Republicans in Texas and Ohio are, rationally, more concerned with Republican primaries than the general election. This is awful. Even if Democrats don’t win these states, forcing Republicans to chose more moderate candidates would be useful.
This is an underrated point: Contesting the whole map changes the behavior of Republicans. There was a lot of talk about how Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor, might vote against RFK Jr's confirmation. But he voted for it, and reports seem to indicate that he's not at all happy personally about having done so. Yet he did, and the reason is very clear: He's more afraid of a challenge from the right then from a Democrat.
What makes this even more sad is that Louisiana quite recently had a Democratic governor, and while that moderate and conservative Dems can still win statewide in the south, they've had an extremely hard time in Senate races because of the way that politics has been nationalized. We all know that if John Bel Edwards was in Cassidy's seat, he would be vilified on the left but would instantly be the most valuable Senator a la Manchin. And in the alternate universe where he's a credible threat to run against Cassidy, it might have pushed Cassidy to vote no on RFK to burnish his moderate creds. I realized this seems like a very small thing in the grand scheme of the Trump administration, but if you had a credible D threat in Iowa you might have got Ernst to vote against Hegseth, etc. Do this across the map, rack up a few losses for Trump nominees, and it would have changed the narrative and made him look a lot weaker. As it stands now the narrative is that Trump controls the Republican party, and it's not wrong
I'm sure Edwards could get the D nom. My point is that Cassidy acts as if Edwards isn't a threat (or more generally, he sees a Trumpy R challenge as a greater threat than a centrist D challenge). That's largely a function of the national environment, which is turn is affected by the way national Democrats operate... They don't act as if their goal is to win those Senate races, as Matt argues they should.
The national Democratic party needs to move toward the center but it will always be to the left of what would be agreeable to the voters of Louisiana. The point is to let Louisiana Democrats shape their positions to win their home state, not to expect the entire party to be remolded to resemble them.
But, yes, change is needed but we have to be realistic about how much the party should change. More popularist, sure, but not socially conservative.
Just to correct myself, apparently Louisiana doesn't hold primaries (everyone runs on one ballot and then they have runoffs). Nonetheless my conceptual point still stands
It’s gotten a little more complicated. Historically, we ain’t never had traditional closed primaries in Louisiana. We did a modified Top 2, but unlike the West Coast it’s possible to win outright in the first round if you get a simple majority.
When we elected Gov. Landry, one of the turns to the right was to create closed primaries. It got real messy, but from last year’s legislature there’s now two rounds of semi- closed primaries for federal offices and a handful of state ones (state Supreme Court, state school board, state utilities commission).
This is a pretty bad set up for Cassidy because he can get a plurality in a big field in the first round, but likely can’t get a majority against [insert opponent] in the second round.
Great point and a clear example of the downstream effects of a broader strategic playbook around "mitigate bad outcomes" vs. "overthrow Trump". I'm empathetic to the people wracked with outrage and who believe massive protests and other blow-up-the-Death-Star type actions are the only way forward, but at the same time I find it to be a really reductive and (at risk of sounding patronizing) childish approach to the situation at hand.
Maybe we've all watched too many movies, but wars--from the physical to the political to the business--aren't won by a perfect magic shot that brings down the baddies in a glorious domino cascade. They are long, long slogs that require strategy that often aims to gain inches, not miles, with victory sometimes merely being the opening of opportunity in the future. As you said, putting pressure on Republicans in "safe" GOP states can cause moderation in the Republican primary which could lead to moderation at the national legislative arena. That may seem like a paltry victory to the protest crowd, but starting piling up those kinds of wins and they compound to help open future opportunity.
Hell, I'd even argue the GOP basically did this to the Dems--they kept creating crises and issues that caused smaller and smaller cracks in the Dem party, leading to in-fighting and purity testing which has left the party rudderless. More Dems would benefit from looking at the GOP's playbook the last 10-20 years to see what went very, very right for them.
Indeed in real-world wars, Blow Up the Death Star or Good Guys Execute Glorious Crazy No Chances attacks as hail mary moves in reality results in disaster
Well to be perhaps pedantically precise, not a *successful" phenomena IRL...
"Glorious failures" ... although my impression of the Lefty Proggy activists is they are in many ways rather content to have Glorious Failure to demonstrate righteousness. Really quite a kind of religious thinking but secular.
I also reminds me of the Generals of WW I who insisted w enough righteous elan and spirit, the troops would break through German lines - because you know spirit, righteous cause and also 'they have to'... Maxim guns of course didn't care much about spirit or righteousness.
"forcing Republicans to chose more moderate candidates would be useful."
Sincere question, not trolling: what's the point of more "moderate" Republican members of Congress if they won't stand up to Trump? Based on what we've seen so far, none of the so-called "moderate" elected officials have stood up to Trump publicly and told him, "Mr. President, this is wrong/illegal/against our Constitution." Has an elected Republican said fuck-all about the gilded Qatari jet for example? What about all the Republicans who voted to confirm Trump's cabinet of clowns, cranks and incompetents? No, Susan Collins wringing her hands and mentioning how "concerned" she is doesn't count.
If they're going to be Trump's lickspittles no matter what, then why care whether Republican Senators are "moderate" or not? Because genteel lickspittles are nicer than asshole ones?
Is this why the ACA was repealed and Matt Gaetz is currently Attorney General? A big problem for moderates, whether Democratic or Republican, is that we've just normalized lying.
The ACA was not repealed during trump 1, which is a very different environment than trump 2. And not nominating a potential pedophile to be attorney general isn’t exactly some sort of gold star for the republican senators
Yes, Trump has a popular vote mandate and has consolidated power over the GOP so it's much harder to stand up to him today as a moderate Republican. No sure how that changes my point at all.
Your point was that we have normalized “lying”. I don’t see any lies in anything drsophilist said. By pointing out the one time they stood up to trump when he went too far, doesn’t make the times they didn’t any less reprehensible.
Temperamentally I agree with you 100%. That said, I think there’s a difference between true believers and people who can, in the right circumstances, do the right thing. Lisa Murkowski is clearly a coward and an idiot, but it’s clear to me that we are meaningfully better off with her as senator from Alaska than say Sarah Palin. 9 days out of 10 she will do the wrong thing, but she knows that she’s doing the wrong thing, and that 1 in 10 time can make a big difference.
Yes this is a complicated thing. I thought it was awful when Dems ran ads deliberately trying to help the worst Republicans in their primaries, but in the end it seems to have helped get Dems elected.
See Alex M's comment above. They don't currently stand up to Trump precisely because they are more concerned about a rightward flank in the primaries than a moderate challenger in the general election. A more moderate Republican who is worried about the general election votes no on insane cabinet choices like Hegseth, RFK, or Gabbard. A more moderate Republican who is worried about the general election actually backs up their threat to Speaker Johnson to pull their vote from the atrocious budget bill. The entire feedback mechanism is broken if GOP Congressmen and women from well over half of the states no longer fear their democratic challengers.
Do Democratic senators in safe blue states have the same problem? If not, why not? If yes, then don't you need stronger Republican challengers in those states in order to moderate the Democratic senators?
I agree, it does feel like we’re in a weird holding pattern while Trump is active in politics. I mentioned in another comment that the Republican candidate in 2022 against Wyden in OR was a big QAnon adopter.
The structural difference is probably 60% of Republicans are MAGA whereas only 40% of Democrats are woke or progressive. Progressives punch above their weight because they are educated and strident, MAGA types were ignored pre Trump.
I think Tea Party were kinda precursor but still I think they were masked by fiscal hardliner narrative, which is more compatible with cosmopolitan value?
I see the Tea Party as a reaction against Obama’s otherness politely dressed in talk about deficits.
No Republican president since Eisenhower has cared much about the deficit when in power. Deficits are the only way of reconciling the chamber of commerce and pensioners.
paul ryan is not viable nationally and wouldn’t be viable in the wisconsin first moderates didn’t save him from his own ideas.
the actual project of winding down the new deal has never been tried. moderate opinion is so deferential to the new deal that trying to reduce medicaid by 10 or 20% (and medicaid came decades after the new deal) is treated as radical. still, plenty of americans, maybe 20-25%, still don’t accept the new deal.
well, he wasn’t only half black. he was the son of a kenyan subcabinet minister, his thinking was strongly post-colonial, he grew up in hawaii, he spent time as a child in indonesia.
i strongly suspect he would not have won without being half white. the picture of his white mother holding him was deployed for a reason, and plenty of whites were more comfortable with him because he grew up in a white household.
i wish progressives would stop being so shocked by human nature. people are scared of otherness. if you call this racism, you aren’t wrong or foolish, you just aren’t trying very hard to understand how people actually think.
The energy behind MAGA and the Tea Party are the same. It’s about being against not a rally around values. Sure there is a core group that believes in something but the majority of MAGA and the Tea Party were there to rally against Obama and the Left.
This is different than the religious right which actually had values they were rooted in.
I say this based on friends who were tea party proponents and MAGA. These two groups have different values but are both anti-Left.
I was curious who ran against Widen in Oregon last time, I couldn’t recall. Jo Rae Perkins won the Republican primary with about a third of the vote in 2022 and the only other defining feature of her Wikipedia page is that she believes/d in QAnon. I personally very much like my senator, though I’d be curious to see how he might alter his platform if he had…not that to run against.
Controversial: but I would encourage moderates to register republican and vote in the primaries. A more temperate Republican leadership would greatly benefit this country.
Wasn't really trying. It should a matter of great shame that a liberal doesn't want to be a Democrat but we all know that people like you are shameless.
Nothing wrong with it. I don’t like either party so I want them to earn my vote. I’ve been voting Democrat by default because Trump has been the Republican nominee since I became a citizen. I don’t like most of Democratic legislations.
>Republicans in Texas and Ohio are, rationally, more concerned with Republican primaries than the general election.
I'm not convinced this is true of Ohio. Sherrod Brown ran a close race in 2024. Given Democrats' turnout advantage in off-year elections, he could very well win in 2026 if he runs. Ohio Republicans know this.
One unspoken thing in the critcism of this stance is the unspoken hope amongst many that a sufficiently big protest movement could sweep Trump out of office and force a rewritting of constitution a la the Eastern Europan colour revolutions. I just don't see the American public getting to that point, short of an explicit attempt to overthrow the election.
This is a really important insight into the “political revolution” theory of American politics. Our country is simply too rich and median income too high, for that type of political change.
It's not just wealth and status quo bias; the Color Revolutions and Arab Spring won out against overwhelmingly unpopular governments, often those that came to power under various forms of foreign influence or coercion.
Virtually every attempt in those same regions to accomplish something similar since has foundered on the fundamental legitimacy of a lot of the successor governments, even when they're illiberal. Look at Georgia, Poland, Hungary, Israel... the least popular of those are probably Hungary's and Israel's governments, and they still maintain the support of just under half the population.
The only success since then has been Syria, which, again, had an insanely unpopular, illegitimate government.
The US might have a Color Revolution before we die, but only if we fuck up many, many things very badly for a very long time first.
I think a color revolution in the US is currently unlikely but I don't think the current wealth gap between us and say South Korea is the reason why, or that we have evidence that shows that.
Re-writing the Constitution to be less right-wing is at this point an absurd fantasy—where do people think the delegates to a Constitutional Convention are going to come from? As long as more states are majority-Republican (and as long as the Republican Party is subservient to Trump), this would be a complete disaster. The left don’t seem to understand that they are, in fact, unpopular and that to get the chance to re-write the Constitution in line with their principles, they would need to get the people on their side.
Absolutely right Although people who have lost touch with all their former MAGA friends may not be aware of it, most of the people who really, vocally want a new Constitutional Convention and are actively organizing for it oppose liberal democracy as most of us here want to continue to practice it. I strongly doubt that the product that emerged from such a Convention would be anything like as liberal and as flexible as the Constitution we have now. Be careful what you wish for!
In an ideal world, it would be possible to the two sides to do some horse-trading, for example, a requirement for proof of citizenship to vote, in exchange for a ban on partisan gerrymandering. In the real world, such a compromise would be utter fantasy, and the goal of any MAGA person at a constitutional convention would be to just abolish elections altogether and declare Trump king.
I was going to write something similar but I am pretty sure you're right that a big part of the American left doesn't have a realistic plan for retaking control of the Senate beyond massive protest and electing a left wing president who will something something transform institutions
That was one weird recent Pod Save America podcast on the "3.5% rule" (https://crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-america/). It featured some political scientist saying that authoritarian regimes can be overthrown if at least 3.5% of the population rises up in peaceful protest (attended by comments on how close the "No Kings" rallies came to that total).
Sure, I guess mass peaceful protests could somehow overthrow MAGA? Or, just a thought, maybe we could do that through elections?
Speaking as a former political scientist, I can guarantee that at least 90% of the time when a political scientist is speaking about current events, you will not emerge enlightened and better educated.
I thought that was so weird! Even if this is a descriptively accurate statistic (which it seems like it is—I have no reason to doubt), that doesn’t mean it’s a prescription to bringing down the regime or something. This is like saying that every MLB player makes over $500k so if I make over $500k I’ll have a good chance to be an MLB player
Well, to be pedantic, if an MLB team offered you $500K to play, there's a good chance you'd be a decent MLB player. (Or maybe $1M; I'm not sure of the going rate for ballplayers these days.)
Fair enough. I think I was trying to imply a correlation-causation error in the way the 3.5% rule was gaining traction online. The paper says, “no regime has survived mass protests where 3.5% of the pop is involved” and people took that to mean “if we can get 3.5% of the population to protest, we’ll beat Trump.” But it was especially weird that the Podcast seemed to accept the latter framing
What do the popularists say about large peaceful demonstrations? My assumption is that they should help the opposition win elections, and are complementary to the popularist / moderate big-tent electioneering Matt wants. But is there an argument that "No Kings" was counter-productive?
Wasn't David Shor in favor of peaceful demonstrations? I don't see the "No Kings" rallies as being counter-productive. People were happy and had a good time. That can't hurt.
It's not that protests were bad per se. The issue I had with that Podcast episode is that there was no theory espoused of HOW 3.5% protests would lead to MAGA losing it's political power in the US. As far as I can tell, there's no plausible path other than winning through electoral politics.
I think we should set our goals (Democrats winning more House and Senate seats in 2026 and congressional majorities plus the presidency in 2028) and work backward through the means to achieve them. The issue with the winning the Senate, as MY describes here, is that the party brand is terrible right now particularly among moderate and working class voters. The bachelor's degreed, highly-engaged Democrats (like us) who dominate the party tend to have a hard time understanding which arguments work with those recently defecting voters and which don't. "Trump is a threat to Democracy" definitely doesn't work. Immigration enforcement definitely isn't a winning issue either.
We have to overcome multiple issues at once - substantive moderation of the platform, dropping the lecturing tone, and selecting skilled moderate candidates. My worry is that we will fail to do so because Democrats would rather focus on things (attending protests and AOC rallies) that make them feel better but don't actually help us address those issues.
I think there’s a significant amount of the Brahmin left whose mental model of revolutions includes romantic notions best captured by Hamilton and Les Mis
"I can’t imagine too many people believe this...."
The trouble comes when a high proportion of the politically active believe it, and a high proportion of those who do not believe it are politically inactive.
I doubt an explicit attempt to overthrow the election would do it either. Americans' lives are still materially comfortable, despite the recent actions of our government. And we have no experience of the kind of political instability that really threatens the government. I think a lot of people would insist that we're still a full democracy because it's impossible for America to be otherwise, and loyal Trump supporters (and any politician more concerned with a primary than the general election, or afraid of extremist Trump supporters) will insist that by overturning the election, the dear leader is saving the Republic and not destroying it. Perhaps we should even name his birth month in his honor?
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What gives me hope is not the thought of uprising against tyranny, but that Trump Always Chickens Out. (Maybe he was prophetic in warning about TACO trucks on every street corner, years ago?) If something is massively unpopular, the administration really does back down -- though, to my limited knowledge, only on issues where Trump does not personally have much at stake. But he's old, and his successor might be better suited to be a true tyrant -- though perhaps lacking in support?
I pin my hopes on the weakness and indecisiveness of the bad guys, the military's unwillingness to participate in coups and massacres, etc., rather than the American Public getting big mad and enacting a left-wing revolution.
That is a scary goal. I forsee a protest movement -> revolution becoming very dangerous when there are paramilitaries armed to the teeth itching for civil war.
How would that even work, in their minds? Like if the protest is too big, Trump just has to give up? There isn't anything concrete to force his hand unless people stop going to work or paying taxes or something, and no one is going to do that.
"...every single member of the caucus, from Slotkin to Schumer to Sanders, knows how to read a map and is capable of reaching this same conclusion. But winning will require the party, and its donors, and its staffers, and its cloud of vaguely aligned advocacy groups and pundits, to focus on one question...."
Okay, so today's column should be read by every one of those people.
But if you are not a sitting senator, not a big donor, not a staffer or member of the Groups, is there anything that you can do to push the party in this direction?
I don't mind your talking over my head to the party honchos and telling them what to do -- I support your 'stack exactly so that you will do that (and so I can watch and kibitz) . But I want to make sure I didn't miss the part in this piece where you told normal voters what to do.
I always think back to the moment years ago when I told my cousin that there couldn’t be a pro-life democratic candidate (she was advocating for one) because that would be a betrayal of the entire party. Not 100% sure how she voted then, but I am confident now she’s a Republican. I wish I hadn’t done that.
