The evidence Matt has presented in recent days that Dems aren't trying to win governing power is the most radicalising insight I've ever seen in politics. Not just the lack of a plan to win the Senate; also the deprioritisation of $15 minimum wage not once it became law, but once it ceased being a factional dispute.
There are people within the coalition that spend much of their days bemoaning other people's moral failures and yet they're not actually focused on governing and making people's lives better. It's hard to describe without sounding cringe but it is truly shocking.
The $15 minimum wage is an interesting issue because it really hasn't been enacted in law in most states, but it's no longer an issue because nominal incomes rose so much that teenagers with no experience can make more than that now. (Which is hilarious considering it's like roughly the median income for Europe.)
The US is indexed at 117. Most the countries with cheaper food than the US would be those I consider "obviously poor" like Serbia.
Based on my imperfect understanding of geography, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, and the UK are the only western European countries with food costs similar or cheaper than the US.
I'd like to see both minimum wage and median wage for PPP a basket of food goods by country.
I won't make a claim to expertise but I make a point to drop by grocery stores in basically every city I visit for work or leisure so I can grab cool local foodstuffs and just get a sense for how folks live, and the only European country I've been in that had visibly cheaper foodstuffs than the US was Russia. I don't think folks are thinking of "Russia" when you say "Europe."
Totally - always hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons but anecdotally, in my recent trip to Munich I noticed that groceries were much cheaper. Here is one cost of living calculator that suggests groceries are 30% cheaper in Munich compared to Seattle (which I picked since it has a similar level of industrialization)
It’s possible grocery prices are slightly lower in Europe on average, but I doubt the difference is enough to make up for the difference in earnings.
The case you could make is that money isn’t everything, and on more important metrics, Europe does better.
The problem with that is that they usually do badly on other metrics also, at least the ones I would care about. They’re energy dependent on geopolitical rivals, no military readiness, fertility is garbage and getting worse over time. They don’t go to church, and they’re not any happier than we are (except the Scandinavians).
“This will make us poorer but in trade we get X” <- I’m very sympathetic to this kind of policy idea generally, but in Europe, there’s no X!
If you dig into "Scandanavians are happier", you mostly find a handful of low-powered studies with iffy methodology. They might be, but we don't really have any good reason to believe it.
Because the only criteria to be a viable GOP candidate is fidelity to Trump, this "warriors for moral justice" criteria just isn't as present in the GOP.
At the same time, I feel like their form of audience capture looks a bit different - they’re (or more specifically Trump/Musk/Vance/Miller et at) are more eager and happy to embrace
the most extreme version of“own the libs”, which imo leads to massive overreach on their end too
I have been radicalized. I have come out to be much more openly socially conservative and economically conservative (cut benefits/cost and raise taxes) since the election.
National Democrats really don’t care about winning, only appeasing a narrow and insatiable portion of the electorate. Like why the fuck did we run an unpopular progressive for Wisconsin senate? Why the fuck did we not pick Shapiro for VP and not throw lame duck Biden under the bus for his failures in 2024.
The thing is, *nothing* that's happening now is actually "conservative." AFAICT people who are classical liberals or actual conservatives have nowhere to go politically. I also consider myself part of this group and am utterly demoralized.
>I also consider myself part of this group and am utterly demoralized.<
Not this neoliberal shill. We're getting a real time lesson in the benefits of trading with other countries, and the perils of abandoning comparative advantage. And that lesson is about to grow a whole lot more vivid. If anything I'm feeling a bit of lightness in my steps for the first time since November. And Trumpian own goals are multiplying by the day.
Thanks for this, I need it today. I should copy this onto a post-it and stick it on my laptop. A couple of months ago, I was flummoxed as to why the markets weren't tanking and prominent people seemed to be averting their eyes.
As Scott Sumner said in his most recent newsletter, "late 20t- century neoliberalism is the best thing that ever happened." Neoliberal shills unite!
My pleasure. And I honestly do sense a bit of hope brewing. The "Trump deporting babies who are US citizens" stuff isn't helping his cause. Elon appears to be on his way out. We might even kinda sorta get the best of both worlds out of Trump's trade madness: he's retreated from a lot of it, but the 10% universal tariff and the 145% tariff on China will still very painful. So, voters will learn a painful lesson about the dangers of tariffs AND we might yet avoid a general cataclysm and the dethroning of the dollar (mind you I'd be shocked if we manage to avoid recession indefinitely). And I have to believe the SC is going to hand Trump a major loss on birthright citizenship.
Scary times, to be sure, and the issue Matt raises on Democrats' strategy (or lack thereof) wrt the Senate is frustrating as all get out. And yet we've still kept our republic, at least for the time being...
That's more of an indictment of late 20th century neoliberalism. If the center-left adopts full-blown Mercatus Center libertarianism as an econ. policy then we (or they at that point because I'm jumping off) top out at like 225 electoral college votes and we've built a bright red wall across the midwest.
The problem is that the candidates matt will argue that we should run are “anti-neoliberal” on trade and immigration (aka protectionist and restrictionist, i.e terrible on policy).
Tariffs are about to become politically toxic and trump’s popularity on immigration only continues to fall more and more.
I don't know how this all shakes out. I will say one thing: I read recently that our market share of the Chinese soybean market has gone from 40% to 18% (and is likely to fall further). That might get some attention in Iowa.
But they don’t have to be and that’s the point. It’s possible to be more conservative on immigration without being a fascist, ex: as Matt has advocated, stricter enforcement of existing laws and closing the asylum loophole while also quietly increasing visas for doctors and scientists and so forth. This position would not fly with the current DNC!
We are at a very stressful moment where either more people realize the neoliberals were right all along, or the nationalism & socialism really do combine into something horrific.
There is the risk that Trumpers turn on the wealthy, in more of a Bannon alignment.
"There is the risk that Trumpers turn on the wealthy"
There is zero risk of that.
Or let me put it this way: there is a greater chance that the next Pope will decide that the laws of kosher are mandatory for Catholics than that the Republican party will turn on the wealthy.
Thank you! As someone who agrees with you that words should have meaning, I'm baffled by how many (including MY) keep using "conservative" to describe Republicans. "Right wing" is the accurate descriptor.
This is one of the most disorienting aspects of this extremely disorienting time. The right isn't conserative and the left isn't liberal, yet a lot of/way too many people keep on using these terms as if they haven't mutated, and somehow many seem unbothered by the drainage away of meaning.
They did each start out that way but then regressed. Also there _are_ conservatives who voted for Trump, probably a lot, and probably somewhat unhappily. These are the people we need to welcome now!
"We" didn't have a choice. That choice belonged to Kamala Harris. I like Governor Shapiro just fine. He'd likely make an excellent nominee in 2028, and if Marketing were to come up with an optimal candidate, it would probably look a lot like him. But Tim Walz wasn't a crazy choice in the summer of 2024, and was widely (though not universally, sure) recognized as one of the three or four most sensible picks. I for one don't believe for a second Josh Shapiro would have been a difference maker (though his presence might well have held down that Senate seat, which, to be clear, is not nothing).
>Why the fuck did we not ...throw lame duck Biden under the bus for his failures in 2024.<
Uh, we kinda did, no? You may have recalled most of the party ganged up on him, and forced him off the ticket—a truly extraordinary development in US politics. If that's not bus-throwing (eminently justified, of course), I don't know what is.
The Monday morning quarterbacking around here is as maddening as it is futile. Tomorrow is a new day. It is necessary to learn from our mistakes. It is pointless to obsess over them.
EDIT: If Shapiro ends up winning the White House in 2028, we may want to thank Kamala Harris for passing him over. Being the running mate on a losing ticket isn't exactly a sure fire way to political success. I think the only time in the modern era such a candidate has managed to win the big prize was 1932 (if we can even consider that "modern").
I also thought Shapiro wasn't really excited to be a losing VP candidate when he thought he had a shot at being a winner at the top of the ticket soon? Like if Shapiro had wanted to be the VP I think it could have happened...
"Uh, we kinda did, no? You may have recalled most of the party ganged up on him, and forced him off the ticket—a truly extraordinary development in US politics. If that's not bus-throwing (eminently justified, of course), I don't know what is."
Throwing him under the bus after he had already crashed the bus and everything was on fire isn't the good look we needed though.. We spent the couple years leading up to it lying about his mental capacity and were only willing to back off that lie once it had been exposed in a way we could no longer deny.
I personally liked Shapiro more, but I don’t get why people particularly care about the VP choice at this point. Shapiro was probably a better campaigner, yes, but not to the tune of a 1.5% shift nationally (the only VP pick in decades to matter that much was maybe Palin for negative impact). Nor were there huge policy differences between him and Walz.
He waived permitting to focus on getting I-95 built, but I think VP Shapiro would have let us keep a hold on that PA senate seat.
Also I said my positions have become more conservative in reaction to the failure of Biden and Democrats. I am moving more towards a 1998-2004 platform.
So would you consider Abundance Liberals to be more economically conservative than non-Abundance liberals? Because I had thought that Shapiro was just trying to be effective (which I support, of course).
They are going to have perspectives on permitting, land use, and construction more in line with libertarian thinking than the current proceduralism that liberals embrace.
It really bothers me that Jeffries is basically just banking on thermostatically becoming Speaker, and probably barely has to lift a finger to make it happen.
We need a Democratic leader who loudly and publicly distances the party from the more extreme elements of wokeness, lax law enforcement and liberal immigration policies. That is, what Kamala should have done in 2024 if she wanted to win.
My impression was that Kamala tried to do that, but all the stuff recorded during her run in 2019, combined with her position as part of the incumbent administration, made that impossible. You can say anything, doesn’t mean you can say it credibly.
Not to over index on one interview, but when the hosts of The View asked her what she would do differently than Biden, she basically said she would do nothing differently. She never came out and said Biden did X wrong, which is the absolute bare minimum.
She didn’t embrace 2019-style leftism in her campaign last year, but she didn’t have a Sista Souljah moment either. That’s where "loudly and publicly" comes in.
And “credibly”. Sista Soulja worked because people believed Clinton believed it, because he paid a price for it and he explained himself without coming across like he was doing it just for show. He grounded his remarks in popular values.
Yes, it has to be sustained; it can't be seen as a one-off. So the Democrats need to be consistently putting forth a centrist message from now through 2028. But that's not Jeffries' job. It's really the job of those who are running for the 2028 nomination, and I wish they would declare now and begin running and putting forth that message.
But the rank laziness is also a major problem on top of pithy adages. There’s no evidence of any kind of plan BEYOND just waiting for something to fall in Jeffries’ lap which isn’t actually guaranteed to do so. Even accounting for some sort of strategic ambiguity on Jeffries’ part, it’s still insane to not be getting his own team in on the plan.
To use a football analogy, sure, every once in a while Peyton Manning made a calculated decision to override the playcall and run a naked bootleg. It usually resulted in a TD! But you can’t make an entire game plan out of that one successful play that only works in specific circumstances, and you certainly the fuck can’t hang your entire season on not sharing the playcall with your teammates.
Worse, the naked boot still requires the QB (leader) to actually DO something — to run the ball in on a specific route. If the other team’s defensive line is busy making a bunch of mistakes that open up running lanes up the middle, then sure, one can superficially say they’re “making a mistake”. But the specific mistake doesn’t affect the outcome of the play, because the bootleg run is to the OUTSIDE, not the middle where the mistake is. All it takes is one sharp CB or safety to sniff out the bootleg, and the play gets blown up.
To be explicit, what I’m saying is that by not doing ANYTHING, Jeffries is being pretty obvious about his intentions, and some smart actor could easily steal his lunch here and leave us and the party even worse off than we are today. After all, this is more or less what happened with Cantor getting primaried. He took his eyes off the play, and got blindsided.
This sounds a little Green Lanternish to me. The House minority leader has infinitely less power than your random Democratic Senator in the minority who can do a lot to gum up the works. What are these magical tools that Jeffries should be using to help the Democrats win a majority in the House and/or bring Trump's numbers down? (Both of which are happening or likely to happen).
Of course, he could go Newt Gingrich and put out a Contract on (er, with? for?) America. But that was after 40 years of increasingly somnolent/corrupt Democratic control of the House and Gingrich quickly flamed out. What are your alternative models for what the minority leader should be doing?
Not entirely sure. I’m aware that I’m not exactly offering solutions, but that doesn’t invalidate the criticism. What he’s doing is fundamentally unsound in many of the same ways that Dem leadership has been unsound for the last generation or so.
calling dem leadership "unsound" (possible yes minister ref?!) over the past generation is not accurate.
to be sure, the last couple of years has been feckless at times - but the problem is significantly, and overwhelmingly the lack of raw numbers in both chambers.
An issue with a “vote for us, we’re not the horrible people” approach is that even when it works, it tends to result in a rapidly declining appeal when you actually do get into office. Look at Keir Starmer: he flawlessly executed a platform of Not Being Bojo/Truss/Sunak but is way underwater now because he doesn’t actually have a meaningful agenda
It's not at all a bad strategy to bide time right now. Trump will continue to make mistakes and that will raise the salience of issues, and Democrats can pick whichever they think are best to run on.
It's also not the case historically that a party needs to actively repudiate its previous stances; you can also just quietly move on. That's what the 2016 Trump campaign did on gay marriage for example -- he didn't spend a ton of time talking about how Republicans' previous stance was wrong, he just made it clear that he wasn't against gay marriage and so forced the party to basically abandon it as an issue.
I'm not intending to ignore what you said. IMO Democrats' best bet is to stay invisible right now. Let Trump piss voters off and pay attention to the *specific ways* he is pissing voters off, then start running on those things when the midterm election cycle begins. You aren't seeing evidence of a party strategy right now because articulating one would be premature.
Matt writes it's zero *unless they do something different*. But again, what, exactly, is the Democratic leader in the House doing that is negatively impacting his party's chances in the Senate. What should he be doing differently?
It may help to see the Democratic Party as a coalition of causes, as though the Horticulture Club, the Friends of the Springfield Library, and the Fresh Air Fund all got together to hold a joint fundraising potluck.
I for one think it was good *policy,* which is why I care about Democrats getting elected. Leaving problems getting monotonically worse every year that affect all humans alive unaddressed is bad, actually.
Totally disagree. Zeroing out US emissions for 26 years would avert 0.1 degree of global warming. The marginal benefit of decarbonizing a bit faster is negligible. The marginal benefit of keeping the median voter happy so Trump doesn’t win is far greater.
I agree ultimately that keeping trump out was more important with the benefit of hindsight but I will push back a bit - I think the benefits of the USA becoming the global leader in clean energy, combined with the other R&D friendly investments in the major Biden bills, were going to be highly beneficial economically (we were already seeing a boom in the much cherished manufacturing jobs) beyond their environmental impact.
That being said, I guess we’ll never know, and the strategy obviously proved to not work out politically or on policy since the policy is being reversed.
If your lodestar is climate, then you should be ok with China being the global leader in solar and evs. Lower costs means less carbon, and they are much better at churning out cheap widgets than we are
This is just not true. Our carbon emissions are basically flat, despite our economy growing. China is a major, and growing, contributor to glibal emissions.
