Keith Spencer of Salon tells us that picking a centrist candidate for president is a mistake.
As the Democratic establishment and its pundit class starts to line up behind the centrist nominees for president — mainly, Joe Biden, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris — the party’s head-in-the-sand attitude is especially troubling.
To marshal his argument, Spence utilizes French political economist Thomas Piketty’s 2013 book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” The basic insight isn’t novel. It’s a straightforward socialist interpretation of how and why people vote they way they do, with an exhortation that all the lower classes of the world unite in a transnational color-blind coalition against their wealthy oppressors.
For example, the people of states like Oklahoma used to vote for left-wing populists and now they vote for right-wing conservatives. For Spencer, “these rural whites saw their struggles and their oppressors reflected back in the rhetoric of the socialist candidates and thinkers that spoke to them, the “egalitarian internationalists” to use Piketty’s language.” But now the only place they see their struggles reflected is on their television screens when they’re watching “Fox News and their ilk.”
The reason they abandoned the left for the right is because the Democratic Party embraced neoliberalism and thereby created a vacuum that the right gladly filled:
The [Democratic] party’s leaders see themselves as the left wing of capital — supporting social policies that liberal rich people can get behind, never daring to enact economic reforms that might step on rich donors’ toes. Hence, the establishment seems intent on anointing the centrist Democrats of capital, who push liberal social policies and neoliberal economic policies.
One complication with this theory is that a very large percentage of the rural whites who abandoned the New Deal coalition did so for reasons of race and religion that were only tangentially related to economic policies, if at all. In the post-Trump era, one challenge in convincing the Democrats to consider these people’s needs is that they’re widely considered to be too “deplorable” to court. They now exist, in a sense, on the other side of a cultural divide. The socialists always lament this and say it is unnecessary, but they often come off as belittling the concerns of the people on the left side of this battle. This is largely why Bernie Sanders struggled to win the support of black voters in 2016. Black folks are too intimately familiar with the reasons that rural whites aren’t on their side to believe they can just join up with them in an international class struggle.
There are some additional historical challenges to the socialist critique. For example, the last Democrat to do well with rural whites was Bill Clinton, who also happens to be the Democrat most associated with moving the party away from the New Deal politics of the past into a newer era of neoliberal policies. He won enough votes in the middle to reverse the pattern that had developed in the 1972-1988 period where the Democrats were more likely to lose 49 states than to win the presidency. There are ways to explain away Clinton’s performance, but we should be clear that it at least needs to be examined.
To begin with, he actually won twice so we cannot flatly declare that the model has no potential. Perhaps it was an anomaly that cannot be easily replicated. Or, maybe there was a delayed reaction to Clintonism that had the effect over time that Piketty describes in his analysis. These are real possibilities that should be given serious consideration, but we have to at least look at them before we can begin to make conclusions about what kind of candidate can win in 2020.
There are many ways to approach the upcoming election, and the socialist critique is not the most compelling. An extremely simple model says that if one party lurches ideologically out of the mainstream, the other party can win simply by occupying the vacated territory in the middle. However, if both parties vacate the middle, then it’s far harder to predict which side will win.
This is what is worrying people like Steve Rattner who wrote recently in the New York Times about the modeling of the 2020 election that is strongly predicting that Trump will be reelected. That is the conclusion of Yale Professor Ray Fair, Moody’s Analytics economist Mark Zandi, and Donald Luskin of Trend Macrolytics, who have all come to the conclusion that Trump should be favored independently of each other. It’s true that Trump is unpopular and divisive, but he’s the incumbent in a fairly strong economy with low unemployment. Historically, presidents in Trump’s position have won reelection with ease.
It seems that Democratic voters sense this, which is why the primary is shaping up to be a battle between Joe Biden and everyone else. It’s why Biden is the overwhelming first choice of black voters- a key progressive bloc of the party that seems indifferent to the promise of a color-blind international socialist revolution.
Of course, not everyone on the left agrees that the foremost goal should be winning the 2020 election. If you’d rather lose than win with the wrong kind of candidate, then that’s a different kind of discussion. What Spencer is saying, however, is that picking a centrist candidate like Biden, Booker or Harris will cause the Democrats to lose. It’s a little unclear why he included Harris in this troika of would-be failures, but this doesn’t really affect the merits of his analysis. The idea is that the Democrats are losing because they’re failing to unite the underclasses under one banner, and that’s a problem that developed over a half a century rather than something that will be reversed because the Democrats pick Sanders or Warren or Mike Gravel as their nominee.