But if you're a conservative, pro-life candidate seeking the Democratic nomination in, say, Louisiana, who is stopping you? Maybe it's just money, and Democrats won't contribute to such a person, reserving all their money for meme candidates like Beto O'Rourke or Amy McGrath. If so, then it's up to *us* to dig into our pockets and make sure these people have the funds they need.
My guess is that because of (i) education polarization (ii) urban/rural polarization, and (iii) consciousness of partisan politics as having national ramifications, the people voting in Democratic primaries in red states aren't that different than they are in blue states. More plainly your blue primary voter in SF or NY may be to the left of your blue primary voter in Dallas or Atlanta but not by the leaps and bounds that would prompt some real material differentiation, especially if everyone we're talking about went to college. The only x factor in the south is that socially conservative black voters are still a blue leaning bloc.
Similar in Maryland. I have a strong suspicion that Larry Hogan's handpicked successor would have beaten Wes Moore and she certainly would have made it a much, much tighter race. Instead the GOP primary voters nominated a MAGA nut from out in the hinterlands who was predictably (and rightly) routed.
Basically, yes, outside of very specific states like Lousiana and West Virginia, the 40% of people who vote for a Democrat in Kansas or South Carolina looks like the 55% who do in Washington or New York.
Just like outside of very specific states like Vermont, the 40% of people who vote for Republican's in California look like the 55% who do in Georgia.
I think at this point, the centrists have overcorrected just how many centrist voters there are in a Democratic primary.
Like, hell in New Jersey, Josh Gottheimer ran a well -funded sort of run to the middle appease everybody campaign, don't say anything even vaguely liberal primary and got...I think 8%.
Yes, Sherrill was also a more moderate choice and won with like 35%, but she's a normie Democrat's who's lose by 7 in Texas.
I do wonder how much personal opprobrium from friends and family stops possible candidates from being a bit unorthodox in early stages of their career. I am less vocally moderate around a good friend of mine who is in the very left professional activist/groups sphere. I'm not running for office, but I do feel wary of alienating my (perhaps unique) social circle.
Or they could move to a new big Dem City at the intersection of the borders of SD, WY and Montana. A big enough city that the part in each of those 3 states would win those 6 senators.
Don’t have to do anything to the local population, just swamp them with newcomers from the metropole, like China flooding Manchuria, Tibet, Xinjiang, with Han Chinese folks
A bunch of wheat farmers and possibly ranchers, more like. Where you would get the water for such a city is a very open question, but the wheat farmers aren't going to give it up without a fight. I guess this plan is better than breaking the great compromise and literally disenfranchising northern plains residence as some have proposed, but as a MT resident I can't say I'm a big fan.
Lots of small cities in PA with 2BR apartments for under $1K. Hundreds of listings in Johnstown, Pittsburgh, Altoona, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Harrisburg, Washington, Erie.
The closest town seems to be Sturgis, of the motorcycle rally. Rapid City, SD, is about 80,000.
If we located Rapid City right at the corner, and made its growth rate comparable to the smaller but faster growing town of Bozeman, MT (30-40% per decade, doubling in 20 years) then it would reach the population of Wyoming in about 60 years. But if it’s split across three states, and has a more extreme voting split than most big metro areas (about 75-25 for democrats) that still wouldn’t be enough to swing any of the senate seats (unless Montana stays unusually tight).
You can forward it to your own senator and say “I want you to contribute to a big tent and I would really really like it if you personally engaged in a bit of heterodoxy to support that.”
Sure, they can read the post, but there's no evidence that they -- or more to the point -- the people most engaged in candidate recruitment in these battleground states *aren't* looking for the types of candidates who would fit Matt's criteria. Maybe they are; maybe they aren't. Who knows?
And what should normal voters do? If you're in one of those states, make sure to vote in the primary and don't let the impassioned ideological minority impose some loser candidate on the party. (Contributions to good candidates will also help.)
You can donate time/money to Senate fights in purple states. You can spread the message of "To save democracy you need the Senate as a check on Trump. How does this help us win the Senate?"
The progressive urge to do ineffective political action that plays into Trump’s hands is basically just panicking in the face of disaster. Instead of thinking calmly about what to do that might help and then doing it, it’s just blindly thrashing about, and yelling at the person next to you ‘why aren’t you panicking too?!!!’.
It’s about leadership, or the conspicuous absence of it. Large groups of people are good at panicking (eg becoming mobs) and not so good at nuance and strategic thinking
I forget if Matt has a post laying out his theory of what “left” and “right” mean as political terms. At least some people conceive of “left” as being against any sort of hierarchy, or difference in social roles, and thus conceive of leadership itself as a thing to be avoided. I think this is an interesting view, and I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff to learn from leaderless collective intelligence, like bird flocks and fish schools, but I think it’s unlikely to be well-suited to a lot of the problems humans find themselves in. (Whether this is a particularly useful conception of the left-right axis, or whether a better conception is available, is a terminological question I don’t currently find particularly interesting.)
I noticed some interesting comments from Freddie and others that the both of you have a comment section full of “right wingers.” It just drives home how out of touch some on the left are with the median democratic voter let alone the median voter.
What could we do to get folks more acquainted with the values and mores of the median voter?
In a country where the median voter thinks 20% of the population is trans and 17% Muslim, we may actually have to face up to the prospect that educating and persuading the public, not just pandering to it, is, or ought to be, part of politics. I am the first to admit I do not know how to do that. But "out of touch with the median voter" actually has several meanings.
I don't think the median voter will agree to trans women in women's sports even if you convince them that trans women are only 0.00X percent of women in sports.
Ok but the perceived scale of the threat matters. If you’re against trans women in women’s sports, 20% trans population sounds way scarier (and hence more salient when you’re voting) than 0.1% trans population sounds.
I actually think that in this particular example you might find that the amount matters. If it a large percentage, like 20%, then a solution where trans athletes have their own divisions/leagues makes sense. If it is 0.00x then that isn't a feasible solution and more people may be fine with including them in women's leagues.
No one has ever objected to trans athletes having their own league. They are free to do it today and it won't be a political issue.
Democrats have this tone deafness problem where they've been clearly told by voters that their position on this is unpopular but they think they can still win this using word and number games.
I wouldn't say this comment section is full of right-wingers, but it is filled with a certain kind of heterodox Democrat who cares more about the issues they're to the right of the median Democrat on far more than the vast vast majority of Democratic voters.
I’m not a Democrat but it describes me well. The reason I don’t comment more on areas where I disagree with Republicans is because there’s no audience for that here.
I would really like examples on this. There are a few commenters on here who are into abortion restrictions or are pro-life, but I wouldn't say they "fill" the comment section. I also call exaggeration, since you do it all the time, using words like "filled" and "vast vast majority".
Yes, it's pretty clear that Freddie has no idea what the median US voter believes and also, unfortunately, doesn't care. He's really pretty far along the Bertholt Brecht spectrum:
I think the actual difference between Matt and Krugman is that Matt sees swing voters not caring about Trump's assault on the rule of law as a constraint on what the solutions might be, but Krugman many other people see it as the problem that needs to be addressed. And framing Trump's conduct as something like a king, which most Americans do oppose, is a way of trying to address that problem.
It's certainly possible that protests are the wrong way to address that problem, or even that they're counterproductive. But "recruit more moderate Senate candidates" is not about that problem at all.
“think the actual difference between Matt and Krugman is that Matt sees swing voters not caring about Trump's assault on the rule of law as a constraint on what the solutions might be, but Krugman many other people see it as the problem that needs to be addressed.”
If they cared about his norm violating and rule of law flouting, Trump's political career would have long been over before 2024.
This binary thinking is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Trump was unpopular through his whole first term, despite a mostly good economy. He lost reelection. Building a broad anti-Trump coalition is not enough to consistently keep him out by itself, but Trump's norm violations and lack of care about anyone besides himself is absolutely a vector to drive down his support.
Worked fine in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Only times it didn't work was when a politician and media underrated the risk of Trump winning and the other was in the middle of the biggest anti-incumbent wave in decades due to inflation.
COVID is a really large thing to just say "without COVID" and think that adds value. Most of the backlash to Democrats can be tied back to COVID as well.
The problem is you can have a broad Trump bad policy but that means you need to be moderate/restrained in the rest of your policy. If I'm a swing republican who really doesn't like Trump but likes Paul Ryan, voting for Trump was the better option (people are really bad at thinking about the future so it is much easier to argue Trump is bad when he is doing bad things than when he is merely talking about doing bad things).
I think it may be that they didn't care about 2016 Trump's norm violation because 1) they couldn't see a difference between standard political corruption and Trump's corruption, so if corruption is happening it might as well be in their favor 2) they didn't see it affecting them materially. Many Trump voters were expecting something closer to his first term, where a lot of noise was made but nothing seriously bad got through.
Trump has a weird ability to play on recency issues - somehow when something that egregious becomes old, it becomes ineffective to mention it. No one talks about the Access Hollywood tape any more, even though that should still be disqualifying!
True, but isn't Matt more or less asking progressives "if you would all just"? This piece doesn't show a lot of engagement with why progressives do what they do and suggesting alternate means to get what they want.
It's true to say "if you want to fight racism and help the poor you need to be willing to settle for less than maximal achievements" but only in the same sense that saying "voters should know the rule of law benefits them" is true. Both groups are being dumb about their goals, but just pointing that out won't stop them.
Matt’s case isn’t just that indifference to tyranny is a constraint on Dem action. Matt is saying that believing Trump is a tyrant isn’t unambiguously bad for Trump. If people are convinced Trump is a tyrant, yes some will resist, but others will bend the knee. It isn’t clear what the net effect will be.
On the other hand, if Dems take the Senate, this will be unambiguously bad for Trump.
So, if you are serious about stopping Trump, don’t do the thing that kinda helps him and kinda hurts him. Do the thing that just hurts him.
I think Matt was just triggered by Krugman's dissing of Medicaid concerns.
But it's definitely a "why not both" moment. ICE is a really hot issue right now (well. . . ) and of course focus and protests are completely appropriate. But that was Saturday. Today's a new day, and a perfect opportunity to focus on *another* outrage, like the OBBB. Just don't expect 5 million people to take to the streets to protest the latest indications from the reconciliation bill negotiation process and a House bill undergoing modification in the Senate.
"Some of you should do one thing. Some of you should do the other."
I once encountered a parable for leftists featuring those words. If memory serves, the story goes that a crowd of American socialist protest organizers had invited some Viet Cong guerrilla officers to teach them strategy for fighting the American empire. Again and again, the Americans would ask the VCs, should we take up issue A or issue B? Should we use tactic A or tactic B? And the VCs' answer to every question was the same. "Some of you should do one thing. Some of you should do the other."
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It sounds wise as a way of reducing factional infighting and contesting many issues to explore where your position is unexpectedly strong, and it probably does have those advantages. It can be mistaken for promoting the "omnicause" -- all of you should do all of the things, and picking priorities is a betrayal and worse than achieving nothing -- but what it really promotes is a fragmentation into multiple issues.
Sometimes it's good advice, though, and not just for the extreme leftists featured in the story. People who have some common cause, but genuinely different priorities, might help their shared goals by pushing on different fronts simultaneously. In this case, it might be useful to campaign on *both* "Trump is exceptionally corrupt and authoritarian, and the Republicans are enabling his worst excesses" and "Democrats are allowed to break with party orthodoxy to pick up senate seats, and Dem senators from Ohio will not vote for policies that are really unpopular in Ohio." As well as related, complementary positions, like "you can be pugnacious and partisan in favor of mainstream positions, not just fringe ones," and "Republican policies do kitchen-table harm to the majority of Americans, due to upward redistribution and unforced errors of economic policy." I like to believe that voters would support a cultural moderate who will fight Republicans' attempts to make the voters poorer and help Trump act like a tin-pot tyrant -- that's one way of seeing 2016 Bernie Sanders in contrast to Hillary Clinton, for instance, and Republicans have gotten a lot more tin-pot in the past decade. Different political strategists could push on different aspects of the issue -- one emphasizes that Dems are no longer the party of shaming people for speaking the way they always have, another calls attention to the economic harm that Republicans are doing, they all agree that Americans want No Kings and that if Republicans want to join in on this patriotic message, they better start acting like it vis-a-vis their king.
Yeah, it's not that I want activists to stop trying to advance social issues, if anything I'm more on their side than the average moderate democrat. I just want them to stop trying to get every democrat to also be an activist. Let the activists push culture forward and let the politicians meet them when the majority has shifted.
I remember Matt writing about how when Trump and other Republicans have tried to distance themselves from pro-life stances, pro-life groups mostly just let them and keep voting Republican. And it worked for them! I wish we could arrange that kind of unspoken understanding with progressive activists.
"I remember Matt writing about how when Trump and other Republicans have tried to distance themselves from pro-life stances, pro-life groups mostly just let them and keep voting Republican. And it worked for them! I wish we could arrange that kind of unspoken understanding with progressive activists."
Give us a big win as Dobbs was for pro-lifers and you might get more rope. Right now the message to progressive is, 'you'll get nothing and in some cases worse than nothing if the moderates we like win and you hould like it.'
It's just that many people don't think a bunch of candidates who say, "I basically agree w/ Republican's on all the important cultural issues, I find liberals yucky too and wish I didn't have to get their votes, but hey, I like democracy and Social Security" isn't the great message moderates think it is.
You aren't going to get 1/4 to 1/2 of your coalition to sit down and shut up forever.
> Give us a big win as Dobbs was for pro-lifers and you might get more rope.
You're missing the nature of the relationship I'm pointing out. Pro-lifers were reliable soldiers for decades before Dobbs was even in sight. Republicans could dodge abortion questions or say they didn't want to overturn Roe v Wade and pro-lifers kept voting for them instead of demanding public commitment to unpopular nationwide abortion bans.
It worked great: Trump positioned as moderate or uninterested on abortion in 2015, moderates who would have found overturning R v W voted for him, and then he appointed SC justices that overturned it anyway. I don't see any reason we couldn't do the same thing.
Because pro-lifers trusted Republican politicians were actually on their side and quite pro-life in reality, even if had to lie to the marks in the middle.
The issue is Matt and other centrists are open that they don't want to pass progressive legislation once in power and in fact, want the people pushing more progressive legislation (the evil Groups) to have less power in Washington!
Imagine if there were prominent Republican politicians and opinion writers who were well known to be read by Republican White House's who openly said the party needed to push out pro-lifers and ignore them.
Would the pro-life side think if they just shut up about abortion, the GOP would still be on their side?
Again this is the "you dumb libs, Obama said he wasn't for gay marriage" thing all over again. Yes, but everybody knew and trusted Obama was lying and even then, and I think this is forgotten, there was activist pushback to Obama.
Nobody on the progressive side thinks or trusts Matt, Elissa Slotkin, David Shor, Jared Golden, etc. are secretly on their side. So, they need to prove it to build trust.
I agree with this entirely. And I think a key reason why you want it to be a top-down, "let's moderate the mainstream brand so we can conventional partisans that just happen to be a bit more right-wing than the normal democrat" rather than relying on quasi-independent hail mary candidates, is you want them to vote for DC and PR Statehood once they get to Congress so this disadvantage can be lessened. Crazy independent guy is just much less ikely to get his hands dirty
It moves over time, but historically it’s around 1/3 pro-independence, 1/3 pro-statehood, and 1/3 pro-commonwealth. Not exactly that, but basically always three groups where any two form a majority, which means it’s impossible to change the status.
I think the boycotts actually indicate the opposite-- that losers know they are losing and wanted the talking point that the "referendum wasn't legitimate".
I don't think this is right. Outright independence isn't that popular now, but has been more popular in the past. The polling is a bit all over the place, but my understanding is that the staying as an associated polity + independence is stronger than the statehood vote.
Nope. The polling is very clear in support of statehood. The Left just doesn't want this to be true (it repudiates their dumb beliefs about colonialism) so they declare every poll that says it "flawed".
Also, when I lived in PR about a decade ago - and granted things could have changed since then - about half of Puerto Ricans aren't particularly keen on becoming a state, because they fear it will gentrify the island.
We should moderate the national brand but that's a slow process of changing our behavior and changing people's impression of us. That won't happen by 2026 (not sure about 2028). It's much faster to recruit suitable candidates who can distance themselves from the still current brand.
I think it’d help for centre/mainstream Dems to fix their own problems so they have more credibility with the left when they come asking for compromise for the good of the party. Replace Schumer, give AOC the committee job she wanted, accelerate retirement of all the 70+ officeholders all spring to mind.
Yeah, I think the gerontocracy helps explain a lot of what's gone wrong with the Party over the past decade, starting with the Clinton nomination and culminating in last November.
Hillary was not too old in 2016 and was ratfucked by an older insurgent candidate. Old leaders in the party is a problem, but that does mean we need to elevate “justice dems.”
What is the plan for not electing Justice Dems as we jettison elderly representatives from the bluest districts and states in the country? Is there any track record of moderates winning these primaries?
I viewed all those as non-factional examples. I didn’t suggest, say, signing on for Medicare for All. Dems have apparently had 4 Reps die of natural causes in office so far this year, that’s obviously bad luck to a degree but you can reduce the risk of such events if your candidates aren’t so freaking old.
Because it will make them somewhat less likely to throw a tantrum, and will make AOC (currently the left's most popular and effective advocate) less likely to join in any tantrum.
