A lot of progressive activists have mistaken beliefs about how popular their positions are. They spend time in a progressive bubble, they trust self-appointed representatives over polls, and they imagine they are part of a proletariat people's movement.
In that context, they find themselves deeply frustrated that Democratic politicians won't adopt left-wing politicians that are both morally compelling and (believed to be) politically popular. This is where the narratives of corruption and betrayal come in, where the Joe Manchins of the world must be bribed or evil or both. This leads them to over-estimate the influence of corporate donors and elite parties, and in turn become quite fatalistic about electoral politics.
We can show progressives the polls, but I think the "just follow the polls" feels too abstract for most normal people when all their social cues are pointing in the opposite direction. A couple of narratives that have helped me reframe and embrace popularism.
- You already know about the danger of privileged classes speaking over or tokenizing marginalized peoples. But it is even harder to intersectionally center marginalized voices than you imagine it to be. The progressive coalition, centered in urban, highly-educated, and highly online politics, also tokenizes unrepresentative minorities that confirm their preconceived white-centric notions. Pay special attention to regional and class diversity, and constantly ground yourself with polling data and low-brow media.
- It is also true that being highly educated and highly informed confers a real benefit. Someone can know very well what it is like being in a crime-ridden neighborhood but also not know much about the economics of international trade. We know also people can have politics against their own interest. What's need is enlightened representationalism. Pay close attention to those representatives who have risen - people who have come from humble marginalized spaces but received a quality education (rather than the privileged people doing an anthropological study of marginalized places). It's also much more important to center core values and needs, and with the role of academia to translate that into policy that grapples with the way the world works mechanically.
- An arrogant professor rattles off everything they know, not caring whether their students understand or agree. An excellent professor meets their students where they are, uses language their students understand, relates to their experiences, and builds up their knowledge one piece at a time. The more advanced and sophisticated the knowledge, the sharper this distinction.
- And finally you have to understand the limits. Being progressive, highly educated and right about everything is like being a time traveler from the future where you know what is inevitable arc of history, but powerless to relate to the people you find yourself amongst. Your job is to influence people who will listen, and get society ready, but you cannot expect to unilaterally pull society into the future. Moreover, you don't want to move into the future while leaving the public behind - you need to bring the public with you.
It's a good thing Matt wasn't writing during the early 1800s. "Progressives shouldn’t take the losing side of a 60-40 issue about who can be sold into chattel slavery" just doesn't have the same ring to it...
This piece reminded me of one of my biggest pet peeves in political discourse—the tendency of people to act as if the “moral” position and the “politically expedient” position are two wholly distinct matters. I think everyone already knows what I’m talking about, but to put a finer point on it, you’ll hear people, often but not exclusively on the left, say something to the tune of “well the moral/ethical position is X, but Y corrupt politician is taking the politically expedient position of Z.”
What drives me crazy about this framing is it implies there’s no ethical imperative to try to defeat Republicans! You know, the people who take away HIV medication from people abroad and allow women to die of wholly treatable pregnancy complications at home (among other bad things).
Let’s be clear: if you’re a Democrat in a competitive race, and you take positions so politically toxic they clearly increase the chances of a Republican win *you are doing something unethical.* There’s nothing morally upstanding about taking a given position, no matter how strong it might be on the ethical merits, if doing so is clearly beneficial to a Republican Party that is pretty much openly hostile to the very concept of ethics. Most of these positions stand no chance of being enacted even if the Democratic candidate in question wins anyway, owing to their unpopularity!
I’m not saying there’s no nuance here. There are absolutely instances in which I think politicians should seek to lead public opinion in an ethical direction. Where exactly you should draw the lines here is never going to be obvious, and the best political talents, and the most genuinely ethical politicians, are the ones who can correctly identify when certain boundaries can be pushed without unacceptable levels of risk of Republican victory.
But that tends to be a process that has to play out over a long period of time, and rarely will a single campaign be enough time. People need to do a better job of understanding that keeping nihilists out of the halls of power is in fact an ethical endeavor.
A plausible argument for progressivism winning could be:
1) Voters are dissatisfied with the status quo and want change (any kind of change).
2) Progressivism promises more change than moderate views.
C) Therefore, progressivism wins elections.
I think this argument is wrong (because voters do, in fact, have specific preferences on the issues they care about; and even when they don't, they are generally small-c conservative and punish leaders that make big changes), but it still seems more plausible than wonky arguments about increasing turnout or the strategy of just yelling hard enough until everyone suddenly agrees with you.
That's like saying that burning your own house down is better than doing nothing because it represents change over no change. When the change produced is *worse* than doing nothing, then voters can see that "do nothing" can sometimes produce better results than "do something".