When the IRA was passed, Trump was basically a dead man walking. He had put on his pathetic, low-energy campaign kickoff at Mar a Lago when he couldn't even get anyone prominent to attend. Ron DeSantis was seen as the obvious successor.
Not how it turned out (duh) but there was nothing fated about Trump recapturing the Republican nomination. So to say that the Democrats shouldn't have done anything that would have long-term benefits because it might help Trump win the White House on the margin is some real retconning.
Like the ACA, I thought the infra / IRA bills were worthwhile expenditures of political capital to address real, significant policy problems. But unlike the ACA, I thought its effects would be popular sooner, mitigating the always existing downside risk of doing any big legislation.
I was wrong. Lots to unpack and discuss about why but I think lots of democrats made the same calculus. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing Trump would make a comeback, it was obviously not worth it, even if the benefits were going to be large and generational - since there’s now no benefit, the whole thing is getting undone.
We bogged down the efforts with so much process and appeasement politics. Like the TSMC fab in Arizona was bogged down by a union labor rider. So many racial and environmental justice requirements to build dang EV chargers. Why? Just spend it and get the stuff built.
That's really the issue. Investment is good and I think can be sold as a forward looking political vision but its not going to work if you have to also try to play Santa Claus to every single interest group in the broader coalition.
But how did the infrastructure/IRA bills *hurt* the Democrats? The ACA clearly hurt the Democrats in 2010 (and maybe later). The two just don't seem comparable.
I honestly tend to agree with you; I think the argument made by many here, including (I think) Matt, is that they a) contributed to inflation and b) centered climate in a way that bothered swing voters. I'm not sure that's entirely true though - I really think inflation combined with the end of COVID SuperDole measures was going to end up severely hurting Biden regardless of what they did with the IRA/infra bills.
Hard to know but (a) the IRA didn't contribute to inflation (it was paid for) and (b) I've seen no evidence that passing the IRA angered voters who thought doing things on climate was wrong.
Inflation, the border surge, the toxic "woke" brand of the Democrats, Biden being the doddering out of it image of the party for so long, voters around the world being in a pissy mood and beating up on incumbents: the reasons for the Democratic defeat really aren't more complicated than that. We don't need to bring things like the IRA into the argument.
I think the infrastructure/IRA actions were directionally positive. However, opportunity costs are a massively underrated part of politics, and I think that's the biggest piece you're missing.
I also disagree that you can wave away it's inflationary effects, but I don't think that's central to the case.
AOC supported and met with the Green New Deal sit-in demonstrators in Pelosi’s office. And she’s the 2028 candidate? “Losing the plot” is not an ideal criterion for party leadership.
You know how people keep saying "if liberals won't enforce the border, fascists will". There's a version of that on the left. If liberals won't build a political movement to fight Trump, socialists will. People like that AOC seems to be *doing something*.
exactly. they’re probably not going to deliver a ton of votes in kansas, but they have lots of social media capital and some pretty good small donors too, and you can’t just write that out of the coalition and still expect support from them.
I don't know. It's amazing to see how the strong leaders of our side like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Amy Klobuchar and Bill Maher are leading the fight against Trump.
As someone whose career is focused on climate change and who thinks the IRA was mostly good on the merits - no, it was not good politics, in ways that were easily foreseeable, and even where it was good, it fought against itself in other ways and ignored near-zero-cost opportunities to be better.
As opposed to what really? A third bite in a row at "comprehensive health care reform"?
Technology investment and infrastructure investment would have been a decent platform if one hadn't overdosed on stimulus and let the border run out control. (And tried to run a declining 80 year old).
I think in retrospect, knowing that Trump would be able to make a comeback and that 1/6 was not his deathknell, there was a pretty strong case to be made for the Dem majority largely keeping its powder dry - doing the promised stimulus checks but as part of a smaller package, overseeing the Mission Accomplished vaccine rollout, and doing symbolic popular cultural stuff (pro choice judges, etc).
That all being said, I really don't think there was some magical fix for the inflation issues that made people so mad at incumbents around the world and Biden here specifically. I know Matt has pointed to some things he thought would have made a difference at least rhetorically, and I get that, but I don't really think there was gonig to be a major substantive difference - why would we be immune from a global trend?
The issue that they maybe could have more effectively neutralized was the border issue, maybe by investing that first-term political capital into a bipartisan border bill. Perhaps doing it in 2021 when Trump was at his weakest would have prevented him from being able to nuke it the way he did later on. Obviously, we'll never know.
I’ve seen credible claims that perhaps a quarter to a third of the 2022 inflation was downstream of the fiscal stimulus. So not doing that might not have quite swung things in 2024, but it was a close enough election that it’s possible.
More cynically, you could argue that if there was going to be a big spending bill spending, it should have prioritized things more salient to Low Information Voters. On the more respectable side, a lasting child credit or similar, on the dumber side, direct stimulus checks or demand subsidies for groceries or gas.
Absent inflation and the huge border surge, the Democrats would have won the White House in 2024 and held the House (probably not the Senate). That, and passing vitally needed climate change legislation strongly argues to me that, yes, it was very good politics. After all, the point of winning elections is to *do* things.
Vance is one of the most loathsome creatures I've ever seen.
How do the Democrats sneer at you? The worst they've ever done for me is send me donation requests every minute 24/7 which made me muse about voting for Trump. (Fact check: no, of course not.)
The IRA was a hell of a lot more than just a “climate change” bill, it was also a massive mobilization of american manufacturing, in both blue and red states.
Part of the problem with minimum wage though is putting aside the $15 number (which didn't have full support across the caucus) is that you need 60 votes and it was unclear there was a path to cutting a deal with the Rs even at a lower number. Unlike at the state level where even in red states you can do ballot initiatives.
I think 15 min wage for dropped because it was enacted in the super liberal states that these people inhabit. NY IL and CA. So they no longer see this issue anymore
What Yglesias is failing to take note of in this Debbie Downer piece is that, in 2026, Democrats will have master political strategist David Hogg on their side.
I don't believe David Hogg is remotely like Trump in the corruption department. I just think he's too inexperienced, and doesn't perceive the world very accurately.
Yes? I'm comparing them by pointing out that Trump is worse. This White House doesn't even bother with fig leafs about donating to some third-party charity. It's just straight pay-to-play.
I am talking about moral corruption, but I am probably wrong on that. I am just upset he is using Democratic Party resources to primary and ratfuck sitting Democrats.
I read he's been told "no" by this superiors: DNC leaders are required to be neutral in primaries. Not sure if it'll stick, or if he'll obey orders. I agree his plan to primary incumbent Democrats is moronically counterproductive, and is flat out unacceptable in a DNC official.
For all the faults of factionalist leftists, centrists and moderates spend so much time moaning and wringing their hands about it. Broadening the tent won’t happen by complaining Sanders is getting more attention.
Like Matt says, what is the plan? Moderates could be out there holding events and pushing their agendas. Why aren’t they?
I recall that Tweet where Mr. Hogg invited gun owners to leave the party. It was being played over and over again on social media once he was put on the DNC. I'm putting off my resignation so far. I have been a registered D all my life, as well as a union shop steward in two unions and board member in one. Sadly, I fail the Hogg purity test, having grown up in a rural area where hunting and shooting tin cans was not considered a grievous character flaw. I'll have to see if his worldview prevails, as I suppose the few other remaining middle of the road Democrats might be doing.
But if the sort of Hoggwash I speak of prevails, it sure does reduce the chances of a "big tent" Democratic party winning those Flyover states and getting that Senate majority.
On the plus side, moderates could earn points by just telling him to shut the fuck up as often and as loudly as possible. Matt is unwilling to acknowledge the Dems' 69-D chess strategy here.
Exactly. I feel like there are a lot of Dem leaders who remember the looming GOP majority of the Bush era and how it turned on a dime in 2006 and then the sinking economy led to 60 D senators in 2008 and figure the same thing will somehow just happen with Trump. But to paraphrase Rick Pitino, Blanche Lincoln is not walking through that door. Max Baucus is not walking through that door. Byron Dorgan is not walking through that door.
I'm hardly the first to say this, but if you look at who the 60 D senators were in 2009-10, it's absolutely incredible that they got consensus on the ACA. Someone like Blanche Lincoln was 20 points underwater and knew she was probably losing reelection and voted for it anyway.
It’s underrated the extent to which the ACA vote was the most politically courageous action certainly in a generation - bunch of senators and congresspeople not only committed career suicide but arguably cemented their districts / states as Republican for a generation to get it passed.
To me, it’s indisputable that this was a perfect example of being politically courageous / putting policy above your career and the only debate should be whether it was worth it.
I thought absolutely yes for a long time, but now with the benefit of hindsight knowing the solid R bloc in the senate would be enablers of authoritarianism and insurrection I’m a lot less sure.
Oh for sure. I don't think anyone could have reasonably predicted this at the time, it was a worthwhile sacrifice at the time.
That being said, it's obviously true - since the Blanche Lincolns of the world got wiped out, the Democrats have been completely noncompetitive in those areas. Maybe not the end of the world with a somewhat sane opposition, but really problematic now.
for something that stuck, the ACA was the most politically courageous vote. but imo, the house voting for cap and trade was more courageous in maybe 09/10 (cant remember) but it didnt stick, so doesnt matter.
I'm young so maybe you can educate me on the politics/expectations at the time, but that seemed more stupid than brave? It's one thing to torch your majority to *pass* transformational legislation but why torch your career on a bill that can't pass? Was it generally asssumed DOA in the senate? Southwest Virginia's congressman voted for it despite repping one of the top 10 coal producing districts in the country and he lost by 3 or 4 points, was it worth it in order to have the bill die in the senate?
One of the big problems with modern politics is we burn tremendous amounts of political capital taking positions we can't implement anyway, which is very different from burning political capital to actually pass something good.
Let's expand on this and ask the question: if they were running next year, how many of these Democratic Senators from 2009 would be likely to win:
Baucus (MT), Harkin (IA), Rockefeller (WV), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Feingold (WI), Tim Johnson (SD), Landrieu (LA), Lincoln (AR), Pryor (AR), Bayh (IN), Nelson (FL), McCaskill (MO), Tester (MT), Hagan (NC), Begich (AK)
Maybe a couple would pull out a win. Most probably not. Partly it's because of the terrible Democratic brand, as Matt rightly argues. But mostly it's because these states have really, really changed since 2009.
None of those folks came out of nowhere in their states. But the partisan divide has deepened such that there probably are very few people like them in their states now. They were all likely the most moderate of the then democrats in the state. The most moderate dems in those states are probably not as moderate because the dem side has been squeezed and the R side has radicalized. What needs to happen is the national party has to go find whoever is the most moderate dem today, and then persuade them to shift right, and then support the hell out of them while protecting them on their left flank. But I guess that's MY's complaint, no one at the top of the party is even contemplating doing it.
I agree but I was just saying that if these exact same people with the exact same stands ran today most of them would still lose. Maybe that's because of the toxic national brand which they couldn't run away from or maybe it's because the state has changed so much, but either way it's not really about candidate recruitment.
There's truth to that for sure, but we also don't need to win in Arkansas neccesarily, Texas or Ohio would do just fine. Someone with even Jon Tester's views, who's way to the left of most of those folks, probably wins re-election in Ohio this year, if Tester had Manchins views (also to the left of many of those folks), he probably wins re-election. We really know what to do to get D+20, D+15, D+10, D+5 overperformances, we just run the D+20 candidates in 70-30 R states, the D+15 candidates in 60-40 R states etc. so they overperform a lot but still lose, gotta shift basically all the red/purple state guys a notch to the center
Yes, this seems about right. That was what we needed for 60 Dems in the Senate, and those days are gone for a very long time. The same for the Republicans ever having 60 in the Senate.
States are always changing, but these Senators and the party were adaptable and flexible to that, so they could change along with the states and continue to win.
Until we stop being the party that sounds like a mom telling you what not to do, we don’t have a chance. Wake me up if that happens but until then I don’t have the time to pay attention to a party that sticks to a loser strategy.
80% of the work could just be going back to cool, charismatic, confident dads, like Bill and Barack. Who makes light fun of the prissy killjoys in his stump speech.
"You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What's wrong with that? Come on. There are some issues that we face, that you don't have to pass a law, but that doesn't mean folks can't have some sense and some respect for other people and, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear — I'm one of them."
A LOT of obama's appeal was modeling an old school "family values" conservative lifestyle but crossing that with essentially a generic liberal policy agenda.
No what I'm responding to is the contention in this thread that Democrats became a party that "shames you for having fun" and is the party of "mom telling you what to do." In my mind, Obama was dedicated and hardworking guy who embodied and advocated a pretty virtuous path and was in his own way somewhat judgmental.
So I'm not too sure why people think the party has changed that much, except that some of the worse parts of the left have been released into the wild?
If Harris said this people would absolutely say its cliched virtue signaling:
"But now, my life revolves around my two little girls. And what I think about is what kind of world I’m leaving them. Are they living in a country where there’s a huge gap between a few who are wealthy and a whole bunch of people who are struggling every day? Are they living in a country that is still divided by race? A country where, because they’re girls, they don’t have as much opportunity as boys do? Are they living in a country where we are hated around the world because we don’t cooperate effectively with other nations? Are they living a world that is in grave danger because of what we’ve done to its climate?
And what I’ve realized is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children — all of our children — a better world. Even if it’s difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don’t get very far in our lifetime."
To make your point, shouldn’t you cite speeches Harris actually gave and was criticized for and show that they were similar to Obama’s speeches he was praised for?
I guess the way to solve this is to figure out how moms manage to help their children grow up not just safe but thriving, without adopting this tone. Do you just need to have more effective children, or are there strategies you can learn?
Are you saying that the electorate are children? I think it is crazy that you think the problem is “Communicate as a Mom effectively” and not “Stop acting like a mom because YOU ARE NOT MY MOM”
The problem is that people think that anyone who tries to make things better for you must inherently be treating you as a child, and that treating you as a child is bad. I think the job of the government is to help make things better for us, and unfortunately one of the main models we have of that is one that people resent. And it’s not just the “you are not my mom” part - this thread began with the observation that many kids are equally resentful when it *is* their mom. The question is how to do good without triggering resentment, and effective parents are one good model for that (though sometimes it seems to rely on better children who just don’t resent people for caring about them).
I don't think that's the right diagnosis of the mom issue. In the 90s it was the conservatives who felt like nagging moms. Because they were the ones trying to impose values on the public that the public mostly didn't share.
That's when you end up on the wrong side of this dynamic. Not from trying to make policy, but from trying to enforce unpopular values.
I think this entire chain of logic is incredibly flawed and problematic. It presumes that if I have an idea about how to make things better, and you don't like it, that you are wrong simply because I am "Mom" and I know better.
It discounts the idea that maybe the other person
- doesn't think the problem I am trying to solve is, in fact, a problem
- agrees about the problem but thinks my solution is ass, and wants to do a different thing instead
But maybe the other person is right, and I am wrong? Have I considered that? If I have, and still think I am right, then how should I persuade them? Should I even try (note that "agree to disagree" is a viable outcome among adult allies, but is not in a parent/child relationship)?
