After every election loss—among both Democrats and Republicans—we're treated to an argument about whether the loss was due to too much extremism or too much centrism. In the Washington Post today, Perry Bacon summarizes the lefty case for too much centrism in the 2024 race:
People who support defunding the police have almost no power in the Democratic Party. Centrists do. Center-left and establishment Democrats unified behind Joe Biden over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) during the 2020 primaries and were largely supportive of him running for a second term until his dreadful performance at a June debate with Trump. Once Harris became the party’s candidate, she heeded calls from the center-left to run a moderate campaign, emphasizing the importance of the United States maintaining the “most lethal” military in the world and appealing to the wealthy and big corporations.
This is absolutely right. But it absolutely misses the point.
The problem is not that Democratic politicians are too woke. The problem is that too many of them refuse to clearly repudiate extreme wokeness.
"Defund the police" is as good an example as any. It's absolutely true that very few congressional Democrats actively supported it. But it's equally true that very few were willing to clearly and publicly oppose it. So what happened? There were lots of loud progressive activists yelling about defunding the police and they were met mostly by a yawning establishment silence. (Joe Biden was a prominent exception.) The public concluded, perfectly reasonably, that if (a) "defund the police" was a big thing on the left, and (b) Democrats weren't objecting to it, then (c) it must be something Democrats approved of.
There are dozens of examples of similar things. Open borders. Ultra touchiness. Overuse of calling people racist. Electric car mandates. Paper straws. Weird academic speaking styles. They/them. Word policing, which is hard on people who aren't super verbal and educated. Land acknowledgements.
And of course, in 2024, transgender edge cases. Like puberty blockers for 12-year-olds. Trans surgery for prisoners. Biological males competing in girls' sports. Kamala Harris didn't actively run on this stuff, but neither did she oppose it or disown her 2019 views. And it was probably a good thing, too. If she had, it would have generated enormous blowback and dominated the news for days or weeks. Look what happened to Harris in Michigan just for being squishily pro-Israel. Or to Seth Moulton for his girls' sports transgression—and that was after the election was over.
So lefty defenders miss the point when they say centrists control most of the Democratic Party. Of course they do. Nor is there anything centrists can do to stop hardcore lefties from saying whatever they want. But unless they want to be tarred with the lefty brush, they have to loudly and clearly oppose them—and that they're afraid to do. They're frozen in fear of taking massive flak from the righteous and their interest groupd. As long as that remains the case, the ultra-woke end up speaking for the party simply by filling a vacuum.
So is this why Democrats lost the election? I think it's part of the reason. But even though this is my view, the race was so close that I'm not willing to push it very hard. I don't see much concrete evidence that anything caused a huge turn away from Democrats, for the simple reason that there was no huge turn.
POSTSCRIPT: The same thing is true of Republicans, and as a result the Republican Party is generally tarred with the MAGA brush. The difference is that this doesn't hurt them much. That might be unfair, but it's reality.
Two words explains all: Racism and Misogyny
YEP!!!!!!
Once again I am begging people to stop taking MAGAs at face value because they lie about everything, all the time.
The explanatory variable in support for Trump is the degree of racism/ misogyny a person has.
No other variable or issue matters.
This is what confounds conventional pundits because they see all sorts of contradictory positions held by Trump and see them as eclectic or mysterious, reflective of some deeper and as yet undiscovered political orientation.
But it isn't- MAGA support for all issues is determined by a simple metric- "Will this help or hurt my hated outgroups?" and proceeds from there.
It literally doesn’t matter what Democrats said, because the media was in the bag for Trump. NY Times publishing articles implying Biden had Parkinson’s, sanewashing everything Trump said, emphasizing Harris’s non-existent wokeness. The media is all either right wing or fascist.
This is not quite right. The GOP constantly talks about how mainstream media are unfair to them. Mainstream media responds to this by treating the GOP (andeven MAGA!) with kid gloves. Democrats on the other hand just take it on the chin when the Times or CNN make their "both sides" presentations like recently about the Hunter pardon. If they complained too it might have an effect. But so long as nobody from the left complains (at least nobody who matters to the Sulzbergers) they will keep on going the "fair" way they have been going. They think they are perfectly non partisan and they stick with it with an impressive self righteousness.
+1
Democrats think that working the refs isn’t cricket.
