired with messaging that aims to persuade. The median voter shouldn't just be viewed as a fixed, unpersuadable object that means we always have to move right. That just seems like pure nihilism to me. What's the point of winning elections if you can only do what the median voter wants?
Sorry, I am ranting here. I get where you are coming from and I am ALL for pragmatism. I just think popularists need to understand that, to at least some extent, what we are calling for is extremely demotivating. "Hey, the median voter hates your views! You should change them and be excited about it!"
I think an argument could be made that Trump (yes he’s a lying jackass) did move toward the median voter. He took positions on immigration and trade policy that were quite popular. Trade was a change for Republicans. He also took a more median voter position on war (the use of US military around the world) than recent Republicans.
If Trump took similar policy positions and was a reasonably good person - He would still be President and the Democrats would be in trouble.
Well put. I don't necessarily disagree but it does highlight a critique I have of populism. I'm a neoliberal @$$hole like most of us in this here comments section but I notice very few calls for Dems to hold their trade positions (which are arguably with the median voter). Most of the calls I see from Yglesias, Barro, Noah Smith, etc. is for Biden to ditch the tariffs to combat inflation (which I agree he should). Doing so, however, would open Dems up to attacks from the GOP charging Dems with being soft on China - an attack that could resonate with the free trade skeptic median voter.
I don't highlight this to as a "ha gotcha!" thing but just to note that a not insignificant portion of popularism prescriptions are driven by people that selectively point out median voter preferences. A lot of these guys think woke stuff is cringe and they just so happen to be in alignment with the median voter in that regard. I just think this underscores why it's hard to sell popularism to progressives because there are inconsistencies that can be rather blatant.
I have some skin on both sides of the free trade argument. I grew up on the fringe of the rust belt in a small town in Ohio. Free trade has hurt those communities. Most free market economist will now (not before when the policies were being implemented) admit this. I also got an undergrad in Econ and took the trade class so I know the basic models about how trade is mutually beneficial. I still buy that argument but it has to be acknowledged not for everyone in that country. Many Americans live high quality lives because of free trade. Some Americans standard of living has not progressed at the same rate because they are competing directly with low wage foreign workers. Both seem true to me. Trump speaks to the factor workers in Ohio, Penn, Mich, Indiana in a way previous Republicans did not. Dems have abandoned those voters in favor of the more educated. I think Republicans (Trump) have moved more to the median voter than a previous commenter gives him credit for. The median voter is not the median voter in your social circle.
Saying democracy is in danger is extremely useful for them. If you can't vote for the other party and you're a moderate, you have no credible threat to defect. Huge loss in bargaining power. It's no wonder the party has moved further left as the description of the GOP as a threat to democracy has gained steam.
Except that most moderates don't seem to believe that 'democracy is in danger'.
Correction:
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_B_202110251104.pdf
The poll I was thinking of didn't ask that question exactly, but did ask which party was the greatest threat to democracy, and among independents (and voters overall), Democrats were rated as more of a threat than Republicans.
It was close though.
Which is pretty profoundly stupid, but when the Democrats won't act like they genuinely believe this is true of the GOP, then they certainly can't expect median voters to do so.
I don't think the threat is huge, but it's absolutely not evenly distributed.
Really? Huh.
Right, you will have a credible threat to defect if the GOP nominates DeSantis instead of Trump. And instead of Elizabeth Warren proposing very ambitious policy agenda, you have Joe Biden proposing an ambitious policy agenda, and accordingly he's going to have surrogates and supporters talk about IRA/other stuff like it's the biggest thing in the world.
I'm saying this isn't really going to change, and it ultimately has little to do with blaming young staffers talk a certain way or not appreciating the stakes. They believe there are enormous stakes; look into how left-wing people talked about the Reagan administration. They think the stakes are always fascism and democracy. That's what they believe, and the party shifts to accommodate accordingly. Whether or not this velocity changes mostly depends on whether the GOP can get its act together and win with a center-right leader.
Not sure I follow your line of thought.
I think what some of us are saying is: the non-normie, progressive base of the Democratic Party doesn't need high powered messaging about how transformative this or that piece of legislation is. They're already on Twitter. Or on blogs like this. Or they read Krugman. Or what have you. They're quite capable of reading about legislation specifics.