Effective parenting is a TERRIBLE model for this, it is not "one good model" for this. The other people just are not your children.
I think between 1976-2016 there was relatively bipartisan elite alignment that free trade and immigration should not be central campaign issues because the electorate has bad views on these. This is similarly true of certain conspiracy theories, like anti-vax sentiment. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into the parenting metaphor, but it's definitely the case that the parties suppressed certain issues that could have been electoral winners and kept those who tried to profit from them (like Pat Buchanan, etc) to the fringes.
That is sort of fair, but breaks down if you keep asking the “elites” to take ridiculous stances as litmus tests that then undermine them because you force the issues to become partisan.
Like, it is patently ridiculous that someone asked Harris about surgeries for Trans people in prison (it’s also pretty ridiculous that she did not answer some variation of “Why tf are you wasting my time with this question? The president has bigger fish to fry”, but that is yet another matter)
I think you are misunderstanding the discussion here.
Most of the discussion I have about politics, and that is had on this forum, is on the merits. If someone wants to discuss the merits of the policy, talking about whether something is or isn't actually a problem, or disagreeing with the proposed solution, I'm happy to do that.
But there are some people who want to change the subject to become one of complaining that people are treating them like children. It was only in response to that that I said there is a problem of figuring out how to get people to stop feeling insulted by people trying to work on policy.
also on the substance nanny state liberal policies like hard smoking crackdowns are some of the most effective quality of life measures in history. I understand this stuff became politically toxic around 2010 or so but it's a huge shame that bloomberg-ish policies have been totally excised from public debate because they worked great.
I'm not convinced this sort of policy became any more or less toxic - if anything, I think Bloomberg's attempted soda size crackdown came at the one moment when that sort of policy was closest to being acceptable in public debate.
Smoking crackdowns were usually waged largely on behalf of non-smokers, and not primarily focused on saving people from themselves. It's unfortunate that there's not a similar angle we can take on gambling.
Yeah i'm not too sure... but I know there was a time when some cities were thinking of experimenting with a sugar tax but that seems basically dead now.
It's true the restaurant/public smoking bans were largely justified by second hand smoke. But there are numerous other policies that were part of the anti-smoking campaign - (1) punitive taxes (2) advertising bans (3) lawsuits against tobacco companies (4) massive social stigmatization of smoking.
Just on taxes, it was a challenge to get liberals onside since tobacco taxes are technically regressive, but I think funnelling the funds raised to very progressive uses like CHIP expansion helped.
It's interesting that the Dems seem to be a bit overly strict on candidate selection making it tough to compete in some races, while Republicans are throwing away winnable races by allowing some terrible candidates(perhaps the only qualification is loyalty to Trump).
If Republicans had just run normal people in every race we could have been in an even deeper hole.
There is no plan. In some ways, this may be the reverse image of the Maga takeover of the GOP. The moderate leadership is afraid that they cannot hold the party together without pandering to the left. And the left is not interested in winning, they’re interested in winning an interparty status game as Matt so clearly laid out on Friday. Because if the Democrats win, the left-wing will not see their status rise, and therefore are not interested in helping.
The only answer I can think of is to coopt the left-wing by making them believe that their status will rise as a fact of an overall democratic win. Other alternatives seem highly impractical in our polarized environment. But that is such a difficult project, that I can see how the Dem leadership is able to rationalize themselves into a “one day at a time” strategy.
The left is filled with epistemological and rhetorical nihilists. Even as their ideas become less popular, less salient, and as they lose more elections and seats they act even more entitled and even more morally righteous. And yet when we should be cutting out rectal polyps like David Hogg, Democrats decide to double down on the failed policy of appeasing the implacable.
I think this is correct. I think it's only the next Presidential nominee who can really change the party's national brand. I am not hugely optimistic there, but I think there's an outside chance if someone emerges channeling outsider energy and charisma.
In the meantime the Dem Senate election committee needs to get as heterodox in their recruitment as possible. But, I just looked up the DSCC head, Kristen Gilibrand, so not at all optimistic there.
The thing is that Bernie Sanders *himself* is pretty popular, including with moderates and independents. The problem is that basically every other elected official who is a part of his movement isn’t.
This is exactly what makes arguing with leftists about Bernie so tedious. I know Bernie is popular! I'm not a moron. But also concede that everyone associates with his full slate of policies constantly underperforms.
No real argument from me, except: I think Bernie, being associated with wanting to "break things" — doesn't inspire the vitriol among conservatives and moderates that a lot of Democrats do. I'd rather go with "Liz Warren hates me" or "David Hogg hates me."
Oh for sure they had fat volumes of oppo ready to go had he prevailed in the primary in 2016. And he would have lost, I suspect. I do think Sanders might have won the general election in 2020, though.
Funny I'd flip those. Sanders had really high favorables in 2016 and Trump's were atrocious, Sanders' were better than Trump's in 2020 but the gap was dramatically smaller than in 2016. Even if you nerf Sanders in '16 to his '20 favorables which is a huge drop he still comfortably beats Trump. Hillary was almost the only dem who could've lost to Trump in '16, Trump had a negative 25 point net favorables in '16, it was like -8 in '20 and -6 in '24
One reason he had high favorables in 2016 is that the Republicans didn’t lay a glove on him. Rightly or wrongly, they thought he would be an easier general election opponent, and were hoping he would prevail over Hillary Clinton. The GOP absolutely would’ve unloaded on him with deafening artillery. The moment he became the nominee.
So maybe AOC is the answer? Just like Obama could be more centrist because, hey, he's Black, so too an increasingly pragmatic AOC can keep the progressives quiet while thinking she's on their side whereas in reality she's a pretty cagy politician who is learning the game and figuring out how to build a winning coalition.
There are at least signs that that is how she's thinking.
You and others have laid out the problems with the left, but the "establishment" has a different problem; I have no clue what they stand for. They aren't making a case for themselves at all. Of any faction, why do I feel least out of step with the center-left? Well, the entire Republican party has gone insane, and I'm not on the left, so I default to the center-left. So like many others here, "we're not Trump" is good enough for me. But It's not good enough for the average voter. They need a positive agenda, not just a negative one.
If his whole thing is going to be "Trump sucks," well... that might be enough. He is president now, which he wasn't last time, so he'll actually have a record to run against.
Divide and conquer should work well enough to scatter the leftist political influencers as long as there is a strong enough center. The center can evolve as well, particularly if that generates more leftist infighting.
We may even want to strategically fund and promote particularly potent, new voices that attack the eatablished Bernie, Biden, Warren synthesis. Moreover our ever more fragmented media ecosystem, algorithmic bias, and generative AI all seem likely to disproportionately harm these fractions. Notably their revenue and cost structures.
We shouldn't blindly hope this works. Yet we have a multitude of options for managing these threats as well beneficial structural changes in the tech and media ecosystem as well as helpful labor market dislocations. I'm personally quite optimistic!
Only a dramatic hostile takeover a la Trump 2016 is going to change the fundamental orientation and coalition of the Democratic Party that was crystallized by Obama, a teleological triumph of reason that ends politics forever on the unstoppable wave of the young and nonwhite.
Individual local low-salience races can't change a brand that well-established. And so that being the case, 2028 is the earliest change can arrive.
The Dan Osborn One Weird Trick of removing the D from the ticket is strange and defeatist and hard to implement and a huge longshot, all true. But it's POSSIBLE. Changing the Democratic brand by low-wattage moderate issue positioning in midterm races isn't possible. 2026 is too short of a timeline for that to work.
“The plan” from what I can tell, is to “fight oligarchy”. But that makes me nervous for a few reasons. 1) It’s not clear to me that working-class people - who we desperately need to win more of- are all that focused on “oligarchs”. Here in NYC, their concerns are more about housing costs and public safety/disorder. It’s not that they are in love with Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but attacking them doesn’t address those issues. But also- 2) - if you’re going to go all-in against oligarchs, what do you do about Alex Soros? Do you not want his money? Sure Bernie and AOC are big enough stars that they can fund with small dollar donations, but I don’t think we have many more leaders who can pull that off. This is going to empower a handful of social media stars, but it’s not a plan for winning actual power.
I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but I would bet very, very strongly (and large) that Amazon polls better than any politician in the country.
Bezos has been out of $AMZN for nearly 4 years. [1] Think he still has some emeritus chairman role or something inconsequential. At most his ~10% holding of $AMZN and associated voting power is what matters.
Even good that he left before transforming his public image--similar to Gates and dissimilar to Musk. The public may actually like him more if Bezos is just a Bond villain who competes w/ Musk to dominate space and online media, while being vaguely associated w/ selling books to fellow nerds three decades ago.
I don't know how to win the Senate. What I do know is that a lot of Democrats want "fighters". After Romney lost to Obama, a lot of Republicans wanted "fighters" too. And they didn't want to fight to accomplishing anything or even win elections. Republicans wanted fighting for the sake of fighting, and that is how we got Trump. It would be a negative development if Democrats followed the same path.
He did more than just moderate. He radically broke with the GOP on free-trade and adopted the ~ progressive left, anti-NAFTA position. Shoot ... he might have gone even further than Bernie. It's really impossible to pin Trump down on the pre-Trump left-right dimensions.
All of this discourse about how Dems should strategize to win seems a bit like aliens trying to reason from first principles and unreliable issue polling about how to win a human election.
Yes, of course it’s possible in principle that omniscient Dem strategists would figure it out. But having basically no theory of mind when it comes to the persuadable population is a crippling disadvantage. (Everyone is still fighting about whether people in Iowa are all secret communists waiting for the Marxist Messiah.)
Even if Dems *could* figure out exactly what people want and messaged accordingly, I’m still not sure they’d be in great shape. (Imagine the alien politicians all take issue positions you agree with after discussing at length “how do we get the human idiots to vote for us”? Moreover, you know that in private aliens are all weirdos who are obsessed with stuff like Christian theology. Would you vote for them?)
I think you're right about this, and what it boils down to is a credibility problem. It's not just about finding a different type of message It's about finding different types of people.
And how do you fund said "robust safety net" with low taxes? Magic pixie dust?
It would be a lot easier to give people what they want if the things people wanted were logically consistent. I want to be slim and fit while having a large slice of cheesecake and multiple servings of chocolate every day, but that doesn't make it a realistic goal.
Bingo. Foster a Heartland Party, for Real Americans, run by ex-GOP staffers, and advertise it to the gills. Run it in every gettable state. Bring in talent. It'll take time and consistency to rack up wins. Network. Foster a sense of community.
The country will never be safe without a non-authoritarian right-wing option.
The plan in Ohio can be simple enough. Find a Fetterman type and give him a slightly longer leash on immigration and trans issues.
I’m not sure there’s any evidence a child tax credit polls poorly in Ohio. Taxing the rich to help struggling families raise kids seems politically savvy to me.
People really want to believe that "tax the rich" is a big political winner, but I think it's low-salience to non-rich people and high-salience to rich people in a way that makes it a loser. My evidence for this is the political fortunes of the Republican and Democratic parties over the last N years.
When Republicans have nothing to say besides "we should cut taxes," they struggle, but as soon as they have any other issues, nobody cares if they cut taxes for the rich, and Democrats I think have been consistently unable to make much hay out of, "we'll tax the rich."
There is a lot of evidence that “tax the rich” is a big political winner. Future Forward’s ad testing found that the most effective Harris ads were ones hitting Trump on tax cuts for the rich!
Interesting. How do you reconcile this with what Michael Sullivan is saying, i.e., that Democrats' consistent position on this hasn't helped them win consistently? I see a couple possibilities.
1. Low-engagement voters somehow don't know that Democrats are the party that wants to tax rich people. I don't know for sure, but this seems unlikely to me because (a) Democratic politicians are always going on and on about "broligarchy" and billionaires, and (b) people who know partisan liberals have surely also observed that those people tend to be against the rich and complain that they don't pay their fair share. (If people don't even know that Democrats want to tax the rich, on what information are they basing their votes? If they're so hard to reach, does messaging strategy even matter?)
2. People are generally favorable towards the idea of taxing the rich, but it ranks very low on their list of priorities. (By what measure is an ad "effective" in this study? Does effective mean that people like the message or that the message is likely to be pivotal in their voting behavior?)
3. This issue is, in fact, a huge political winner, and it's the only thing keeping Democrats from doing even worse (say, getting 35-40% of the vote instead of 50%).
That doesn’t tell you anything about whether the ads were effective or not. Dan Osborn lost his Senate race, does that mean his strategy/messaging was useless?
Every argument for child tax credit seems to assume that the fiscal baseline is fine and all you need is a bit more in taxes to pay for this new program. The baseline is not close to being fine and it’s going to get worse with an extension of TJCA and whatever they have cooking in the Congress right now.
I live in Ohio and have watched it slide from purple to red over the past few cycles; I don't know if a Fetterman type is enough. We have elected very few statewide Dems except Sherrod Brown (who mostly benefited from name recognition and a few wonky election cycles the past few times around) and one governor (Ted Strickland) who was to the right on guns and was running against a not-very-good Republican candidate in Kenneth Blackwell. There are very few emerging stars in the state party that anyone outside of their particular fiefdom has heard of; the bench is thin; and developing good candidates in the legislature has been stymied by gerrymandering and the legislature's willingness to ignore public will on redistricting, multiple times over, thanks to Republicans' full control over the state government and the entire redistricting process. It's pretty demoralizing to realize I can't think of a single Ohio Democrat who could beat Bernie effing Moreno.
That feels overly pessimistic, a senator the left of the average senate democrat came within a few points of winning. I know Brown has legacy name rec/incumbency, but if he just had his old positions on immigration and energy he probably wins? Tim Ryan is somewhat more moderate coded now but he's genuinely not that moderate, and got 47% of the two-way vote in a D president midterm. It's obviously a tough challenge but it seems like they haven't really tried the hard moderation they'd need. If Manchin can run 40 points ahead in WV do we really think a similar candidate couldn't get 10-15 points you need for Ohio?
Your guess is as good as mine. In 2024, there as a drop of 2% to 5% turnout in traditional Dem strongholds like Franklin and Cuyahoga county, so turnout efforts might help, but mostly in an off year election. Trump won Ohio by around 11 points in 2024. Vance only won his senate seat by 7 points. Mike DeWine won his last election by 25 points, outperforming both of them, so there is some segment of normie voter that is probably up for grabs, but not sure how much. Both Vance and Dewine beat very blah Democratic candidates. Tim Ryan, who ran against Vance, is a pro-fossil fuel Dem from a district that went heavily for Trump 3 times. I guess the point being that you'd need a Democrat kind of like Ryan, but who has enough notoriety or charisma to beat someone like Vance, but sweet Jesus how low of a bar is THAT? Not low enough, apparently.
If the brand is trashed, it's easier to start a new brand. A culturally conservative Heartland Party. Flip the script and reduce GOP federal power at any cost.