Democrats don't get to 'work the refs' because of exactly what Kevin is doing here: Saying Democrats have to repeat Republican lies.
'Bothsiderism' and 'working the refs' are completely bogus excuses. But, bad as they are, they're still a hell of a lot better than 'We are totally in the tank for our right-wing fascist owners and in any event we agree with them.'
Amazing how the stuff that a centrist pundit, like--to take a totally random example, Kevin Drum--doesn't like is *exactly* what caused the Democrats to fail. Notice that Lord of Stats Drum provides absolutely no data to prove that other people share his pet peeves about leftys, or that said peeves moved people away from the Democrats.
TBF he does acknowledge that it was a close race, so claiming Wokeness Did It isn't really something that can be proven here.
I still think the best explanation (which fits with Democrats performing well in the non-Presidential races) is that voters treated the Presidential race as a referendum on Biden, who is unpopular - and Kamala got sunk over it because she couldn't or wouldn't distance herself enough from him in the same way that Ford couldn't get out from under the shadow of Nixon's pardon in 1976.
I think that's basically correct, while also there still being a problem with the fact that SOMEHOW the opposition party being literal modern-day Nazis who want to destroy democracy and the rule of law didn't really seem to matter in the narrative.
Amazing how the stuff that a centrist pundit, like--to take a totally random example, Kevin Drum--doesn't like is *exactly* what caused the Democrats to fail.
Self-styled conservatives outnumber self-styled progressives by a lot in the United States. That's just simple math (probably by near two-to-one). I wrote below that both parties have advantages and disadvantages. Well, this ideological skew is one of the GOP's principle advantages. They don't pay quite as big a price (they pay some price, of course) as Democrats do when they alienate the center—at least not as frequently.
So yeah, Kevin is right: association with the hard left is a challenge for Democrats. It's not an insurmountable one, mind you. But it is something they should be mindful of.
simple math sans actual, you know, evidence of said math (wikipedia is not evidence)
a simple google search will give you Gallup poll after Gallup poll showing that self identified liberals are <25% of the population.
And that's a bad take. Because that's one word of many used by folks with left of center viewpoints. Some folks call themselves progressives, some folks consider themselves "centrist" because there's the Green party wackos to their left.
Thank you Jasper is quite wrong. It's complicated and nuanced. It all hinges on how one defines a particular political position.
Jasper isn’t wrong; if you ask Americans how they self-identify politically, ‘conservatives’ and ‘moderates’ outnumber ‘liberals’: https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx
However, surveys asking about specific programs find broader support for liberal/progressive initiatives: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/americans-views-of-government-aid-to-poor-role-in-health-care-and-social-security/
Of course, Americans vote for people and party, not programs.
What they need to do is get better at talking out of both sides of their mouths in competitive races. If they have obligations or a genuine desire to push progressive causes, they need to provide credible private assurances to those groups while actively distancing themselves and taking moderate stances while hammering their opponents in public.
Raphael Warnock was really good about that in his Senate election in Georgia. Loeffler kept trying to pin him down on Black Lives Matter and Court Packing stuff he'd said, and couldn't do it - he just changed the subject or evaded it, while hammering her on other stuff and talking up stimulus payments and other more popular topics.
Pete Buttigieg is really good at that sort of thing too. We need more politicians who are good at working TV and a crowd, and controlling discussion of topics in elections through charisma and cleverness.
Agree on both Warnock and Buttigieg. AOC is one to watch, too. She's great. I like Andy Beshear as well. Ruben Gallego strikes me as a rising star, also, and, while a lot of progressives find him highly annoying (for understandable reasons), I think the Democrats could do with more John Fetterman, also.
Democrats have a strong bench.
Exactly this. And Clinton was dead wrong - Dems must campaign from the middle, THEN govern from the left. Biden did this remarkably well. The road to power in a non-parliamentary democracy is not through flying your freak flag to a Gaussian middle that's structurally disinclined to respond positively - i.e., folks invested in stability, order, continuity, no matter how sympathetic they might be in theory to your pet causes. You don't need any kind of repugnant "Sister Souljah" moments - again, Clinton was dead wrong, and cowardly so - just confident redirection back to narratives that reinforce the ontological and emotional realities of people living their lives within the constraints of our socio-politcal system.