There's a widespread fallacy that if the status quo is deficient in some way then (a) "doing something" has to be better than the status quo and (b) it is wrong to criticize any "doing something" attempt.
Sorry kids, sometimes the status quo is nevertheless better than the "doing something" thing you dreamed up.
IMHO the missing thing here is: lots of disagreements are both:
1) Intra-party
2) Sincere, good-faith, and informed
And nobody seems to know what to do about that. Let's imagine an issue where the American public is split 80/20, but within Democrats it's more 60/40 (eg: 30% vs 20% of the whole population are "right" vs "left" within the Democratic Party on this issue where Republicans are united). You can try to work your way up to an intra-party majority for your side of, say, "democratic socialism", but eventually you're gonna run out of voters who just haven't thought about Bernie Sanders and start hitting Democrats who have real criticisms of socialism.
What bullying accomplished was enabling the socialist Democrats to compel the tolerance and cooperation of the nonsocialist Democrats by tarring everyone with the same brush in the eyes of the broader public. This was a costless move when you had Paul Ryan red-baiting at everyone to the left of Ayn Rand.
But then Trump runs in 2016 on moderating the Republican position, saying Social Security and Medicare are *not* Literally Communism. Now it's not so electorally costless to insist that all Democrats ought to be socialists except for being bought off by corporate cash. The "bullying" stance was actually relying on the other party deliberately alienating swing-voters forever.
What’s the equivalent way to appeal to progressive so that we can try to convince them not to adopt crazy things that make us look stupid without them calling us (liberal progressives) bigots.
Everyone knows that single moms make less money than married couples. And everyone knows that people who make an amount in the bottom third of the distribution and have children have children who have a harder time in life in various ways, have more health issues, a lower life expectancy, and numerous other negative data. But what to do about it is the question.
Giving money to a parent or parents is one possible solution. And the data suggest that most parents spend the money fairly wisely. But still, giving money to single parents will encourage single women to have children. Should we do that with our money? I would prefer to spend the money directly on the children: Home nursing visits right after birth (data show this is very beneficial to all concerned), Available schooling and professional care from an early age, such as one, and spending more on teachers and schools. These are prominent examples. They are not inexpensive. Which way should we spend the money--if we decide to spend it?
What do I have against single motherhood? Only that (statistically, of course there are success stories) it doesn't work well, especially for boy children.
No, I would not force people to marry. But there is no question but that, statistically, marriage works better than single parenthood. Is that because of self-selection? Perhaps to some extent, but even allowing for some self-selection, the data are persuasive that marriage works better.
"“Democrats shouldn’t take the losing side of a 70-30 issue about who plays on which sports team”
The truly amazing thing about this issue is that not only is it a loser politically, but those on the 30% side are wrong on the substance too (in exactly the same that vaccine skeptics and climate change deniers are wrong on the substance as well). It's a ludicrous position to hold on every level.
I think you could have put some of your "division of labor" ideas more succinctly. (Stop me if you've heard that before... 😏)
People say, "if politicians don't advocate for [x], who will?"
It's called culture, you ninnies. "Modern Family" did more for gay marriage than a statement from Obama in 2008 possibly could have.
It's the party's job to get the electorate we have the best leaders it will tolerate, and the job of journalists and ARTISTS to make that electorate want better things.
If FDR decided 1940 was a good time to take a hard line on racism we'd all be speaking German, and there wouldn't be any more racism because all the minorities would be dead.
Regarding the point about mass persuasion occurring through pop culture: Something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is the impact of the shift toward YouTube and Twitch streamers as major sources of entertainment. What happens when people are no longer consuming “pop culture” as it was previously understood?
I think this has a much greater effect on politics than we tend to think, to be honest, probably bigger than any particular change on messaging- the stuff we consume is more and more differentiated, and that's changed things so much.
Right, and I'm specifically interested in what otherwise non-political people consume. I think those who are not part of my millennial cohort underestimate how popular shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were in the mid-to-late aughts *among people who were otherwise not political junkies*.
Matt, yes, this idea makes sense. But what about moving from campaigning to participation in governing? Should Democrats attempt more horse-trading in Congress, as for example they did last Fall on immigration? Should they offer to oppose the 20 or 30 sides of 80-20 or 70-30 issues in exchange for Republican concessions on 55-45 issues? Whether or not this would work is a separate question....
People have noticed that when an issue becomes more popular, mainstream and then moderate politicians in their party start to support it. But they mistake the symptom for the cause, and try to make the mainstream and moderate politicians support it to indicate that they’ve won over popular opinion.
A lot of progressive activists have mistaken beliefs about how popular their positions are. They spend time in a progressive bubble, they trust self-appointed representatives over polls, and they imagine they are part of a proletariat people's movement.