Fwiw David Shor's polling has the Child Tax Credit about even nationally so probably below water somewhat in Ohio. I think taxing the rich to lower the deficit, inflation, interest rates, + much more conservative positions on immigration/trans/crime/fracking/guns would work.
Aren’t struggling families low propensity voters relative to the people who would be taxed to fund this? Also it appears that lower income brackets are positively correlated with Trump voting share, so helping this voting bloc reproduce in view of an already-demonstrated indifference or hostility to the party rather famously more in favor of social welfare programs isn’t obviously a winner (in the sense of being "politically savvy") and may be political malpractice. Ed.: although I should note it's an open question.
struggling families are about the only thing i care about other than my own family. and smart working and lower middle class kids who need rigorous standardized tests to prove they can compete against the rich kids.
taxing the rich polls well. helping struggling parents polls well as long as they aren’t welfare queens. the only skill needed is framing benefits where they don’t look like welfare
This is one of the most defeatist and depressing columns I've ever read on SB.
In Matt's opinion, Republican support in states like Iowa and Ohio is a fact of nature, like a blizzard or a wildfire. There's nothing to be done about it! All you can do is feed enough sacrifices into the flames (gun control! clean energy! anything The Groupz(TM) want!) and hope you will be spared.
How about a little more focus on how to build more popular support for Democratic candidates? I'm not saying "make the median voter in Missouri supportive of trans rights," I'm talking something like the Common Sense Manif- uh, like I said before, the Common Sense Platform, if you call it a Manifesto you sound like a commie 😊
How? I don't know how, I'm a weird nerdy PMC person, but there has to be a way, clone Buttigieg fifty times and unleash him on every podcast and YouTube channel you can find, don't just throw up your hands and go "welp, the Republicans have rock-solid support, there's nothing you can do." No! That support didn't spring fully formed like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, it's the result of lots of Republican strategists and communicators hard at work.
Meanwhile, here's a gem from today's NYT:
"After Federal Cuts, Food Banks Scrounge and Scrimp:
Sara Busse [in West Virginia] needed to make a hot meal for 40 needy seniors. She had promised a main dish, a starch, a vegetable, a fruit and a dessert.
In the past, she had gotten many of those ingredients for free from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This time, she had dried cranberries, crackers and vegetable soup.
“What am I supposed to do?” she said. “What am I supposed to cook?”
Find stories like that and amplify them! Ask the people of red states, is this what you wanted? Is this what you support? Because this is what you get with a Republican Congress!
See, *this* is what I see as defeatist, much more so than Matt's argument that we should figure out how to meet voters in currently-red states where they actually are, ideologically.
What you're saying is akin to saying "well if they don't share our liberal values then I guess the country is just fucked!"
I mean, if people see the elderly going hungry because their local food bank can’t afford enough food, and they say “f yeah, that’s what we voted for,” then I genuinely don’t know how to appeal to such people.
All my life, I believed that most Americans are basically decent, that they want to do the right thing and that includes helping others. If that’s gone…
Yeah this exactly my point. You are refusing to believe that people 1. Don't believe this is something the federal department of agriculture should be responsible for, while 2. Not being evil people.
But this is just a failure to understand the ideology of other people. You think that if they just knew what you know, they would share your ideology. But lots of people just don't! They don't want elderly people to starve, but they have a different theory of what are proper and acceptable ways to accomplish that.
Thing is that I agree with you about this. But I know a number of people who don't, and yes, it pisses me off, but they are still "basically decent". And I don't even live in one of these red states! I live in a purple state.
I promise you that Democrats need to figure out how to win in places that don't believe the agriculture department should be subsidizing meals for seniors. It doesn't even require being against this kind of thing, it isn't high salience, voters are unlikely to *oppose* a Democrat who favors this kind of government program. But they also aren't likely to *flock to* a Democrat who runs on their opponent's opposition to this kind of thing. They have different priorities!
Ok, so where are all these decent people who simply don’t share my ideology? Are they stepping up and saying, “Government should not subsidize food banks. But I don’t want seniors to go hungry, so I’m going to generously donate to food banks out of my own pocket!”
No doubt some of them are doing just that, but most likely, not enough. Otherwise Sara in West Virginia would be giving a very different interview to the NYT: “I was very troubled when Trump cut off USDA subsidies my food bank relies on, but then all my Trump-voting friends and neighbors pulled together to support the food bank and now we have plenty for everyone, it’s been wonderful to see!”
Sure, there are decent people in Trump country. There are also “I’ve got mine, FU” kind of people.
Didn't this woman also say that she voted for Trump 3x and still considers herself a Trump supporter? Or is that someone else they had interviewed? Like I don't even know anymore. 70% of MAGA Republicans also think the economy is getting better because of Trump's trade war, so part of it is that the Dems need more Pete B's and Andy B's in the party. The overall national brand is just toxic to some voters, why they still support Republicans I have no idea, but I think it's the podcast and media environment they engage with.
Yeah, tbh I feel like replacing the Senate leadership is the way to go - good news Dick Durbin is retiring but I really think it’s due for Chuck Schumer to go…
I think he’s a shrewd tactician (like the budget handling was epitome of it even if it was emotionally disturbing, I think it paid off by focusing the fire on Trump). But the issue is he seems fundamentally afraid of left - essentially Dem’s version of McConell.
And while I’m more of an advocate of balancing when to fight and when to cooperate - considering the type of force Bernie faction (or more accurately activist type), I feel like he’s currently a little too caving.
1) Talk to all your friends and family members about voting for moderate candidates in the primaries. Right now, mainly the most partisan Democrats participate. Not good for getting moderates elected
2) Find at least one truly moderate candidate at any level that you like, and give them your time and/or money. Ideally they would represent you, but if there's not a good option in your district/town, find somebody else to support.
3) Join the Democratic Party on the local level, ideally with some like-minded people, and fight to steer the party in the right direction. It is not good enough to simply write blogs and make comments. If you think the status quo is this bad, then get off the sideline, and try to make things better.
A lot actually, not so much as a literal institution but as an informal group of party regulars, activists, donors, and electeds. I'm very involved in the local democratic party and this group of a couple hundred people if that has a huge say in who gets elected in our county of 600,000 people. Our county is traditionally red but increasingly purple to light blue in the Trump era and a lot of democratic primaries are basically decided by a couple interested candidates talking amongst themselves and some folks in the local primary and deciding who's going to run, some primaries but not many. If 50 likeminded democrats got seriously involved it could meaninfgully shift the politics of a congressional district sized locality.
Obviously the party raises money, coordinates doorknocking and all that stuff but at it's core they play a big part in shaping who the party nominates. Voters of course always have the final say but it's hard to run for local office without institutional support so a lot of candidates don't if they can't win that backing.
I think running candidates in un-winnable states even in that lose, is part of the way of changing the Party's baseline. There is no reason that a gung-ho high-growth/Abundance pro-trade, pro high skill immigrant, pro progressive tax-and-reduce deficit, turn away all but genuine political asylum seekers at the border, guns only as an adjunct to crime fighting/policing-prosecution, pro fossil fuel production and transportation, throw-NEPA-under-the-bus, pro Fifth Amendment, expand paid for social insurance candidate should not win 50 states.
My counterpoint to this is that while leftists are generally unpopular and are incapable of governing decently (see: Brandon Johnson), the centrists really haven’t covered themselves in glory either.
The greatest argument against centrism is Keir Starmer, who is as centrist and “moderate” as they come, won a huge majority in the UK and then pissed it away to the point where Labo(u)r might end up a third party [1] because he was too scared to make progress on any of the issues he correctly identified during the campaign. The stupid part is that his public messaging is that the UK needs bitter medicine to get over its malaise, but he’s instead chosen to piss and moan about fiscal constraints instead of, say, fixing the insane planning system.
There’s obviously a two axes chart of progressive-moderate and supine-brave. And Noah Smith does day that combative centrism is the way forward. However, as one SBer (Polytropos, I think, not quoting this verbatim as I can’t find it) said “moderate but not cucked is the way, but unfortunately cuckedness and moderation seem to go together”.
A concrete example is the fight over upzoning in IL [2]. Anyone with half a brain knows that IL is losing population, and anyone half-affiliated with Dem politics has seen the 2030 census projections. Yet Dems haven’t got the cojones to push it through, because they’re too scared of their shadows.
Moving forward, concrete solutions include nuking the filibuster, expanding the lower courts and passing crucial reforms to permitting, taxation, healthcare and immigration. Act like you’re gonna lose congress in 2030, because that’s how politics works, and pass all your shit in 2 years. Give the public some goodies that leaven the bitter medicine. I know that this will cause heartburn for the SB crypto-republicans, but doing nothing isn’t a long term option, and your ideology played no small part in leading us here. Yes, the ACA did lead to democrats losing seats. It still pays dividends. In terms of personnel, it means getting rid of all those conditioned to cowardice by Dems long decades of defeat in the 70s-80s. It also means getting rid of the idiots who babble on about “comity/reach across the aisle” (thankfully Durbin will fuck off, except now we have Fetterman, who decides he’ll play nice with Trump on everything other than transgender issues where the Dem position is wildly unpopular- literally the moronic political instincts of Sinema).
For now, this means pulling the knives out in blue trifecta states and going hell for leather in fixing housing, infrastructure and bureaucracy. Yes, progressives in CA and NY have some stupid ideas about these but it’s also moderates that sink housing there as well. There’s nothing stopping these states from building a bureau that designs transit/public housing/airports etc to rent costs. We HAVE to annihilate the “we tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” mentality.
What are examples of GOOD governance? And are they actually a result of political ideology, or more a combination of good policy, good politics, charisma and a favorable political climate?
Best blue state governance I can think of is CO. Yes, there’s no single factor that led to it, but that doesn’t absolve individuals from the obligation to work hard for it. As I said, ‘We HAVE to annihilate the “we tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” mentality.’
I’d love to read follow ups to this, where we go state by state and deep dive into: 1. Who are statewide elected Dems 2. What are the polling nuances of the state 3. Therefore how could it become competitive
The evidence Matt has presented in recent days that Dems aren't trying to win governing power is the most radicalising insight I've ever seen in politics. Not just the lack of a plan to win the Senate; also the deprioritisation of $15 minimum wage not once it became law, but once it ceased being a factional dispute.
There are people within the coalition that spend much of their days bemoaning other people's moral failures and yet they're not actually focused on governing and making people's lives better. It's hard to describe without sounding cringe but it is truly shocking.
The $15 minimum wage is an interesting issue because it really hasn't been enacted in law in most states, but it's no longer an issue because nominal incomes rose so much that teenagers with no experience can make more than that now. (Which is hilarious considering it's like roughly the median income for Europe.)
You can't eat money though
No, but they have these things called grocery stores...
Yes and food prices are generally lower in Europe
They're not though. The average person in the US spends a lower share of their income on food than any other country in the world.
So I got curious and looked this up.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/food_price_index_wb/Europe/
The US is indexed at 117. Most the countries with cheaper food than the US would be those I consider "obviously poor" like Serbia.
Based on my imperfect understanding of geography, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, and the UK are the only western European countries with food costs similar or cheaper than the US.
I'd like to see both minimum wage and median wage for PPP a basket of food goods by country.
Paul Krugman cited Denmark fast food workers starting at $22/hour, which is part of the problem rolling all of "Europe" into one bucket. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/democrats-shouldnt-support-tariffs
OP was talking about the minimum wage earners, not average wage earners
Where is this mystical "Europe?"
I won't make a claim to expertise but I make a point to drop by grocery stores in basically every city I visit for work or leisure so I can grab cool local foodstuffs and just get a sense for how folks live, and the only European country I've been in that had visibly cheaper foodstuffs than the US was Russia. I don't think folks are thinking of "Russia" when you say "Europe."
Totally - always hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons but anecdotally, in my recent trip to Munich I noticed that groceries were much cheaper. Here is one cost of living calculator that suggests groceries are 30% cheaper in Munich compared to Seattle (which I picked since it has a similar level of industrialization)
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Germany&city1=Seattle%2C+WA&city2=Munich
It’s possible grocery prices are slightly lower in Europe on average, but I doubt the difference is enough to make up for the difference in earnings.
The case you could make is that money isn’t everything, and on more important metrics, Europe does better.
The problem with that is that they usually do badly on other metrics also, at least the ones I would care about. They’re energy dependent on geopolitical rivals, no military readiness, fertility is garbage and getting worse over time. They don’t go to church, and they’re not any happier than we are (except the Scandinavians).
“This will make us poorer but in trade we get X” <- I’m very sympathetic to this kind of policy idea generally, but in Europe, there’s no X!
If you dig into "Scandanavians are happier", you mostly find a handful of low-powered studies with iffy methodology. They might be, but we don't really have any good reason to believe it.
You sure?
Not with that attitude
Yeah, I think some ppl just see themselves “warriors for moral justice” and are truly addicted to it…
Because the only criteria to be a viable GOP candidate is fidelity to Trump, this "warriors for moral justice" criteria just isn't as present in the GOP.
Right-wingers resent the very idea of being asked to have morals, much less the debate over what morals are good.
Yea, that’s def true.
At the same time, I feel like their form of audience capture looks a bit different - they’re (or more specifically Trump/Musk/Vance/Miller et at) are more eager and happy to embrace
the most extreme version of“own the libs”, which imo leads to massive overreach on their end too
I have been radicalized. I have come out to be much more openly socially conservative and economically conservative (cut benefits/cost and raise taxes) since the election.
National Democrats really don’t care about winning, only appeasing a narrow and insatiable portion of the electorate. Like why the fuck did we run an unpopular progressive for Wisconsin senate? Why the fuck did we not pick Shapiro for VP and not throw lame duck Biden under the bus for his failures in 2024.
Fuck.
The thing is, *nothing* that's happening now is actually "conservative." AFAICT people who are classical liberals or actual conservatives have nowhere to go politically. I also consider myself part of this group and am utterly demoralized.
>I also consider myself part of this group and am utterly demoralized.<
Not this neoliberal shill. We're getting a real time lesson in the benefits of trading with other countries, and the perils of abandoning comparative advantage. And that lesson is about to grow a whole lot more vivid. If anything I'm feeling a bit of lightness in my steps for the first time since November. And Trumpian own goals are multiplying by the day.
Thanks for this, I need it today. I should copy this onto a post-it and stick it on my laptop. A couple of months ago, I was flummoxed as to why the markets weren't tanking and prominent people seemed to be averting their eyes.
As Scott Sumner said in his most recent newsletter, "late 20t- century neoliberalism is the best thing that ever happened." Neoliberal shills unite!
(-:
My pleasure. And I honestly do sense a bit of hope brewing. The "Trump deporting babies who are US citizens" stuff isn't helping his cause. Elon appears to be on his way out. We might even kinda sorta get the best of both worlds out of Trump's trade madness: he's retreated from a lot of it, but the 10% universal tariff and the 145% tariff on China will still very painful. So, voters will learn a painful lesson about the dangers of tariffs AND we might yet avoid a general cataclysm and the dethroning of the dollar (mind you I'd be shocked if we manage to avoid recession indefinitely). And I have to believe the SC is going to hand Trump a major loss on birthright citizenship.