Denying AOC the committee job--in favor of an octogenarian who almost immediately disclosed a terminal diagnosis--seems beyond crazy to me. I genuinely don't understand what leadership were thinking passing her over.
I don't like AOC's policies, but she's genuinely popular on the left and she's shown that she can play nice with the establishment when it's important. The establishment needs to return the favor if they want that to continue.
At this point, a significant contingent of moderates (including me) are dissatisfied with the people who have been managing the party and sick of losing because our top peoples' health fails at critical moments. AoC has shown that she's more pragmatic than her initial branding suggested and I'm happy to promote her. Besides, giving progressives an olive branch that doesn't involve making the platform more left-wing is a good move.
Anti-gerontocracy should cut both ways of course- under no circumstances should Sanders be allowed to run for any position ever again.
Gerontocracy is a problem but the reason these old people may be reluctant to pass on the baton is because they know how far left the younger generation of Democrats are and they remember the 1984/1988 blowouts. Perhaps the right strategy is to nominate AOC in 2028 and experience a blowout first hand instead of these theoretical arguments.
I appreciate Yglesias actually listing issues that he thinks Dems should moderate on at the end. Often that is the hard part in arguments I have with my progressive friends.
I don't think he said "Dems" should moderate on those issues but that the party has to be accepting of candidates in tough states who have more conservative positions on those issues.
This is the key point. Tell your liberal friends they don’t personally have to want these things, they just have to let candidates in competitive races campaign on these things.
Why should a pro-choice woman want to vote for a pro-life candidate in Texas who will vote for abortion restrictions a Republican majority will bring up for vote?
Because having a pro-life Democrat in the senate from Texas will help on a lot of issues she cares about, like Medicare, tax policy, tariffs, science funding, international aid - and even on moderating the severity of the abortion restrictions that pass the Senate (since the pro-life Democrat will almost certainly be more interested in including flexibility in the restrictions than any Texas Republican).
If the argument is we need to meet the voters where they are, and the view of the moderates is Texas and Iowa are pro-life states that need a legitimately pro-life candidate who would vote for restrictions, not a fake one like say Harry Reid or Joe Biden pre-VP, how is a Democrat going to win saying there are some restrictions they won't vote for, and won't that hurt their cause they're "pro-life" just like all our "pro-gun" candidates lose cred when they vote for any gun restrictions?
Sure, but that person can just vote for somebody in a primary who is for all of those things and is also pro-choice in a primary.
Like, I think part of the issue is basically, it turns out, people in a political party don't want to vote for people who openly disagree with them on things, when there's an option to vote for somebody who does agree with them.
Also, at least on abortion, from polling, it appears the median Democrat, let alone activists have moved enough on this issue that any sort of restrictions will be seen as too far to again, not wild progressives like me, but normie Dem's who care deeply about the issue, which is a large chunk of the party (who don't post in this comment section).
"Like, I think part of the issue is basically, it turns out, people in a political party don't want to vote for people who openly disagree with them on things, when there's an option to vote for somebody who does agree with them."
This is one of the most true things you've ever said. The real question then becomes if they are willing to do it to win or if they are content to vote for their preferred candidate if that means they continue to lose.
Jesse is consistently telling the truth and we just don't want to accept it.
The mercurial voting patterns of the cultural leftists in the coalition make moving away from their unpopular opinions very difficult. If we move too far, they will stay home or vote for someone like Ralph Nader. Because their threats are credible -- they've swung elections toward Republicans before -- we have to cater to their demands.
The issue is many Democratic voters don't trust the person who is agreeing w/ the Republican's on abortion access to not end up not fighting the US becoming an autocracy because well...look at how the moderates are currently acting.
Also, to a decent chunk of Democratic voters, a world where abortion rights are restricted in their state is an autocracy and they don't want to vote for a person who would support that, or replace immigration, transgender rights, etc.
The point is that in order to win in a state like Texas, Democratic candidates need to have public positions that are more closely aligned with the electorate in order to actually win. In particular, this means moderating on some (not necessarily all) social issues. So you should support and enthusiastically vote for these more moderate candidates because it is impossible for a more liberal candidate to actually win in Texas.
But again, why should a pro-choice woman vote for somebody who will restrict her rights?
It's weird how people can understand why gun owners won't vote for a Democrat whose promising to vote to restrict their rights even if they agree with them on Medicare, but don't understand why pro-choice woman or immigrants or transgender people or whomever don't want to vote for a candidate who is promising to side with the Republican's on major issues when the Republican's are in the majority.
Women aren’t actually significantly more progressive on abortion rights than men. Also, a candidate that agrees with you 60% of the time is better than one that agrees with you 5% of the time. Third, an extra senator would be around for committee assignment votes and executive confirmations.
The analogy is would republicans be willing to vote for a republican who opposes gun rights in a blue state. https://dbknews.com/0999/12/31/arc-3bwuanwrhzb5pour6vrecbqmpa/ "UMD College Republicans: Hogan’s position on gun control is reasonable, not radical"
Would democrats in Austin write something like this for a Pro-life, Pro-Gun candidate?
It is everyone's privilege to be a single-issue voter. If you are NOT a single-issue voter, then consider whether a candidate who agrees with you on one of your most important issues is electable, and if they are not, whether you would prefer a candidate who disagrees with you on one of your most important issues, but agrees with you on several secondary issues over one who disagrees with you across the board.
(I would also expect, by the way, that 90% of pro-life Democrats are less extreme in the abortion restrictions that they want to enact than the typical pro-life Republican.)
Very deeply agree with this. Reminds me of how many articles, here and elsewhere, are written about Dems needing to break with "the groups" on culture issues without identifying any groups or issues except in the vaguest of terms.
- In regards to the senate, I sort of feel like Cal Cunningham not being able to keep it in his pants an underrated moment of the last 8 years. He (and Biden) lost the state my ultimately a pretty narrow margin. I don’t think it’s crazy to think if sex scandal hadn’t happened that Biden wins that state and Cunningham is a sitting senator. If NC was called for Biden on election night I think that could have been huge in stopping the “stop the steal” conspiracy from taking off. And that extra senate seat would have been huge.
- Honest question Matt. Can you point me to a senate election from the past 8 years where Democrats lost a winnable seat because they nominated a candidate that was too left wing? I suspect the commentariat will suggest Mandela Barnes. But look carefully at his platform. There were definitely some positive support for stuff like environmental justice. But much more prominent was stuff about bringing back manufacturing to Wisconsin and supporting small farms. Exactly the sort of “moderating on issues important to your state” you advocate. It’s not that I disagree with your thesis. It’s that you write as though Dems have been ignoring your advice for 8 years when that’s demonstrably not the case. Again, you seem to be letting the criticism you get from lefty social media impact your view of the Democratic Party at least a bit much.
- When I read that Krugman line the first time, my immediate first thought was “shots fired at Yglesias”. But I think it’s important that you left out the part he included from G Elliot Morris. Namely, you normalize allowing the President to nationalize the national guard and use the military as his personal toy, that’s absolutely the ball game. I am probably one of those people who went too far”boy who cried wolf” on certain things too much last 8 years. But if in 2026, Abbot can call on national guard to bring “order” to Austin because somewhere in the city one got drunk, swung at a cop and and said “f**k Trump”, then it doesn’t matter what message moderate “D” senate candidate has if the people of Austin are intimidated or actually physically from voting. My point is Matt, I think you underestimate how much we’ve gotten close what I call the “Orban line”.
For me, Democrats should be winning Senate races in Pennsylvania, Maine, Wisconsin, and North Carolina and have a chance to pick up in places like Ohio, Texas, Florida, and Tennessee if conditions are favorable. But that’s not the situation.
PA, ME, WI, NC is all reasonable. OH if favorable also makes sense, but the Florida Dem's have been run badly since the 50's outside of Lawton Chiles and Bob Graham regardless of the ideology of the party, the move to the right of Hispanic's messed with Democratic plans in Texas, and Tennessee's college-educated voters are more conservative than expected for a variety of reasons.
Tennessee is closer to the Republican equivalent of Washington where just looking at the numbers, the GOP should be closer, but the actual voters are more liberal than you'd think just by demos.
I get that there are local challenges, but Tennessee, Texas, and Florida are all gettable for the Senate under the right conditions. If Democrats can win Georgia, they can win Florida. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.
Your definition of winnable is the point of the article. If only 49-52 seats are winnable then it’s true you only lost 2 seats currently due to overly left wing candidates (barnes being the obvious one). It really is just true that democrats are more left wing on every topic since 2012 and way more left wing on every topic since 2006.
Because Democratic voters are more left-wing and society as a whole is actually more progressive.
Democrat's are more left wing on every topic than they were in 1988 as well - does that mean they should all go back to running like Dick Gephardt and they'd magically win 60% of the vote?
This is what the left-leaning party does. If people want a centrist party that stays only within what the median voter wants, you're free to create one.
Why are you picking on Dick Gephardt, who was a notable supporter of gay rights and universal health care in 2004? In some ways, he's perfectly in step with the modern Democratic party. He might have done a better job as Kerry's VP than Edwards did.
Then the candidates need to moderate even further (to the right?). Whether America is more conservative than we thought or moderate Democrats are more left wing than we think, candidates need to shift to the right.
I’m with you, it’s disparity to see the shitting on Democrats, but ultimately we have to bury some of the orthodoxy and do what it takes to win those seats
As a general follow up on comments below. I really feel like "Democratic Presidential candidates 2019/2020 tacked too far to the left, including Kamala Harris, an attempt to win Bernie supporters, when there was clearly more room in the 'moderate' lane and as a result, one of the reasons Kamala lost the 2024 election was her super left positions on certain identity issues came back to bite her" has been conflated with "Democrats are consistently losing winnable races because they nominate candidates with policy positions way to the left of median voter of the state and it's because 'the groups' won't allow any Dem nominee to moderate any positions in a way that would reach swing voters".
My point is, it's not at all clear to me Democrats have been consistently losing winnable elections by nominating super left candidates. I brought up Mandela Barnes to note that even if you want to argue that he had some issue positions maybe a bit too left and possibly to the left of 2012 median Dem position, it is hardly like he didn't break with the party in order to try to appeal to swing voters.
I'll also say, the NYC mayoral race is throwing this conversation for loop. The fact that press is disproportionately in NYC gives this race outsized attention and I think is clouding the current conversation. But I think there is some wrong lessons being taken here. I can't emphasize enough that a) Andrew Cuomo's early large lead in the primary was almost certainly as much about name recognition as anything else b) Cuomo's early lead meant the place to gain in the polls was on the left c) Cuomo's history of being a creep who should never be near power again is a huge reason Mamdani has a real shot of winning this primary just from "never Cuomo" people like me d) Ranked choice voting is still clearly not well understood by the electorate and by pundits and could result in a Mamdani victory that wouldn't happen in a more traditional primary vote.
I can’t tell if Gillum went into a spiral after losing the election, or if he was already on that path such that losing the election meant dodging a bullet for the Senate.
"My point is Matt, I think you underestimate how much we’ve gotten close what I call the “Orban line”."
This seems exactly the opposite. Matt is highlighting that THE most effective way to stop from crossing the "Orban line" is for Democrats to win the Senate in 2026. Even more so if they didn't just win 51 seats, but could actually get to 55 seats or more. Would there be any more powerful rebuke to Trump than that? And if that was the goal, what would it take to get there? Matt is laying out the strategy he sees to get there.
Unless you disagree and think there is something more meaningful to be done? In which case, what exactly are you proposing that would stop Abbot from calling on the national guard in 2026 and doing what you suggest?
*Not that I think Abbot actually would do that. There is a big leap from cracking down on illegal immigrants and rioters to using the national guard to prevent voting in the state capital. If he would/could do that and get away with it, we're already screwed.
I think its important to note here, that part of criticism I have to Matt is based on the last Politix podcast. He was telling Brian Buetler that Dems should literally do and say nothing on immigration. Forget protests, forget more demonstrative denunciations, literally don't talk about...at all.
Now these polls are specifically about the LA protests and subsequent response from Trump. But I feel like its pretty good support that there is a space to be had for Democrats to put on a message that is to the right of "open borders for all. Any deportations of anyone is racism" and to the left whatever the heck John Fetterman is doing https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/politics/fetterman-la-protests-anarchy.html
Perhaps the difference is that I think it would be possible for Democrats to craft an immigration message that would be much more popular than what Trump is doing. But I have no faith or expectation that the current iteration of the Democratic party can deliver that message. It seems much more likely that they will craft an immigration message that is even more unpopular than what Trump is doing as I have seen the both parties compete over who can be more unpopular moreso than I have seen either actually try to compete to be more popular.
I think this is a fundamental disagreement. The reason I'm so animated about immigration rather than Medicaid is that I think if Trump can order police to arrest people and send them to a prison in El Salvador without due process or revoking people's status based on free speech grounds we've already lost where as if Trump passes legislation that is normal politics and either it will have bad effects and hurt his popularity or it wasn't a big deal (there are some cases like cuts to foreign aid where the cuts are popular and the tangible impact is low but are a big deal but both Matt and I agree these are not winning issues).
Except that the courts have been pretty resistant to Trump doing that, but being able to take the Senate is critically important to keeping the courts that way!
The courts have said good things (some of the time) but they are not doing a good job of actually protecting people. I think the attention generated on these issues is much better at forcing change.
Being randomly detained, bringing people back from El Salvador. The use of the national guard and military in LA. Yes the court may rule in people's favor but 1. The harm is already done 2. there needs to be pressure and attention so that the government follows through.
It's not just about each individual candidate, it's about the party as a whole. The democratic party as a whole is seen as WAY to left wing and out of touch.
That's what needs to moderate.
Also, blue states and cities need to be shown they can be governed effectively. So when blue politicians want to run the whole country they can point to a good track record.
But right now people are fleeing blue states and cities and heading to red ones because those "tend" to be better governed..
Left-wing people are going to vote for the people you disagree with and a message of "vote for representatives you disagree with to make low-info swing voters in Wisconsin happy" is never going to be something that works at scale.
Trump is not the problem. Trump is a consequence of the problem, a symptom of the disease. The problem is Congress. Trump rose to prominence because Congress hasn't been able to do anything for a decade, and Trump promised he would do something. Congress could stop Trump right now, but it won't. Congress could (and should) make him Not President. Elect a better Congress and the Constitution will do the rest.
"Trump rose to prominence because Congress hasn't been able to do anything for a decade, and Trump promised he would do something."
I completely disagree. Congress has definitely abdicated responsibility to the executive, but congress is able to a lot of stuff *on which there is agreement.*
What people are upset about is that Congress won't pass legislation *they want* that is not broadly popular. Well, there is also stuff that is broadly popular but stupid like no taxes on tips that Trump is excellent at bringing to the forefront.
edit - I say this as someone wants Congress to do lots of stuff, but also recognizes that many of the things I want might have a bare majority, but also have significant opposition. Its the latter that slows major legislation down.
Why? If you are going to do something that a significant portion of the population really hates, shouldn't you have a large majority behind you? Otherwise, this will create significant internal strife as a country, yes?
You act as though “elect a better Congress” were a decision we could make despite the structural features of how Congress is elected (state borders, primaries, and social media are all major constraints).
Again, *Democrats* can't really do that, because there is no organized individual named "Democrats" who can just choose to do something.
We can each do our part to try to help the disorganized mass muddle through the primary system to end up with more centrist candidates despite the issues of social media and state borders, but there's a deeper structural issue here, with candidates having to choose to run, and then go through a primary, before entering the general election. (It's not just winning the primary that's a structural problem - the fact of having to go through a primary very reasonably dissuades a lot of good candidates from even choosing to run, including candidates who could win the primary).
But I think that for the medium run, we should also be thinking about how to reform the system so that these structural pressures aren't so counterproductive.
I agree; I have quite the laundry list of things I wish were different about the system. But the “we” who reform the system are the same “we” who elect the Congress. And we become such a “we” by reading things like this, discussing them, and deciding we have similar goals.
Ohioan here. I think we need more thinking on an authentic Democratic agenda for rural and working-class folks. We have rural broadband, but it doesn't move a lot of votes. Blue states with a significant rural population (Illinois, California, Michigan) could lead the way here.
* Save rural hospitals. Increase Medicaid reimbursement for rural hospitals (it's already high, but could be higher). My sister had to go to Columbus because her local hospital couldn't do anything.
* Publicly funded maternity wards. Maternity wards are closing and in parts of rural Ohio, you have to drive 90 minutes to have a baby. These wards would shore up rural hospitals.
* Pair this with a crackdown on private equity owned hospitals and nursing homes. Everyone knows someone getting gouged by a shady retirement home.
* Medicaid buy-in for small businesses. This would be huge. Every small restaurant and two-chucks-in-a-truck plumbing company would jump in.
* Right to repair your own tractor. John Deere rips of farmers something huge.
* Prioritize water for agriculture - make new dams and aquifer recharge projects.
* Antitrust crackdown on seed and fertilizer monopolies.
* Preserve rural land - more intense building in cities (hi, Matt).
* Stabilize the climate. A bit of a stretch, but farmers do know there's something going on with the weather.
* Free trade for farm goods. I think most rural people believe in tariffs to retain manufacturing jobs, but recognize it's bad for them personally. We could probably carve out a principle for free trade for food.