I'd add to Kevin's analysis my observation that for much of the 'activist' sector of the left in this country, every cause is seen and presented as immediately and existentially critical to the moral and functional fabric of our society. Whatever mixture of privilege and conviction this degree of insistence emerges from, for elected leaders to unthinkingly adopt it without mediation shows at the most fundamental level a lack of character and strength.
The IRS is the police for rich people. Isn’t “defund the police” much more of a mainstream Republican thing?
Of course.
+1
Hang in there Kevin, I am too busy to respond at length, but other than American generalized racism and misogyny, (no reason to complain over this, they are real and not going anywhere), Ms Harris needed to have her Sister-souljah-moment.which she could not do or find as President Clinton did so well.
In the modern media environment Hippy Punching never works. It comes across as highly in authentic, it ticks off your base and never gets you new followers.
Which minority did you want her to throw under the bus? It couldn't be Black people or women so I guess you favor trashing gays or trans individuals?
"The problem is that too many of them refuse to clearly repudiate extreme wokeness."
As smart as you are, Kevin, and as along as you have been engaged with national politics, you cannot possibly believe that Democrats clearly repudiating extreme wokeness would have any impact on Republicans constantly accusing them of extreme wokeness or the ordinary average dullard voter from believing that Democrats support extreme wokeness.
Joe Biden clearly repudiated "defund the police," but if you check with voters, they believe he supported it and ACTUALLY DID IT!!!
This seems needlessly dismissive. Democrats who can credibly present themselves as non-extreme have generally done well.
If it's one thing I could change about most progressives I know, it's that they stop believing the GOP and its spin machine is a remorselessly efficient, ruthless political death star.
Plenty of Democrats overcome GOP efforts to demonize them as Commies!
You are a living time capsule tuck in about 1996. Guess what the GOP IS currently a political death star!!!!!
The Democrats failed miserably in building up their own information infrastructure to counter the firehose of disinformation that's been drowning Democratic candidates for 20 years and more. Continuing on with the same environment is to field candidates with one hand tied behind their backs.
The firehose of disinformation is indeed a big problem for Democrats. However it is also true that Democrats who can stand up to it can win but if they also can't bring themselves to denounce forcefully and repeatedly the stupidity (and political suicide) of things like "defund the police" then they will be knocked over by the firehose stream.
On a slightly different note I was happily surprised by how well Harris stepped into the void after Biden stepped down. She ran a pretty good campaign in difficult circumstances. My one big caveat was on defending the Biden-Harris economy. Sadly Biden was never very good at defending Bidenomics and after the mostly unfair and dishonest buffeting he took from the MSM (Ny Times first and foremost) he stopped trying and apparently the Harris team decided they were better off looking to the future than defending the past. I think this was a big mistake. They needed to forcefully push back against Trump's ridiculous characterizations but also against the msm's dishonest coverage as well. The extent to which racism and misogyny played a role was never something they could easily counter but they could have made a much stronger case for their own economic record and I believe this hurt them badly with the so called swing voters.
+1
Of course, there is nothing like the extreme Left in the Democratic Party n the GOP, so the GOP is able to tack to the center every election. /s
The GOP is pretty extreme. And they sometimes pay a price for this, especially in midterms, or in statewide office elections. You may have noticed Hershel Walker isn't a US Senator. Nor Kari Lake.
That said, people who claim to be politically conservative outnumber liberals by quite a bit in America, so, all things equal, Democrats do need to be a bit more careful when it comes to the extreme left than the GOP does with respect to the hard right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ideologies_in_the_United_States#
People claim all sorts of bingo words in surveys but you ask them about actual issues and they like a lot of left of center ideas.
The GOP isn't paying the price as much as they should for their extremeness. It's the failure of the Democrats to build up an information infrastructure to clap back at the GOP disinfo that is really hurting the party.
I had lunch with a coworker in October and he said he was voting for Harris, but he was sick and tired of hearing about all the uppity gays and trans. It was a fascinating insight. It’s the over the top nonsense sometimes which turns off people.
Oh well. Can’t stop the activists from acting!
Just keep it to yourself!
https://youtu.be/Zfs-XsLEJow?si=6uX7-s99Vmk-zWq-
Yes but he was probably hearing it from right wing media which repeats it non-stop.
I count myself as proudly "woke" BUT have had similar experiences. Recall having drinks in October with someone who definitely did not like Trump, but said they were sick of all the "woke BS." (Obviously I tried to nudge things in the right direction in that convo, but just adding a datapoint)
I've had conversations with family members--longterm union members in liberal western washington, to boot--who found gender identity issues to be baffling and somewhat off-putting.