Scary times, to be sure, and the issue Matt raises on Democrats' strategy (or lack thereof) wrt the Senate is frustrating as all get out. And yet we've still kept our republic, at least for the time being...
That's more of an indictment of late 20th century neoliberalism. If the center-left adopts full-blown Mercatus Center libertarianism as an econ. policy then we (or they at that point because I'm jumping off) top out at like 225 electoral college votes and we've built a bright red wall across the midwest.
The problem is that the candidates matt will argue that we should run are “anti-neoliberal” on trade and immigration (aka protectionist and restrictionist, i.e terrible on policy).
Tariffs are about to become politically toxic and trump’s popularity on immigration only continues to fall more and more.
I don't know how this all shakes out. I will say one thing: I read recently that our market share of the Chinese soybean market has gone from 40% to 18% (and is likely to fall further). That might get some attention in Iowa.
I thought that happened in the first Trump term. So it's already baked in, right?
But they don’t have to be and that’s the point. It’s possible to be more conservative on immigration without being a fascist, ex: as Matt has advocated, stricter enforcement of existing laws and closing the asylum loophole while also quietly increasing visas for doctors and scientists and so forth. This position would not fly with the current DNC!
We are at a very stressful moment where either more people realize the neoliberals were right all along, or the nationalism & socialism really do combine into something horrific.
There is the risk that Trumpers turn on the wealthy, in more of a Bannon alignment.
"There is the risk that Trumpers turn on the wealthy"
There is zero risk of that.
Or let me put it this way: there is a greater chance that the next Pope will decide that the laws of kosher are mandatory for Catholics than that the Republican party will turn on the wealthy.
I agree that it is unlikely Trump would turn on the wealthy. I'm very apprehensive that Vance (a.k.a. the actual fascist) will gladly do so.
Nihilists on the left. Nihilists on the right. And I’m stuck right in the middle with you.
Thank you! As someone who agrees with you that words should have meaning, I'm baffled by how many (including MY) keep using "conservative" to describe Republicans. "Right wing" is the accurate descriptor.
This is one of the most disorienting aspects of this extremely disorienting time. The right isn't conserative and the left isn't liberal, yet a lot of/way too many people keep on using these terms as if they haven't mutated, and somehow many seem unbothered by the drainage away of meaning.
They did each start out that way but then regressed. Also there _are_ conservatives who voted for Trump, probably a lot, and probably somewhat unhappily. These are the people we need to welcome now!
Same
>Why the fuck did we not pick Shapiro for VP<
"We" didn't have a choice. That choice belonged to Kamala Harris. I like Governor Shapiro just fine. He'd likely make an excellent nominee in 2028, and if Marketing were to come up with an optimal candidate, it would probably look a lot like him. But Tim Walz wasn't a crazy choice in the summer of 2024, and was widely (though not universally, sure) recognized as one of the three or four most sensible picks. I for one don't believe for a second Josh Shapiro would have been a difference maker (though his presence might well have held down that Senate seat, which, to be clear, is not nothing).
>Why the fuck did we not ...throw lame duck Biden under the bus for his failures in 2024.<
Uh, we kinda did, no? You may have recalled most of the party ganged up on him, and forced him off the ticket—a truly extraordinary development in US politics. If that's not bus-throwing (eminently justified, of course), I don't know what is.
The Monday morning quarterbacking around here is as maddening as it is futile. Tomorrow is a new day. It is necessary to learn from our mistakes. It is pointless to obsess over them.
EDIT: If Shapiro ends up winning the White House in 2028, we may want to thank Kamala Harris for passing him over. Being the running mate on a losing ticket isn't exactly a sure fire way to political success. I think the only time in the modern era such a candidate has managed to win the big prize was 1932 (if we can even consider that "modern").
I also thought Shapiro wasn't really excited to be a losing VP candidate when he thought he had a shot at being a winner at the top of the ticket soon? Like if Shapiro had wanted to be the VP I think it could have happened...
This also seems to be why Whitmer wasn't keen on being VP.
Also Roy Cooper.
IIRC Kamala interviewed Shapiro and he didn't seem entirely interested or compatible in playing second-fiddle to her, so she passed over him.
Very possible.
"Uh, we kinda did, no? You may have recalled most of the party ganged up on him, and forced him off the ticket—a truly extraordinary development in US politics. If that's not bus-throwing (eminently justified, of course), I don't know what is."
hear hear.
Great comment, Charles. Thanks for the sane take.
Throwing him under the bus after he had already crashed the bus and everything was on fire isn't the good look we needed though.. We spent the couple years leading up to it lying about his mental capacity and were only willing to back off that lie once it had been exposed in a way we could no longer deny.
I personally liked Shapiro more, but I don’t get why people particularly care about the VP choice at this point. Shapiro was probably a better campaigner, yes, but not to the tune of a 1.5% shift nationally (the only VP pick in decades to matter that much was maybe Palin for negative impact). Nor were there huge policy differences between him and Walz.
The only thing I think he could have done was save us a senate seat.
Could I just ask in what sense you consider Shapiro to be economically conservative?
He waived permitting to focus on getting I-95 built, but I think VP Shapiro would have let us keep a hold on that PA senate seat.
Also I said my positions have become more conservative in reaction to the failure of Biden and Democrats. I am moving more towards a 1998-2004 platform.
So would you consider Abundance Liberals to be more economically conservative than non-Abundance liberals? Because I had thought that Shapiro was just trying to be effective (which I support, of course).
They are going to have perspectives on permitting, land use, and construction more in line with libertarian thinking than the current proceduralism that liberals embrace.
It really bothers me that Jeffries is basically just banking on thermostatically becoming Speaker, and probably barely has to lift a finger to make it happen.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake" is a perfectly cromulent strategy
We need a Democratic leader who loudly and publicly distances the party from the more extreme elements of wokeness, lax law enforcement and liberal immigration policies. That is, what Kamala should have done in 2024 if she wanted to win.
My impression was that Kamala tried to do that, but all the stuff recorded during her run in 2019, combined with her position as part of the incumbent administration, made that impossible. You can say anything, doesn’t mean you can say it credibly.
Not to over index on one interview, but when the hosts of The View asked her what she would do differently than Biden, she basically said she would do nothing differently. She never came out and said Biden did X wrong, which is the absolute bare minimum.
She didn’t embrace 2019-style leftism in her campaign last year, but she didn’t have a Sista Souljah moment either. That’s where "loudly and publicly" comes in.
And “credibly”. Sista Soulja worked because people believed Clinton believed it, because he paid a price for it and he explained himself without coming across like he was doing it just for show. He grounded his remarks in popular values.
I hope whomever at the ACLU asked that stupid question thinks long and hard about what their end game was.
"No, it's the children who are wrong."
Yes, it has to be sustained; it can't be seen as a one-off. So the Democrats need to be consistently putting forth a centrist message from now through 2028. But that's not Jeffries' job. It's really the job of those who are running for the 2028 nomination, and I wish they would declare now and begin running and putting forth that message.
I agree for the 2028 nominee. I don't think that's really how House Minority Leader works though.
Throw the old lame duck under the bus!
If that was provably the case, sure.
But the rank laziness is also a major problem on top of pithy adages. There’s no evidence of any kind of plan BEYOND just waiting for something to fall in Jeffries’ lap which isn’t actually guaranteed to do so. Even accounting for some sort of strategic ambiguity on Jeffries’ part, it’s still insane to not be getting his own team in on the plan.
To use a football analogy, sure, every once in a while Peyton Manning made a calculated decision to override the playcall and run a naked bootleg. It usually resulted in a TD! But you can’t make an entire game plan out of that one successful play that only works in specific circumstances, and you certainly the fuck can’t hang your entire season on not sharing the playcall with your teammates.
Worse, the naked boot still requires the QB (leader) to actually DO something — to run the ball in on a specific route. If the other team’s defensive line is busy making a bunch of mistakes that open up running lanes up the middle, then sure, one can superficially say they’re “making a mistake”. But the specific mistake doesn’t affect the outcome of the play, because the bootleg run is to the OUTSIDE, not the middle where the mistake is. All it takes is one sharp CB or safety to sniff out the bootleg, and the play gets blown up.
To be explicit, what I’m saying is that by not doing ANYTHING, Jeffries is being pretty obvious about his intentions, and some smart actor could easily steal his lunch here and leave us and the party even worse off than we are today. After all, this is more or less what happened with Cantor getting primaried. He took his eyes off the play, and got blindsided.
This sounds a little Green Lanternish to me. The House minority leader has infinitely less power than your random Democratic Senator in the minority who can do a lot to gum up the works. What are these magical tools that Jeffries should be using to help the Democrats win a majority in the House and/or bring Trump's numbers down? (Both of which are happening or likely to happen).
Of course, he could go Newt Gingrich and put out a Contract on (er, with? for?) America. But that was after 40 years of increasingly somnolent/corrupt Democratic control of the House and Gingrich quickly flamed out. What are your alternative models for what the minority leader should be doing?
Not entirely sure. I’m aware that I’m not exactly offering solutions, but that doesn’t invalidate the criticism. What he’s doing is fundamentally unsound in many of the same ways that Dem leadership has been unsound for the last generation or so.
calling dem leadership "unsound" (possible yes minister ref?!) over the past generation is not accurate.
to be sure, the last couple of years has been feckless at times - but the problem is significantly, and overwhelmingly the lack of raw numbers in both chambers.
But we should be preparing to make the most of this opportunity.
That's not a long term solution though
The question is, does the democratic party or the republican party for that matter?Want to be a majority party
I've seen little evidence from either party that they want to be a majority party
An issue with a “vote for us, we’re not the horrible people” approach is that even when it works, it tends to result in a rapidly declining appeal when you actually do get into office. Look at Keir Starmer: he flawlessly executed a platform of Not Being Bojo/Truss/Sunak but is way underwater now because he doesn’t actually have a meaningful agenda
It's not at all a bad strategy to bide time right now. Trump will continue to make mistakes and that will raise the salience of issues, and Democrats can pick whichever they think are best to run on.
It's also not the case historically that a party needs to actively repudiate its previous stances; you can also just quietly move on. That's what the 2016 Trump campaign did on gay marriage for example -- he didn't spend a ton of time talking about how Republicans' previous stance was wrong, he just made it clear that he wasn't against gay marriage and so forced the party to basically abandon it as an issue.
You’re ignoring what I said. There is no evidence of any actual strategy nor a valid “theory of the case” that goes BEYOND a simple pithy adage.
I'm not intending to ignore what you said. IMO Democrats' best bet is to stay invisible right now. Let Trump piss voters off and pay attention to the *specific ways* he is pissing voters off, then start running on those things when the midterm election cycle begins. You aren't seeing evidence of a party strategy right now because articulating one would be premature.
I already accounted for THAT too.
I specifically said:
“Even accounting for some sort of strategic ambiguity on Jeffries’ part, it’s still insane to not be getting his own team in on the plan.”
Try reading downthread.
I saw that point, but you are assuming that because we aren't seeing this play out publicly it isn't happening at all.
There's no need to take a hostile tone. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm operating in bad faith.
>It really bothers me that Jeffries is basically just banking on thermostatically becoming Speaker<
What's he doing wrong in your view?
I mean... if you read the article, it would mean that there is approximately zero chance of winning the Senate.
I'm not sure any strategy would be able to make Jeffries Speaker of the Senate.
Matt writes it's zero *unless they do something different*. But again, what, exactly, is the Democratic leader in the House doing that is negatively impacting his party's chances in the Senate. What should he be doing differently?
Run on popular things, don’t run on unpopular things, and/or make the things you run on popular,
It may help to see the Democratic Party as a coalition of causes, as though the Horticulture Club, the Friends of the Springfield Library, and the Fresh Air Fund all got together to hold a joint fundraising potluck.
Or it may drive you further into despair.
I became pretty disillusioned when they won a trifecta in 2020 and then prioritized climate change. Did anyone think that was good politics?
I for one think it was good *policy,* which is why I care about Democrats getting elected. Leaving problems getting monotonically worse every year that affect all humans alive unaddressed is bad, actually.
Totally disagree. Zeroing out US emissions for 26 years would avert 0.1 degree of global warming. The marginal benefit of decarbonizing a bit faster is negligible. The marginal benefit of keeping the median voter happy so Trump doesn’t win is far greater.
I agree ultimately that keeping trump out was more important with the benefit of hindsight but I will push back a bit - I think the benefits of the USA becoming the global leader in clean energy, combined with the other R&D friendly investments in the major Biden bills, were going to be highly beneficial economically (we were already seeing a boom in the much cherished manufacturing jobs) beyond their environmental impact.
That being said, I guess we’ll never know, and the strategy obviously proved to not work out politically or on policy since the policy is being reversed.
If your lodestar is climate, then you should be ok with China being the global leader in solar and evs. Lower costs means less carbon, and they are much better at churning out cheap widgets than we are
This is just not true. Our carbon emissions are basically flat, despite our economy growing. China is a major, and growing, contributor to glibal emissions.
When the IRA was passed, Trump was basically a dead man walking. He had put on his pathetic, low-energy campaign kickoff at Mar a Lago when he couldn't even get anyone prominent to attend. Ron DeSantis was seen as the obvious successor.
Not how it turned out (duh) but there was nothing fated about Trump recapturing the Republican nomination. So to say that the Democrats shouldn't have done anything that would have long-term benefits because it might help Trump win the White House on the margin is some real retconning.
The marginal benefit of keeping Trump out is now 0.
the marginal value of keeping maga 3.0 from happening is considerable.
Like the ACA, I thought the infra / IRA bills were worthwhile expenditures of political capital to address real, significant policy problems. But unlike the ACA, I thought its effects would be popular sooner, mitigating the always existing downside risk of doing any big legislation.
I was wrong. Lots to unpack and discuss about why but I think lots of democrats made the same calculus. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing Trump would make a comeback, it was obviously not worth it, even if the benefits were going to be large and generational - since there’s now no benefit, the whole thing is getting undone.
We bogged down the efforts with so much process and appeasement politics. Like the TSMC fab in Arizona was bogged down by a union labor rider. So many racial and environmental justice requirements to build dang EV chargers. Why? Just spend it and get the stuff built.
The TSMC fab was only slightly delayed. It got up and running pretty quickly in the end and is outperforming their facilities in Taiwan.
But sure we should also go faster.
It got up faster because the Biden admin waived a bunch of the non-chipmaking riders removed from the project.
That's really the issue. Investment is good and I think can be sold as a forward looking political vision but its not going to work if you have to also try to play Santa Claus to every single interest group in the broader coalition.
But how did the infrastructure/IRA bills *hurt* the Democrats? The ACA clearly hurt the Democrats in 2010 (and maybe later). The two just don't seem comparable.
I honestly tend to agree with you; I think the argument made by many here, including (I think) Matt, is that they a) contributed to inflation and b) centered climate in a way that bothered swing voters. I'm not sure that's entirely true though - I really think inflation combined with the end of COVID SuperDole measures was going to end up severely hurting Biden regardless of what they did with the IRA/infra bills.
