The problem is that once you’re in “punishing heretics” mode, your beliefs are too radical to win converts. For example, the first medical malpractice lawsuit by a detransitioner concluded a week or two ago. A doctor removed her breasts at age 15. She was awarded two million dollars.
Is the left ready for a conversation about how much harm they caused? I don’t think so - they’d lose every election for the next five years. At this point, punishing heretics is all they’ve got.
Senator Obama made his inflammatory "bitter clingers" remarks at a fund-raiser attended by rich San Francisco liberals. Secretary Clinton made her even more inflammatory "basket of deplorables" remarks at a fund-raiser, too. She was addressing a homosexual pressure group. Their vituperation matches the fund-raising political mail I get. The senders don't tell me what great things their side proposes to do for me, they tell me what awful things their awful opponents are planning to do to me. And if they do raise money by demonizing their opponents, what do they spend it on? Attack ads.
Mr. Olson, I don't really know what the wealth of SF liberals or the sexual identity of a "pressure group" has to do with anything relevant, but if you ask Obama and Clinton whether they want to stand by what they said today both will say no. Those were mistakes, costly ones. They made those mistakes sixteen and ten years ago. Both learned from their mistakes (Obama very visibly) and none of us is bound by those past errors.
I half agree with your comments on fundraising materials. My view of the administration and its Congressional supporters is that it represents the extreme wing of the GOP (which has expelled most other members) and is indeed extremely dangerous. But you are absolutely right that the Democrats need to articulate a positive vision that will appeal to those in the center and as wide a demographic as possible, and to make it the primary headline of voter outreach.
My view is that both Obama and the Clintons (both of them!) are largely irrelivent to todays Democratic party. See my main comment here. They are from a very differant and past era of US politics, especially for Democrats.
Republicans have gone extreme in their own ways now that we see with Trump (but only some of it, Dems call almost anything he does extreme whether it otherwise would be or not at this point). Democrats and the left have both caused real and serious harm to many however (And yes, so have Republicans), but most will not even consider that posibility nor truly engage with or consider those with wordviews are quite differant from their own.
We are currently in war mode even if it is still a mostly cold war for now. This is not normal politocs on either side, and the first step is to stop pretending it is!
> "if you ask Obama and Clinton whether they want to stand by what they said today both will say no. "
First, Clinton actually doubled down on her comments and said "deplorable" is "too kind". (See the link below).
Second, Obama, unlike Clinton, is gifted at being a political Rorschack test. He makes contradictory statements so the far-left can see him as far-left and moderate technocrats can see him as a moderate technocrat. (My own reading is that he's basically a pre-corrupted Bernie Sanders who wants socialism but borders closed to protect workers from being underbid by cheap labor).
" If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." -- Lyndon Johnson
Obama and Hillary Clinton offered their fund-raiser audiences people to look down on, the "bitter clingers" of Pennsylvania and Trump's "homophobic, transphobic" deplorables, for the exact purpose of getting them to empty their pockets. If you say you don't know why their snob appeal is relevant, I believe you.
I disagree that Obama's message is that "it's OK if you're not as advanced and morally upright as we are." He's as contemptuous toward his critics as ever and just as dishonest about it. Look in Obama's latest memoir, "A Promised Land." He wrote that the Tea Party was a racist organization, "the decendents of Jim Crow." Why? They did not propose racist policies like segregated schools. They did not apply a racial test for membership. Some of their candidates for office were not white. They neither preached or practiced racial discrimination, so why the raciam accusation? Because they disagreed with his policies, especially the taxpayer bailouts of failed bankers. Therefore, Obama concluded, they must be racist.
Great post! I'll be talking about Obama myself this week, since it's important to not get so caught up in today that we forget the lessons of the recent past. And it's true that Obama tried to see both sides all the time - I remember his parting shot against "latte-sipping liberals" (present! Guilty! 😉), and self-critique is essential for us all. Thank you again!
The futility of purity politics could be cured by the first lesson in Persuasion 101, something that every successful salesperson knows: don't gratuitously alienate prospective customers. Don't be smarmy and insincere - people see through phoniness - and also don't be dismissive and hostile toward people you hope to persuade.
To cite just one example: sneering at blue-collar people whose wages and job opportunities have been suppressed by a substantial migration of low-wage competitors to their local areas - and then denying that they have been economically hurt - will turn those people against you right away. Rational Democrats could peel substantial support away from the Trump GOP if their sneering Wokester wing - now the dominant faction in the Democratic party - had less power in the party.