The people whose votes are up for grabs *don't* to hear about "transformation." They want to know they'll be able to heat their homes, fill up their pickup trucks, and afford their blood thinners. Folks who get paid to advance the Democratic Party's agenda (that includes getting Democrats elected, obviously) should tell them that's what Democrats are doing for them.
"You can't -not- vote for us because the other side is eeevvvviiillllll!!!!"
...is a bad strategy.
And it doesn't work unless the people in the middle really think that the other side is evil/bad/whatever.
It's the progressives and Dem loyalists that lose bargaining power here, since they are 'captured'.
The moderates, almost by definition, can potentially defect.
I think there's a fair amount of evidence scaring persuadable voters can be effective. Obviously you have to execute the messaging strategy well to pull it off...
I'm not sure that scaring voters is identical to trying to get them to hate on the other party. Semantics aside, I believe we saw this in action in Kansas.
The part about the earned media reminded me of my frustrations with the child tax credit. Instead of framing it as "a tax cut for families with children" it was talked about as this broad, sweeping, transformative, anti-poverty program that was *so progressive* (squeeee!), which is not what most people wanted to hear.
I think that this is kind of a downside to the influence/stranglehold that the more progressive folks tend to have on the media.
If not for that, the moderates could tout how reasonable and moderate it is to their constituents, and the progressives could tout how progressive it is to their districts, and all would be well.
But because the progressive voices seem to automatically get amplified, it becomes a hindrance for the moderates and the party as a whole nationwide.
Or maybe it is just due to the media preferring the more sensational stories.
"Biggest green bill ever!!!!" gets more clicks than "Pretty good and moderate bill, all things considered..."
"Worthwhile south-of-Canadian initiative"
One could probably design a good game of guessing people's ages based on the cultural/political references they include in their comments.
Citing this meme puts you in the camp of definitely being older than 45.
(I, on the other hand, in yesterday's discussion about how bad primaries are, was going to reminisce about how primaries were such a breath of fresh air in 1972 after the horrors of the 1968 Democratic race.)
I had always imagined it printed in a more prominent location.
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/10/opinion/foreign-affairs-worthwhile-canadian-initiative.html
Well, that Flora Lewis was the primer for the meme, but the meme itself was created by Michael Kinsley in his famous contest on the most boring headline every written: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/05/14/in-search-of-the-worlds-most-boring-headline/a8902389-3f17-4c61-84b3-142e23412129/
This is pretty much spot on, but I still think we could emphasize even more Biden’s achievement in refuting the very toxic notion that bipartisanship is forever more dead and gone. Polarization is such a dangerous force in the country and while we are very very far from solving the issue, knowing and proving that bipartisan legislation on a wide variety of issues is still totally possible is a huge achievement in and of itself.
"We can work together to achieve one thing, even as we simultaneously disagree strongly on another thing"
It shouldn't seem like rocket science, should it?
(this isn't both-sides-y--I think about 40 Democratic Senators and about five Republican Senators get this)
If there's more bipartisanship in a Democratic presidency than a Republican presidency, that actually suggests that from 2016-2022, >10 Republican senators and <10 Democratic senators get this.
See also: which presidency the infrastructure bill passed in.
Confounding factor: Biden vs Trump
“…Biden’s achievement in refuting the very toxic notion that bipartisanship is forever more dead and gone”
You’ve been watching a different movie than I have. The one I saw featured a script that had lines like,
“Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things: voter suppression and election subversion. It’s no longer about who gets to vote; it’s about making it harder to vote. It’s about who gets to count the vote and whether your vote counts at all. It’s not hyperbole; this is a fact.”
You’re watching the movie (all the meta-commentary on social media) while he’s reading the book (looking at the bills that actually get passed).
Yeah? Let’s see how many more bipartisan actions we see after IRA.
Why *after* IRA? Have you forgotten about the first gun legislation and infrastructure legislation in a generation?? If these are not huge bipartisan breakthroughs , what is?
We got the burn pits stuff, right?
Hardly consequential to progressives.