It's anecdata, but it does make me concerned that Dems aren't framing this properly. If Jane&John Q. Public think that Dems view trans rights as a top priority as opposed to defense of civil and human rights more broadly being a top priority, which of course includes protecting our trans brothers and sisters from, among other things, Republican legislative predation, it's not surprising if some of them wonder what's in it for them, and start looking more sympathetically at Reps.
Simply ask, 'Which Democrats when?" and "Which of these policies are supported by doctors and medical associations?" then land with, "and what's in it for you to listen to the people who want to abuse the tiny number of people for whom that's a medical issue?"
Weird, the uppity gays and trans people are tired of the right talking about them, too.
Speaking for myself, I don’t give a crap what the right has to say. It seems to me too many are overreacting to it all. They will always hate you and me too. Grow a thicker skin if you want to be out there. Otherwise they will eat you alive. Gay pride had a meaning which has been lost over the years. Don’t give a fuck. Good luck.
That’s an unusually illogical comment from Drum. Let’s say Democrats completely repudiated the “woke” people and… in his words, “dozens of other things.” All that would’ve happened is more leftists would’ve voted green or abstained and Harris would’ve lost by even more. Does he really think a person who voted for Trump - Trump! - really care about any of those stuff?
Thank you, this captures the what if on this nicely. Times have changed, the makeup of America has changed. The centrists stuck in the 1990s need to get with the program. Hit back against the GOP firehose of rage harvesting quickly and firmly, then stake out sensible takes on things like Tim Waltz's "mind your own business" and such.
What would an actual program of loudly repudiating extreme woke-ism look like, and why does anyone think it would work? Take pronouns. I don't use them myself, simply because nobody gets my gender identity wrong and I'm willing to accept the minuscule risk that, unless I announce my pronouns, someone will. My personal take is that they are silly, but, being polite, I accommodate people who use them. How would I, as a practicing politician, deal with people who find them more than silly? Would saying what I just said satisfy them? Probably not, and, if not, should I lie? What would I gain from addressing the issue at all, and is there any reason to think I would pick up net votes doing it? Try the same exercise on weird academic-speak, touchiness, and over-use of racism accusations (not a good look from white guys, by the way). Other than landing a guest spot on Bill Maher's show, what would it accomplish?
I'm starting to understand the distaste for centrism...
https://youtu.be/K7ZHfZt4o6c
How many open union mines are left in Kentucky?
C'mon now, she's a pillar, scratch that a PILLAR in our history. And her point stands, which side are you on?
You don't get it. There are no union mines in Kentucky. The Democratic Party is no longer on her side. The environmental movement has taken precedence in the party and the working class is getting the short end.
This is why MAGA (bring jobs back to coal country) resonates with the people of Kentucky. They know the Democratic Party no longer cares about their struggle.
The jobs are never coming back
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Screen-Shot-2016-12-21-at-12.03.08-PM-e1482339825967.png
telling people lies is caring about their struggle is it?
but sure, the "environmental movement" caused this precipitous drop starting in the 30s
uh huh
+1
You are full of shit. The environmental movement created lots of high paying jobs in rural areas that don't involve living with black lung disease.
https://kypolicy.org/federal-investments-are-funding-improvements-and-creating-jobs-in-nearly-all-kentucky-counties/
One thing I’ve observed about conservatives, especially but not exclusively men, is that they don’t find positive activity as meaningful as destructive activity. Like mastering the world means damaging it, and themselves, because sustaining is women’s work, and “leaving a mark” is a scar. Toxic masculinity comes in a lot of forms, I suppose.
Interesting observation.
Completely concur with KenSchulz.
Good link, but I wish it included data on the number of jobs opened by the projects, and payrolls.
And now we know which side you're on.
the Republican Party is generally tarred with the MAGA brush. The difference is that this doesn't hurt them much.
Kevin: Republicans had lost three elections in a row headed into last month's contest. The MAGA taint hurts them plenty. They're basically dead now to increasingly large swaths of the well-educated. But alas, they finally got their shit together (or, more likely, were gifted with a favorable structural situation), and so Democrats couldn't make it four in a row.