The delta smelt is just an excuse for preserving some rivers. It’s unfortunate that our environmental law is written around species rather than ecosystems, but species are the simplistic way we came up with to legally protect ecosystems. Saying we shouldn’t “flush water into the ocean” is just saying rivers shouldn’t exist.
Only if we get someone smart enough to play Matt's four dimensional chess - Pete or maybe Gavin could do it, the rest of the field idk. We could as easily end up with a leftist, populist firebrand with good hair (looking at you Beto), and we're toast. Sometimes parties have to spend multiple cycles in the wilderness before they try all the bad ideas and find something that works.
It really only comes from a Presidential candidate, and a successful one. The Republicans very much have a central leader. The Democrats haven't really since Obama.
I am not optimistic about any brand change that normies notice until the Presidential race. If we don't see a leftwing non-profit panderfest like 2019-2020, maybe we can turn the ship.
You can't blame the design of a document from more than two centuries ago for all modern ills. Surely at some point the responsibility shifts to some newer generations?
For example, how about the fact that there used to be amendments to the constitution until this process entirely stopped in recent times; or entirely self-inflicted issues like all senators abdicating their responsibilities by inventing and then never abolishing the modern filibuster?
Amendments tend to be ratified in bursts with many of them coming as a direct or indirect result of war. So far, the current time of 34 years is only the third longest gap between amendments, with 61 years (1804-1865) and 43 years (1870-1913) being longer. So I wouldn't say the current time is anomalous. Eventually, another amendment will be passed, but we may not be happy about the circumstances necessary to generate such comity. In fact, I'd say we're seeing the success of the Constitution, in that we're still holding together despite political strife.
I would argue that the real gap is actually 54 years since the last amendment, the 27th amendment, was proposed in 1789 and was ratified as more of a fun project rather than something really substantial.
I don't think lack of amendments necessarily equals time bomb for war, but I don't think it speaks well that I struggle to imagine the political unity necessary for any amendment.
If the system from 236+ years ago wasn't good enough, then at some point in the last 235 years someone could've improved it. Why blame the original system, and not everyone who failed to improve it?
"the system from 236+ years ago" quite famously did not anticipate political parties and now as those parties have calcified, it is also impossible to change.
it's weird to suggest that the system is not the problem and give the why as "because no one changed it". that logic is missing a few steps.
All systems made by humans are imperfect, and there's no such thing as a political system that correctly anticipates everything that happens hundreds of years later. The correct response to this is for later generations to adapt the system to their present circumstances, not for them to blame long-dead people for their past design that never would've been able to solve unforeseen future challenges.
Even if the system were indeed 100% impossible to change now, then it would still make more sense to blame people from the 20th century when the system was less calcified than it is now; rather than blaming people from the 18th century. But again, there are modern self-inflicted governance errors (like the modern filibuster) that have ~nothing to do with any flaws present in the US constitution.
Some of the causes are important changes that happened since then. Direct election of senators, and primary elections for all positions, are a big part of what prevents leadership from happening.
A lot of party policy over the past ten decades or so has been dedicated to the goal of eliminating leadership. Recall elections, primary elections, and social media are all major features that defang leadership and empower leaderless movements.
Is the American Hospital Association an organization whose opinions people should care about? Stop charging patients $100 per ibuprofen pill and I'll listen to your opinion on Medicaid.
I think the fight against the big beautiful bill needs as big of a tent as possible. Like Casey said in his comment, these are important political actors with huge wallets.
"Because the BBB threatens their ability to use money to influence politics"
I could 100% be wrong but idk if hearing that makes the BBB look worse. Their money is fungible, of course, but I'm skeptical that their names being attached to the opposition helps.
The AHA can spend money on advertising that makes GOP House frontliners uncomfortable. They can donate to primary and general election opponents that can run against and brag GOP House frontliners. That's the mechanism. You're right no one cares what the AHA thinks...except those who have to run a campaign where AHA money is on the other side.
1. An AHA endorsement acts as a negative signal to me, a mostly normie voter. It's like hearing "the National Association of Firearms, Tobacco, and Telemarketers supports this thing" would make that thing less attractive to most voters.
2. Any excess money the AHA has to spend on political ads means they're getting that money from somewhere. Is the only reason you can lobby for Medicare and Medicaid because you have exorbitant reimbursement rates with Medicare and Medicaid?
Normie voters have no clue who the AHA endorsed. Normie voters see an ad on TV (or TikTok) and say, "I really wish government would stay out of healthcare and leave Medicaid alone."
Perfect example of what Matt is talking about. Big tent means you have to let those whose positions you don't entirely agree with inside. No to signaling, yes to collaboration. And any organization with national economic interests (everyone in health care) will have a lobbying arm. It is an essential expense, not "excess".
My response is purely instrumental. I'm saying while the ACA's money is fungible and marginally helpful, I'm skeptical that their name attached to the opposition helps.
I don't think the political action would come down to "We are the American Hospital Association and we hate this bill."
It's more about using the trust Americans still tend to have in their healthcare providers, in addition to the influence hospitals have over local politicians, both as large businesses/employers and critical public infrastructure that would really hurt if it closed.
If car dealers can maintain an extremely effective political influence operation so can hospitals.
AHA's opposition isn't for you and very likely wouldn't be heard by the median voter - they run a largely inside game, any ads will run on dc influencer platforms like Meet the Press. But their voice could be very impactful, both because of the power of their political spending (politicians pay at least some heed to the groups who write them checks), and as importantly - because most of the worst adverse effects of Medicaid cuts are among rural providers, bringing small hospital and fqhc leaders to dc to directly plead their case has both an outsized constituent value (these people are community leaders in red states), and a rallying effect back at those facilities (their employees become grassroots red state lobby voices as well).
One major federal healthcare funding program - 340B - requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to indirectly subsidize hospitals by selling them drugs at very low submarket prices, so that hospitals can profit from the spread when they sell those drugs to their patients at regular commercial retail prices. According to AHA, the 340B provided a indirect subsidy to hospitals, from manufacturers, of about $46.5 billion in 2022. AHA is very vocal in defending that.
Presumably the AHA doesn't love the idea of losing many tens of billions of dollars. So what matters is whether or not they're effective at critiquing Trump's beautiful safety net slasher bill—not whether or not they agree with you or me on all issues related to healthcare.
If they're powerful, it would be good to have them on board. Just ask Harry and Louise.
I don't think what we're talking about is doing a massive public endorsement. The idea is more that there is basically a hospital in every congressional district...
In CA-22, David Valedao voted for the Medicaid cuts, but over half his constituents are on Medicaid. The local hospital system stands to lose a huge amount of business if the bill goes through, and would probably have to close branches and stuff with attendant job loss, and healthcare would become less accessible even for those with private insurance.
So it's about making clear to these reps the potential consequences of this bill to their districts. In theory hospitals are a very powerful interest group because they are widely geographically distributed, in contrast to regional interest etc.
Conflating "hawkish on immigration" with "illegally abducting people en masse" is not political moderation, it's just ignorance.
I completely acknowledge that most voters still approve of Trump's immigration policies, but we have to draw a line somewhere. The establishment of an American Gestapo (or Special Organization, if you prefer that I reference the genocide to which my own family was subjected) must be that line.
I think that’s exactly what Matt saying. He is saying to actually draw a line you have to make some very uncomfortable choices about the future of the party. What do *you* me by drawing a line?
I mean, for example, blue state governors stationing their national guard units at their state borders and refusing entry to ICE. I mean taking literally any immediate action to prevent the encroachment of fascism.
Retaking the Senate is important for the long term, but this is not a long term issue.
An administration can be hawkish on immigration and still respect the rule of law.
Why is that a good idea? Won’t that just look to the average person like democrats care more about undocumented immigrants than legal citizens? If you paired it with an energetic and visible effort to cooperate with federal deportation efforts for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes, then I could see drawing a clear line. But if your proposal is just to energetically defend the status quo of half-hearted enforcement of the law, how does that help?
There are armed federal agents abducting people with no warrants and no trials. The claim that those people are undocumented immigrants is just MAGA propaganda until it is substantiated in a court of law.
You don't get a trial until after you are arrested, processed, and possibly detained until trial without a chance of bond based on flight risk and danger to the community.
But you are describing this process with breathless shock like thieves and drunk drivers aren't treated the same way every day.
If they do that we will be a minority party for generations.
The American public barely disapproves of the most ridiculous Trump immigration policies. But they think liberals and leftists who think ICE are stormtroopers are crazy and dumb. We have to thread that needle carefully.
The thought of Shapiro going on live TV to announce he's mobilizing the state National Guard to *stop ICE from deporting illegal immigrants*...
I think that's one of the few things he could do that would cost him my vote, not because I particularly like ICE but because it's just so profoundly politically stupid.
I sincerely doubt that either of them would do such a thing unless the feds had already been proven to have kidnapped a bunch of citizens from their states and refused to repatriate them, or something similarly egregiously illegal.
At which point public opinion would likely be on their side, and since Trump is genuinely quite attuned to the vagaries of public opinion, I don't think we're ever going to get that far. #TACO
This is remarkable folly - the administration would *love* the pretext to jail dem leaders. If you're looking for the road to civil war (that blue states would almost certainly lose), this is it right here.
What does "...to draw a line somewhere" mean? I think that's the key question. Should we interpret it has code red (e.g. Google speak when ChatGPT launched), then you have to take drastic corrective action to be able to oppose Trump. That is exactly what Matt is advocating here where the drastic action entails coming to terms with reality and pissing off advocating groups/ Non-Profit complex to moderate and improve brand perception.
In a way, this is eerily similar to the "existential" threat that climate change was in the last 5 years. It was great for slogans and counter productive actions, but no one was willing to give up their pet project (tariffs on Solar, permitting obstacles) to actually advance the goal.
Protest movements work in US politics all the time. They scare politicians. They garner media coverage, and they build a sense of what is and isn't popular with broad swathes of the electorate. You know, convincing people of things, not unlike Matt's job.
Trump's consolidation of power requires allies. It requires a shared sense of either support or acquiescence. Putting forward and sharing the idea that Donald Trump is illegally and inappropriately consolidating power that he gets from the imperial presidency. Matt's "obsession" is fine and useful, but it is not mutually exclusive with the energy needed for the acute emergency now.
Matt glosses over this in the article ("In 2016, Bernie Sanders launched a protest campaign against Hillary Clinton that unexpectedly caught fire") but you can draw a direct line from the Occupy protests to the Sanders campaign to the elevation of left-wing economic ideas in the democratic party within an eight-year span. I don't know why he has such a blind spot about other protests.
The Democrats getting their shit together in time for one of the next elections is not drastic action. They should do that, sure. (We all know they won't, though.) But that is completely unrelated to stopping fascism that is happening right now, today.
Please see latest polling. There might be a general support for harsher immigration policies in abstract still. But support for Trump’s actual enforcement policies is considerably underwater.
I love that you went after King Krugman. I’ll always be grateful for how much I learned from him about economics and for his role in combating the Paul Ryan idiocy. But let’s be honest, he HAS been “shrill” and stuck on the same note for a decade - he is part of the problem.
I think he was legitimately shocked back in the day to discover the intellectual dishonesty of republican economic messaging, and he wasn’t wrong. But he got stuck in a cycle of outrage instead of seeing that his own “side” has plenty of warts too. I got stuck in that too, and Matt was one of the key people who helped me get off my high horse.
He was but then he also scuttled the Bowles-Simpson recommendations from being voted in the Congress while voting for many deficit increasing bills so I don’t consider him a serious person on deficit reduction either. He talked a good game on deficits but didn’t follow it up with actions.
Republicans in Texas and Ohio are, rationally, more concerned with Republican primaries than the general election. This is awful. Even if Democrats don’t win these states, forcing Republicans to chose more moderate candidates would be useful.
This is an underrated point: Contesting the whole map changes the behavior of Republicans. There was a lot of talk about how Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor, might vote against RFK Jr's confirmation. But he voted for it, and reports seem to indicate that he's not at all happy personally about having done so. Yet he did, and the reason is very clear: He's more afraid of a challenge from the right then from a Democrat.
What makes this even more sad is that Louisiana quite recently had a Democratic governor, and while that moderate and conservative Dems can still win statewide in the south, they've had an extremely hard time in Senate races because of the way that politics has been nationalized. We all know that if John Bel Edwards was in Cassidy's seat, he would be vilified on the left but would instantly be the most valuable Senator a la Manchin. And in the alternate universe where he's a credible threat to run against Cassidy, it might have pushed Cassidy to vote no on RFK to burnish his moderate creds. I realized this seems like a very small thing in the grand scheme of the Trump administration, but if you had a credible D threat in Iowa you might have got Ernst to vote against Hegseth, etc. Do this across the map, rack up a few losses for Trump nominees, and it would have changed the narrative and made him look a lot weaker. As it stands now the narrative is that Trump controls the Republican party, and it's not wrong
Is anything stopping Edwards from getting the Democratic nomination for Senate?
I'm sure Edwards could get the D nom. My point is that Cassidy acts as if Edwards isn't a threat (or more generally, he sees a Trumpy R challenge as a greater threat than a centrist D challenge). That's largely a function of the national environment, which is turn is affected by the way national Democrats operate... They don't act as if their goal is to win those Senate races, as Matt argues they should.
The national Democratic party needs to move toward the center but it will always be to the left of what would be agreeable to the voters of Louisiana. The point is to let Louisiana Democrats shape their positions to win their home state, not to expect the entire party to be remolded to resemble them.
But, yes, change is needed but we have to be realistic about how much the party should change. More popularist, sure, but not socially conservative.
Just to correct myself, apparently Louisiana doesn't hold primaries (everyone runs on one ballot and then they have runoffs). Nonetheless my conceptual point still stands
It’s gotten a little more complicated. Historically, we ain’t never had traditional closed primaries in Louisiana. We did a modified Top 2, but unlike the West Coast it’s possible to win outright in the first round if you get a simple majority.
When we elected Gov. Landry, one of the turns to the right was to create closed primaries. It got real messy, but from last year’s legislature there’s now two rounds of semi- closed primaries for federal offices and a handful of state ones (state Supreme Court, state school board, state utilities commission).
This is a pretty bad set up for Cassidy because he can get a plurality in a big field in the first round, but likely can’t get a majority against [insert opponent] in the second round.
Great point and a clear example of the downstream effects of a broader strategic playbook around "mitigate bad outcomes" vs. "overthrow Trump". I'm empathetic to the people wracked with outrage and who believe massive protests and other blow-up-the-Death-Star type actions are the only way forward, but at the same time I find it to be a really reductive and (at risk of sounding patronizing) childish approach to the situation at hand.
Maybe we've all watched too many movies, but wars--from the physical to the political to the business--aren't won by a perfect magic shot that brings down the baddies in a glorious domino cascade. They are long, long slogs that require strategy that often aims to gain inches, not miles, with victory sometimes merely being the opening of opportunity in the future. As you said, putting pressure on Republicans in "safe" GOP states can cause moderation in the Republican primary which could lead to moderation at the national legislative arena. That may seem like a paltry victory to the protest crowd, but starting piling up those kinds of wins and they compound to help open future opportunity.
Hell, I'd even argue the GOP basically did this to the Dems--they kept creating crises and issues that caused smaller and smaller cracks in the Dem party, leading to in-fighting and purity testing which has left the party rudderless. More Dems would benefit from looking at the GOP's playbook the last 10-20 years to see what went very, very right for them.
Indeed in real-world wars, Blow Up the Death Star or Good Guys Execute Glorious Crazy No Chances attacks as hail mary moves in reality results in disaster
* A Bridge Too Far
* Charge of the Light Brigade....
Yes. So-crazy-it-just-might-work is a joke, not an actual phenomenon IRL.
Well to be perhaps pedantically precise, not a *successful" phenomena IRL...
"Glorious failures" ... although my impression of the Lefty Proggy activists is they are in many ways rather content to have Glorious Failure to demonstrate righteousness. Really quite a kind of religious thinking but secular.
I also reminds me of the Generals of WW I who insisted w enough righteous elan and spirit, the troops would break through German lines - because you know spirit, righteous cause and also 'they have to'... Maxim guns of course didn't care much about spirit or righteousness.
"forcing Republicans to chose more moderate candidates would be useful."
Sincere question, not trolling: what's the point of more "moderate" Republican members of Congress if they won't stand up to Trump? Based on what we've seen so far, none of the so-called "moderate" elected officials have stood up to Trump publicly and told him, "Mr. President, this is wrong/illegal/against our Constitution." Has an elected Republican said fuck-all about the gilded Qatari jet for example? What about all the Republicans who voted to confirm Trump's cabinet of clowns, cranks and incompetents? No, Susan Collins wringing her hands and mentioning how "concerned" she is doesn't count.
If they're going to be Trump's lickspittles no matter what, then why care whether Republican Senators are "moderate" or not? Because genteel lickspittles are nicer than asshole ones?
Is this why the ACA was repealed and Matt Gaetz is currently Attorney General? A big problem for moderates, whether Democratic or Republican, is that we've just normalized lying.
The ACA was not repealed during trump 1, which is a very different environment than trump 2. And not nominating a potential pedophile to be attorney general isn’t exactly some sort of gold star for the republican senators
Yes, Trump has a popular vote mandate and has consolidated power over the GOP so it's much harder to stand up to him today as a moderate Republican. No sure how that changes my point at all.