Hard to know but (a) the IRA didn't contribute to inflation (it was paid for) and (b) I've seen no evidence that passing the IRA angered voters who thought doing things on climate was wrong.
Inflation, the border surge, the toxic "woke" brand of the Democrats, Biden being the doddering out of it image of the party for so long, voters around the world being in a pissy mood and beating up on incumbents: the reasons for the Democratic defeat really aren't more complicated than that. We don't need to bring things like the IRA into the argument.
I think the infrastructure/IRA actions were directionally positive. However, opportunity costs are a massively underrated part of politics, and I think that's the biggest piece you're missing.
I also disagree that you can wave away it's inflationary effects, but I don't think that's central to the case.
AOC supported and met with the Green New Deal sit-in demonstrators in Pelosi’s office. And she’s the 2028 candidate? “Losing the plot” is not an ideal criterion for party leadership.
You know how people keep saying "if liberals won't enforce the border, fascists will". There's a version of that on the left. If liberals won't build a political movement to fight Trump, socialists will. People like that AOC seems to be *doing something*.
exactly. they’re probably not going to deliver a ton of votes in kansas, but they have lots of social media capital and some pretty good small donors too, and you can’t just write that out of the coalition and still expect support from them.
I don't know. It's amazing to see how the strong leaders of our side like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Amy Klobuchar and Bill Maher are leading the fight against Trump.
Sigh: /s
We should have had staffers chasing them out with super soakers.
With what liquid?
Water.
Deer repellant would ruin the furniture.
As someone whose career is focused on climate change and who thinks the IRA was mostly good on the merits - no, it was not good politics, in ways that were easily foreseeable, and even where it was good, it fought against itself in other ways and ignored near-zero-cost opportunities to be better.
As opposed to what really? A third bite in a row at "comprehensive health care reform"?
Technology investment and infrastructure investment would have been a decent platform if one hadn't overdosed on stimulus and let the border run out control. (And tried to run a declining 80 year old).
I think in retrospect, knowing that Trump would be able to make a comeback and that 1/6 was not his deathknell, there was a pretty strong case to be made for the Dem majority largely keeping its powder dry - doing the promised stimulus checks but as part of a smaller package, overseeing the Mission Accomplished vaccine rollout, and doing symbolic popular cultural stuff (pro choice judges, etc).
That all being said, I really don't think there was some magical fix for the inflation issues that made people so mad at incumbents around the world and Biden here specifically. I know Matt has pointed to some things he thought would have made a difference at least rhetorically, and I get that, but I don't really think there was gonig to be a major substantive difference - why would we be immune from a global trend?
The issue that they maybe could have more effectively neutralized was the border issue, maybe by investing that first-term political capital into a bipartisan border bill. Perhaps doing it in 2021 when Trump was at his weakest would have prevented him from being able to nuke it the way he did later on. Obviously, we'll never know.
I’ve seen credible claims that perhaps a quarter to a third of the 2022 inflation was downstream of the fiscal stimulus. So not doing that might not have quite swung things in 2024, but it was a close enough election that it’s possible.
More cynically, you could argue that if there was going to be a big spending bill spending, it should have prioritized things more salient to Low Information Voters. On the more respectable side, a lasting child credit or similar, on the dumber side, direct stimulus checks or demand subsidies for groceries or gas.
Absent inflation and the huge border surge, the Democrats would have won the White House in 2024 and held the House (probably not the Senate). That, and passing vitally needed climate change legislation strongly argues to me that, yes, it was very good politics. After all, the point of winning elections is to *do* things.
I will never regret their passing the IRA.
if vance had been the nominee, i would have voted r. the only thing that kept me on the team that sneers at me was january 6
Vance is one of the most loathsome creatures I've ever seen.
How do the Democrats sneer at you? The worst they've ever done for me is send me donation requests every minute 24/7 which made me muse about voting for Trump. (Fact check: no, of course not.)
JFC, the man sold his soul for power, and you would have voted for him?
The IRA was a hell of a lot more than just a “climate change” bill, it was also a massive mobilization of american manufacturing, in both blue and red states.
i don’t feel mobilized. what did you get?
Well, if it didn't personally benefit you, that's a pretty definitive argument that it was bad legislation.
A lot of factories being built. It takes a couple years to build a factory.
The knowledge that the government was at least trying to do something helpful for the forgotten man/woman in predominantly red areas?
They think the American people are the thing that needs to be improved, not their own performance.
Part of the problem with minimum wage though is putting aside the $15 number (which didn't have full support across the caucus) is that you need 60 votes and it was unclear there was a path to cutting a deal with the Rs even at a lower number. Unlike at the state level where even in red states you can do ballot initiatives.
The SPD and KPD were at each other's throats right up until the end.
I think 15 min wage for dropped because it was enacted in the super liberal states that these people inhabit. NY IL and CA. So they no longer see this issue anymore
In defense, pretty much everybody gets at least $15 an hour now.
Forced to choose between the malicious and the inept is a sad place to be.
Paging Freddie de Boer about how he was right again... https://medium.com/@jesse.singal/the-iron-law-of-institutions-and-the-left-333c42c246af
A lil
What Yglesias is failing to take note of in this Debbie Downer piece is that, in 2026, Democrats will have master political strategist David Hogg on their side.
You mean Saint Hogg?
No, Boss Hogg.
They should boot that loser and traitorous liar out. He has the same corruption and entitlement as Trump about him.
I don't believe David Hogg is remotely like Trump in the corruption department. I just think he's too inexperienced, and doesn't perceive the world very accurately.
Hogg is the old-style corruption, "give my organization $1 million or we will have a die-in at your grocery store."
Trump is the new-style "just give me $1 million and you can have a meeting with me, or just buy my memecoin."
Ahh, the old Al Sharpton move. I’m happy we are so multicultural that others pick up on it.
You're really comparing Hogg to Trump?
I'm the opposite of a fan of his, but sheesh.
Yes? I'm comparing them by pointing out that Trump is worse. This White House doesn't even bother with fig leafs about donating to some third-party charity. It's just straight pay-to-play.
I am talking about moral corruption, but I am probably wrong on that. I am just upset he is using Democratic Party resources to primary and ratfuck sitting Democrats.
I read he's been told "no" by this superiors: DNC leaders are required to be neutral in primaries. Not sure if it'll stick, or if he'll obey orders. I agree his plan to primary incumbent Democrats is moronically counterproductive, and is flat out unacceptable in a DNC official.
He needs to be whacked with a newspaper and told “no.”
I can't believe that little twerp has wangled his way into DNC leadership just from surviving a school shooting.
He also wrangled a Harvard degree.
More confirmation that Democrats give too much deference to the Ivy’s.
An academically unqualified American white male getting into Harvard could have been a great opportunity for conservative reach-out!
Had me in the first half
For all the faults of factionalist leftists, centrists and moderates spend so much time moaning and wringing their hands about it. Broadening the tent won’t happen by complaining Sanders is getting more attention.
Like Matt says, what is the plan? Moderates could be out there holding events and pushing their agendas. Why aren’t they?
Isn't that Ezra Klein pushing his book?
Do I detect a bit of sarcasm here?
I recall that Tweet where Mr. Hogg invited gun owners to leave the party. It was being played over and over again on social media once he was put on the DNC. I'm putting off my resignation so far. I have been a registered D all my life, as well as a union shop steward in two unions and board member in one. Sadly, I fail the Hogg purity test, having grown up in a rural area where hunting and shooting tin cans was not considered a grievous character flaw. I'll have to see if his worldview prevails, as I suppose the few other remaining middle of the road Democrats might be doing.
But if the sort of Hoggwash I speak of prevails, it sure does reduce the chances of a "big tent" Democratic party winning those Flyover states and getting that Senate majority.
On the plus side, moderates could earn points by just telling him to shut the fuck up as often and as loudly as possible. Matt is unwilling to acknowledge the Dems' 69-D chess strategy here.
Exactly. I feel like there are a lot of Dem leaders who remember the looming GOP majority of the Bush era and how it turned on a dime in 2006 and then the sinking economy led to 60 D senators in 2008 and figure the same thing will somehow just happen with Trump. But to paraphrase Rick Pitino, Blanche Lincoln is not walking through that door. Max Baucus is not walking through that door. Byron Dorgan is not walking through that door.
“…Blanche Lincoln is not walking through….”
And if Lincoln, Baucus and Dorgan did walk through the door, how would their positions on the issues be received by the online discourse monitors?
I'm hardly the first to say this, but if you look at who the 60 D senators were in 2009-10, it's absolutely incredible that they got consensus on the ACA. Someone like Blanche Lincoln was 20 points underwater and knew she was probably losing reelection and voted for it anyway.
It’s underrated the extent to which the ACA vote was the most politically courageous action certainly in a generation - bunch of senators and congresspeople not only committed career suicide but arguably cemented their districts / states as Republican for a generation to get it passed.
To me, it’s indisputable that this was a perfect example of being politically courageous / putting policy above your career and the only debate should be whether it was worth it.
I thought absolutely yes for a long time, but now with the benefit of hindsight knowing the solid R bloc in the senate would be enablers of authoritarianism and insurrection I’m a lot less sure.
“ now with the benefit of hindsight … I’m a lot less sure.”
Which is compatible with it having been the right choice for those agents at that time, given what they knew and could reasonably expect.
As one of the people whose ability to lead a functional life depends on the ACA, I am grateful every day they made that call. FWIW
That hindsight is doing an awful lot of work. Vote for ACA => facilitate Trumpian authoritarianism is a very tenuous connection.
Oh for sure. I don't think anyone could have reasonably predicted this at the time, it was a worthwhile sacrifice at the time.
That being said, it's obviously true - since the Blanche Lincolns of the world got wiped out, the Democrats have been completely noncompetitive in those areas. Maybe not the end of the world with a somewhat sane opposition, but really problematic now.
for something that stuck, the ACA was the most politically courageous vote. but imo, the house voting for cap and trade was more courageous in maybe 09/10 (cant remember) but it didnt stick, so doesnt matter.
I'm young so maybe you can educate me on the politics/expectations at the time, but that seemed more stupid than brave? It's one thing to torch your majority to *pass* transformational legislation but why torch your career on a bill that can't pass? Was it generally asssumed DOA in the senate? Southwest Virginia's congressman voted for it despite repping one of the top 10 coal producing districts in the country and he lost by 3 or 4 points, was it worth it in order to have the bill die in the senate?
One of the big problems with modern politics is we burn tremendous amounts of political capital taking positions we can't implement anyway, which is very different from burning political capital to actually pass something good.
Let's expand on this and ask the question: if they were running next year, how many of these Democratic Senators from 2009 would be likely to win:
Baucus (MT), Harkin (IA), Rockefeller (WV), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Feingold (WI), Tim Johnson (SD), Landrieu (LA), Lincoln (AR), Pryor (AR), Bayh (IN), Nelson (FL), McCaskill (MO), Tester (MT), Hagan (NC), Begich (AK)
Maybe a couple would pull out a win. Most probably not. Partly it's because of the terrible Democratic brand, as Matt rightly argues. But mostly it's because these states have really, really changed since 2009.
None of those folks came out of nowhere in their states. But the partisan divide has deepened such that there probably are very few people like them in their states now. They were all likely the most moderate of the then democrats in the state. The most moderate dems in those states are probably not as moderate because the dem side has been squeezed and the R side has radicalized. What needs to happen is the national party has to go find whoever is the most moderate dem today, and then persuade them to shift right, and then support the hell out of them while protecting them on their left flank. But I guess that's MY's complaint, no one at the top of the party is even contemplating doing it.
I agree but I was just saying that if these exact same people with the exact same stands ran today most of them would still lose. Maybe that's because of the toxic national brand which they couldn't run away from or maybe it's because the state has changed so much, but either way it's not really about candidate recruitment.
There's truth to that for sure, but we also don't need to win in Arkansas neccesarily, Texas or Ohio would do just fine. Someone with even Jon Tester's views, who's way to the left of most of those folks, probably wins re-election in Ohio this year, if Tester had Manchins views (also to the left of many of those folks), he probably wins re-election. We really know what to do to get D+20, D+15, D+10, D+5 overperformances, we just run the D+20 candidates in 70-30 R states, the D+15 candidates in 60-40 R states etc. so they overperform a lot but still lose, gotta shift basically all the red/purple state guys a notch to the center
Yes, this seems about right. That was what we needed for 60 Dems in the Senate, and those days are gone for a very long time. The same for the Republicans ever having 60 in the Senate.
States are always changing, but these Senators and the party were adaptable and flexible to that, so they could change along with the states and continue to win.
Until we stop being the party that sounds like a mom telling you what not to do, we don’t have a chance. Wake me up if that happens but until then I don’t have the time to pay attention to a party that sticks to a loser strategy.
80% of the work could just be going back to cool, charismatic, confident dads, like Bill and Barack. Who makes light fun of the prissy killjoys in his stump speech.
how much complaining about certain democrats being killjoys is just sexism?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-brothers-should-pull-up-their-pants/
"You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What's wrong with that? Come on. There are some issues that we face, that you don't have to pass a law, but that doesn't mean folks can't have some sense and some respect for other people and, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear — I'm one of them."
Wouldn’t the equivalent of this for Kamala be her scolding women specifically? Did she do that a lot?
Some of this stuff he targets at black fathers specifically but definitely not all of it.
https://www.politico.com/story/2008/06/text-of-obamas-fatherhood-speech-011094
A LOT of obama's appeal was modeling an old school "family values" conservative lifestyle but crossing that with essentially a generic liberal policy agenda.
Did Harris get criticized for espousing old school family values? I don’t remember that.
You are saying that Harris was criticized for saying the same things as Obama because of sexism, right?
No what I'm responding to is the contention in this thread that Democrats became a party that "shames you for having fun" and is the party of "mom telling you what to do." In my mind, Obama was dedicated and hardworking guy who embodied and advocated a pretty virtuous path and was in his own way somewhat judgmental.
So I'm not too sure why people think the party has changed that much, except that some of the worse parts of the left have been released into the wild?
If Harris said this people would absolutely say its cliched virtue signaling:
"But now, my life revolves around my two little girls. And what I think about is what kind of world I’m leaving them. Are they living in a country where there’s a huge gap between a few who are wealthy and a whole bunch of people who are struggling every day? Are they living in a country that is still divided by race? A country where, because they’re girls, they don’t have as much opportunity as boys do? Are they living in a country where we are hated around the world because we don’t cooperate effectively with other nations? Are they living a world that is in grave danger because of what we’ve done to its climate?
And what I’ve realized is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children — all of our children — a better world. Even if it’s difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don’t get very far in our lifetime."
To make your point, shouldn’t you cite speeches Harris actually gave and was criticized for and show that they were similar to Obama’s speeches he was praised for?
I guess the way to solve this is to figure out how moms manage to help their children grow up not just safe but thriving, without adopting this tone. Do you just need to have more effective children, or are there strategies you can learn?