Republicans are not evil geniuses when it comes to electoral politics! They hold some advantages. And they hold some disadvantages. Just like Democrats.
(I do agree with your larger point about Democratic failure to push back against leftist extremism.)
But what extremism?
It's all lies from the right-wing.
I think your explanation is completely off.
A lot of the people who sat out the election or otherwise voted for someone not named Trump or Harris were Gen-Z and Millennials. They weren't centrists, they were progressives -- people who believed the two parties were barely distinguishable with the typical pivot to centrism in general elections.
The folks who flipped to Trump did so primarily because of economic reasons, mostly from Gen-X. No one's bothered to explain to them the differences in policy so they've drawn their own conclusions by what they perceive are the differences in policy by examining their pocketbooks.
Complaints about "wokeness" is mostly the re-litigation of political correctness, which is to say, a lot of people don't like the idea of expanding rights to newly identified groups of people. People who want to say the "N" word but felt threatened by PC are the same people who are threatened by "wokeness", fearful of backlash for saying the "N" word. A lot of people like to be fucking dicks, and they don't want backlash for being fucking dicks. You might have noticed these are the people who erroneously claim to have 1A rights. They're fucking dicks.
"No one's bothered to explain to them the differences in policy so they've drawn their own conclusions by what they perceive are the differences in policy by examining their pocketbooks."
Bingo, 100%.
Translation: They haven't bothered to do their own research about a topic they claim to deeply care about.
Mostly, the news doesn't care to carry it because facts have a liberal bias.
Sheer speculation, unless you can read millions of minds. I’ll wait for actual data and analysis by political scientists and survey organizations like Pew.
Count this as planting my flag, as I often do, just as KD's doing.
Idiotic wokeness 2004: Early in a *presidential election year* San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom issued marriage certificates to gay couples, ignoring Barney Frank's advice (from a political perspective) that it was too much too soon*. His actions triggered Karl Rove-engineered initiatives in 11 states (including Ohio) that were intended to bring out Republican voters who otherwise would have stayed home.
Newsom's actions helped Bush defeat Kerry (Ohio was very close). Subsequently, Bush put Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. Probably the most damaging justices on the court of all time.
* https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-gay-marriage-20180515-story.html
When Gavin Newsom issued marriage licenses in San Francisco, his party was furious
--
“It troubled me as an example of the kind of politics that puts the interest of the political actor ahead of the cause,” Frank said.
Newsom now dismisses that criticism as “purely political arguments.”
“If they told me it was the wrong thing to do because it was the wrong thing to do, then I would’ve listened to that argument,” he said. “They never said that. They said it was too much, too soon, too fast. That’s not going to convince me.”
It wasn't Gavin Newsom that did Kerry in. It was voter suppression especially in Ohio plus a failure of the Democratic party to build up their own information ecosystem to clap back loudly at the Swift Boating of John Kerry.
If voting rights had been honored in Ohio and Cleveland voters provided adequate voting machines, we'd have had President John Kerry.
+1
What Newsom did in 2004 was in line with popular opinion at the time in San Francisco, a year after Massachusetts passed gay marriage. It was all over national news and put gay marriage on the map. Everyone saw the lines around the block and happy gay and lesbian couples getting married. It caused a backlash, but approval for marriage equality continued on the same course, getting higher every year and crossing over the declining anti opinion around 2010.
Congress repealed the "don't ask don't tell" policy in the military allowing openly gay, lesbian and bisexual people to serve in 2011. In 2013 spousal and family benefits were extended to same-sex married partners in the military.
The Supreme Court OK'd gay marriage in 2015. What Newsom did in 2004 was an important part in all this progress. There are now 36 countries where same-sex marriage is legal.
So Dana says bigotry is the way to go, again?
You like the results of not waiting 11 months before handing out marriage certificates?
oh, gee, Kevin is trolling us again.
Does anyone remember CRT? A thing that no Democrat candidate advocated, yet was an effective Republican weapon?
It doesn't matter one iota what a Dem says to repudiate a Rep charge. Never has and never will.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone here think the Republicans would have won if DeSantis was their candidate? It’s my belief that Trump won because people like/love him. When he talks they hear the things they like and tune out the things they don’t like. They “believe” his lies even when they know, in their hears, that he is lying. They make excuses for his failings and elevate his successes beyond what those successes might be. I have never seen a political figure who could do the things he has done with impunity. The flags, the heroic pictures, dolls, bobble heads, the whole shebang. Trump won because of personal popularity.
yes, I think DeSantis would’ve won, maybe even a bit more strongly than Trump.