In that context, they find themselves deeply frustrated that Democratic politicians won't adopt left-wing politicians that are both morally compelling and (believed to be) politically popular. This is where the narratives of corruption and betrayal come in, where the Joe Manchins of the world must be bribed or evil or both. This leads them to over-estimate the influence of corporate donors and elite parties, and in turn become quite fatalistic about electoral politics.
We can show progressives the polls, but I think the "just follow the polls" feels too abstract for most normal people when all their social cues are pointing in the opposite direction. A couple of narratives that have helped me reframe and embrace popularism.
- You already know about the danger of privileged classes speaking over or tokenizing marginalized peoples. But it is even harder to intersectionally center marginalized voices than you imagine it to be. The progressive coalition, centered in urban, highly-educated, and highly online politics, also tokenizes unrepresentative minorities that confirm their preconceived white-centric notions. Pay special attention to regional and class diversity, and constantly ground yourself with polling data and low-brow media.
- It is also true that being highly educated and highly informed confers a real benefit. Someone can know very well what it is like being in a crime-ridden neighborhood but also not know much about the economics of international trade. We know also people can have politics against their own interest. What's need is enlightened representationalism. Pay close attention to those representatives who have risen - people who have come from humble marginalized spaces but received a quality education (rather than the privileged people doing an anthropological study of marginalized places). It's also much more important to center core values and needs, and with the role of academia to translate that into policy that grapples with the way the world works mechanically.
- An arrogant professor rattles off everything they know, not caring whether their students understand or agree. An excellent professor meets their students where they are, uses language their students understand, relates to their experiences, and builds up their knowledge one piece at a time. The more advanced and sophisticated the knowledge, the sharper this distinction.
- And finally you have to understand the limits. Being progressive, highly educated and right about everything is like being a time traveler from the future where you know what is inevitable arc of history, but powerless to relate to the people you find yourself amongst. Your job is to influence people who will listen, and get society ready, but you cannot expect to unilaterally pull society into the future. Moreover, you don't want to move into the future while leaving the public behind - you need to bring the public with you.
At this point I wonder what you need to do with sincere but unexciting beliefs.
LOL this pontification doesn't seem that "on point" in view of last the two week's events...
Stop. I can only like this blog post so many times! It just makes too much sense!!
It's a good thing Matt wasn't writing during the early 1800s. "Progressives shouldn’t take the losing side of a 60-40 issue about who can be sold into chattel slavery" just doesn't have the same ring to it...
This piece reminded me of one of my biggest pet peeves in political discourse—the tendency of people to act as if the “moral” position and the “politically expedient” position are two wholly distinct matters. I think everyone already knows what I’m talking about, but to put a finer point on it, you’ll hear people, often but not exclusively on the left, say something to the tune of “well the moral/ethical position is X, but Y corrupt politician is taking the politically expedient position of Z.”
What drives me crazy about this framing is it implies there’s no ethical imperative to try to defeat Republicans! You know, the people who take away HIV medication from people abroad and allow women to die of wholly treatable pregnancy complications at home (among other bad things).
Let’s be clear: if you’re a Democrat in a competitive race, and you take positions so politically toxic they clearly increase the chances of a Republican win *you are doing something unethical.* There’s nothing morally upstanding about taking a given position, no matter how strong it might be on the ethical merits, if doing so is clearly beneficial to a Republican Party that is pretty much openly hostile to the very concept of ethics. Most of these positions stand no chance of being enacted even if the Democratic candidate in question wins anyway, owing to their unpopularity!
I’m not saying there’s no nuance here. There are absolutely instances in which I think politicians should seek to lead public opinion in an ethical direction. Where exactly you should draw the lines here is never going to be obvious, and the best political talents, and the most genuinely ethical politicians, are the ones who can correctly identify when certain boundaries can be pushed without unacceptable levels of risk of Republican victory.
But that tends to be a process that has to play out over a long period of time, and rarely will a single campaign be enough time. People need to do a better job of understanding that keeping nihilists out of the halls of power is in fact an ethical endeavor.
A plausible argument for progressivism winning could be:
1) Voters are dissatisfied with the status quo and want change (any kind of change).
2) Progressivism promises more change than moderate views.
C) Therefore, progressivism wins elections.
I think this argument is wrong (because voters do, in fact, have specific preferences on the issues they care about; and even when they don't, they are generally small-c conservative and punish leaders that make big changes), but it still seems more plausible than wonky arguments about increasing turnout or the strategy of just yelling hard enough until everyone suddenly agrees with you.
That's like saying that burning your own house down is better than doing nothing because it represents change over no change. When the change produced is *worse* than doing nothing, then voters can see that "do nothing" can sometimes produce better results than "do something".
There's a widespread fallacy that if the status quo is deficient in some way then (a) "doing something" has to be better than the status quo and (b) it is wrong to criticize any "doing something" attempt.