Your point was that we have normalized “lying”. I don’t see any lies in anything drsophilist said. By pointing out the one time they stood up to trump when he went too far, doesn’t make the times they didn’t any less reprehensible.
John McCain is the reason Obamacare wasn’t repealed, and he was in no way moderate.
Susan Collins and Murkowski also voted against the repeal, apparently, they don't count as moderates either?
And to say McCain was in "no way moderate" is just dishonest.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-john-mccain-a-maverick/
Temperamentally I agree with you 100%. That said, I think there’s a difference between true believers and people who can, in the right circumstances, do the right thing. Lisa Murkowski is clearly a coward and an idiot, but it’s clear to me that we are meaningfully better off with her as senator from Alaska than say Sarah Palin. 9 days out of 10 she will do the wrong thing, but she knows that she’s doing the wrong thing, and that 1 in 10 time can make a big difference.
Yes this is a complicated thing. I thought it was awful when Dems ran ads deliberately trying to help the worst Republicans in their primaries, but in the end it seems to have helped get Dems elected.
See Alex M's comment above. They don't currently stand up to Trump precisely because they are more concerned about a rightward flank in the primaries than a moderate challenger in the general election. A more moderate Republican who is worried about the general election votes no on insane cabinet choices like Hegseth, RFK, or Gabbard. A more moderate Republican who is worried about the general election actually backs up their threat to Speaker Johnson to pull their vote from the atrocious budget bill. The entire feedback mechanism is broken if GOP Congressmen and women from well over half of the states no longer fear their democratic challengers.
Do Democratic senators in safe blue states have the same problem? If not, why not? If yes, then don't you need stronger Republican challengers in those states in order to moderate the Democratic senators?
It’s hard to have strong Republican challengers when the sole and most important position is absolute allegiance to Donald Trump.
I agree, it does feel like we’re in a weird holding pattern while Trump is active in politics. I mentioned in another comment that the Republican candidate in 2022 against Wyden in OR was a big QAnon adopter.
Loser talk
The structural difference is probably 60% of Republicans are MAGA whereas only 40% of Democrats are woke or progressive. Progressives punch above their weight because they are educated and strident, MAGA types were ignored pre Trump.
I think Tea Party were kinda precursor but still I think they were masked by fiscal hardliner narrative, which is more compatible with cosmopolitan value?
I see the Tea Party as a reaction against Obama’s otherness politely dressed in talk about deficits.
No Republican president since Eisenhower has cared much about the deficit when in power. Deficits are the only way of reconciling the chamber of commerce and pensioners.
"No Republican president since Eisenhower has cared much about the deficit when in power. "
That doesn't mean other republicans haven't cared.
I definitely think people like Paul Ryan actually cared about it, and if Romney had won, and he was VP that would have mattered I think
paul ryan is not viable nationally and wouldn’t be viable in the wisconsin first moderates didn’t save him from his own ideas.
the actual project of winding down the new deal has never been tried. moderate opinion is so deferential to the new deal that trying to reduce medicaid by 10 or 20% (and medicaid came decades after the new deal) is treated as radical. still, plenty of americans, maybe 20-25%, still don’t accept the new deal.
"a reaction against Obama's otherness"
I think you're right, but that's one hell of a euphemism you've got there, friend.
His *otherness*! He's different from us in some way, I can't put my finger on it! Um, he was born in Hawaii? He wears tan suits? He likes arugula?🤔
well, he wasn’t only half black. he was the son of a kenyan subcabinet minister, his thinking was strongly post-colonial, he grew up in hawaii, he spent time as a child in indonesia.
i strongly suspect he would not have won without being half white. the picture of his white mother holding him was deployed for a reason, and plenty of whites were more comfortable with him because he grew up in a white household.
i wish progressives would stop being so shocked by human nature. people are scared of otherness. if you call this racism, you aren’t wrong or foolish, you just aren’t trying very hard to understand how people actually think.
The energy behind MAGA and the Tea Party are the same. It’s about being against not a rally around values. Sure there is a core group that believes in something but the majority of MAGA and the Tea Party were there to rally against Obama and the Left.
This is different than the religious right which actually had values they were rooted in.
I say this based on friends who were tea party proponents and MAGA. These two groups have different values but are both anti-Left.
That would also be good, yes
It was probably a good thing for the country when guys like Edward Brooke were viable Republican Senate candidates in places like Massachusetts.
I was curious who ran against Widen in Oregon last time, I couldn’t recall. Jo Rae Perkins won the Republican primary with about a third of the vote in 2022 and the only other defining feature of her Wikipedia page is that she believes/d in QAnon. I personally very much like my senator, though I’d be curious to see how he might alter his platform if he had…not that to run against.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Rae_Perkins
Controversial: but I would encourage moderates to register republican and vote in the primaries. A more temperate Republican leadership would greatly benefit this country.
very much agreed.
Moderates choosing to be independents and not vote in primaries has been REALLY bad for the country
What do you do if you don’t align with either party? I don’t want to switch my party affiliation every 2-4 years.
we're all so very impressed by how above it all you are.
Wasn't really trying. It should a matter of great shame that a liberal doesn't want to be a Democrat but we all know that people like you are shameless.
what's wrong though with doing that (apart from the paperwork)?
Nothing wrong with it. I don’t like either party so I want them to earn my vote. I’ve been voting Democrat by default because Trump has been the Republican nominee since I became a citizen. I don’t like most of Democratic legislations.
Pick one and just vote for moderates in the primary
I don’t like either party enough to pick one.
The CA Democratic Party used to let Independents vote in the Presidential primary till 2020. They changed that in 2024.
>Republicans in Texas and Ohio are, rationally, more concerned with Republican primaries than the general election.
I'm not convinced this is true of Ohio. Sherrod Brown ran a close race in 2024. Given Democrats' turnout advantage in off-year elections, he could very well win in 2026 if he runs. Ohio Republicans know this.
Moderate Republicans don't prevent Trump from doing what he wants. They're no better than full on MAGA Republicans.
Hey, I just made the same comment above!
You actually want the opposite approach. Having Republicans choose more extreme candidates increases the chances of Dem senate pickups in red states.
One unspoken thing in the critcism of this stance is the unspoken hope amongst many that a sufficiently big protest movement could sweep Trump out of office and force a rewritting of constitution a la the Eastern Europan colour revolutions. I just don't see the American public getting to that point, short of an explicit attempt to overthrow the election.
This is a really important insight into the “political revolution” theory of American politics. Our country is simply too rich and median income too high, for that type of political change.
It's not just wealth and status quo bias; the Color Revolutions and Arab Spring won out against overwhelmingly unpopular governments, often those that came to power under various forms of foreign influence or coercion.
Virtually every attempt in those same regions to accomplish something similar since has foundered on the fundamental legitimacy of a lot of the successor governments, even when they're illiberal. Look at Georgia, Poland, Hungary, Israel... the least popular of those are probably Hungary's and Israel's governments, and they still maintain the support of just under half the population.
The only success since then has been Syria, which, again, had an insanely unpopular, illegitimate government.
The US might have a Color Revolution before we die, but only if we fuck up many, many things very badly for a very long time first.
In Israel, before Oct 7, the large demonstrations were putting the govt in an increasingly less viable position in spite of its legitimacy.
Most pop-revolutionaries have a childish view of politics.
I think a color revolution in the US is currently unlikely but I don't think the current wealth gap between us and say South Korea is the reason why, or that we have evidence that shows that.
Re-writing the Constitution to be less right-wing is at this point an absurd fantasy—where do people think the delegates to a Constitutional Convention are going to come from? As long as more states are majority-Republican (and as long as the Republican Party is subservient to Trump), this would be a complete disaster. The left don’t seem to understand that they are, in fact, unpopular and that to get the chance to re-write the Constitution in line with their principles, they would need to get the people on their side.
Absolutely right Although people who have lost touch with all their former MAGA friends may not be aware of it, most of the people who really, vocally want a new Constitutional Convention and are actively organizing for it oppose liberal democracy as most of us here want to continue to practice it. I strongly doubt that the product that emerged from such a Convention would be anything like as liberal and as flexible as the Constitution we have now. Be careful what you wish for!
In an ideal world, it would be possible to the two sides to do some horse-trading, for example, a requirement for proof of citizenship to vote, in exchange for a ban on partisan gerrymandering. In the real world, such a compromise would be utter fantasy, and the goal of any MAGA person at a constitutional convention would be to just abolish elections altogether and declare Trump king.
I was going to write something similar but I am pretty sure you're right that a big part of the American left doesn't have a realistic plan for retaking control of the Senate beyond massive protest and electing a left wing president who will something something transform institutions
They don't have an accurate theory of power /s
That was one weird recent Pod Save America podcast on the "3.5% rule" (https://crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-america/). It featured some political scientist saying that authoritarian regimes can be overthrown if at least 3.5% of the population rises up in peaceful protest (attended by comments on how close the "No Kings" rallies came to that total).
Sure, I guess mass peaceful protests could somehow overthrow MAGA? Or, just a thought, maybe we could do that through elections?
Speaking as a former political scientist, I can guarantee that at least 90% of the time when a political scientist is speaking about current events, you will not emerge enlightened and better educated.
I thought that was so weird! Even if this is a descriptively accurate statistic (which it seems like it is—I have no reason to doubt), that doesn’t mean it’s a prescription to bringing down the regime or something. This is like saying that every MLB player makes over $500k so if I make over $500k I’ll have a good chance to be an MLB player
Well, to be pedantic, if an MLB team offered you $500K to play, there's a good chance you'd be a decent MLB player. (Or maybe $1M; I'm not sure of the going rate for ballplayers these days.)
Fair enough. I think I was trying to imply a correlation-causation error in the way the 3.5% rule was gaining traction online. The paper says, “no regime has survived mass protests where 3.5% of the pop is involved” and people took that to mean “if we can get 3.5% of the population to protest, we’ll beat Trump.” But it was especially weird that the Podcast seemed to accept the latter framing
Oh yes, your point was spot on; that's why I included the obligatory "pedantry" warning in my answer. I've an unerring instinct for the capillaries.
A more sophisticated version of the "The shorter candidate has never won" stuff—p-hacking, basically.
What do the popularists say about large peaceful demonstrations? My assumption is that they should help the opposition win elections, and are complementary to the popularist / moderate big-tent electioneering Matt wants. But is there an argument that "No Kings" was counter-productive?
Wasn't David Shor in favor of peaceful demonstrations? I don't see the "No Kings" rallies as being counter-productive. People were happy and had a good time. That can't hurt.
It's not that protests were bad per se. The issue I had with that Podcast episode is that there was no theory espoused of HOW 3.5% protests would lead to MAGA losing it's political power in the US. As far as I can tell, there's no plausible path other than winning through electoral politics.
I think we should set our goals (Democrats winning more House and Senate seats in 2026 and congressional majorities plus the presidency in 2028) and work backward through the means to achieve them. The issue with the winning the Senate, as MY describes here, is that the party brand is terrible right now particularly among moderate and working class voters. The bachelor's degreed, highly-engaged Democrats (like us) who dominate the party tend to have a hard time understanding which arguments work with those recently defecting voters and which don't. "Trump is a threat to Democracy" definitely doesn't work. Immigration enforcement definitely isn't a winning issue either.
We have to overcome multiple issues at once - substantive moderation of the platform, dropping the lecturing tone, and selecting skilled moderate candidates. My worry is that we will fail to do so because Democrats would rather focus on things (attending protests and AOC rallies) that make them feel better but don't actually help us address those issues.
I can’t imagine too many people believe this is a plausible endgame.
I think there’s a significant amount of the Brahmin left whose mental model of revolutions includes romantic notions best captured by Hamilton and Les Mis
"I can’t imagine too many people believe this...."
The trouble comes when a high proportion of the politically active believe it, and a high proportion of those who do not believe it are politically inactive.
I doubt an explicit attempt to overthrow the election would do it either. Americans' lives are still materially comfortable, despite the recent actions of our government. And we have no experience of the kind of political instability that really threatens the government. I think a lot of people would insist that we're still a full democracy because it's impossible for America to be otherwise, and loyal Trump supporters (and any politician more concerned with a primary than the general election, or afraid of extremist Trump supporters) will insist that by overturning the election, the dear leader is saving the Republic and not destroying it. Perhaps we should even name his birth month in his honor?
--------
What gives me hope is not the thought of uprising against tyranny, but that Trump Always Chickens Out. (Maybe he was prophetic in warning about TACO trucks on every street corner, years ago?) If something is massively unpopular, the administration really does back down -- though, to my limited knowledge, only on issues where Trump does not personally have much at stake. But he's old, and his successor might be better suited to be a true tyrant -- though perhaps lacking in support?
I pin my hopes on the weakness and indecisiveness of the bad guys, the military's unwillingness to participate in coups and massacres, etc., rather than the American Public getting big mad and enacting a left-wing revolution.
The protest movement is turning on incremental wins rather than huge moments.
That is a scary goal. I forsee a protest movement -> revolution becoming very dangerous when there are paramilitaries armed to the teeth itching for civil war.
How would that even work, in their minds? Like if the protest is too big, Trump just has to give up? There isn't anything concrete to force his hand unless people stop going to work or paying taxes or something, and no one is going to do that.
Are there really people who believe this?
"...every single member of the caucus, from Slotkin to Schumer to Sanders, knows how to read a map and is capable of reaching this same conclusion. But winning will require the party, and its donors, and its staffers, and its cloud of vaguely aligned advocacy groups and pundits, to focus on one question...."
Okay, so today's column should be read by every one of those people.
But if you are not a sitting senator, not a big donor, not a staffer or member of the Groups, is there anything that you can do to push the party in this direction?
I don't mind your talking over my head to the party honchos and telling them what to do -- I support your 'stack exactly so that you will do that (and so I can watch and kibitz) . But I want to make sure I didn't miss the part in this piece where you told normal voters what to do.
I always think back to the moment years ago when I told my cousin that there couldn’t be a pro-life democratic candidate (she was advocating for one) because that would be a betrayal of the entire party. Not 100% sure how she voted then, but I am confident now she’s a Republican. I wish I hadn’t done that.
But if you're a conservative, pro-life candidate seeking the Democratic nomination in, say, Louisiana, who is stopping you? Maybe it's just money, and Democrats won't contribute to such a person, reserving all their money for meme candidates like Beto O'Rourke or Amy McGrath. If so, then it's up to *us* to dig into our pockets and make sure these people have the funds they need.
My guess is that because of (i) education polarization (ii) urban/rural polarization, and (iii) consciousness of partisan politics as having national ramifications, the people voting in Democratic primaries in red states aren't that different than they are in blue states. More plainly your blue primary voter in SF or NY may be to the left of your blue primary voter in Dallas or Atlanta but not by the leaps and bounds that would prompt some real material differentiation, especially if everyone we're talking about went to college. The only x factor in the south is that socially conservative black voters are still a blue leaning bloc.
I think this is an excellent point. We can also clearly see this in places like CA.
Where the Republican party there is a dumpster fire because the primary voters are just as red as in a place like Texas. But in a VERY blue state.
Similar in Maryland. I have a strong suspicion that Larry Hogan's handpicked successor would have beaten Wes Moore and she certainly would have made it a much, much tighter race. Instead the GOP primary voters nominated a MAGA nut from out in the hinterlands who was predictably (and rightly) routed.
Basically, yes, outside of very specific states like Lousiana and West Virginia, the 40% of people who vote for a Democrat in Kansas or South Carolina looks like the 55% who do in Washington or New York.
Just like outside of very specific states like Vermont, the 40% of people who vote for Republican's in California look like the 55% who do in Georgia.
Quite possibly, and if so then that is the problem to address. We should be thinking about how to mobilize more centrist voters in the primary.
I think at this point, the centrists have overcorrected just how many centrist voters there are in a Democratic primary.
Like, hell in New Jersey, Josh Gottheimer ran a well -funded sort of run to the middle appease everybody campaign, don't say anything even vaguely liberal primary and got...I think 8%.
Yes, Sherrill was also a more moderate choice and won with like 35%, but she's a normie Democrat's who's lose by 7 in Texas.
I do wonder how much personal opprobrium from friends and family stops possible candidates from being a bit unorthodox in early stages of their career. I am less vocally moderate around a good friend of mine who is in the very left professional activist/groups sphere. I'm not running for office, but I do feel wary of alienating my (perhaps unique) social circle.
Unironically if you can move out of New York or California and into North Carolina or Maine that would probably be a good idea.
Or they could move to a new big Dem City at the intersection of the borders of SD, WY and Montana. A big enough city that the part in each of those 3 states would win those 6 senators.
So, give up on persuasion and embrace Great Replacement Theory? XD
If it's the intersection we may just be Greatly Replacing some wildlife.
Don’t have to do anything to the local population, just swamp them with newcomers from the metropole, like China flooding Manchuria, Tibet, Xinjiang, with Han Chinese folks
A bunch of wheat farmers and possibly ranchers, more like. Where you would get the water for such a city is a very open question, but the wheat farmers aren't going to give it up without a fight. I guess this plan is better than breaking the great compromise and literally disenfranchising northern plains residence as some have proposed, but as a MT resident I can't say I'm a big fan.
There’s no wheat at that intersection - too arid. Just a bunch of ranchers.
I'll move there if I can get a 2br apartment for $1000.
Lots of small cities in PA with 2BR apartments for under $1K. Hundreds of listings in Johnstown, Pittsburgh, Altoona, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Harrisburg, Washington, Erie.