Nope, Trump is a unique candidate a one of cult of personality. DeSantis would have been a gift to the Democrats.
Agree.
Harris had enough votes in the “Blue Wall” states to defeat 2020 Trump. I don’t think DeSantis would have won in those states. Harris actually outperformed 2020 Biden in Wisconsin. DeSantis does well in Florida for whatever reason, but he doesn’t have anywhere near the personal popularity Trump has. The turnout would have been much less for Republicans I’m sure.
Really? The guy who couldn’t outpoll Nikki Haley in a Republican primary?
I'm a republican and I voted for Harris. I'd never voted for dem before (except for some local elections) but Trump is despicable. I definitely would have voted for DeSantis if he were the candidate. I assume there are many others like me.
I’m sure you, and other republicans would have. But DeSantis did not have the personal popularity to turn out the vote and win the way Trump did. It it was otherwise he would have won the primary.
So like, 1% of Republicans who voted.
Tautology: centrism never fails, it can only be failed
+1
Centrism might not always be work but you must not have been around in 1972 if you think leaning left works.
Oh dear lord. I was there and the reason the movement collapsed was because a bunch of white guys bailed on them the moment their grievances (the draft) were addressed. Note that these very same guys also repeatedly -- and very loudly -- claimed to care deeply about other folks issues, it was just that the one thing that benefited them the most was was also the thing that affected the most people. Blah, said Toad.
I was there, and I live to spit on George Meany's grave. The "centerists" turned tail and betrayed their party. But I guess only they get to beat people up (sometimes literally-I was there!) and tell lefty's "you have nowhere else to go".
This is why we do not have good things (universal health care for just one).
Thank you.
The problem is that anything that is "woke" is ideologically to the left of whomever says the word. It's become a term used by fascists to attack anything they don't like and by centrists to use as a hammer to attack those on the left. Anyone who uses the term seriously is a certifiable moron.
Let's backtrack to 2003 when Massachusetts legalized gay marriage and to 2004 when Gavin Newsom issued marriage licenses for gay people in San Francisco. Both were cited by centrists as extremism and as the reason for the loss of the 2004 election. Let's ignore the fact that despite John Kerry's achievements before and since he was a terrible candidate, picked a crook for his Vice President, and was swift boated by the GOP campaign machine.
If you want we can go back to 1968 when George Wallace used the civil rights movement to propel himself into the national spotlight, sweeping the most racist deep south states. Centrists cited him and the Democrats' passage of the Civil Rights Act as the reason for the Democrats' loss completely ignoring the plight of black people across the country, Humphrey's doomed-from-the-start campaign, and the nationwide building hatred of the Vietnam War.
Centrists are doing the same thing again now, siding with the worst filth this country has to offer, and holding it up as the reason another election was lost while ignoring the obvious reasons in front of their faces, including reasons the voters themselves stated in polling regardless of whether their choice would deliver on what they wanted or do the exact opposite. They're also ignoring the real possibility that perhaps a white male candidate could maybe have squeaked out a win for the Democrats, perhaps one that didn't pivot to the center catering to nearly nonexistent honorable Republicans (an oxymoron if I've ever read one).
How did Biden win in 2020? By promising Rooseveltian LIBERAL policies. He actually delivered on most of them, but in the end it didn't matter. He never was able to communicate what they'd do. Unemployment is low, but most in this country can't afford to support themselves on the average wage, much less the minimum one. Not his fault. He had a gargantuan mess to clean up left over by his predecessor and now successor. Only so much can be done when the public fails to elect him a good sized majority. Last time we did that we got tangible improvements to healthcare. If only a few, just a few, of those Democrats were not centrists we'd have a public option.
Let's just hope there's a country left to clean up when Trump is done with his second term. I'm willing to bet after 4 years of hell centrist policies won't be on people's minds.
TLDR; centrists can f-off
I agree with most of your post but I think you're too hard on John Kerry. He was bad because he was badly managed and told to not attach back at the obvious GOP lies about him. The Democratic party was so scared about pushing back against the GOP in that post 911 era that they in effect surrendered in advance.