That's the point. Passing stuff that bipartisan majorities agree on rather than focusing on the controversial stuff. Secret congress is more productive than twitter congress.
Only one bipartisan thing per week that is "hardly consequential to progressives" sounds like a fine rate of action, especially if there's a couple things that are consequential to progressives every year or two.
Also: I wonder what social media you believe I am viewing. I’d bet almost anything you’re wrong.
Life’s not a movie. The messaging has been far from consistent and at times moronic but actions speak far louder than words.
I was more pushing back on the idea from the essay that Biden’s performance represents “a chiller vibe.”
"It’s a really small-bore gun control bill"
Peak Dad Joke performance right there. :)
I mean, this is all true, but haven't we been listening to 12 months of "DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY!!!1!!" from the Beltway media? They just passed a bill (well, the Senate did at least) with zero GOP votes that will materially improve the lives of many Americans. If Democrats are going to make the argument that the point of winning elections is enacting their favored policies, shouldn't they emphasize this?
Yes, just not the "sweeping climate" part in their public-media-facing statements--the activist groups can just use that language in their fundraising emails to me, and I'm delighted with it. But Dems can emphasize the "cheaper energy" "cheaper prescription drugs" "better health care" "lower deficit" "tax billionaire corporations that dodge taxes" stuff. They passed a very common sense bill, and should emphasize it! (When Republicans passed the Trump tax cuts, did they emphasize the small middle-class tax cuts or the big upper-income and corporate tax breaks?)
“…that will materially improve the lives of many Americans”
That’s the claim, anyway.
I agree with Matt's overall view here, but man, after listening to Extremely Online Progressives dismiss the ACA as a "center-right Heritage Foundation" plan that didn't do much, I kinda like the vibe shift.
One argument for trumpeting achievements, and even exaggerating them, is that some percentage of your voters are demoralized by failures and energized by success.
Your stance in this piece suggests that you think "rev up the base!" is a less important part of winning elections than "don't scare the normies!"
Is that ranking of importance dependent on this being a midterm in which the Dems have a (tenuous) trifecta? Would it change if this were a presidential year, or a year in which Dems were the party out of power? Or is it always good advice? How important is normie-calming compared to base-revving in other scenarios?
People who won't vote if they aren't extra-super excited are not the base.
There are two variations on the "turn out the base" hypothesis that I see get conflated:
1. The idea that you can win by mobilize infrequent or non-voters* with bold progressive policies, because they have been simply disillusioned by government inaction and lack of meaningful change in their lives. This idea has been thoroughly debunked, by Matt and others (See here: https://www.slowboring.com/p/progressives-mobilization-delusion).
2. The idea that if your "base" votes you into power and they don't get what they voted for, they will get mad and either stay home or vote third-party out of protest. These voters, unlike the ones in the first category, are regular voters who don't need to be "energized" to vote, but may defect from the party if they get mad enough. This category includes the typically Democratic voters who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016. This theory feels more plausible than the first one, but I haven't seen any political science on it. My guess is the effect exists in some capacity but it not very electorally significant.
*These voters get termed the "base" mainly because they share demographic characteristics with the actual Democratic "base", and due to the assumption that they would never vote Republican, and are simply choosing between voting for Democrats and not voting. These assumptions have been proven false.
Feels to me like these are base calming statements not base activating. ‘We did the thing now get off our back’. Suggests a focus on primaries, fundraising, intra caucus politics. The base is activated most by the same thing that helps with normies: fear of conservatives. So you rev up both the same way and should focus on calming the centers skepticism of you and not the lefts.
The fact that we need to “calm” these idiots in the hopes of them shutting up for five whole minutes while the party runs a normie-centric campaign is… sad.
Schumer and Biden should be taking lessons from LBJ and systemically *destroying* the various activist organizations and their leadership rather than shushing them gently.
This is the LBJ who signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts with MLK Jr standing next to him, and who destroyed the up to then solid Democratic base in the South which has persisted until today?
Jesus H Christ. Why?!? I have no love for the more woke/far-left/"America sux" activists, but to say that the government should *destroy * them is hideously un-American. This isn't the USSR!