I was just looking at this location on the map - very nearby is the “Actual Geographic Center of the United States” (https://maps.app.goo.gl/FPvUWpTa1e52vsQz8?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy - I have no idea how both Alaska and Hawaii factor into this).
The closest town seems to be Sturgis, of the motorcycle rally. Rapid City, SD, is about 80,000.
If we located Rapid City right at the corner, and made its growth rate comparable to the smaller but faster growing town of Bozeman, MT (30-40% per decade, doubling in 20 years) then it would reach the population of Wyoming in about 60 years. But if it’s split across three states, and has a more extreme voting split than most big metro areas (about 75-25 for democrats) that still wouldn’t be enough to swing any of the senate seats (unless Montana stays unusually tight).
You can forward it to your own senator and say “I want you to contribute to a big tent and I would really really like it if you personally engaged in a bit of heterodoxy to support that.”
On Bluesky, if you make Yglesian points in the replies on certain accounts, you get swarmed. Some defense would be nice when one is getting swarmed.
What form of defense would be best? Presumably not the sort of flame war that usually arises in defense.
I liked this one coming to the aid of a guy I follow.
https://bsky.app/profile/condogrouch612.bsky.social/post/3lriudmd7kc2x
note the strategic lack of paywall - share with normal voters you know!
Sure, they can read the post, but there's no evidence that they -- or more to the point -- the people most engaged in candidate recruitment in these battleground states *aren't* looking for the types of candidates who would fit Matt's criteria. Maybe they are; maybe they aren't. Who knows?
And what should normal voters do? If you're in one of those states, make sure to vote in the primary and don't let the impassioned ideological minority impose some loser candidate on the party. (Contributions to good candidates will also help.)
You can donate time/money to Senate fights in purple states. You can spread the message of "To save democracy you need the Senate as a check on Trump. How does this help us win the Senate?"
The progressive urge to do ineffective political action that plays into Trump’s hands is basically just panicking in the face of disaster. Instead of thinking calmly about what to do that might help and then doing it, it’s just blindly thrashing about, and yelling at the person next to you ‘why aren’t you panicking too?!!!’.
It’s about leadership, or the conspicuous absence of it. Large groups of people are good at panicking (eg becoming mobs) and not so good at nuance and strategic thinking
We've developed excellent anti-leadership media technology in the west, it's sort of fascinating. It really hamstrings the whole system.
That’s a really nice and concise way of putting it. I’m gonna start using the term anti-leadership technology, it’s really good
I forget if Matt has a post laying out his theory of what “left” and “right” mean as political terms. At least some people conceive of “left” as being against any sort of hierarchy, or difference in social roles, and thus conceive of leadership itself as a thing to be avoided. I think this is an interesting view, and I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff to learn from leaderless collective intelligence, like bird flocks and fish schools, but I think it’s unlikely to be well-suited to a lot of the problems humans find themselves in. (Whether this is a particularly useful conception of the left-right axis, or whether a better conception is available, is a terminological question I don’t currently find particularly interesting.)
I noticed some interesting comments from Freddie and others that the both of you have a comment section full of “right wingers.” It just drives home how out of touch some on the left are with the median democratic voter let alone the median voter.
What could we do to get folks more acquainted with the values and mores of the median voter?
In a country where the median voter thinks 20% of the population is trans and 17% Muslim, we may actually have to face up to the prospect that educating and persuading the public, not just pandering to it, is, or ought to be, part of politics. I am the first to admit I do not know how to do that. But "out of touch with the median voter" actually has several meanings.
I don't think the median voter will agree to trans women in women's sports even if you convince them that trans women are only 0.00X percent of women in sports.
Ok but the perceived scale of the threat matters. If you’re against trans women in women’s sports, 20% trans population sounds way scarier (and hence more salient when you’re voting) than 0.1% trans population sounds.
Not to me or the median voter. It’s a matter of principle, just like abortion.
I actually think that in this particular example you might find that the amount matters. If it a large percentage, like 20%, then a solution where trans athletes have their own divisions/leagues makes sense. If it is 0.00x then that isn't a feasible solution and more people may be fine with including them in women's leagues.
No one has ever objected to trans athletes having their own league. They are free to do it today and it won't be a political issue.
Democrats have this tone deafness problem where they've been clearly told by voters that their position on this is unpopular but they think they can still win this using word and number games.
I wouldn't say this comment section is full of right-wingers, but it is filled with a certain kind of heterodox Democrat who cares more about the issues they're to the right of the median Democrat on far more than the vast vast majority of Democratic voters.
I’m not a Democrat but it describes me well. The reason I don’t comment more on areas where I disagree with Republicans is because there’s no audience for that here.
“ issues they're to the right of the median Democrat” Such as?
And keep in mind I mean the median democratic voter not the median left wing social media ranter.
I would really like examples on this. There are a few commenters on here who are into abortion restrictions or are pro-life, but I wouldn't say they "fill" the comment section. I also call exaggeration, since you do it all the time, using words like "filled" and "vast vast majority".
Yes, it's pretty clear that Freddie has no idea what the median US voter believes and also, unfortunately, doesn't care. He's really pretty far along the Bertholt Brecht spectrum:
"Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?"
I think the actual difference between Matt and Krugman is that Matt sees swing voters not caring about Trump's assault on the rule of law as a constraint on what the solutions might be, but Krugman many other people see it as the problem that needs to be addressed. And framing Trump's conduct as something like a king, which most Americans do oppose, is a way of trying to address that problem.
It's certainly possible that protests are the wrong way to address that problem, or even that they're counterproductive. But "recruit more moderate Senate candidates" is not about that problem at all.
“think the actual difference between Matt and Krugman is that Matt sees swing voters not caring about Trump's assault on the rule of law as a constraint on what the solutions might be, but Krugman many other people see it as the problem that needs to be addressed.”
If they cared about his norm violating and rule of law flouting, Trump's political career would have long been over before 2024.
This binary thinking is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Trump was unpopular through his whole first term, despite a mostly good economy. He lost reelection. Building a broad anti-Trump coalition is not enough to consistently keep him out by itself, but Trump's norm violations and lack of care about anyone besides himself is absolutely a vector to drive down his support.
It’s just not a very good vector. They’ve been trying Orange Man Bad for a while with highly questionable results.
Worked fine in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Only times it didn't work was when a politician and media underrated the risk of Trump winning and the other was in the middle of the biggest anti-incumbent wave in decades due to inflation.
Trump beats Biden easily without COVID. If Biden was even able to campaign at that point.
COVID is a really large thing to just say "without COVID" and think that adds value. Most of the backlash to Democrats can be tied back to COVID as well.
The problem is you can have a broad Trump bad policy but that means you need to be moderate/restrained in the rest of your policy. If I'm a swing republican who really doesn't like Trump but likes Paul Ryan, voting for Trump was the better option (people are really bad at thinking about the future so it is much easier to argue Trump is bad when he is doing bad things than when he is merely talking about doing bad things).
Right, that's probably true and that's the problem.
I think it may be that they didn't care about 2016 Trump's norm violation because 1) they couldn't see a difference between standard political corruption and Trump's corruption, so if corruption is happening it might as well be in their favor 2) they didn't see it affecting them materially. Many Trump voters were expecting something closer to his first term, where a lot of noise was made but nothing seriously bad got through.
January 6th and the Stop the Steal crap should have been pretty egregious to most right thinking people.
Trump has a weird ability to play on recency issues - somehow when something that egregious becomes old, it becomes ineffective to mention it. No one talks about the Access Hollywood tape any more, even though that should still be disqualifying!
Come on, you can't expect people to remember something that happened four whole years ago
Agreed. I'm pretty sure that people voting to save democracy actually voted for Trump a bit more than Harris.
Different people have wildly different views on which party is a bigger threat to democracy
I’m badly paraphrasing a person I can’t recall, but I do think they’re probably right:
If your strategy requires “everyone to just…” that’s a nonstarter.
True, but isn't Matt more or less asking progressives "if you would all just"? This piece doesn't show a lot of engagement with why progressives do what they do and suggesting alternate means to get what they want.
It's true to say "if you want to fight racism and help the poor you need to be willing to settle for less than maximal achievements" but only in the same sense that saying "voters should know the rule of law benefits them" is true. Both groups are being dumb about their goals, but just pointing that out won't stop them.
I think he's asking party leadership to stand tough and pay less attention to the most left wing activists
The problem is unlike you guys, the party leadership doesn't dislike the left wing activists like you do.
That's probably true.
"True, but isn't Matt more or less asking progressives "if you would all just"?"
Yes, which is why I think Matt was really pessimistic on that last Politix episode.
Matt’s case isn’t just that indifference to tyranny is a constraint on Dem action. Matt is saying that believing Trump is a tyrant isn’t unambiguously bad for Trump. If people are convinced Trump is a tyrant, yes some will resist, but others will bend the knee. It isn’t clear what the net effect will be.
On the other hand, if Dems take the Senate, this will be unambiguously bad for Trump.
So, if you are serious about stopping Trump, don’t do the thing that kinda helps him and kinda hurts him. Do the thing that just hurts him.
I think Matt was just triggered by Krugman's dissing of Medicaid concerns.
But it's definitely a "why not both" moment. ICE is a really hot issue right now (well. . . ) and of course focus and protests are completely appropriate. But that was Saturday. Today's a new day, and a perfect opportunity to focus on *another* outrage, like the OBBB. Just don't expect 5 million people to take to the streets to protest the latest indications from the reconciliation bill negotiation process and a House bill undergoing modification in the Senate.
I basically agree with you that Matt and Krugman are trying to address different problems. So let them get on with it.
"Some of you should do one thing. Some of you should do the other."
I once encountered a parable for leftists featuring those words. If memory serves, the story goes that a crowd of American socialist protest organizers had invited some Viet Cong guerrilla officers to teach them strategy for fighting the American empire. Again and again, the Americans would ask the VCs, should we take up issue A or issue B? Should we use tactic A or tactic B? And the VCs' answer to every question was the same. "Some of you should do one thing. Some of you should do the other."
------------------------
It sounds wise as a way of reducing factional infighting and contesting many issues to explore where your position is unexpectedly strong, and it probably does have those advantages. It can be mistaken for promoting the "omnicause" -- all of you should do all of the things, and picking priorities is a betrayal and worse than achieving nothing -- but what it really promotes is a fragmentation into multiple issues.
Sometimes it's good advice, though, and not just for the extreme leftists featured in the story. People who have some common cause, but genuinely different priorities, might help their shared goals by pushing on different fronts simultaneously. In this case, it might be useful to campaign on *both* "Trump is exceptionally corrupt and authoritarian, and the Republicans are enabling his worst excesses" and "Democrats are allowed to break with party orthodoxy to pick up senate seats, and Dem senators from Ohio will not vote for policies that are really unpopular in Ohio." As well as related, complementary positions, like "you can be pugnacious and partisan in favor of mainstream positions, not just fringe ones," and "Republican policies do kitchen-table harm to the majority of Americans, due to upward redistribution and unforced errors of economic policy." I like to believe that voters would support a cultural moderate who will fight Republicans' attempts to make the voters poorer and help Trump act like a tin-pot tyrant -- that's one way of seeing 2016 Bernie Sanders in contrast to Hillary Clinton, for instance, and Republicans have gotten a lot more tin-pot in the past decade. Different political strategists could push on different aspects of the issue -- one emphasizes that Dems are no longer the party of shaming people for speaking the way they always have, another calls attention to the economic harm that Republicans are doing, they all agree that Americans want No Kings and that if Republicans want to join in on this patriotic message, they better start acting like it vis-a-vis their king.
Yeah, it's not that I want activists to stop trying to advance social issues, if anything I'm more on their side than the average moderate democrat. I just want them to stop trying to get every democrat to also be an activist. Let the activists push culture forward and let the politicians meet them when the majority has shifted.
I remember Matt writing about how when Trump and other Republicans have tried to distance themselves from pro-life stances, pro-life groups mostly just let them and keep voting Republican. And it worked for them! I wish we could arrange that kind of unspoken understanding with progressive activists.
"I remember Matt writing about how when Trump and other Republicans have tried to distance themselves from pro-life stances, pro-life groups mostly just let them and keep voting Republican. And it worked for them! I wish we could arrange that kind of unspoken understanding with progressive activists."
Give us a big win as Dobbs was for pro-lifers and you might get more rope. Right now the message to progressive is, 'you'll get nothing and in some cases worse than nothing if the moderates we like win and you hould like it.'
Sounds like it isn't really an emergency for you if you aren't willing to compromise.
It's just that many people don't think a bunch of candidates who say, "I basically agree w/ Republican's on all the important cultural issues, I find liberals yucky too and wish I didn't have to get their votes, but hey, I like democracy and Social Security" isn't the great message moderates think it is.
You aren't going to get 1/4 to 1/2 of your coalition to sit down and shut up forever.
> Give us a big win as Dobbs was for pro-lifers and you might get more rope.
You're missing the nature of the relationship I'm pointing out. Pro-lifers were reliable soldiers for decades before Dobbs was even in sight. Republicans could dodge abortion questions or say they didn't want to overturn Roe v Wade and pro-lifers kept voting for them instead of demanding public commitment to unpopular nationwide abortion bans.
It worked great: Trump positioned as moderate or uninterested on abortion in 2015, moderates who would have found overturning R v W voted for him, and then he appointed SC justices that overturned it anyway. I don't see any reason we couldn't do the same thing.
Because pro-lifers trusted Republican politicians were actually on their side and quite pro-life in reality, even if had to lie to the marks in the middle.
The issue is Matt and other centrists are open that they don't want to pass progressive legislation once in power and in fact, want the people pushing more progressive legislation (the evil Groups) to have less power in Washington!
Imagine if there were prominent Republican politicians and opinion writers who were well known to be read by Republican White House's who openly said the party needed to push out pro-lifers and ignore them.
Would the pro-life side think if they just shut up about abortion, the GOP would still be on their side?
Again this is the "you dumb libs, Obama said he wasn't for gay marriage" thing all over again. Yes, but everybody knew and trusted Obama was lying and even then, and I think this is forgotten, there was activist pushback to Obama.
Nobody on the progressive side thinks or trusts Matt, Elissa Slotkin, David Shor, Jared Golden, etc. are secretly on their side. So, they need to prove it to build trust.
I agree with this entirely. And I think a key reason why you want it to be a top-down, "let's moderate the mainstream brand so we can conventional partisans that just happen to be a bit more right-wing than the normal democrat" rather than relying on quasi-independent hail mary candidates, is you want them to vote for DC and PR Statehood once they get to Congress so this disadvantage can be lessened. Crazy independent guy is just much less ikely to get his hands dirty
Puerto Rican statehood is impossible because of idiots on the Left who buy into dumb anti-colonialist arguments. I wish that wasn't true but it is.
Do we know what the political opinions of Puerto Ricans are? Are we sure it would be a blue state?
It moves over time, but historically it’s around 1/3 pro-independence, 1/3 pro-statehood, and 1/3 pro-commonwealth. Not exactly that, but basically always three groups where any two form a majority, which means it’s impossible to change the status.
Nope. There's strong support for statehood. The problem is leftist idiots in the US who have dumb anti-colonialism theories.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Puerto_Rican_status_referendum
This was boycotted by several parties and did not allow for the current territory status as an option. So not exactly representative.
I think the boycotts actually indicate the opposite-- that losers know they are losing and wanted the talking point that the "referendum wasn't legitimate".
I don't know. The pro-statehood party in PR tends to win elections and is more conservative, especially socially.
Maybe they vote at first for the party that gives them statehood then the cultural pressures push them Republican.
Yes, it would be a blue state. But Puerto Ricans themselves are profoundly ambivalent about being an American state.
It would likely be a blue state in 2026. In 2028 that would be a little less likely, and less still in 2030, etc..
I think Puerto Ricans living there actually support statehood.
The problem is, as is often the case, the diaspora, as well as white leftists.
I don't think this is right. Outright independence isn't that popular now, but has been more popular in the past. The polling is a bit all over the place, but my understanding is that the staying as an associated polity + independence is stronger than the statehood vote.
Nope. The polling is very clear in support of statehood. The Left just doesn't want this to be true (it repudiates their dumb beliefs about colonialism) so they declare every poll that says it "flawed".
https://www.pr51st.com/new-status-poll/
I suspect PR would split. In 2016 statehood for Puerto Rico was in the *Republican* platform.
Also, when I lived in PR about a decade ago - and granted things could have changed since then - about half of Puerto Ricans aren't particularly keen on becoming a state, because they fear it will gentrify the island.
We could do Los Angeles statehood, with the consent of California state legislators.
Dems didn’t ram that through during their last trifecta. Plenty of Dems won’t go for that, not if it means blowing up the filibuster.
truly the root of all evil in modern american politics
one of the roots. there’s also the fact that 40 plus percent of voters are cranks of various shades.
We should moderate the national brand but that's a slow process of changing our behavior and changing people's impression of us. That won't happen by 2026 (not sure about 2028). It's much faster to recruit suitable candidates who can distance themselves from the still current brand.
It all started when Frankenstein was forced out of the Senate, Now look what they have done to my Party!
When was John Kerry forced out of the Senate???
DC definitely shouldn't be a state.
I think it’d help for centre/mainstream Dems to fix their own problems so they have more credibility with the left when they come asking for compromise for the good of the party. Replace Schumer, give AOC the committee job she wanted, accelerate retirement of all the 70+ officeholders all spring to mind.