More to the point, any strategy that presumes that America as a whole or the Democratic Party in particular can wave away the influence of race in the 2020 election seems to be oblivious to the greater trends in international politics that are unfolding over immigration, national sovereignty, and cultural pluralism. A Democratic nominee should certainly try to appeal to anyone who stands to benefit from greater investment in schools, infrastructure, health care, worker’s rights, and retirement security. That doesn’t mean they’ll be successful in bringing a bunch of Fox News-watching religious conservatives over to the proletarian cause.
It looks like 2020 is shaping up to be a very high turnout election, which means that partisans on both sides will be getting themselves to the polls. More than in most recent elections, this makes the real battle a battle for the middle. The Republicans have abandoned the middle and are pursuing a base mobilization strategy that alienates more than half of the voters. It seems like the Democrats should be positioned to win simply by playing it safe, but if they decide to take big risks in search of big rewards, they could blow their advantage.
There are solid reasons to conclude that given challenges like Climate Change, we don’t have the luxury of playing it safe. I think that is probably true, so my analysis of how to win isn’t my only consideration. I just don’t like being told that the playing to the middle is the surest way to lose. It’s not.
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Here’s the thing: everyone uses election results as confirmation of priors they already had rather than trying to figure out the actual best way forward. And the reason why is because no one has a winning formula except the winners. It’s a tautology, but if you prove you can win with left wing candidates then you control the debate and the agenda, and Trump has provided the opportunity of a lifetime to win with a socialist candidate. On the other side if you win with Biden, you “prove” how right it is to pursue middle of the road policies.
I think turnout is going to break records, or at least it’s going to be the highest in over 100 years (65% is my guess, compared with 63% in ‘08). Older people are already maxed out participating at 70%, they don’t have any more people in the pool, and going to 75% (at most) isn’t as substantial as other groups’ expected improvement. Gen Z had their first midterm and hit 30% participation, something Millennials didn’t do until 2018 (their fourth midterm, where we hit 42%). Expect Millennials to potentially hit 60% participation (they were at high 40’s in 2008). If GenZ hits 50%, it will be a bloodbath.
With that in mind, I think Biden is the worst person to bring these people out. I think their turnout will be record breaking no matter what, but in my mind if you don’t have the youth backed candidate it will not get to the levels required to be able to have a chance at implementing any sort of agenda. There’s danger of paralysis no matter what. But what choice do we have? Keep in mind I’m not even saying Sanders will win the youth vote this time around (many polls have Biden winning that vote, though it’s definitely not like his lead with olds). I don’t think either are the best candidates to capture this energy. To me their time has come and gone, but if Biden wins it’ll be another fucking kiss of death from the olds, and I resent that.
I have trouble believing that young voters will fail to turn out against Trump. I also have trouble believing that Trump’s base will fail to turn out in overwhelming numbers or that more than an insignificant number of Republicans will abandon their standard bearer for anyone who isn’t solidly in the middle. The Democrat will need the youth vote, but they’ll also need the suburban vote, and they need to gather up the disenchanted former Republicans in the burbs not drive them to despair with Cold War rhetoric from the far left.
There’s risks no matter what the Dems do, but betting on people to vote for a radical left change over Trump is a major risk and certainly not the most obvious way to assure victory.
You’re so focused on ideology. Look at suburban voter shifts in the UK in 2017 elections. You saw the same movement in the suburbs to Labour that we saw in 2017-2018 here (VA/NJ, then midterms) when Jeremy Corbyn heads the party. We will see what happens when people actually vote, but there is nothing the Dem nominee is capable of being or going to be able to say that will cause suburbs to forget why they hate the turn to far right nationalism in Trump and Brexit. Whereas there is a lot of difference in nominees in turning out voters who have a much lower propensity to vote, and getting behind the candidate they choose is the best option. It was the best option in 2008, was the best option in 2016, and will be the best option in 2020. Maybe it’ll be Biden; I doubt it.
Funny, because I thought the obvious criticism of my analysis is that it ignores ideology and focuses only on winning.
In truth, I think personality is more important than ideology, but if your ideology is threatening to key elements of your suburban base, then you need more personality to compensate.
Maybe it’s an obvious criticism, but I don’t think it’s a good one — and I say that as someone who used to believe ideology mattered a decent amount (not to the degree of this Salon writer, but significantly more than we’ve observed the last few elections). I want the left to succeed, and it doesn’t help us to lie to ourselves about how/why results happen because then we are in the dark of how to be successful. I am in much more agreement with you than the Salon writer, however, and said writer is operating like an equivalent to Third Way: these election results prove my priors.