It is entirely reasonable for these people, in their role as senior party officials, responsible for winning power, to decide that these organizations are harming that goal and start moving money around to marginalize them, end their influence, and ultimately dig them up root and branch.
I'm not proposing assassinating anyone, just trying to make it the kiss of death to a would-be political career to have been involved in one of these shitshows, and doing our utmost to sideline and muffle anyone who dares give them money.
Destroying an organization is not a crime, nor should it be. Was it un-American for the original crop of Progressives to destroy the various urban political machines?
David, I've been reading your comments for a while, and you come across as a decent and reasonable person. I know you're not proposing assassinating anyone!
Just, when you say that any organization that reduces a politician's chance of attaining power must be dug up root and branch, that's... not a good look. [Insert gif of Emperor Palpatine cackling, "UNLIMITED POWAH!!!" and shooting lightning from his fingertips]
And I don't know much about the history you're referring to, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the original Progressives destroying "urban political machines" was due to those machines' *corruption*, not ideology. That's good! Rooting out *corruption* is the kind of thing good politicians should do! It's very different from saying, I don't like your ideology, so I'm going to destroy you.
In a free society, there should be room for people with all sorts of ideologies, as long as none of them advocate for physical violence or oppression of rival ideologies (the paradox of tolerance).
"Corruption" was a useful cudgel that the Progressives used to destroy their intra-party rivals.
However, the "notoriously corrupt" Tammany Hall built the massive Catskill aqueduct that supply NYC's water supply roughly on time and roughly on budget for $5 billion in 2021 dollars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Aqueduct, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDLkOWW0_xg), while modern day California spent $70 billion on high speed rail that hasn't yet produced a single mile of operating high speed rail line but has lined the pockets of hundreds of highly paid lobbyists and other specialists.
Which political machine is more corrupt?
I don't think it a matter of free speech for an organized political party to try to marginalize and ultimately break the power and prestige of an internal faction.
Even if I did believe this was a free speech issue, when that faction is, IMO, preventing the party from exercising power, and potentially putting the well-being of the nation as a whole at risk, I might well just say "fuck it" anyway.
I believe that the Democrats are objectively better than the GOP on basically every issue of substance, and the few where they're wrong, the GOP is as well. That pretty much requires me to believe that the party's left dragging it down with insane pseudo-academic gobbledygook and miserably unpopular opinions about the nature of the country makes them the bad guys too.
Isn't it the woke left who are fond of saying "free speech doesn't mean no consequences?"
Well, I'm not proposing to police anyone's speech, I'm just proposing that the 85% of the party which doesn't believe this horseshit has the right and indeed the duty to inflict some *consequences* on those who do believe it.
People can believe whatever they want; if their beliefs are harming the interests of the people and causes they purport to care about, they shouldn't be surprised when folks get pissed off and boot them in the ass.
To stick around long enough to make it to the leadership requires being re-elected. These days that means occupying a safe seat, which means the only real threat is a primary challenger from you ideological flank. And that means playing footsie with activist organizations whose rhetoric (and often goals) are unpopular and hoping the broader electorate doesn't notice.
I think this relationship should work in reverse, where the activists have to moderate their message in order to get politicians on board. Instead, on the left, they threaten to sic AOC on Schumer if he doesn't waste time bringing over-the-top progressive wish-list legislation up for a vote. This dynamic is why I am not a fan of our currently political parties; they serve as extremism ratchets that disincentivize solving problems.
Oh, we should absolutely do away with primaries and go back to smoke-filled rooms.
We now have the historical record to understand that the incentives for the politicians in those rooms to win power aligned much more closely with the needs of the mushy middle of the electorate than the new incentives for ultra-ideological nutbag primary voters do.
But in the meantime, we need some means of strangling the life from the Groups before they ratchet us so far out of the mainstream that the GOP mismanages the whole country into the ground over three decades of uninterrupted power.
So, I agree that the smoke filled room aligns better with the will of the electorate. than voting in primaries, I just can't for the life of me think of a way to present that idea to the public in a way that doesn't sound like an evil cabal of elites taking power back from the people.
Not sure. Have thought about that as well.
Any ideas?