Yeah, I think the gerontocracy helps explain a lot of what's gone wrong with the Party over the past decade, starting with the Clinton nomination and culminating in last November.
Kamala Harris was part of the gerontocracy?
Hillary was not too old in 2016 and was ratfucked by an older insurgent candidate. Old leaders in the party is a problem, but that does mean we need to elevate “justice dems.”
What is the plan for not electing Justice Dems as we jettison elderly representatives from the bluest districts and states in the country? Is there any track record of moderates winning these primaries?
How old is the leader of the American left?
Older than Biden, unless deHater thinks he’s the current leader.
Why should Democrats reward the flank that has been shrinking electorally since 2018?
I viewed all those as non-factional examples. I didn’t suggest, say, signing on for Medicare for All. Dems have apparently had 4 Reps die of natural causes in office so far this year, that’s obviously bad luck to a degree but you can reduce the risk of such events if your candidates aren’t so freaking old.
Because it will make them somewhat less likely to throw a tantrum, and will make AOC (currently the left's most popular and effective advocate) less likely to join in any tantrum.
Denying AOC the committee job--in favor of an octogenarian who almost immediately disclosed a terminal diagnosis--seems beyond crazy to me. I genuinely don't understand what leadership were thinking passing her over.
I don't like AOC's policies, but she's genuinely popular on the left and she's shown that she can play nice with the establishment when it's important. The establishment needs to return the favor if they want that to continue.
And she will likely have to moderate even more if she's heading an important committee. I recall Matt also being very perplexed by the decision.
At this point, a significant contingent of moderates (including me) are dissatisfied with the people who have been managing the party and sick of losing because our top peoples' health fails at critical moments. AoC has shown that she's more pragmatic than her initial branding suggested and I'm happy to promote her. Besides, giving progressives an olive branch that doesn't involve making the platform more left-wing is a good move.
Anti-gerontocracy should cut both ways of course- under no circumstances should Sanders be allowed to run for any position ever again.
Gerontocracy is a problem but the reason these old people may be reluctant to pass on the baton is because they know how far left the younger generation of Democrats are and they remember the 1984/1988 blowouts. Perhaps the right strategy is to nominate AOC in 2028 and experience a blowout first hand instead of these theoretical arguments.
I appreciate Yglesias actually listing issues that he thinks Dems should moderate on at the end. Often that is the hard part in arguments I have with my progressive friends.
I don't think he said "Dems" should moderate on those issues but that the party has to be accepting of candidates in tough states who have more conservative positions on those issues.
This is the key point. Tell your liberal friends they don’t personally have to want these things, they just have to let candidates in competitive races campaign on these things.
Why should a pro-choice woman want to vote for a pro-life candidate in Texas who will vote for abortion restrictions a Republican majority will bring up for vote?
Because having a pro-life Democrat in the senate from Texas will help on a lot of issues she cares about, like Medicare, tax policy, tariffs, science funding, international aid - and even on moderating the severity of the abortion restrictions that pass the Senate (since the pro-life Democrat will almost certainly be more interested in including flexibility in the restrictions than any Texas Republican).
If the argument is we need to meet the voters where they are, and the view of the moderates is Texas and Iowa are pro-life states that need a legitimately pro-life candidate who would vote for restrictions, not a fake one like say Harry Reid or Joe Biden pre-VP, how is a Democrat going to win saying there are some restrictions they won't vote for, and won't that hurt their cause they're "pro-life" just like all our "pro-gun" candidates lose cred when they vote for any gun restrictions?
Sure, but that person can just vote for somebody in a primary who is for all of those things and is also pro-choice in a primary.
Like, I think part of the issue is basically, it turns out, people in a political party don't want to vote for people who openly disagree with them on things, when there's an option to vote for somebody who does agree with them.
Also, at least on abortion, from polling, it appears the median Democrat, let alone activists have moved enough on this issue that any sort of restrictions will be seen as too far to again, not wild progressives like me, but normie Dem's who care deeply about the issue, which is a large chunk of the party (who don't post in this comment section).
"Like, I think part of the issue is basically, it turns out, people in a political party don't want to vote for people who openly disagree with them on things, when there's an option to vote for somebody who does agree with them."
This is one of the most true things you've ever said. The real question then becomes if they are willing to do it to win or if they are content to vote for their preferred candidate if that means they continue to lose.
It’s basically the same reason I’m willing to support AOC in Congress even though she doesn’t endorse fundamental human rights like open borders.
Because losing abortion access is less bad than losing abortion access AND the US becoming an autocracy.
It’s a”would you rather” game of “would you rather get your foot chopped off OR your foot and your dominant hand chopped off?”
Like I said in my top level comment, I understand the logic, but it doesn’t mean I have to effing like it.
I want a country where I won’t get any useful body parts chopped off, but the median voter in Michigan DGAF what I want.
Jesse is consistently telling the truth and we just don't want to accept it.
The mercurial voting patterns of the cultural leftists in the coalition make moving away from their unpopular opinions very difficult. If we move too far, they will stay home or vote for someone like Ralph Nader. Because their threats are credible -- they've swung elections toward Republicans before -- we have to cater to their demands.
The issue is many Democratic voters don't trust the person who is agreeing w/ the Republican's on abortion access to not end up not fighting the US becoming an autocracy because well...look at how the moderates are currently acting.
Also, to a decent chunk of Democratic voters, a world where abortion rights are restricted in their state is an autocracy and they don't want to vote for a person who would support that, or replace immigration, transgender rights, etc.
The point is that in order to win in a state like Texas, Democratic candidates need to have public positions that are more closely aligned with the electorate in order to actually win. In particular, this means moderating on some (not necessarily all) social issues. So you should support and enthusiastically vote for these more moderate candidates because it is impossible for a more liberal candidate to actually win in Texas.
But again, why should a pro-choice woman vote for somebody who will restrict her rights?
It's weird how people can understand why gun owners won't vote for a Democrat whose promising to vote to restrict their rights even if they agree with them on Medicare, but don't understand why pro-choice woman or immigrants or transgender people or whomever don't want to vote for a candidate who is promising to side with the Republican's on major issues when the Republican's are in the majority.
Women aren’t actually significantly more progressive on abortion rights than men. Also, a candidate that agrees with you 60% of the time is better than one that agrees with you 5% of the time. Third, an extra senator would be around for committee assignment votes and executive confirmations.
The analogy is would republicans be willing to vote for a republican who opposes gun rights in a blue state. https://dbknews.com/0999/12/31/arc-3bwuanwrhzb5pour6vrecbqmpa/ "UMD College Republicans: Hogan’s position on gun control is reasonable, not radical"
Would democrats in Austin write something like this for a Pro-life, Pro-Gun candidate?
It is everyone's privilege to be a single-issue voter. If you are NOT a single-issue voter, then consider whether a candidate who agrees with you on one of your most important issues is electable, and if they are not, whether you would prefer a candidate who disagrees with you on one of your most important issues, but agrees with you on several secondary issues over one who disagrees with you across the board.
(I would also expect, by the way, that 90% of pro-life Democrats are less extreme in the abortion restrictions that they want to enact than the typical pro-life Republican.)
And financially support those candidates in places where they are viable.
And vote for those candidates in the primaries
I mean, small shifts in the median allow for large shifts at the edges. With politics as nationalized as it is this probably requires a bit of both
He’s listed them on many occasions: gun control, climate change initiatives that push up energy costs, immigration.
Very deeply agree with this. Reminds me of how many articles, here and elsewhere, are written about Dems needing to break with "the groups" on culture issues without identifying any groups or issues except in the vaguest of terms.
A few stray thoughts about this post:
- In regards to the senate, I sort of feel like Cal Cunningham not being able to keep it in his pants an underrated moment of the last 8 years. He (and Biden) lost the state my ultimately a pretty narrow margin. I don’t think it’s crazy to think if sex scandal hadn’t happened that Biden wins that state and Cunningham is a sitting senator. If NC was called for Biden on election night I think that could have been huge in stopping the “stop the steal” conspiracy from taking off. And that extra senate seat would have been huge.
- Honest question Matt. Can you point me to a senate election from the past 8 years where Democrats lost a winnable seat because they nominated a candidate that was too left wing? I suspect the commentariat will suggest Mandela Barnes. But look carefully at his platform. There were definitely some positive support for stuff like environmental justice. But much more prominent was stuff about bringing back manufacturing to Wisconsin and supporting small farms. Exactly the sort of “moderating on issues important to your state” you advocate. It’s not that I disagree with your thesis. It’s that you write as though Dems have been ignoring your advice for 8 years when that’s demonstrably not the case. Again, you seem to be letting the criticism you get from lefty social media impact your view of the Democratic Party at least a bit much.
- When I read that Krugman line the first time, my immediate first thought was “shots fired at Yglesias”. But I think it’s important that you left out the part he included from G Elliot Morris. Namely, you normalize allowing the President to nationalize the national guard and use the military as his personal toy, that’s absolutely the ball game. I am probably one of those people who went too far”boy who cried wolf” on certain things too much last 8 years. But if in 2026, Abbot can call on national guard to bring “order” to Austin because somewhere in the city one got drunk, swung at a cop and and said “f**k Trump”, then it doesn’t matter what message moderate “D” senate candidate has if the people of Austin are intimidated or actually physically from voting. My point is Matt, I think you underestimate how much we’ve gotten close what I call the “Orban line”.
For me, Democrats should be winning Senate races in Pennsylvania, Maine, Wisconsin, and North Carolina and have a chance to pick up in places like Ohio, Texas, Florida, and Tennessee if conditions are favorable. But that’s not the situation.
PA, ME, WI, NC is all reasonable. OH if favorable also makes sense, but the Florida Dem's have been run badly since the 50's outside of Lawton Chiles and Bob Graham regardless of the ideology of the party, the move to the right of Hispanic's messed with Democratic plans in Texas, and Tennessee's college-educated voters are more conservative than expected for a variety of reasons.
Tennessee is closer to the Republican equivalent of Washington where just looking at the numbers, the GOP should be closer, but the actual voters are more liberal than you'd think just by demos.
I get that there are local challenges, but Tennessee, Texas, and Florida are all gettable for the Senate under the right conditions. If Democrats can win Georgia, they can win Florida. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.
Your definition of winnable is the point of the article. If only 49-52 seats are winnable then it’s true you only lost 2 seats currently due to overly left wing candidates (barnes being the obvious one). It really is just true that democrats are more left wing on every topic since 2012 and way more left wing on every topic since 2006.
Because Democratic voters are more left-wing and society as a whole is actually more progressive.
Democrat's are more left wing on every topic than they were in 1988 as well - does that mean they should all go back to running like Dick Gephardt and they'd magically win 60% of the vote?
This is what the left-leaning party does. If people want a centrist party that stays only within what the median voter wants, you're free to create one.
Why are you picking on Dick Gephardt, who was a notable supporter of gay rights and universal health care in 2004? In some ways, he's perfectly in step with the modern Democratic party. He might have done a better job as Kerry's VP than Edwards did.
Then the candidates need to moderate even further (to the right?). Whether America is more conservative than we thought or moderate Democrats are more left wing than we think, candidates need to shift to the right.
I’m with you, it’s disparity to see the shitting on Democrats, but ultimately we have to bury some of the orthodoxy and do what it takes to win those seats
As a general follow up on comments below. I really feel like "Democratic Presidential candidates 2019/2020 tacked too far to the left, including Kamala Harris, an attempt to win Bernie supporters, when there was clearly more room in the 'moderate' lane and as a result, one of the reasons Kamala lost the 2024 election was her super left positions on certain identity issues came back to bite her" has been conflated with "Democrats are consistently losing winnable races because they nominate candidates with policy positions way to the left of median voter of the state and it's because 'the groups' won't allow any Dem nominee to moderate any positions in a way that would reach swing voters".
My point is, it's not at all clear to me Democrats have been consistently losing winnable elections by nominating super left candidates. I brought up Mandela Barnes to note that even if you want to argue that he had some issue positions maybe a bit too left and possibly to the left of 2012 median Dem position, it is hardly like he didn't break with the party in order to try to appeal to swing voters.
I'll also say, the NYC mayoral race is throwing this conversation for loop. The fact that press is disproportionately in NYC gives this race outsized attention and I think is clouding the current conversation. But I think there is some wrong lessons being taken here. I can't emphasize enough that a) Andrew Cuomo's early large lead in the primary was almost certainly as much about name recognition as anything else b) Cuomo's early lead meant the place to gain in the polls was on the left c) Cuomo's history of being a creep who should never be near power again is a huge reason Mamdani has a real shot of winning this primary just from "never Cuomo" people like me d) Ranked choice voting is still clearly not well understood by the electorate and by pundits and could result in a Mamdani victory that wouldn't happen in a more traditional primary vote.
cal, and gillum.
I can’t tell if Gillum went into a spiral after losing the election, or if he was already on that path such that losing the election meant dodging a bullet for the Senate.
god knows.
all i know is the outcome was disastrous in both these (and others - coakley for eg) instances.
"My point is Matt, I think you underestimate how much we’ve gotten close what I call the “Orban line”."
This seems exactly the opposite. Matt is highlighting that THE most effective way to stop from crossing the "Orban line" is for Democrats to win the Senate in 2026. Even more so if they didn't just win 51 seats, but could actually get to 55 seats or more. Would there be any more powerful rebuke to Trump than that? And if that was the goal, what would it take to get there? Matt is laying out the strategy he sees to get there.
Unless you disagree and think there is something more meaningful to be done? In which case, what exactly are you proposing that would stop Abbot from calling on the national guard in 2026 and doing what you suggest?
*Not that I think Abbot actually would do that. There is a big leap from cracking down on illegal immigrants and rioters to using the national guard to prevent voting in the state capital. If he would/could do that and get away with it, we're already screwed.
I think its important to note here, that part of criticism I have to Matt is based on the last Politix podcast. He was telling Brian Buetler that Dems should literally do and say nothing on immigration. Forget protests, forget more demonstrative denunciations, literally don't talk about...at all.
And his position is supposedly based on the idea this is the "popularist" position to take. I'm sorry, there is a pretty decent amount of recent polling that suggests this is not actually true. https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/all-the-polls-on-the-la-protests
Now these polls are specifically about the LA protests and subsequent response from Trump. But I feel like its pretty good support that there is a space to be had for Democrats to put on a message that is to the right of "open borders for all. Any deportations of anyone is racism" and to the left whatever the heck John Fetterman is doing https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/politics/fetterman-la-protests-anarchy.html
Perhaps the difference is that I think it would be possible for Democrats to craft an immigration message that would be much more popular than what Trump is doing. But I have no faith or expectation that the current iteration of the Democratic party can deliver that message. It seems much more likely that they will craft an immigration message that is even more unpopular than what Trump is doing as I have seen the both parties compete over who can be more unpopular moreso than I have seen either actually try to compete to be more popular.
I think this is a fundamental disagreement. The reason I'm so animated about immigration rather than Medicaid is that I think if Trump can order police to arrest people and send them to a prison in El Salvador without due process or revoking people's status based on free speech grounds we've already lost where as if Trump passes legislation that is normal politics and either it will have bad effects and hurt his popularity or it wasn't a big deal (there are some cases like cuts to foreign aid where the cuts are popular and the tangible impact is low but are a big deal but both Matt and I agree these are not winning issues).
Except that the courts have been pretty resistant to Trump doing that, but being able to take the Senate is critically important to keeping the courts that way!
The courts have said good things (some of the time) but they are not doing a good job of actually protecting people. I think the attention generated on these issues is much better at forcing change.
What haven't they protected people from well?
Being randomly detained, bringing people back from El Salvador. The use of the national guard and military in LA. Yes the court may rule in people's favor but 1. The harm is already done 2. there needs to be pressure and attention so that the government follows through.
It's not just about each individual candidate, it's about the party as a whole. The democratic party as a whole is seen as WAY to left wing and out of touch.
That's what needs to moderate.
Also, blue states and cities need to be shown they can be governed effectively. So when blue politicians want to run the whole country they can point to a good track record.
But right now people are fleeing blue states and cities and heading to red ones because those "tend" to be better governed..
Left-wing people are going to vote for the people you disagree with and a message of "vote for representatives you disagree with to make low-info swing voters in Wisconsin happy" is never going to be something that works at scale.
Trump is not the problem. Trump is a consequence of the problem, a symptom of the disease. The problem is Congress. Trump rose to prominence because Congress hasn't been able to do anything for a decade, and Trump promised he would do something. Congress could stop Trump right now, but it won't. Congress could (and should) make him Not President. Elect a better Congress and the Constitution will do the rest.
"Trump rose to prominence because Congress hasn't been able to do anything for a decade, and Trump promised he would do something."
I completely disagree. Congress has definitely abdicated responsibility to the executive, but congress is able to a lot of stuff *on which there is agreement.*
What people are upset about is that Congress won't pass legislation *they want* that is not broadly popular. Well, there is also stuff that is broadly popular but stupid like no taxes on tips that Trump is excellent at bringing to the forefront.
edit - I say this as someone wants Congress to do lots of stuff, but also recognizes that many of the things I want might have a bare majority, but also have significant opposition. Its the latter that slows major legislation down.
requiring broad consensus in order to legislate is practically the same as having no legislature at all
Why? If you are going to do something that a significant portion of the population really hates, shouldn't you have a large majority behind you? Otherwise, this will create significant internal strife as a country, yes?