This was certainly an apropos subject The author is seeking more tolerance to expand the Dem Party. More tolerance, in all facets of government, would benefit both Reps and Dems. It would be more easily achieved, if DC returned to incrementalism.
Many of us of a certain age, learned that if the federal government was functioning properly, and the US was not at war, voters should rarely need to give DC a thought. What a concept!
More than anything our Founders feared centralized power. Another reason a republic was specifically chosen for our governance, was the Founder's belief that government that would most effect American daily life, should have closer physical proximity to citizens. Most Founders believed the remote federal government, should move at a glacial pace, if lives were not at stake.
The lack of incrementalism by both WH edict or the occasional Congressional vote, in the last decade or two, has fed the tribalism. It is much easier to find common ground debating a 3 point spread in the top tax rate, then if DC attempts to dictate what kind of vehicle every American will be forced to utilize. Likewise, for glibly seeming to suggest, Greenland might be invaded.
Determining a palatable number of immigrants allowed to enter the US each year is far easier than deciding the US should cease all interior border enforcement or outright ban most immigration.
What incrementalism does not generally produce is single Party rule. Perhaps that is the reason it seems to have fallen out of favor.
Baby steps utilized for the vast majority of DC action, would almost certainly beget more tolerance. Unfortunately, drastic policy by one Party, nearly always demands a drastic response. A return to incrementalism would likely benefit both political parties. It would certainly be a blessing to all Americans, in the long run.
Well, I miss incrementalism too. But the truth is it ended both because it was percieved as fuilling elite corruption without any real acountability through the Uniparty (it was!) and also because on many issues, including on immigration(!), it was going nowhere at all to solve problems that said uniparty had no real interest in solving.
Elite "experts" tried to determine the idial level of legal immigration, with zero input from those with interests differant from their own, and largely no acnowledgment that such diferances even existed. That got nowhere, yet many Dems seem to want to back to it... go figure, they are just saying "just do it our way!" while refusing to even aknowledge that that is what they are doing!
Back when George W Bush was President, the illegal immigration issue was used as a rhetorical weapon by GOP elites with a basically shared interest in immigration with their Democrat counterparts, and basically all working class people as outsiders.
But that whole structure has fundementally chaged since then, as we no longer have a true unified national elite today. While we have record class inequality today, it's nature and basic structure has also fundementally changed as the traditional US coporate elite is now fundementally split horizontally along party and other lines along with every class below them. And we have a decidedly international and not US loyal tech and finance class of billionares being our current trans-partison power elite. Sure Trump like most polliticians uses insencere rhetoric at times for to appeal to his base.
But the rise of AI and automarion, the quite but real growth of guestworker programs, continued demographic changes do to immigration and their impacts on party vote and district lines, and the massive geographic and industry sorting by political party that has occured since the end of the cold war, have all led to a massive gap in real elite interests in regards to immigration (just to take on this one issue) between Democratic vs Republican elites today.
Less immigration, much less, is in the actual interest of private as well as government Republican elites today in a way that was not even close to being true 20 years ago. Meanwhile, Demoratic party voting and doner elites (as well as officials) are more demendent on high levels of immigration (and more hostile to most US born workers) then ever before.
Incrementalism was simply no longer functioning for public bennifit from the late 1990's onward if not sooner. This is because DC itself was indeed not functioning well, and because after the Cold war ended, inequality skyrockited in the neoliberal era and even among the elite itself, a new Cold Civil war gradually developed, and it has become increasingly uncivil since!
I have two reactions to this post. First, I want to indulge in bothsideism: Republicans are much the same, and worse. Republicans who take moderate positions are labeled RINOs and driven from the party. Any significant public divergence from the position of the President is likely to result in the threat of a primary challenge, and the MAGA candidates frequently prevail. Online ranks of podcasters help push followers further towards the extreme, dismissing those who disagree as "woke." The MAGA President flames apostates in posts that capture headline after headline. Etc., etc.
This is a national problem, not a Democratic or Left wing problem.
The second point I want to make is that this presents an enormous opportunity for Democrats. Unlike the GOP, where this behavior is linked to a single authority source, Trump, who clearly blesses this pattern and leads the charge on an almost daily (or nightly) basis, the Democrats already include liberals and Center Left members, both now in routine conversation with Independents and homeless "RINOs." Overwhelmingly, these liberal Democrats share many of the same basic views as the progressive Left, but in less doctrinaire form, admitting doubt where doctrine demands none, finding life and morality complex where doctrine is simple. Etc., etc.