I take some comfort in the knowledge that the activist problem is not unique to Democrats. Republicans have to content with the anti-abortion, anti-same-sex-marriage, anti-birth-control crowd, which is feeling emboldened. Not to mention the MAGA faction (speaking of what a terrible idea partisan primaries are). Democrats are not savvy enough to do to "Defund the FBI" what Republicans did to "Defund the Police", but at least it reminds centrists that voting Republican is not a panacea.
Rather than strangling the life from The Groups, I'd like to see them have to compete with sensible organizations rather than being the default place rich liberals throw money to feel better about themselves. (At least this is my understand as a not-rich liberal.)
Agreed, as regards the first paragraph. Roe's end might be a blessing in disguise as it will let the single most out-of-the-mainstream GOP faction all the way off the leash and make it so there are real, direct consequences for voting for the more moderate GOP politicians who are nonetheless beholden to the nutjobs.
As regards the second, I don't see much else the leadership can do to stem the tide of post-scarcity politics driven by overly rich, ideological folks and the people they basically pay to talk about their esoteric views loudly all the time. The only thing that seems within reach is to try to destroy the influence those organizations have by denying them any further money and punishing the talent which decides to work with or for them in the hopes of starving them eventually.
The base is more middle aged resistance Dems that voted for Biden, less DSA members in a few cities. Things that normies like are close to things the base likes
Pollution is White Supremacy Culture along with capitalism. (So I have been told from local DSA and Bernie types).
This should be the Democratic message obviously.
I logged off Twitter a while ago and have had blissfully few interactions with those people. Or, better yet, when I've encountered them in meat space they've been on better behavior.
The CHIPS act is important because it represents Republicans moving away from free market absolutism. The old ethos was if Taiwan wants to support TMSC and that means their chips are cheaper, we should just buy our chips from them. Events of the last few years have revealed the flaws in that approach.
As I recall reading, it was a closed-door national security briefing that got the republicans on board again.
Never thought I’d agree with Bernie Sanders on something but this is corporate welfare. Taxpayers should get equity in the semiconductor manufacturers in exchange for these handouts.
Of course it would be too much to ask that policy makers, instead of throwing money at the problem, address the root causes of America’s lack of competitiveness in manufacturing.
The lack of chip competitiveness is due, in large part, because the government of Taiwan lavishly funded and supported TMSC and we didn’t do the same for our industry.
And we lavishly fund our military to protect Taiwan (and many of our other economic competitors) from the Bad Guys out there. One of the root causes.
A lot of times when I post online suggesting that a reasoned, moderate approach is the best thing for the progressive movement I will immediately get down voted by a bunch of very online DSA type folks who will insist I am A. A Russian bot B. A secret or overt racist or C. A “squish” who loves Republicans more than Progressives. This is so discouraging! When I then try to explain my position the responses tend to become even more unhinged and weird. It is annoying.
“Legislative accomplishments” seems like the worst way to evaluate a current president. The “accomplishments” part of legislation isn’t generally known until it takes effect. Did it accomplish it’s goals, or was it bungled in execution? Did unintended consequences overwhelm the intended benefits? Passing a bill just isn’t an accomplishment on its own.
Presidents, should be evaluated mostly on execution. How’s the FDA doing? CMS? Military engagements? Military procurement? This is all actually under the president’s control and we’d be much better off evaluating them on those merits. Even “how’s the economy right now?”, which everyone seems to think shouldn’t be a reflection of presidential performs seems like a better gauge - at least it holds them accountable for measurable results vs “passing stuff.”
But we aren’t electing a president in 2022 - we are voting for legislators.
The economy shouldn't be how you judge a president, because so much of it is outside the President's control.
And how many American civilians pay any attention to military procurement?
I think this is wrong about the appetite for change among Americans. If you look at things like the right track/wrong track numbers, or you just talk to people, they think America needs lots of big changes, just none that inconvenience them or really change anything about their life. So framing a giant climate bill as small isn't the right way to go, it's that it's making major progress on climate while bringing down energy costs and not hurting you at the pump.