You act as though “elect a better Congress” were a decision we could make despite the structural features of how Congress is elected (state borders, primaries, and social media are all major constraints).
The argument Matt is making is that Democrats could elect a better Congress by running more centrist candidates.
Again, *Democrats* can't really do that, because there is no organized individual named "Democrats" who can just choose to do something.
We can each do our part to try to help the disorganized mass muddle through the primary system to end up with more centrist candidates despite the issues of social media and state borders, but there's a deeper structural issue here, with candidates having to choose to run, and then go through a primary, before entering the general election. (It's not just winning the primary that's a structural problem - the fact of having to go through a primary very reasonably dissuades a lot of good candidates from even choosing to run, including candidates who could win the primary).
But I think that for the medium run, we should also be thinking about how to reform the system so that these structural pressures aren't so counterproductive.
I agree; I have quite the laundry list of things I wish were different about the system. But the “we” who reform the system are the same “we” who elect the Congress. And we become such a “we” by reading things like this, discussing them, and deciding we have similar goals.
Ohioan here. I think we need more thinking on an authentic Democratic agenda for rural and working-class folks. We have rural broadband, but it doesn't move a lot of votes. Blue states with a significant rural population (Illinois, California, Michigan) could lead the way here.
* Save rural hospitals. Increase Medicaid reimbursement for rural hospitals (it's already high, but could be higher). My sister had to go to Columbus because her local hospital couldn't do anything.
* Publicly funded maternity wards. Maternity wards are closing and in parts of rural Ohio, you have to drive 90 minutes to have a baby. These wards would shore up rural hospitals.
* Pair this with a crackdown on private equity owned hospitals and nursing homes. Everyone knows someone getting gouged by a shady retirement home.
* Medicaid buy-in for small businesses. This would be huge. Every small restaurant and two-chucks-in-a-truck plumbing company would jump in.
* Right to repair your own tractor. John Deere rips of farmers something huge.
* Prioritize water for agriculture - make new dams and aquifer recharge projects.
* Antitrust crackdown on seed and fertilizer monopolies.
* Preserve rural land - more intense building in cities (hi, Matt).
* Stabilize the climate. A bit of a stretch, but farmers do know there's something going on with the weather.
* Free trade for farm goods. I think most rural people believe in tariffs to retain manufacturing jobs, but recognize it's bad for them personally. We could probably carve out a principle for free trade for food.
In CA, I do not think we could possibly prioritize water for ag any more, and yet the farmers are constantly mad.
That's simply not true. The voters allocated billions for more water storage and last I checked nothing has been spent, much less built.
They need to build more large scale water storage. They also need more small scale water storage (see Andrew Millison's Youtube stuff on India)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNdMkGYdEqOCgePyiAyBT0sh7zlr7xhz3
Also, they need to stop worrying about the stupid delta smelt, and stop flushing all that water into the ocean.
The delta smelt is just an excuse for preserving some rivers. It’s unfortunate that our environmental law is written around species rather than ecosystems, but species are the simplistic way we came up with to legally protect ecosystems. Saying we shouldn’t “flush water into the ocean” is just saying rivers shouldn’t exist.
A lot of good suggestions here.
But most of it will fall on deaf ears if the Democrats continue to be seen as hostile culturally to rural voters and values.
From an outside perspective, the lack of party leadership is weird. No one seems to be able to set an agenda for the party.
For what it’s worth this seems like the first urgent job: build a structure that actually allows for central control.
I think the problem is that there hasn’t been a strong party leader in a decade. And even then, Obama was a lame duck.
My take is that the 2028 primary will likely be won by a charismatic electable outsider and the party will be fine in the long run.
The party leadership is hopeless. I think they're still in a bunker somewhere, arguing over their intersectional scores.
So yes, a "charismatic electable outsider" is our only hope. (Save us Obi Wan, you're our only hope.)
Only if we get someone smart enough to play Matt's four dimensional chess - Pete or maybe Gavin could do it, the rest of the field idk. We could as easily end up with a leftist, populist firebrand with good hair (looking at you Beto), and we're toast. Sometimes parties have to spend multiple cycles in the wilderness before they try all the bad ideas and find something that works.
It really only comes from a Presidential candidate, and a successful one. The Republicans very much have a central leader. The Democrats haven't really since Obama.
I am not optimistic about any brand change that normies notice until the Presidential race. If we don't see a leftwing non-profit panderfest like 2019-2020, maybe we can turn the ship.
That's the thing, the American system was made in a really stupid way as if people could trivially evaluate every potential politician as individuals.
Maybe the powdered wig guys weren't as smart as they're all made out to be.
You can't blame the design of a document from more than two centuries ago for all modern ills. Surely at some point the responsibility shifts to some newer generations?
For example, how about the fact that there used to be amendments to the constitution until this process entirely stopped in recent times; or entirely self-inflicted issues like all senators abdicating their responsibilities by inventing and then never abolishing the modern filibuster?
Amendments tend to be ratified in bursts with many of them coming as a direct or indirect result of war. So far, the current time of 34 years is only the third longest gap between amendments, with 61 years (1804-1865) and 43 years (1870-1913) being longer. So I wouldn't say the current time is anomalous. Eventually, another amendment will be passed, but we may not be happy about the circumstances necessary to generate such comity. In fact, I'd say we're seeing the success of the Constitution, in that we're still holding together despite political strife.
I would argue that the real gap is actually 54 years since the last amendment, the 27th amendment, was proposed in 1789 and was ratified as more of a fun project rather than something really substantial.
I don't think lack of amendments necessarily equals time bomb for war, but I don't think it speaks well that I struggle to imagine the political unity necessary for any amendment.
If a system requires everyone in it to have a particular mindset, it isn't a very good system.
If the system from 236+ years ago wasn't good enough, then at some point in the last 235 years someone could've improved it. Why blame the original system, and not everyone who failed to improve it?
"the system from 236+ years ago" quite famously did not anticipate political parties and now as those parties have calcified, it is also impossible to change.
it's weird to suggest that the system is not the problem and give the why as "because no one changed it". that logic is missing a few steps.
All systems made by humans are imperfect, and there's no such thing as a political system that correctly anticipates everything that happens hundreds of years later. The correct response to this is for later generations to adapt the system to their present circumstances, not for them to blame long-dead people for their past design that never would've been able to solve unforeseen future challenges.
Even if the system were indeed 100% impossible to change now, then it would still make more sense to blame people from the 20th century when the system was less calcified than it is now; rather than blaming people from the 18th century. But again, there are modern self-inflicted governance errors (like the modern filibuster) that have ~nothing to do with any flaws present in the US constitution.
the powdered wig guys wrote a constitution that is the longest to have ever continually been in effect, kinda impressive imo
Some of the causes are important changes that happened since then. Direct election of senators, and primary elections for all positions, are a big part of what prevents leadership from happening.
I don't think that's possible till we fix campaign finance laws.
We need to allow unlimited donations to the party. That's the only way to bring back strong parties.
That might help some, but that ship might already have sailed unless parties are better able to restrict who runs under their banner.
A lot of party policy over the past ten decades or so has been dedicated to the goal of eliminating leadership. Recall elections, primary elections, and social media are all major features that defang leadership and empower leaderless movements.
Is the American Hospital Association an organization whose opinions people should care about? Stop charging patients $100 per ibuprofen pill and I'll listen to your opinion on Medicaid.
I think the fight against the big beautiful bill needs as big of a tent as possible. Like Casey said in his comment, these are important political actors with huge wallets.
"Why is the AHA lobbying against the BBB?"
"Because the BBB threatens their ability to use money to influence politics"
I could 100% be wrong but idk if hearing that makes the BBB look worse. Their money is fungible, of course, but I'm skeptical that their names being attached to the opposition helps.
The AHA can spend money on advertising that makes GOP House frontliners uncomfortable. They can donate to primary and general election opponents that can run against and brag GOP House frontliners. That's the mechanism. You're right no one cares what the AHA thinks...except those who have to run a campaign where AHA money is on the other side.
No I get that, my feeling is:
1. An AHA endorsement acts as a negative signal to me, a mostly normie voter. It's like hearing "the National Association of Firearms, Tobacco, and Telemarketers supports this thing" would make that thing less attractive to most voters.
2. Any excess money the AHA has to spend on political ads means they're getting that money from somewhere. Is the only reason you can lobby for Medicare and Medicaid because you have exorbitant reimbursement rates with Medicare and Medicaid?
You’re not a normie voter, you subscribe to Slow Boring!
>An AHA endorsement acts as a negative signal to me, a mostly normie voter.<
And normie voters don't have strong associations one way or another about specific healthcare lobbying groups.
Of course I'm very weird in that respect
Normie voters have no clue who the AHA endorsed. Normie voters see an ad on TV (or TikTok) and say, "I really wish government would stay out of healthcare and leave Medicaid alone."
Perfect example of what Matt is talking about. Big tent means you have to let those whose positions you don't entirely agree with inside. No to signaling, yes to collaboration. And any organization with national economic interests (everyone in health care) will have a lobbying arm. It is an essential expense, not "excess".
My response is purely instrumental. I'm saying while the ACA's money is fungible and marginally helpful, I'm skeptical that their name attached to the opposition helps.
Sounds like good counter programming if you're getting shot at, but "representative X voted to close your hospital" is still good stuff!
I don't think the political action would come down to "We are the American Hospital Association and we hate this bill."
It's more about using the trust Americans still tend to have in their healthcare providers, in addition to the influence hospitals have over local politicians, both as large businesses/employers and critical public infrastructure that would really hurt if it closed.
If car dealers can maintain an extremely effective political influence operation so can hospitals.
AHA's opposition isn't for you and very likely wouldn't be heard by the median voter - they run a largely inside game, any ads will run on dc influencer platforms like Meet the Press. But their voice could be very impactful, both because of the power of their political spending (politicians pay at least some heed to the groups who write them checks), and as importantly - because most of the worst adverse effects of Medicaid cuts are among rural providers, bringing small hospital and fqhc leaders to dc to directly plead their case has both an outsized constituent value (these people are community leaders in red states), and a rallying effect back at those facilities (their employees become grassroots red state lobby voices as well).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_and_Louise
Fellas, is it bad for relevant industry groups to oppose atrocious Trump appointments and policies?
One major federal healthcare funding program - 340B - requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to indirectly subsidize hospitals by selling them drugs at very low submarket prices, so that hospitals can profit from the spread when they sell those drugs to their patients at regular commercial retail prices. According to AHA, the 340B provided a indirect subsidy to hospitals, from manufacturers, of about $46.5 billion in 2022. AHA is very vocal in defending that.
That's quite the indirect subsidy.
Once hospitals start closing people will suddenly care.
Yeah this feels like the best (only?) messaging they could do. It’s a simple argument and is straightforwardly bad.
Presumably the AHA doesn't love the idea of losing many tens of billions of dollars. So what matters is whether or not they're effective at critiquing Trump's beautiful safety net slasher bill—not whether or not they agree with you or me on all issues related to healthcare.
If they're powerful, it would be good to have them on board. Just ask Harry and Louise.
I don't think what we're talking about is doing a massive public endorsement. The idea is more that there is basically a hospital in every congressional district...
In CA-22, David Valedao voted for the Medicaid cuts, but over half his constituents are on Medicaid. The local hospital system stands to lose a huge amount of business if the bill goes through, and would probably have to close branches and stuff with attendant job loss, and healthcare would become less accessible even for those with private insurance.
So it's about making clear to these reps the potential consequences of this bill to their districts. In theory hospitals are a very powerful interest group because they are widely geographically distributed, in contrast to regional interest etc.
Conflating "hawkish on immigration" with "illegally abducting people en masse" is not political moderation, it's just ignorance.
I completely acknowledge that most voters still approve of Trump's immigration policies, but we have to draw a line somewhere. The establishment of an American Gestapo (or Special Organization, if you prefer that I reference the genocide to which my own family was subjected) must be that line.
I think that’s exactly what Matt saying. He is saying to actually draw a line you have to make some very uncomfortable choices about the future of the party. What do *you* me by drawing a line?
I mean, for example, blue state governors stationing their national guard units at their state borders and refusing entry to ICE. I mean taking literally any immediate action to prevent the encroachment of fascism.
Retaking the Senate is important for the long term, but this is not a long term issue.
An administration can be hawkish on immigration and still respect the rule of law.
Why is that a good idea? Won’t that just look to the average person like democrats care more about undocumented immigrants than legal citizens? If you paired it with an energetic and visible effort to cooperate with federal deportation efforts for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes, then I could see drawing a clear line. But if your proposal is just to energetically defend the status quo of half-hearted enforcement of the law, how does that help?
There are armed federal agents abducting people with no warrants and no trials. The claim that those people are undocumented immigrants is just MAGA propaganda until it is substantiated in a court of law.
Most people are arrested without a warrant.
You don't get a trial until after you are arrested, processed, and possibly detained until trial without a chance of bond based on flight risk and danger to the community.
But you are describing this process with breathless shock like thieves and drunk drivers aren't treated the same way every day.
If they do that we will be a minority party for generations.
The American public barely disapproves of the most ridiculous Trump immigration policies. But they think liberals and leftists who think ICE are stormtroopers are crazy and dumb. We have to thread that needle carefully.
Most Americans are crazy and dumb.
I don't even know where to begin with this comment, but you might want to look up the Nullification Crisis.
This kind of thoughtless extra-legal Civil War bait is a bad idea on so many levels.
Great way to turn those blue states purple or lose states like Pa for a generation.
The thought of Shapiro going on live TV to announce he's mobilizing the state National Guard to *stop ICE from deporting illegal immigrants*...
I think that's one of the few things he could do that would cost him my vote, not because I particularly like ICE but because it's just so profoundly politically stupid.
But Pritzker or Newsome are dumb enough do it. This Republican would love it. Bring it!
I sincerely doubt that either of them would do such a thing unless the feds had already been proven to have kidnapped a bunch of citizens from their states and refused to repatriate them, or something similarly egregiously illegal.
At which point public opinion would likely be on their side, and since Trump is genuinely quite attuned to the vagaries of public opinion, I don't think we're ever going to get that far. #TACO
This is remarkable folly - the administration would *love* the pretext to jail dem leaders. If you're looking for the road to civil war (that blue states would almost certainly lose), this is it right here.
They're already arresting elected officials. This idea that we'll be safe if we don't fight back is just cope.
Did the elected officials break the law? If so, shouldn't they be arrested?
Wouldn’t the courts rule against the governors? So what would be gained?
Letting ICE deport illegal immigrants is the rule of the law. Preventing immigration laws from being enforced is lawlessness.
Blue state governors should be helping with deportations.
What does "...to draw a line somewhere" mean? I think that's the key question. Should we interpret it has code red (e.g. Google speak when ChatGPT launched), then you have to take drastic corrective action to be able to oppose Trump. That is exactly what Matt is advocating here where the drastic action entails coming to terms with reality and pissing off advocating groups/ Non-Profit complex to moderate and improve brand perception.
In a way, this is eerily similar to the "existential" threat that climate change was in the last 5 years. It was great for slogans and counter productive actions, but no one was willing to give up their pet project (tariffs on Solar, permitting obstacles) to actually advance the goal.
Protest movements work in US politics all the time. They scare politicians. They garner media coverage, and they build a sense of what is and isn't popular with broad swathes of the electorate. You know, convincing people of things, not unlike Matt's job.
Trump's consolidation of power requires allies. It requires a shared sense of either support or acquiescence. Putting forward and sharing the idea that Donald Trump is illegally and inappropriately consolidating power that he gets from the imperial presidency. Matt's "obsession" is fine and useful, but it is not mutually exclusive with the energy needed for the acute emergency now.
Matt glosses over this in the article ("In 2016, Bernie Sanders launched a protest campaign against Hillary Clinton that unexpectedly caught fire") but you can draw a direct line from the Occupy protests to the Sanders campaign to the elevation of left-wing economic ideas in the democratic party within an eight-year span. I don't know why he has such a blind spot about other protests.
The Democrats getting their shit together in time for one of the next elections is not drastic action. They should do that, sure. (We all know they won't, though.) But that is completely unrelated to stopping fascism that is happening right now, today.
Please see latest polling. There might be a general support for harsher immigration policies in abstract still. But support for Trump’s actual enforcement policies is considerably underwater.
I love that you went after King Krugman. I’ll always be grateful for how much I learned from him about economics and for his role in combating the Paul Ryan idiocy. But let’s be honest, he HAS been “shrill” and stuck on the same note for a decade - he is part of the problem.
He has decided a long time ago that being a partisan Democrat is more important than being an economist who is well respected by both sides.
I think he was legitimately shocked back in the day to discover the intellectual dishonesty of republican economic messaging, and he wasn’t wrong. But he got stuck in a cycle of outrage instead of seeing that his own “side” has plenty of warts too. I got stuck in that too, and Matt was one of the key people who helped me get off my high horse.
Actually I think the fact that we are wasting over a trillion dollars a year on interest right now shows Paul Ryan was correct.
He was but then he also scuttled the Bowles-Simpson recommendations from being voted in the Congress while voting for many deficit increasing bills so I don’t consider him a serious person on deficit reduction either. He talked a good game on deficits but didn’t follow it up with actions.
Can anyone get Krugman to say what Matt is saying in this article? That would be great.