Are you saying that the electorate are children? I think it is crazy that you think the problem is “Communicate as a Mom effectively” and not “Stop acting like a mom because YOU ARE NOT MY MOM”
The problem is that people think that anyone who tries to make things better for you must inherently be treating you as a child, and that treating you as a child is bad. I think the job of the government is to help make things better for us, and unfortunately one of the main models we have of that is one that people resent. And it’s not just the “you are not my mom” part - this thread began with the observation that many kids are equally resentful when it *is* their mom. The question is how to do good without triggering resentment, and effective parents are one good model for that (though sometimes it seems to rely on better children who just don’t resent people for caring about them).
I don't think that's the right diagnosis of the mom issue. In the 90s it was the conservatives who felt like nagging moms. Because they were the ones trying to impose values on the public that the public mostly didn't share.
That's when you end up on the wrong side of this dynamic. Not from trying to make policy, but from trying to enforce unpopular values.
I think this entire chain of logic is incredibly flawed and problematic. It presumes that if I have an idea about how to make things better, and you don't like it, that you are wrong simply because I am "Mom" and I know better.
It discounts the idea that maybe the other person
- doesn't think the problem I am trying to solve is, in fact, a problem
- agrees about the problem but thinks my solution is ass, and wants to do a different thing instead
But maybe the other person is right, and I am wrong? Have I considered that? If I have, and still think I am right, then how should I persuade them? Should I even try (note that "agree to disagree" is a viable outcome among adult allies, but is not in a parent/child relationship)?
Effective parenting is a TERRIBLE model for this, it is not "one good model" for this. The other people just are not your children.
I think between 1976-2016 there was relatively bipartisan elite alignment that free trade and immigration should not be central campaign issues because the electorate has bad views on these. This is similarly true of certain conspiracy theories, like anti-vax sentiment. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into the parenting metaphor, but it's definitely the case that the parties suppressed certain issues that could have been electoral winners and kept those who tried to profit from them (like Pat Buchanan, etc) to the fringes.
That is sort of fair, but breaks down if you keep asking the “elites” to take ridiculous stances as litmus tests that then undermine them because you force the issues to become partisan.
Like, it is patently ridiculous that someone asked Harris about surgeries for Trans people in prison (it’s also pretty ridiculous that she did not answer some variation of “Why tf are you wasting my time with this question? The president has bigger fish to fry”, but that is yet another matter)
I think you are misunderstanding the discussion here.
Most of the discussion I have about politics, and that is had on this forum, is on the merits. If someone wants to discuss the merits of the policy, talking about whether something is or isn't actually a problem, or disagreeing with the proposed solution, I'm happy to do that.
But there are some people who want to change the subject to become one of complaining that people are treating them like children. It was only in response to that that I said there is a problem of figuring out how to get people to stop feeling insulted by people trying to work on policy.
also on the substance nanny state liberal policies like hard smoking crackdowns are some of the most effective quality of life measures in history. I understand this stuff became politically toxic around 2010 or so but it's a huge shame that bloomberg-ish policies have been totally excised from public debate because they worked great.
I'm not convinced this sort of policy became any more or less toxic - if anything, I think Bloomberg's attempted soda size crackdown came at the one moment when that sort of policy was closest to being acceptable in public debate.
Smoking crackdowns were usually waged largely on behalf of non-smokers, and not primarily focused on saving people from themselves. It's unfortunate that there's not a similar angle we can take on gambling.
Side note: gambling certainly can have very bad effects on people other than the gamblers themselves.
Source, my husband’s uncle, who got divorced because his wife would gamble irresponsibly and get the whole household in financial trouble.
Yeah i'm not too sure... but I know there was a time when some cities were thinking of experimenting with a sugar tax but that seems basically dead now.
It's true the restaurant/public smoking bans were largely justified by second hand smoke. But there are numerous other policies that were part of the anti-smoking campaign - (1) punitive taxes (2) advertising bans (3) lawsuits against tobacco companies (4) massive social stigmatization of smoking.
Just on taxes, it was a challenge to get liberals onside since tobacco taxes are technically regressive, but I think funnelling the funds raised to very progressive uses like CHIP expansion helped.
Scolding and governing are different things.
The scolding is apparently not very effective, and it is unpopular enough that if we do it, we’ll lose our chance to govern.
I agree. People shouldn’t scold. But I don’t want to be all scold-y about that either, because that turns the scolders off too.
Don’t forget shaming you for having fun :)
Children usually run to their moms when they have a booboo. And we have a yuuuge booboo right now.
But gotta be the mom who gives it a little kiss and a band-aid, not the one who says "WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN, DUMMY?!"
It's interesting that the Dems seem to be a bit overly strict on candidate selection making it tough to compete in some races, while Republicans are throwing away winnable races by allowing some terrible candidates(perhaps the only qualification is loyalty to Trump).
If Republicans had just run normal people in every race we could have been in an even deeper hole.
Republicans are going to run a bunch of George Santoses and we are still going to have trouble selecting palatable candidates for normal people.
There is no plan. In some ways, this may be the reverse image of the Maga takeover of the GOP. The moderate leadership is afraid that they cannot hold the party together without pandering to the left. And the left is not interested in winning, they’re interested in winning an interparty status game as Matt so clearly laid out on Friday. Because if the Democrats win, the left-wing will not see their status rise, and therefore are not interested in helping.
The only answer I can think of is to coopt the left-wing by making them believe that their status will rise as a fact of an overall democratic win. Other alternatives seem highly impractical in our polarized environment. But that is such a difficult project, that I can see how the Dem leadership is able to rationalize themselves into a “one day at a time” strategy.
The left is filled with epistemological and rhetorical nihilists. Even as their ideas become less popular, less salient, and as they lose more elections and seats they act even more entitled and even more morally righteous. And yet when we should be cutting out rectal polyps like David Hogg, Democrats decide to double down on the failed policy of appeasing the implacable.
I think this is correct. I think it's only the next Presidential nominee who can really change the party's national brand. I am not hugely optimistic there, but I think there's an outside chance if someone emerges channeling outsider energy and charisma.
In the meantime the Dem Senate election committee needs to get as heterodox in their recruitment as possible. But, I just looked up the DSCC head, Kristen Gilibrand, so not at all optimistic there.
We do not need the "help" of the Left to win. A bit of antagonism could even help. "Bernie Sanders hate me" could be a badge of honor in some states.
The thing is that Bernie Sanders *himself* is pretty popular, including with moderates and independents. The problem is that basically every other elected official who is a part of his movement isn’t.
This is exactly what makes arguing with leftists about Bernie so tedious. I know Bernie is popular! I'm not a moron. But also concede that everyone associates with his full slate of policies constantly underperforms.
Every losing football team's most popular player is the backup quarterback until they have to actually start.
Society if Bernie had won in 2016:
No real argument from me, except: I think Bernie, being associated with wanting to "break things" — doesn't inspire the vitriol among conservatives and moderates that a lot of Democrats do. I'd rather go with "Liz Warren hates me" or "David Hogg hates me."
Had Bernie been the Dem nominee, I'm pretty confident that the Republicans would not have handled him with kid gloves.
Oh for sure they had fat volumes of oppo ready to go had he prevailed in the primary in 2016. And he would have lost, I suspect. I do think Sanders might have won the general election in 2020, though.
Funny I'd flip those. Sanders had really high favorables in 2016 and Trump's were atrocious, Sanders' were better than Trump's in 2020 but the gap was dramatically smaller than in 2016. Even if you nerf Sanders in '16 to his '20 favorables which is a huge drop he still comfortably beats Trump. Hillary was almost the only dem who could've lost to Trump in '16, Trump had a negative 25 point net favorables in '16, it was like -8 in '20 and -6 in '24
One reason he had high favorables in 2016 is that the Republicans didn’t lay a glove on him. Rightly or wrongly, they thought he would be an easier general election opponent, and were hoping he would prevail over Hillary Clinton. The GOP absolutely would’ve unloaded on him with deafening artillery. The moment he became the nominee.
So maybe AOC is the answer? Just like Obama could be more centrist because, hey, he's Black, so too an increasingly pragmatic AOC can keep the progressives quiet while thinking she's on their side whereas in reality she's a pretty cagy politician who is learning the game and figuring out how to build a winning coalition.
There are at least signs that that is how she's thinking.
Freddie wrote a piece about how AOC is a centrist sellout hack now, so she’s got that going for her 😊
Still not sure if she’s moderate enough to win the Median Swing Suburban Voter Guy tho
That's good news!
You and others have laid out the problems with the left, but the "establishment" has a different problem; I have no clue what they stand for. They aren't making a case for themselves at all. Of any faction, why do I feel least out of step with the center-left? Well, the entire Republican party has gone insane, and I'm not on the left, so I default to the center-left. So like many others here, "we're not Trump" is good enough for me. But It's not good enough for the average voter. They need a positive agenda, not just a negative one.
JB Pritzker is very much part of the establishment. Dems could do worse in my view.
Dude's a fucking brawler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXjR_8zMiPA&ab_channel=WMUR-TV
But his whole thing is based on being a fighter, and apparently every democratic consultant/strategist is terrified of that.
If his whole thing is going to be "Trump sucks," well... that might be enough. He is president now, which he wasn't last time, so he'll actually have a record to run against.
Khan Pritzker stand up!
Divide and conquer should work well enough to scatter the leftist political influencers as long as there is a strong enough center. The center can evolve as well, particularly if that generates more leftist infighting.
We may even want to strategically fund and promote particularly potent, new voices that attack the eatablished Bernie, Biden, Warren synthesis. Moreover our ever more fragmented media ecosystem, algorithmic bias, and generative AI all seem likely to disproportionately harm these fractions. Notably their revenue and cost structures.
We shouldn't blindly hope this works. Yet we have a multitude of options for managing these threats as well beneficial structural changes in the tech and media ecosystem as well as helpful labor market dislocations. I'm personally quite optimistic!
would love to hear more about these options and beneficial structural changes...
Only a dramatic hostile takeover a la Trump 2016 is going to change the fundamental orientation and coalition of the Democratic Party that was crystallized by Obama, a teleological triumph of reason that ends politics forever on the unstoppable wave of the young and nonwhite.
Individual local low-salience races can't change a brand that well-established. And so that being the case, 2028 is the earliest change can arrive.
The Dan Osborn One Weird Trick of removing the D from the ticket is strange and defeatist and hard to implement and a huge longshot, all true. But it's POSSIBLE. Changing the Democratic brand by low-wattage moderate issue positioning in midterm races isn't possible. 2026 is too short of a timeline for that to work.
“The plan” from what I can tell, is to “fight oligarchy”. But that makes me nervous for a few reasons. 1) It’s not clear to me that working-class people - who we desperately need to win more of- are all that focused on “oligarchs”. Here in NYC, their concerns are more about housing costs and public safety/disorder. It’s not that they are in love with Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but attacking them doesn’t address those issues. But also- 2) - if you’re going to go all-in against oligarchs, what do you do about Alex Soros? Do you not want his money? Sure Bernie and AOC are big enough stars that they can fund with small dollar donations, but I don’t think we have many more leaders who can pull that off. This is going to empower a handful of social media stars, but it’s not a plan for winning actual power.
I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but I would bet very, very strongly (and large) that Amazon polls better than any politician in the country.
Maybe, but Bezos probably doesn’t
Bezos has been out of $AMZN for nearly 4 years. [1] Think he still has some emeritus chairman role or something inconsequential. At most his ~10% holding of $AMZN and associated voting power is what matters.
Even good that he left before transforming his public image--similar to Gates and dissimilar to Musk. The public may actually like him more if Bezos is just a Bond villain who competes w/ Musk to dominate space and online media, while being vaguely associated w/ selling books to fellow nerds three decades ago.
[1] May 26 2021 - Jeff Bezos to formally step down as Amazon CEO on July 5, Andy Jassy to take over - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/26/jeff-bezos-to-formally-step-down-as-amazon-ceo-on-july-5.html
Do you think the average voter knows literally any of this?
Because the only thing people know about Bezos is his yacht and sending Katy Perry to space.
I don't know how to win the Senate. What I do know is that a lot of Democrats want "fighters". After Romney lost to Obama, a lot of Republicans wanted "fighters" too. And they didn't want to fight to accomplishing anything or even win elections. Republicans wanted fighting for the sake of fighting, and that is how we got Trump. It would be a negative development if Democrats followed the same path.
As Matt has written multiple times before, Trump didn’t just fight. He also moderated on many issues like Medicare, SS and abortion.
He did more than just moderate. He radically broke with the GOP on free-trade and adopted the ~ progressive left, anti-NAFTA position. Shoot ... he might have gone even further than Bernie. It's really impossible to pin Trump down on the pre-Trump left-right dimensions.
All of this discourse about how Dems should strategize to win seems a bit like aliens trying to reason from first principles and unreliable issue polling about how to win a human election.
Yes, of course it’s possible in principle that omniscient Dem strategists would figure it out. But having basically no theory of mind when it comes to the persuadable population is a crippling disadvantage. (Everyone is still fighting about whether people in Iowa are all secret communists waiting for the Marxist Messiah.)
Even if Dems *could* figure out exactly what people want and messaged accordingly, I’m still not sure they’d be in great shape. (Imagine the alien politicians all take issue positions you agree with after discussing at length “how do we get the human idiots to vote for us”? Moreover, you know that in private aliens are all weirdos who are obsessed with stuff like Christian theology. Would you vote for them?)
I think you're right about this, and what it boils down to is a credibility problem. It's not just about finding a different type of message It's about finding different types of people.
Is it really that hard to figure out what people want?
Ask them they will tell you
Culturally right, with a robust safety net and low taxes
"robust safety net and low taxes"
And how do you fund said "robust safety net" with low taxes? Magic pixie dust?
It would be a lot easier to give people what they want if the things people wanted were logically consistent. I want to be slim and fit while having a large slice of cheesecake and multiple servings of chocolate every day, but that doesn't make it a realistic goal.
Bingo. Foster a Heartland Party, for Real Americans, run by ex-GOP staffers, and advertise it to the gills. Run it in every gettable state. Bring in talent. It'll take time and consistency to rack up wins. Network. Foster a sense of community.
The country will never be safe without a non-authoritarian right-wing option.
You, like I, must be listening to the Sarah Longwell Focus Group podcasts.
Voters, God love 'em. They're something, all right.
The plan in Ohio can be simple enough. Find a Fetterman type and give him a slightly longer leash on immigration and trans issues.
I’m not sure there’s any evidence a child tax credit polls poorly in Ohio. Taxing the rich to help struggling families raise kids seems politically savvy to me.
People really want to believe that "tax the rich" is a big political winner, but I think it's low-salience to non-rich people and high-salience to rich people in a way that makes it a loser. My evidence for this is the political fortunes of the Republican and Democratic parties over the last N years.
When Republicans have nothing to say besides "we should cut taxes," they struggle, but as soon as they have any other issues, nobody cares if they cut taxes for the rich, and Democrats I think have been consistently unable to make much hay out of, "we'll tax the rich."
There is a lot of evidence that “tax the rich” is a big political winner. Future Forward’s ad testing found that the most effective Harris ads were ones hitting Trump on tax cuts for the rich!