But so long as a critical mass of those on the progressive Left are vocal in their intolerance and puritanism the MAGA-transformed GOP will make them the face of the Democratic Party and the advantage will be lost. The point is not that the progressive Left does not take positions that are worthy of respect and have worthy goals -- in many cases its positions have validity and its goals are ethical and worthy. But its illiberalism and shrillness, and an ideological narrowness that carries ideas and goals to extremes that exceed their validity perpetuate this seemingly permanent stalemate with the MAGA Right, locking everybody who is not a true believer into a downward spiral.
The GOP establishment did not want Trump in any way shape or form. Trump got the nomination *despite* the wishes and efforts of the Party. The voters overrode the Party Machinery and voted him to be the nominee. The GOP is not the unified Party Machine - it is the exact opposite.
The democrats are a Party machine, where candidate nominations more closely resemble coronations. Voters are a secondary consideration.
I would also say the number of former Democrats in the Admin, the fact that Trump's populist trade policy has more in common with old school Democrats like John Glenn and Fritz Hollings refutes your thesis.
GOP voters recognize Trump's numerous flaws and don't idealize him. They chose him simply because they think the left is worse.
I think the voter base of the GOP simply got fed up with what I call Washington Generals (from the Harlem Globetrotters) conservatives. Think the Mitt Romney oh-shucks type with a kick me sign on his back who loses by following the rules against a team that doesn't.
But in no way is the GOP even remotely comparable to the Borg that is the Democrat Party.
> "The democrats are a Party machine, where candidate nominations more closely resemble coronations. Voters are a secondary consideration."
Yup. The Democrats haven't picked a nominee since 2012. In 2016 Clinton had the debate questions ahead of time and the super-electors. In 2020, the moderates all simultaneously dropped out to allow Biden to grab the moderate vote while Sanders and Warren split the far-left vote. And 2024, well, we all know about 2024.
You are right about the GOP "establishment" in 2015-16. The GOP at that point was not unified. It is now the MAGA GOP and more unified than any party I can recall since the Reagan GOP.
I'm not sure what "thesis" of mine you refer to. Obviously there are many former Democrats who have joined the MAGA movement, and some of Trump's have some common points with policies advocated by some Democrats in history.
The Democratic leadership has indeed pushed to avoid a presidential candidate who was tied to the progressive Left because, as you note, many general voters are profoundly turned off by the more extreme positions associated with that wing of the party. My point is that given the clear disillusionment of Independents and a few in the GOP with the radicalism of Trump 2, Democrats have an opportunity to reverse that dynamic if the progressive left moderates some of the extreme positions and behavior that have pushed away so many voters that are not MAGA true believers.
I was refuting your thesis that the GOP has purity tests and is driving people from the party. There is much more ideological diversity in the GOP than the democrats.
We will see if the GOP is truly turning away independents or whether this is an astroturfed wishcasting exercise on the part of the mainstream media and the polling companies. Color me skeptical.
The biggest problem the democrats have is attracting men to the party. And as long as they are the party of Angry AWFLs they will continue to hemorrhage support from that demo.
Susan Collins doesn’t have a serious primary challenger. It’s highly likely John Fetterman will, and we know what happened to Kristen Sinema.
The GOP has a Trump is best described with words that aren’t fit for a family publication problem. The Democrats have a most people think their policies are insane problem. Trump will be gone in 3 years. The GOP pivoting to Trump light strikes me as far more plausible than the Democrats dropping the crazy. But you never know.
The GOP knows it is unlikely to retain the Maine Senate seat without Collins. I granted with "bothsideism" that the problem the post highlights concerning Democrats is real.
There is a distinction between Democratic policies and progressive advocacy. I would describe the GOP as having a MAGA problem.
> "I want to indulge in bothsideism: Republicans are much the same, and worse. Republicans who take moderate positions are labeled RINOs and driven from the party."
I appreciate your thought experiment but don't think it works.
The Left
----------
For the left, an intellectual says "women have penises" and tens of millions of white women on Facebook dutifully intone "women have penises". They could have lived the rest of their lives without ever entertaining that thought and been no worse off. Instead, they demonize anyone who dares dissent from the new liberal consensus. See also: JK Rowling.