Sorry kids, sometimes the status quo is nevertheless better than the "doing something" thing you dreamed up.
IMHO the missing thing here is: lots of disagreements are both:
1) Intra-party
2) Sincere, good-faith, and informed
And nobody seems to know what to do about that. Let's imagine an issue where the American public is split 80/20, but within Democrats it's more 60/40 (eg: 30% vs 20% of the whole population are "right" vs "left" within the Democratic Party on this issue where Republicans are united). You can try to work your way up to an intra-party majority for your side of, say, "democratic socialism", but eventually you're gonna run out of voters who just haven't thought about Bernie Sanders and start hitting Democrats who have real criticisms of socialism.
What bullying accomplished was enabling the socialist Democrats to compel the tolerance and cooperation of the nonsocialist Democrats by tarring everyone with the same brush in the eyes of the broader public. This was a costless move when you had Paul Ryan red-baiting at everyone to the left of Ayn Rand.
But then Trump runs in 2016 on moderating the Republican position, saying Social Security and Medicare are *not* Literally Communism. Now it's not so electorally costless to insist that all Democrats ought to be socialists except for being bought off by corporate cash. The "bullying" stance was actually relying on the other party deliberately alienating swing-voters forever.
Here we are. Now what?
What’s the equivalent way to appeal to progressive so that we can try to convince them not to adopt crazy things that make us look stupid without them calling us (liberal progressives) bigots.
Everyone knows that single moms make less money than married couples. And everyone knows that people who make an amount in the bottom third of the distribution and have children have children who have a harder time in life in various ways, have more health issues, a lower life expectancy, and numerous other negative data. But what to do about it is the question.
Giving money to a parent or parents is one possible solution. And the data suggest that most parents spend the money fairly wisely. But still, giving money to single parents will encourage single women to have children. Should we do that with our money? I would prefer to spend the money directly on the children: Home nursing visits right after birth (data show this is very beneficial to all concerned), Available schooling and professional care from an early age, such as one, and spending more on teachers and schools. These are prominent examples. They are not inexpensive. Which way should we spend the money--if we decide to spend it?
What do I have against single motherhood? Only that (statistically, of course there are success stories) it doesn't work well, especially for boy children.
No, I would not force people to marry. But there is no question but that, statistically, marriage works better than single parenthood. Is that because of self-selection? Perhaps to some extent, but even allowing for some self-selection, the data are persuasive that marriage works better.
"“Democrats shouldn’t take the losing side of a 70-30 issue about who plays on which sports team”
The truly amazing thing about this issue is that not only is it a loser politically, but those on the 30% side are wrong on the substance too (in exactly the same that vaccine skeptics and climate change deniers are wrong on the substance as well). It's a ludicrous position to hold on every level.
I think you could have put some of your "division of labor" ideas more succinctly. (Stop me if you've heard that before... 😏)
People say, "if politicians don't advocate for [x], who will?"
It's called culture, you ninnies. "Modern Family" did more for gay marriage than a statement from Obama in 2008 possibly could have.
It's the party's job to get the electorate we have the best leaders it will tolerate, and the job of journalists and ARTISTS to make that electorate want better things.
If FDR decided 1940 was a good time to take a hard line on racism we'd all be speaking German, and there wouldn't be any more racism because all the minorities would be dead.
Regarding the point about mass persuasion occurring through pop culture: Something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is the impact of the shift toward YouTube and Twitch streamers as major sources of entertainment. What happens when people are no longer consuming “pop culture” as it was previously understood?
I think this has a much greater effect on politics than we tend to think, to be honest, probably bigger than any particular change on messaging- the stuff we consume is more and more differentiated, and that's changed things so much.
Right, and I'm specifically interested in what otherwise non-political people consume. I think those who are not part of my millennial cohort underestimate how popular shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were in the mid-to-late aughts *among people who were otherwise not political junkies*.
> It certainly makes more sense than encouraging people to be angry at Joe Manchin.
Counterpoint: getting loudly and weirdly angry at Joe Manchin made Manchin look like a moderate which helped his re-election
Matt, yes, this idea makes sense. But what about moving from campaigning to participation in governing? Should Democrats attempt more horse-trading in Congress, as for example they did last Fall on immigration? Should they offer to oppose the 20 or 30 sides of 80-20 or 70-30 issues in exchange for Republican concessions on 55-45 issues? Whether or not this would work is a separate question....
No, because Republicans will never give the concessions that are asked for and instead it will just make the democrats look incredibly weak.
People have noticed that when an issue becomes more popular, mainstream and then moderate politicians in their party start to support it. But they mistake the symptom for the cause, and try to make the mainstream and moderate politicians support it to indicate that they’ve won over popular opinion.