It seems we are in general agreement, though “personality” also takes it too far for me. The 2017 elections really hammered this home to me: Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party surged in affluent suburbs, declined in working class areas. This just illustrates how little control party leaders have now to shape their coalitions. France, UK, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada (etc) are all moving in the same way. The other trend we see that’s common is the split in age with youth usually going to the left parties (see Spain, UK, Germany). Ideology might matter more for young, in this regard.
Tried uploading this pic in the response. We have ability to upload directly now!
Right, you were being entirely “pragmatic.” But there is ideology in your piece nevertheless, and in my view, it lies in the categorical thinking that is hidden, even from you. I don’t think that is intentional, but the very terms of discussion, of what is considered “objective,” “serious,” have been set by mainstream media, i.e. by global neoliberalism. Most voters are not thinking in terms of “left” and “right”, they just know that the situation today sucks, is unsustainable and getting worse. That’s why an evil moron like Trump was able to beat one of the world’s most established candidates. That’s why fascism is on the march around the world.
In other words, the very fact that somebody like Biden is considered by all the serious people to be the so-called “winnable” Democrat is the clue to what’s wrong with him. Can’t we break through the prefabricated, spoon-fed ‘thinking” laid out by all the “serious” people? These same people never dreamed that Trump could win, and Trump’s victory is a judgment on them and on American politics in general. They have learned nothing from that debacle.
Even if Trump’s victory would not have happened without the help of the Russians (no question they helped him a lot), we can’t stop there. Why did he get that help? And did the “serious” people see that coming any more than they saw Trump’s victory? No — because they don’t understand what’s going on and they don’t want to, because that would mean they’d have to change their stupid beliefs and accept a world where they and their donors were not devouring a large proportion of the world’s wealth and destroying the environment.
Most voters don’t want to think in terms of race, age, or gender. They simply want a president that will truly address the incredibly serious problems of this country and of the world, that will provide hope for them and their children. That’s why much of the discussion of Biden is off kilter. Biden is (to me) actually much more “likeable” than Hillary Clinton, but not because of ANY of those abstract generalizations, nor should the fact that he’s white, old, and male be held against him. For that matter, Bernie Sanders is all those things too. But likeability and these other abstractions are irrelevant. Biden is simply the “safe” candidate, just like Hillary was, and for the same reasons. He might win, and he would be a relief from Trump, but he’s not going to change much of anything.
And other Democratic candidates, I believe, would be more likely to win than Biden. The point is, they are not the choice of the powers that be, although the POB, or most of them anyway, really do want Trump out of here — he’s too destabilizing.
My views on this are explained better by this new article from Common Dreams. It raises important issues that you did not even mention.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/03/neoliberalism-dead-neoliberal-elite-didnt-get-memo
“…personality is more important….” For Democrats, the Democratic electorate as a whole, this is certainly true. History proves it. And I think a candidate’s age is a major component of how his or her personality is perceived. The olds (Biden, Sanders, even Warren, I’m afraid) are going to lose points on this test. But young Pete again, has an advantage here. His story is fascinating (gay military righteous) and compelling (he’s safely white and male and looks straight), and, like Obama and Bill Clinton (our last two winners), he’s as middle-of-the-road ideologically as they come. His bump so far is nothing short of remarkable and it may be that when more and more people get a look at him, starting with the debates this summer, he’ll surprise everyone again. I’m not a fan of his middling kind of politics, but he knows better than anyone else in the race how to capitalize on his strengths. He wouldn’t have coat-tails and he wouldn’t get anything done as president, like Biden, except begin to restore status quo, but his rhetoric and smarts just might be enough to get him the nomination.
Turnout will be huge on both sides.
Don’t forget the lessons that Trump TV learned during the midterms — endless stories about a caravan that was going to wash over the U.S. was all that was needed to spur good republican turnout. Imagine what Trump TV will come up with for the 2020 election.
OT but relevant in a way– why are (generally speaking) older, white voters so opposed to socialism? Often you will hear an argument against a specific progressive proposal that goes almost exactly like this: “but that’s socialism!” As if those three words just won the argument about the policy in question.
And, of course, Americans love some aspects of socialism, especially social security.
Turnout is key, no doubt about that. And the people need a platform that will improve their lives. Only way is to deliver a progressive platform.
Left. Only way forward. Things need to get done.
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Surest way to lose in the long-term is what most thoughtful progressives would argue.
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