Yes, but it's the pragmatic, smart changes they're looking for. The "Dems get stuff done, and help improve your life" changes: cleaner energy, less lead in pipes, lower prescription drug prices, healthcare for cancer-stricken veterans, fix the bridges, etc. How did Whitmer win in Michigan? Fix the damn roads. The most popular governors are people like Phil Scott, Charlie Baker etc. that emphasize doing practical stuff well.
People want effectiveness, yes. But I think people would be ok with significant change (eg big shakeups in drug benefits or a transition to solar power) if it doesn't have big transition costs or drawbacks for them personally. Plenty of people think that "things" are bad and need lots of change, even if they don't think their own life needs to change.
Also, Charlie Baker is not doing practical stuff well in any sense of the term.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/08/11/massachusetts-climate-clean-energy-bill-charlie-baker/
?
I'm not sure what that shows. The MA legislature has a veto-proof D majority, Baker didn't like the legislation that much (as your link describes). Things more under the governor's control, like the MBTA, are running very poorly: https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/08/10/still-no-orange-line-transit-diversion-plan-from-mbta-with-just-over-a-week-before-closure/
Matt has written several times that American energy policy is now “technology agnostic.” Really!? If I want to build a nuclear power plant with a cool new design, can I get a permit? Has the Nuclear Regulatory Commission been abolished? Have the commissioners been sacked and replaced with swashbuckling energy abundance enthusiasts? If I want to build wind turbines off Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard, is the permitting process as easy as if I want to sink a well in the Permian Basin? If I want to build a hydroelectric dam, salmon be damned, is that as easy as building a wind turbine in Kansas?
What exactly does technology agnostic mean?
What world exists in which building a dam that will inundate hundreds of thousands of acres of mostly-private property can be as easily permitted as a wind turbine?
You just described an energy agnostic world. Given that some technologies are far more dangerous than others, I am not agnostic.
So... to be agnostic, the regulatory regime needs to not consider any actual implications of the thing being permitted and just say yes to everything regardless of size, impact, potential or guaranteed impacts/losses to other parties...?
Odd definition, if I'm understanding correctly.
Once you can evaluate “safety” you can de facto ban nuclear. The regulators always have reasons, often decent ones, for their regulations. Maybe technology agnostic is an unfortunate term. what does it mean?
Given that this is a funding bill, the fact that the funding on offer is available to any promising technology for R&D makes it agnostic.
The proposed permitting reforms will apply equally to windmills, power lines, gas wells, pipelines, and nuclear plants, also agnostic.
But when it comes to design requirements, there will always be an additional set of technology-specific considerations. It's not avoidable.
I can't put half a billion PV panels with massive lead contamination outdoors where runoff will enter watercourses and groundwater, but they have basically no structural requirements compared to windmills that have to be designed to, ya know, not fall over, and in turn any gas-or-oil-related infrastructure has to adhere to plant safety design codes to deal with high pressure fluids safely. Obviously, a hydroelectric dam is going to be damned near impossible to economically construct in any location with privately held land, unless you propose to simply take all of it without compensation.
One can make the argument that the NRC is unnecessarily conservative on occupational exposure and plant design issues, and that's an argument I agree with. But even if you toss all those things, a nuclear power plant is still going to be subject to vastly different design constraints from the other technologies.
Any sensible definition of "agnostic" has to make allowances for these differences, but yes, funding and land-use permitting can be made consistent.
Part of passing the IRA was making a deal to also engage in significant permitting reform....
The red tape that makes nuclear non-competitive is a problem, but as long as the bills themselves don't specify (or heavily favor) one type of technology, I think that I can still be considered tech agnostic.
It's just good requirements writing. Say what you want, not how you want it done.
Descriptive, not proscriptive. If it works for the damned Army it should work for regulatory schemes.
“ If I want to build a nuclear power plant with a cool new design, can I get a permit?”
Yup.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-u-s-small-nuclear-reactor-design-is-approved/?amp=true
From the linked article:
“ The NRC’s design approval and related final safety evaluation report (FSER) do not mean that the firm can begin constructing reactors. But utility companies can now apply to the NRC to build and operate NuScale’s design. With almost no new nuclear construction completed in the U.S. over the past three decades, SMRs could help reinvigorate a flagging industry..”
That is not what technology agnosticism looks like
I wonder how many digits will end up to the left of the decimal in the LCOE for this thing?