The Right
-----------
By contrast, Trump was summoned. There was an enduring, decades-long disconnect between the party and the elites on immigration. Trump's famous "escalator speech" was borderline racist, but Trump is smart. He knew that mouthing platitudes about immigration would not get him anywhere. It would be standard campaign rhetoric of being all things to all people. So he indulged in what economists call "costly signaling". He burned bridges with the establishment to prove his credibility to the base.
This is not Trump leading around the party by the nose, its the opposite.
JMan, The implications of the two extreme positions are interesting to explore. The fight over the "women have penises" premise concerns terminology and identity ideology. I think it is utterly idiotic -- trans women (generally) have penises; biological women do not: *everyone* understands this to be true. The serious social question is the manner and limit to which we should treat trans women (and trans men, for sports) as women. It's a very difficult issue, and Rowling has justifiably attacked one wing of the Left for insisting it is not.
The implications of Trump's open racism have included the infusion of open white nationalists into the GOP, including in positions of executive responsibility, and the mobilization of a masked army tasked with rooting out and deporting millions of people without criminal records (other than illegal entry -- and many not even that) who have become part of US communities.
The fact that MAGA voters are enthusiastic about the latter is precisely what makes those who are Independents and Republicans uncomfortable with the personal grossness of Trump and the brutality of his policies potential audiences for a non-extreme Democratic party.
You first paragraph proves my point. A whole bunch of words that say nothing.
The second paragraph is simply wrong. Trump is the least racist president we've ever had, including Barack Obama, which is why the realignment that TLP has documented has only happened on Trump's watch. However, Trump also has the Obama-like Rorschach test quality which allows people to see him many different ways - so he's hated by those who want the approval of Enlightenment secular types.
But in three years, he'll be gone. Whereas the far-left will still control 100% of all leftist institutions from academia, NGOs to media entities.
I would say that numerous powerful people within the structure of the Democratic party do pretty much the same purity tests and purges that Trump and his loyalists do. It is just less centralized at present for Democrats then for Republicans.
Trump is a fegurhead. It is fundementally mistaken to think the GOP's positions and behaviors are from Trump. No, they became such before him and will not dissapear when he goes. Trump is their leader, for now, but he has been selected as such and behaves as he does because of his base which was developed and led by a longstanding previously outsider rival elite within the GOP that overthrew the existing GOP elite with widespread (but not unified) Republican voter support.
Trump is how he is largely because the broader party elite now largely condones such rhetoric and engages in it, not the reverse. Trump just seems more extreme and volatile then most because he is the US president after all and because he was the initial leader of the movement that transformed the top of the GOP. Democrats need to get it through their thick heads that once Trump is gone, while there will be some changes, it will NOT be the end of MAGA nor of Trump's style of Politics anytime soon.
IMO Obama was a lot closer to being a competent chief executive than he was at inauguration. He was in no way the great mediator portrayed in this piece but he did learn that you have to give in order to get.
Y’all need to get over “Trump is the devil”. He’s there and not going anywhere. While his manner can be annoying his efforts to follow through with his promises separate him from the political pros. If you can’t find something you can work with him on it’s because your afraid of your priesthood.
The truth is, even though he was the first and so far only Black US president and ushered in the current political era, Obama is still the last US President from a very differant former era of US politics, especially for Democrats. Obama is from the end of the post Cold War neoliberal era, and from the post World War Two White Flight era as well. The great recession and it's long tail may have been the end of these but the new, current era had not truly begun then, not untill maybe 2015 or so.
Obama's latist statements might be consistent in tone with many of his past ones but are even more mild this time, not emphacising any real need for compromise but just ways of speaking to or engaging with people. Well, that is important, sure, or rather would have been say, a decade ago, but at this polerized point will get almost precisely nowhere in todays US politics. When he was pesident, depite some polerizing rhetoric, much of Obama's speaches had a unifying as well as hopeful and comforting quality for a politically diverse array of people.
Today, even the same style would merely be seen as patronizing by many of his then working class or conservative leaning supporters, not to mention outright disloyal or concilitory to "the enemy" by much of the left. Obama's style would simply never work today. His presidency might seem recent to many of us who are now well into middle age or seniorhood, but Barack Obama is now truly from the old days and a long gone former era and style of US politics.
Healing our current era will not be easy. But the first step is comminication and even wanting to change. I frankly do not see that happening. In fact, actual larger civil conflict and/or an actual non Democratic and or/failed government (and economy) seems far more likely in the near future, and are currently very real looming threats.