Here's my beef with this argument. Republicans define Democrats by the most extremist positions of a relatively small and powerless group on the left and media piles on. The critique sticks. Republicans, meanwhile, have completely surrendered power in the party to their most extremist elements and media treats them like the adult party. The most vile element is normalized (which is how we got Trump).
Dems deserve criticism for their communications certainly, but the job of winning is ten times harder if you're always on defense. The change that's needed is not to continually bend to the desires of Republicans and media, but to change the terms of how it communicates with the public. Don't accept the status quo. Fight back. Build new communications infrastructure. Until that happens, Dems will be playing on the other team's field. And it's not level.
Josh Marshall with the simple truth this week:
Recognizing that reality is step one. The dominance of establishment media is waning. Dems need to create to new outlets to reach voters. Or die.
I agree with this. We're witnessing it yet again in the coverage of Trump's indicated cabinet nominees. The narrative is about whether or not Hegseth's drinking will sink his nomination, not about how Trump is picking a lot of farcically unqualified people for critical government positions.
Like, the story is "Oh, now that Trump has learned that Hegseth had a drinking problem, will Trump stop backing him?" instead of "Americans gravely concerned that Trump's unqualified and amateurish cabinet picks undermine national security."
I think I'm gonna have to start reading Josh Marshall.
Enough with the bullshit "defund the police" example. The only people who are defunding the police are the MAGAts. Oh, really, you're going to insist that IRS auditors aren't police? You already forgot about the part where he called for the defunding of the FBI and DOJ?
Definitely the media's fault that "people" don't understand that the IRS is the police for rich people.
That's cocktail party snark. The message of "We're not defunding the police! *Republicans* are into defunding the police, by which we mean the IRS, which is like the police for rich people because, y'know, taxes" is complicated and confusing, because a normal person will respond by saying something like "so wait--are Dems in favor of defunding the police or not?"
It may play well as a witty remark among sympatico folks in the know, garnering a raised eyebrow and a knowing chuckle, but it does fuck-all to shift the narrative. The best bet would have been to say "look, we actually need to spend more on police, to make sure that we have the high-quality and professional police force America deserves; one that doesn't keep accidentally killing Americans in such high numbers" and then pivot to how Republicans are coddling tax cheats and making the system unfair for regular people.
Weirdly tho, it's true.
Republicans do defund the police. From the officers on the street to the regulators keeping you safe from scammers.
There were plenty of cities and town that defunded their police departments because of lefty activism.
Plenty!
You can't cite any, but that's par for the course for the commenter who:
- Supports policies who kill women and infants by denying them maternal care
- Supports murderers killing people who aren't fast enough getting out of crosswalks
So of course he shows up to lie about budgets being defunded.
Just making crap up again I see.
Goodness, what a load of crap.
Kevin gives away the centrist game with his first, best and only example.
'Defund the police!' - Kevin admits that nobody supported this. He admits that the leader and face of the Dem party for the last 4-5 years plainly objected to this.
But yet,.....
Ridiculous
Uh, 12 is a proper age to give puberty blockers, when there is reason to believe that delaying puberty is beneficial. Could be gender dysphoria— adding adolescent hormone levels to those challenges isn’t going to help in any circumstances— but there are other developmental and endocrinological reasons to delay puberty.
Anti-wokeness is just a spectrum of entitled laziness to outright bigotry.
Signed, parent of an oversized, neurodiverse second grader we’re closely watching for signs of premature puberty, in a state that’s banning blockers, and who DGAF about conservatives’ bullshit.
Transgender 10-year-old fears being murdered because of her identity.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/politics/video/transgender-kids-parents-supreme-court-arizona-kafanov-digvid
This is just always gonna be cringe inducing. I feel bad for them. They are doomed.
Yeah, I don't know why Kevin keeps harping on this point. Unless he means that's too late? You can't block puberty after puberty. And the reason I want to vote for a Democrat is because they support causes I support. Throw up a road block on this one, and I won't care who wins.
That really jumped out at me When in hell does Kevin think it’s appropriate to take puberty blockers, if not before puberty?
+1
Literally that's what they're for, so kids can be kids and go through puberty later, with their peers. It's given to cisgender kids at that age. Why wouldn't it be okay for trans kids?
