I enjoyed reading E.J. Dionne’s call for progressive/moderate harmony. I generally agree with the points he makes, although I’m skeptical that people will heed his advice. I also don’t like the way there’s a kind of binary in his argument between Sanders/Warren and Biden/Buttigieg/Klobuchar/Bloomberg/Third Way.
I just don’t think Third Way is relevant enough anymore to serve as half of any two-sided argument, and I don’t think any of the candidates is really pushing their traditional line. In a way, that’s part of Dionne’s point. The 1990’s are gone. The pre-Trump era is gone. There really isn’t a realistic chance of having a successful restorative political movement. Whether you long for radical change or simple normalcy, whenever the Democratic Party next gets a chance to govern, it is going to have to approach things in new and novel ways. So, even a “moderate” candidate is probably going to attempt some pretty transformative things.
One thing I think should be obvious from the polls is that younger voters are not clamoring for restoration, moderation or normalcy. That doesn’t mean they won’t ultimately support a moderate candidate over Trump, but they’ll do so with a lot more enthusiasm if that moderate starts forcefully advocating for them.
Either way, populism isn’t popular if its not perceived to be in the people’s interests, or it seems to serve only other people and other communities. This is well understood when it comes to rural voters resenting policies that seem to be more generous to urban areas, but it’s true based on class, too. Free college doesn’t sell well with families that didn’t go to and have no intention of going to college. If the Democrats want to attract skeptics to their brand of populism, they need to spend more time making people understand that they’re on their side and understand their unique concerns and challenges.
Sanders can take this too far by suggesting that identity politics is a distraction and an albatross that kills the potential to win over white voters to a populist agenda. The answer isn’t to keep an arm’s distance from one’s one base, but to spend more time talking directly to skeptical white voters so that they know you are fighting just as hard for them. You have to make people believe that you’re on their side, and there’s no better way to do that than to loudly wage a battle on their behalf. The Democrats could never do this based on race, religion or identity, which means they must do it based on economic policy.
However you look at it, the Democrats that went over to Trump and the young voters who are rejecting Biden, both have no interest in going back in time or in tinkering around the edges. These groups are under economic stress and are going to listen to anyone who promises to pursue a radically aggressive agenda on their behalf. The successful candidate will be the one who convinces them they can deliver real change.
The additional challenge is twofold. A Democrat has to be responsive to real concerns from their base that risk muddying the “whose-side-are-you-one” question, and they also have to appeal to a huge swath of very comfortable (older) voters who don’t want more risk but rather five minutes to catch their breath after the chaos of Donald Trump.
It’s not possible to perfectly hit all these marks, but a candidate who clearly understands that populism can sell but must be simultaneously tempered and targeted will probably be able to win this election.
I think Dionne is trying to say the same thing, but he’s asking the Democratic voter to go along. And the Democratic voter is generally going to hate all of this either because it’s too tame or because it’s too aggressive.
That reminds me, I read in politico that Biden quoted David Brooks recently. The varying reactions to that I think would really summarize your post.
Also I think Sanders is right abour it being an albatross. Everywhere we see the welfare state cracking up its because its opponents are fanning the flames of conflict between identities. America was the most multi cultural of the western democracies and the one with the weakest welfare state. As homogeneity breaks down across Europe we have seen a similar thing beginning. Or look at South America in Brazil and Bolivia.
That doesn’t mean you abandon transgenders or Haitians or whoever to be beaten into the dirt but that there is a cost is undeniable.
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There was a moment several months ago when looked like she might be on the verge of hitting this sweet spot when she went to West Virginia to campaign on the opioid crisis (yes, she’s got a plan for that too). You could imagine a campaign where Warren, instead of spending several weeks last fall caught up in the policy implementation weeds of “Medicare for All”, spent several weeks taking advantage of campaigning in small town and rural IA, NH, SC, NV to weave together her personal story (“I didn’t leave the Republican party; the Republican party left me. Then when the banks and credit card companies and monopolists tried to take over the Democratic party, I fought them.”) with her 21st century populism (opiods, anti-monopoly, rural broadband, clean energy/good jobs).
That’s a “lane” that’s open for the taking by any number of ambitious Democrats in this new decade.
For me Warren lost it when she pulled away from M4A. I have always thought, and still do, that it is the most important thing we can do for Americans, black, white, brown, green or blue. Of course there are a myriad of other things we need to fix but this one must be fixed. So first Harris gave up and then Warren – ok tell me she still “believes” in it, great. I had been contributing to her campaign until she left me and not a dime since then. I will vote for whomever is our nominee but to be honest the only candidate now that offers me any hope is the old man. Stay healthy man.
One other thing I can’t resist when I talk about M4A. Simple, we already pay for the damn thing, every nickel only the cost is far too high and we can fix it. Take any lane you want but fix this and I will follow.
Peace.
Interesting, thanks for your response. You say “take any lane you want but fix this and i will follow”. How is Warren’s plan not something you’d “follow”?
(Just for the record, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’ll vote for any Democratic nominee, knowing full well that much of what I’d like them to sign into law won’t ever pass Congress, and much of what I’d like them to do, they won’t.)
Of course I would follow her but not so much since she backed off her time table by a few years. I continue to feel this is an issue that wins, but you have to work it, not put it on a back burner, where your belief in it becomes suspect. Stay healthy Bernie.
Let me first say that I will of course vote for whichever Democrat is on the ticket, because the most important thing in the world is getting Donald Trump the fuck out of the office.
That being said, the second most important thing for me is that the candidate recognize and plan for the fact that the modern Republican Party is a criminal cabal and has stopped operating in good faith (to the extent it ever did). This means reducing their power to the appropriate level of the failed minority party that they are. I want new voting rights laws, new money-out-of-politics laws, and new laws enforcing (with specific penalty) all of the norms that the Republicans have shown that they will break, and all of the norms that they could break, in their efforts to gather and hold on to power.
Everything else stems from that. The Republican Party is literally the reason Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.
This is why when Mayor Pete or Joe Biden talk about reaching across the aisle, it’s a non-starter for me. There is no reaching across the aisle anymore. There are still good Republican voters, but there are no longer any good Republican elected officials. That ship sailed and Donald Trump sunk it.