Lol.
That's from 2020, but the design also passed another hurdle last month:
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has directed the staff to issue a final rule that certifies NuScale’s small modular reactor design for use in the United States. The certification’s effective date is 30 days after the NRC publishes the rule in the Federal Register."
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2022/22-029.pdf
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a40787934/nuscale-small-modular-reactor-design-approved/
I think the emphasis on the "biggest climate bill ever" at this point is because it still hasn't passed the House and the progressive wing needs talking point cover to vote for it after seeing so much get removed from the original BBB dreams.
I've been getting mass texts and emails from some random environmental groups telling me call Rep. Omar and convince her to vote no because the climate piece doesn't go far enough.
I think if the "biggest climate bill ever" is the framing it needs to pass and the moderate members are correctly emphasizing the right parts of the bill on the campaign trail that is pretty much the ideal scenario.
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1556602391587422209?s=21&t=PV5dWeVL16iPttEatSomFw
Good to know and I guess not terribly surprising. Irregardless of that particular group, I still think house progressives probably needed some talking point cover to help them vote for the bill.
Which is fine for those House Progressives to have talking points for specifically their progressive districts. And agreed we obviously need to keep them on board for this Friday's House vote. But Schumer and other leadership figures of the party should be speaking to try to expand the majority in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and to protect their vulnerable members in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, NH, etc. How should Schumer and other Dem leaders be talking to win those specific states?
Ha, my first thought was that those texts and emails are almost definitely a conservative psy-op. Turns out Milan has the receipts. Hilarious.
Mass texts to vote "no"? Yikes. Haven't the green folks ever heard of "live to fight again another day?"
As the tweet Milan links to points out, those texts probably come from astroturfed groups that don't support any action on climate change.
"Haven't the green folks ever heard of "live to fight again another day?"
Or "half a loaf is better than none"? Or "a Byrd in the hand is worth two in the bush"?
I realize that the past is a different country, and there are limits to what we can conclude from an era before polling, etc. — but is there a generally accepted explanation for what happened in 1934?
The 73rd Congress was probably the most radical, productive Congress in US history (possibly exceeded by the 74th). The CCC, the NRA, the TVA, the AAA, the FDIC, are still household names. The amount of legislation was torrential. Exactly what Matt says voters hate.
And Democrats picked up seats in 1934! Sure, the economy was slightly better than it had been two years before (21.7% unemployment, versus 23.6% in 1932) but as you recall, a modestly better economy didn’t help Democrats much in 2010. And however you slice it, the economy in 1934 was *bad*.
Is the answer that the Great Depression was simply off the charts, that it was like The Purge of political science — the laws didn’t apply anymore? Or what?
The one saving grace for Democrats here is that the modern conservative movement really doesn’t care about policy, so Republican earned media will be about some random made-up wokeness controversy instead of boring things like laws
Republican politicians very much care about policy, it’s just that the policy they care about is cutting taxes for rich people.
I think most of them sincerely want to restore the patriarchy and usher in Gilead, as well. That's not merely a means to cut taxes for rich people.
If you’re using phrases like “the patriarchy”, you are absolutely helping them in that goal.
Three-quarters of your intended audience doesn’t know what it means and the other quarter understands that most of the people who talk like that are fools who make no distinction between the United States, India, and Saudi Arabia.
Not a single person who doesn’t already agree with you in every single, solitary particular is convinced of anything by that phrase.
It wins you internet points with your preferred in-groups, though.
This is a paywalled post on a paid newsletter. I get the idea of trying to convince people, but I don't think it's helpful to not just call a spade a "spade."
"Three-quarters of your intended audience doesn’t know...."
This is weird. You, like Sharty, seem to be mistaking me for a public figure who speaks to mass audiences on behalf of the Democratic party.
Posting is praxis 🤷🏽♂️
"Posting is praxis."
Which is funny because it's false. It's a slogan that encapsulates a misguided (and lazy) view that loitering on Twitter accomplishes great deeds.
Whereas apparently the real transformative praxis is in the comments sections of obscure Substacks? Some people don't seem to understand what we're doing here.
You clearly blew off the section discussing "paid messaging" vs. "earned messaging".