My belief is that the democrats realized too late how angry people (other than Republicans) were about inflation, and to a lesser degree crime. So when Joe Biden dropped out, they picked the one democrat most aligned with Joe Biden and it bit them in the ass. The other thing I heard from Republicans who voted against Trump in 2020 but went back to him in 2024 was that they worried that expiring tax cuts were going to hurt them. You can always count on Republicans to worry about money more than anything else!
I also think the democrats have the uncanny ability to make apolitical people very engaged and angry at them. So this is where I agree with Kevin as I've watched two (I think 'unaffiliated') grandparents become obsessed with this election because of trans girls in women's sports. Of course, their grandkid didn't experience this but she would be more likely to if dems were elected (Trump hammered this message home). Quick math--There are 3.4 millions girls playing competitive school sports, they likely have at least 3 parents/grandparents/boyfriends who care about their happiness, and so it scales up quickly to a significant number to people who think that dems support something that is fundamentally unfair.
And gay marriage is different. Most people know gay people, and two gay folks getting married does not affect them or someone they love.
Ahh, yes, cite absolutely no Democrats.
Why is it Democrats making people mad when Democrats didn't do anything?
You're just lying here, in support of policing girl's genitals! Like gross, dude.
This analysis is accurate, but one should also note the double standard.
Replace anything extreme left woke stuff (defund the police, promote transgender policies, etc) with something from the extreme right stuff (KKK, white supremacists, deport 20 million illegals, etc) ) and compare how we expect the Democrats to publicly condemn the extreme left, but we do not pay attention to the GOP's increasing support of the extreme right. How many Republican politicians have publicly embraced extreme right views and said so loudly? Many. How many Democrats have embraced weird extreme left stuff? Very few if any.
This is the double standard.
+1
I will note that leftists don't have to have a lot of power in the Democratic Party to be able to cause harm. Cancel culture harms people through social ostracism. Leftist dominance of universities has also caused a great deal of harm by suppressing the viewpoint diversity that makes robust scholarly debate possible. And plenty of leftists did in fact get elected at the local level and put in dumb policies that harmed their communities. It's not surprising that a lot of people turned right in response to that.
I'm firmly committed to center-left politics and you won't see me voting Republican any time soon. But I totally get why mushy-middle types become Republicans after seeing the far left behaving badly.
"Ostracism"? LOL. Tell that to a black person. They know a thing or two about "ostracism".
So when I am at a public space, or a private social gathering, and I hear blatant racist BS, I'm just supposed to shut my yap for fear of hurting somebody's feelings? Are you serious?
I believe the error the Democrat leadership made wasn't running a centrist campaign which they did but thinking that continually highlighting Trump and Republicans threat to democracy would bring in progressives and moderate republicans. Republicans were effective in painting Harris and Walz as radical leftists. Now billionaires will make quality of life decisions for everyday Americans that won't end well for most.
So Democrats wasted time painting, but they were painted by Republicans?
What?
"I'm deeply offended by that Oberlin sophomore who chanted "Defund The Police".
So I voted for the guy who wants to eliminate the FBI."
+1
Probably true that a few Sister Souljah moments would help with the Liz Cheney voters who voted for Trump anyway because of taxes or whatnot.
But the older I get the more I believe in running on your strengths and not worrying too much about defending weaknesses (clearly the Rs do this, after all they're carrying MAGA around like a bowling ball).
What I mean is I still find it the most incredible political fact of my lifetime that "people" still "trust" the Republicans more on the economy than the Dems. Even after GWB. Obviously, a lot of Trump's appeal is that he's a rich guy, and even better, played a rich guy on TV... so it seems the result is a lot of people say to themselves "he's rich, I'd like to be rich, he must know how to make people rich".
Dems should be reminding people how much better the economy does under them and let the Rs keep carping about trans this and trans that, is my view.
Apropos of this, whatever you think about the Dems and this past election, Trump is a guy who lives at the country club. Sure it was close, but it's kinda pathetic to not be able to beat the guy who lives at the country club.
A conservative's note from Leopards Ate My Face,
https://i.redd.it/byda9dmo145e1.jpeg
The ACA helps a lot of people, but there's nothing to help this guy.
The problem isn't that any of that "woke" stuff is inherently unpopular, it's that Democrats support all of it rhetorically--police reform, no kids in cages, ceasefire, etc.--but then do everything they can to funnel money to police and border security and Israel. So there's something for everyone to hate, and the Democrats end up coming off as so dishonest no one believes anything they say.
What's 'everything', Chris?