Interesting. How do you reconcile this with what Michael Sullivan is saying, i.e., that Democrats' consistent position on this hasn't helped them win consistently? I see a couple possibilities.
1. Low-engagement voters somehow don't know that Democrats are the party that wants to tax rich people. I don't know for sure, but this seems unlikely to me because (a) Democratic politicians are always going on and on about "broligarchy" and billionaires, and (b) people who know partisan liberals have surely also observed that those people tend to be against the rich and complain that they don't pay their fair share. (If people don't even know that Democrats want to tax the rich, on what information are they basing their votes? If they're so hard to reach, does messaging strategy even matter?)
2. People are generally favorable towards the idea of taxing the rich, but it ranks very low on their list of priorities. (By what measure is an ad "effective" in this study? Does effective mean that people like the message or that the message is likely to be pivotal in their voting behavior?)
3. This issue is, in fact, a huge political winner, and it's the only thing keeping Democrats from doing even worse (say, getting 35-40% of the vote instead of 50%).
Basically (3). The Democratic Party is pretty successful at winning elections
And then she lost the election. I'll really the evidence of the voting booth over ad testing.
That doesn’t tell you anything about whether the ads were effective or not. Dan Osborn lost his Senate race, does that mean his strategy/messaging was useless?
Every argument for child tax credit seems to assume that the fiscal baseline is fine and all you need is a bit more in taxes to pay for this new program. The baseline is not close to being fine and it’s going to get worse with an extension of TJCA and whatever they have cooking in the Congress right now.
I live in Ohio and have watched it slide from purple to red over the past few cycles; I don't know if a Fetterman type is enough. We have elected very few statewide Dems except Sherrod Brown (who mostly benefited from name recognition and a few wonky election cycles the past few times around) and one governor (Ted Strickland) who was to the right on guns and was running against a not-very-good Republican candidate in Kenneth Blackwell. There are very few emerging stars in the state party that anyone outside of their particular fiefdom has heard of; the bench is thin; and developing good candidates in the legislature has been stymied by gerrymandering and the legislature's willingness to ignore public will on redistricting, multiple times over, thanks to Republicans' full control over the state government and the entire redistricting process. It's pretty demoralizing to realize I can't think of a single Ohio Democrat who could beat Bernie effing Moreno.
Nothing that a good Trump-caused recession can't help cure.
That feels overly pessimistic, a senator the left of the average senate democrat came within a few points of winning. I know Brown has legacy name rec/incumbency, but if he just had his old positions on immigration and energy he probably wins? Tim Ryan is somewhat more moderate coded now but he's genuinely not that moderate, and got 47% of the two-way vote in a D president midterm. It's obviously a tough challenge but it seems like they haven't really tried the hard moderation they'd need. If Manchin can run 40 points ahead in WV do we really think a similar candidate couldn't get 10-15 points you need for Ohio?
what’s your plan, buck eye?
Your guess is as good as mine. In 2024, there as a drop of 2% to 5% turnout in traditional Dem strongholds like Franklin and Cuyahoga county, so turnout efforts might help, but mostly in an off year election. Trump won Ohio by around 11 points in 2024. Vance only won his senate seat by 7 points. Mike DeWine won his last election by 25 points, outperforming both of them, so there is some segment of normie voter that is probably up for grabs, but not sure how much. Both Vance and Dewine beat very blah Democratic candidates. Tim Ryan, who ran against Vance, is a pro-fossil fuel Dem from a district that went heavily for Trump 3 times. I guess the point being that you'd need a Democrat kind of like Ryan, but who has enough notoriety or charisma to beat someone like Vance, but sweet Jesus how low of a bar is THAT? Not low enough, apparently.
If the brand is trashed, it's easier to start a new brand. A culturally conservative Heartland Party. Flip the script and reduce GOP federal power at any cost.
Fwiw David Shor's polling has the Child Tax Credit about even nationally so probably below water somewhat in Ohio. I think taxing the rich to lower the deficit, inflation, interest rates, + much more conservative positions on immigration/trans/crime/fracking/guns would work.
guns are definitely an issue I neglected.
Aren’t struggling families low propensity voters relative to the people who would be taxed to fund this? Also it appears that lower income brackets are positively correlated with Trump voting share, so helping this voting bloc reproduce in view of an already-demonstrated indifference or hostility to the party rather famously more in favor of social welfare programs isn’t obviously a winner (in the sense of being "politically savvy") and may be political malpractice. Ed.: although I should note it's an open question.
struggling families are about the only thing i care about other than my own family. and smart working and lower middle class kids who need rigorous standardized tests to prove they can compete against the rich kids.
That's a claim about good policy rather than good politics, though.
taxing the rich polls well. helping struggling parents polls well as long as they aren’t welfare queens. the only skill needed is framing benefits where they don’t look like welfare
This is one of the most defeatist and depressing columns I've ever read on SB.
In Matt's opinion, Republican support in states like Iowa and Ohio is a fact of nature, like a blizzard or a wildfire. There's nothing to be done about it! All you can do is feed enough sacrifices into the flames (gun control! clean energy! anything The Groupz(TM) want!) and hope you will be spared.
How about a little more focus on how to build more popular support for Democratic candidates? I'm not saying "make the median voter in Missouri supportive of trans rights," I'm talking something like the Common Sense Manif- uh, like I said before, the Common Sense Platform, if you call it a Manifesto you sound like a commie 😊
How? I don't know how, I'm a weird nerdy PMC person, but there has to be a way, clone Buttigieg fifty times and unleash him on every podcast and YouTube channel you can find, don't just throw up your hands and go "welp, the Republicans have rock-solid support, there's nothing you can do." No! That support didn't spring fully formed like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, it's the result of lots of Republican strategists and communicators hard at work.
Meanwhile, here's a gem from today's NYT:
"After Federal Cuts, Food Banks Scrounge and Scrimp:
Sara Busse [in West Virginia] needed to make a hot meal for 40 needy seniors. She had promised a main dish, a starch, a vegetable, a fruit and a dessert.
In the past, she had gotten many of those ingredients for free from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This time, she had dried cranberries, crackers and vegetable soup.
“What am I supposed to do?” she said. “What am I supposed to cook?”
Find stories like that and amplify them! Ask the people of red states, is this what you wanted? Is this what you support? Because this is what you get with a Republican Congress!
And when a lot of them say "yes", then what?
Then we all get the government they deserve.
Insert one of the Founding Fathers (Washington?) saying, "Our form of government is suitable only for a virtuous people, not any other."
See, *this* is what I see as defeatist, much more so than Matt's argument that we should figure out how to meet voters in currently-red states where they actually are, ideologically.
What you're saying is akin to saying "well if they don't share our liberal values then I guess the country is just fucked!"
But I don't think that's the case.
I mean, if people see the elderly going hungry because their local food bank can’t afford enough food, and they say “f yeah, that’s what we voted for,” then I genuinely don’t know how to appeal to such people.
All my life, I believed that most Americans are basically decent, that they want to do the right thing and that includes helping others. If that’s gone…
Yeah this exactly my point. You are refusing to believe that people 1. Don't believe this is something the federal department of agriculture should be responsible for, while 2. Not being evil people.
But this is just a failure to understand the ideology of other people. You think that if they just knew what you know, they would share your ideology. But lots of people just don't! They don't want elderly people to starve, but they have a different theory of what are proper and acceptable ways to accomplish that.
Thing is that I agree with you about this. But I know a number of people who don't, and yes, it pisses me off, but they are still "basically decent". And I don't even live in one of these red states! I live in a purple state.
I promise you that Democrats need to figure out how to win in places that don't believe the agriculture department should be subsidizing meals for seniors. It doesn't even require being against this kind of thing, it isn't high salience, voters are unlikely to *oppose* a Democrat who favors this kind of government program. But they also aren't likely to *flock to* a Democrat who runs on their opponent's opposition to this kind of thing. They have different priorities!
Ok, so where are all these decent people who simply don’t share my ideology? Are they stepping up and saying, “Government should not subsidize food banks. But I don’t want seniors to go hungry, so I’m going to generously donate to food banks out of my own pocket!”
No doubt some of them are doing just that, but most likely, not enough. Otherwise Sara in West Virginia would be giving a very different interview to the NYT: “I was very troubled when Trump cut off USDA subsidies my food bank relies on, but then all my Trump-voting friends and neighbors pulled together to support the food bank and now we have plenty for everyone, it’s been wonderful to see!”
Sure, there are decent people in Trump country. There are also “I’ve got mine, FU” kind of people.
Didn't this woman also say that she voted for Trump 3x and still considers herself a Trump supporter? Or is that someone else they had interviewed? Like I don't even know anymore. 70% of MAGA Republicans also think the economy is getting better because of Trump's trade war, so part of it is that the Dems need more Pete B's and Andy B's in the party. The overall national brand is just toxic to some voters, why they still support Republicans I have no idea, but I think it's the podcast and media environment they engage with.
Yeah, tbh I feel like replacing the Senate leadership is the way to go - good news Dick Durbin is retiring but I really think it’s due for Chuck Schumer to go…
I think he’s a shrewd tactician (like the budget handling was epitome of it even if it was emotionally disturbing, I think it paid off by focusing the fire on Trump). But the issue is he seems fundamentally afraid of left - essentially Dem’s version of McConell.
And while I’m more of an advocate of balancing when to fight and when to cooperate - considering the type of force Bernie faction (or more accurately activist type), I feel like he’s currently a little too caving.
I imagine Brian Schatz could be a better leader
I was going to suggest Patty Murray, but I didn't realize she's 74.
Yeah… she’s def old…
I also feel like Warnock could be a good one maybe - esp if Georgia runs further to the left.
I’m personally happier with Hakeem Jeffries as he seems to be able to counter a good distance w the most leftist faction
She's also frequently won staff polls on "dumbest senator" over her career
I agree change would be good gut the Dems, but I don’t see Shatz moderating much. Now Fetterman and Hickenlooper leading the Dems…
Here's a plan:
1) Talk to all your friends and family members about voting for moderate candidates in the primaries. Right now, mainly the most partisan Democrats participate. Not good for getting moderates elected
2) Find at least one truly moderate candidate at any level that you like, and give them your time and/or money. Ideally they would represent you, but if there's not a good option in your district/town, find somebody else to support.
3) Join the Democratic Party on the local level, ideally with some like-minded people, and fight to steer the party in the right direction. It is not good enough to simply write blogs and make comments. If you think the status quo is this bad, then get off the sideline, and try to make things better.
What does the party even do at the local level anymore?
A lot actually, not so much as a literal institution but as an informal group of party regulars, activists, donors, and electeds. I'm very involved in the local democratic party and this group of a couple hundred people if that has a huge say in who gets elected in our county of 600,000 people. Our county is traditionally red but increasingly purple to light blue in the Trump era and a lot of democratic primaries are basically decided by a couple interested candidates talking amongst themselves and some folks in the local primary and deciding who's going to run, some primaries but not many. If 50 likeminded democrats got seriously involved it could meaninfgully shift the politics of a congressional district sized locality.
Obviously the party raises money, coordinates doorknocking and all that stuff but at it's core they play a big part in shaping who the party nominates. Voters of course always have the final say but it's hard to run for local office without institutional support so a lot of candidates don't if they can't win that backing.
Good question, and maybe part of the problem if the answer is little to nothing. I'm slowly starting to get more involved on a more local level
I think running candidates in un-winnable states even in that lose, is part of the way of changing the Party's baseline. There is no reason that a gung-ho high-growth/Abundance pro-trade, pro high skill immigrant, pro progressive tax-and-reduce deficit, turn away all but genuine political asylum seekers at the border, guns only as an adjunct to crime fighting/policing-prosecution, pro fossil fuel production and transportation, throw-NEPA-under-the-bus, pro Fifth Amendment, expand paid for social insurance candidate should not win 50 states.
My counterpoint to this is that while leftists are generally unpopular and are incapable of governing decently (see: Brandon Johnson), the centrists really haven’t covered themselves in glory either.
The greatest argument against centrism is Keir Starmer, who is as centrist and “moderate” as they come, won a huge majority in the UK and then pissed it away to the point where Labo(u)r might end up a third party [1] because he was too scared to make progress on any of the issues he correctly identified during the campaign. The stupid part is that his public messaging is that the UK needs bitter medicine to get over its malaise, but he’s instead chosen to piss and moan about fiscal constraints instead of, say, fixing the insane planning system.
There’s obviously a two axes chart of progressive-moderate and supine-brave. And Noah Smith does day that combative centrism is the way forward. However, as one SBer (Polytropos, I think, not quoting this verbatim as I can’t find it) said “moderate but not cucked is the way, but unfortunately cuckedness and moderation seem to go together”.
A concrete example is the fight over upzoning in IL [2]. Anyone with half a brain knows that IL is losing population, and anyone half-affiliated with Dem politics has seen the 2030 census projections. Yet Dems haven’t got the cojones to push it through, because they’re too scared of their shadows.
Moving forward, concrete solutions include nuking the filibuster, expanding the lower courts and passing crucial reforms to permitting, taxation, healthcare and immigration. Act like you’re gonna lose congress in 2030, because that’s how politics works, and pass all your shit in 2 years. Give the public some goodies that leaven the bitter medicine. I know that this will cause heartburn for the SB crypto-republicans, but doing nothing isn’t a long term option, and your ideology played no small part in leading us here. Yes, the ACA did lead to democrats losing seats. It still pays dividends. In terms of personnel, it means getting rid of all those conditioned to cowardice by Dems long decades of defeat in the 70s-80s. It also means getting rid of the idiots who babble on about “comity/reach across the aisle” (thankfully Durbin will fuck off, except now we have Fetterman, who decides he’ll play nice with Trump on everything other than transgender issues where the Dem position is wildly unpopular- literally the moronic political instincts of Sinema).
[1] https://cms.findoutnow.co.uk/app/uploads/2025/04/23rd-April-VI-Find-Out-Now-1.xlsx
[2] https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocTypeID=HB&DocNum=4795&GAID=17&SessionID=112&LegID=152563
For now, this means pulling the knives out in blue trifecta states and going hell for leather in fixing housing, infrastructure and bureaucracy. Yes, progressives in CA and NY have some stupid ideas about these but it’s also moderates that sink housing there as well. There’s nothing stopping these states from building a bureau that designs transit/public housing/airports etc to rent costs. We HAVE to annihilate the “we tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” mentality.
Great points!
I assume “no all part” = “no small part”?
Yes, fixed.
Being in CA saddens me because the potential is everywhere but gets squandered.
What are examples of GOOD governance? And are they actually a result of political ideology, or more a combination of good policy, good politics, charisma and a favorable political climate?
Best blue state governance I can think of is CO. Yes, there’s no single factor that led to it, but that doesn’t absolve individuals from the obligation to work hard for it. As I said, ‘We HAVE to annihilate the “we tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” mentality.’
I’d love to read follow ups to this, where we go state by state and deep dive into: 1. Who are statewide elected Dems 2. What are the polling nuances of the state 3. Therefore how could it become competitive
In this nationalized politics, few nuances remain.
Good idea!