And people complain about left-wing language policing...
I agree that progressives need to get better at switching into a less-academic register and be more politically correct when talking to normies or writing articles for a general audience, but I'm skeptical of the need to do that in a comment section for a newsletter for political junkies.
And if I were confident that anyone was actually code-switching comprehensively between here and Twitter or everyday conversation, you'd have a point, but all the evidence says that's *not* happening.
The chattering classes are addicted to pseudo-academic jargon that allows them to seem fashionable; the second the masses understand them, they definitionally *need* to move on and make themselves incomprehensible and annoying again.
So we get "patriarchy" as an elite alternative to "sexism" or "government overreach on women's medical care".
Which, again, most people don't understand, and a significant fraction of those who do find to be stupid.
So since people on Twitter used "patriarchy" in a context you did not think was productive, the Honorable Treadmill shouldn't use the term here?
Is this about abortion? Don't plenty of Republican women also take the pro-life stance?
Most pro-lifers are pro-LIFE not anti-choice/anti-women.
This has shades of calling everyone who votes Republican deplorables/racist.
“Patriarchy” has an accepted definition. The US is very definitely not a patriarchy.
Not my experience. Men are mostly assholes to other men, and no woman ever bought me dinner. In my household, the cooking is pretty much 50/50 and my dinners are way better.
I *implore* Democratic movers and shakers to stay grounded in regular real-life crap and not terminology and language from some HBO show or whatever.
That one was HBO, right? I don't have HBO.
"I *implore* Democratic movers and shakers to stay grounded in regular real-life crap and not terminology and language from some HBO show or whatever."
Cool. If I ever meet any Democratic movers or shakers then I will pass along your request.
Also, "The Handmaid's Tale" is a book by Margaret Atwood.
Hulu
The Republicans I know are more sexually effervescent than the Democrats I know.
I'm not sure what "sexual effervescence" is, but I'm pretty sure that the patriarchy always permitted it's male elites to get their freak on with impunity.
I am pretty sure that by "sexual effervescence" means queer. I think he is referring not to Republican voters but to Republican congressmen. At least, that makes the most sense. \S
They also care a lot about kneecapping labor unions and eviscerating regulations and laws that protect workers, consumers and the environment. Quite a good number of them (though not quite as high a percentage, I reckon) also care about policies that reduce demographic change and reproductive freedom.
"kneecapping labor unions and eviscerating regulations and laws that protect workers, consumers and the environment... reduce demographic change and reproductive freedom...."
There, you see? They *do* have a legislative agenda after all!
Unions, in particular, make them see red like nobody's business. I've noticed this.
This is fair, it’s just that the GOP knows their policy ideas are unpopular so come campaign time they will talk about Dr Seuss or something instead. I guess I was more thinking of the conservative base and pundit class, which has already moved on from the policy argument to talking about an FBI raid because policy is boring. It’s just a striking difference for me compared to the Tea Party, which was angry about actual laws (specifically, they were angry that poor people might get healthcare)
I'm horrified at your casual smearing of Tea Party, and denounce your extreme leftist rhetoric.
They were also angry that poor people might not get evicted.
Isn't that the saving grace for the GOP though? Their anti-wokeness views are more popular than their views on abortion or tax cuts for rich people, so that's what they focus on.
I agree! My non-trolly take is that I suspect this decreases the political risk to the Democrats specifically from passing economic policies. Obviously there’s still a risk if gas prices rise (those can plausibly be blamed on climate policy), but I think that was baked in already
Or their views on prescription drug negotiations and insulin prices, for that matter.
My argument is more that the GOP isn’t going to run on something boring like opposition to a climate law, so I think the risk to Democrats from emphasizing this particular policy win is low. I’m pretty critical when Dems run on culture war issues that aren’t popular, but I think this law is boring enough TV that it won’t materially effect election chances.
I agree that the conservative movement cares about making bad but secret policies, but their campaign style is to whine about “woke corporations” while the policy focus is on cutting said corporations’ taxes and passing unpopular abortion laws. So the political risk from passing laws is a lot less than the risk from squad members saying stupid things about police, because the latter plays into GOP campaign strategy