Healing would mean actually listening to (by both sides of this divide!) and perhaps even considering, completely differant perspectives of reality itself in many casses of not merely "the ignorant" but of "treasonous enemys" by those who "know" they are right, -because they have been "educated accordingly"! It would mean seeking actual policy compromise despite the costs, at times even with those labeled "terrorists" by one's own side! That is just a no go in practice. And it would mean dealing with two parties that now both work actively against thier own candidates when they don't tow the line.
No, the first step is admiting that we are already at war, a war that Democrats increasingly feel they can and should win irregardless of how ruinous the cost might be, even if it is still mostly a cold war for now. And then we have to actually want to end this war and seek to do so, before we can even begin to work on healing normal politics or regaining trust. The first step is to stop being in denial of the real situation we are facing.
Ideally both parties would have some from both sides of any issue. Pro and anti abortion, pro and anti climate, pro and anti illegal immigration, pro and anti deficit spending etc. It makes it easier to shift policy as the public changes it's views or as policy becomes informed by it's implementation.
Both parties get locked in to taking ridiculous stances on issues no one dare question from their own side. Men being women, anti vaxers and who won in 2020. Trump right now is constrained by the old GOP of the pro business side who hate E verify.
I was ok with Obama's gun clinging remarks as he appointed Salazar at Interior, big deal for someone putting 400 lbs of meat in the freezer to feed the kids. I did a lot of knocking on doors to get Obama elected, and then to keep the senate, and re election again. The health care at the end was a lot better than nothing but a lot less than expected. Ended up liking the guy more than the some of the policies of his party.
The problem is that once you’re in “punishing heretics” mode, your beliefs are too radical to win converts. For example, the first medical malpractice lawsuit by a detransitioner concluded a week or two ago. A doctor removed her breasts at age 15. She was awarded two million dollars.
Is the left ready for a conversation about how much harm they caused? I don’t think so - they’d lose every election for the next five years. At this point, punishing heretics is all they’ve got.
Senator Obama made his inflammatory "bitter clingers" remarks at a fund-raiser attended by rich San Francisco liberals. Secretary Clinton made her even more inflammatory "basket of deplorables" remarks at a fund-raiser, too. She was addressing a homosexual pressure group. Their vituperation matches the fund-raising political mail I get. The senders don't tell me what great things their side proposes to do for me, they tell me what awful things their awful opponents are planning to do to me. And if they do raise money by demonizing their opponents, what do they spend it on? Attack ads.
Mr. Olson, I don't really know what the wealth of SF liberals or the sexual identity of a "pressure group" has to do with anything relevant, but if you ask Obama and Clinton whether they want to stand by what they said today both will say no. Those were mistakes, costly ones. They made those mistakes sixteen and ten years ago. Both learned from their mistakes (Obama very visibly) and none of us is bound by those past errors.
I half agree with your comments on fundraising materials. My view of the administration and its Congressional supporters is that it represents the extreme wing of the GOP (which has expelled most other members) and is indeed extremely dangerous. But you are absolutely right that the Democrats need to articulate a positive vision that will appeal to those in the center and as wide a demographic as possible, and to make it the primary headline of voter outreach.
My view is that both Obama and the Clintons (both of them!) are largely irrelivent to todays Democratic party. See my main comment here. They are from a very differant and past era of US politics, especially for Democrats.
Republicans have gone extreme in their own ways now that we see with Trump (but only some of it, Dems call almost anything he does extreme whether it otherwise would be or not at this point). Democrats and the left have both caused real and serious harm to many however (And yes, so have Republicans), but most will not even consider that posibility nor truly engage with or consider those with wordviews are quite differant from their own.
We are currently in war mode even if it is still a mostly cold war for now. This is not normal politocs on either side, and the first step is to stop pretending it is!
> "if you ask Obama and Clinton whether they want to stand by what they said today both will say no. "
First, Clinton actually doubled down on her comments and said "deplorable" is "too kind". (See the link below).
Second, Obama, unlike Clinton, is gifted at being a political Rorschack test. He makes contradictory statements so the far-left can see him as far-left and moderate technocrats can see him as a moderate technocrat. (My own reading is that he's basically a pre-corrupted Bernie Sanders who wants socialism but borders closed to protect workers from being underbid by cheap labor).
https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-deplorables-defense-donald-trump-1959646
" If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." -- Lyndon Johnson
Obama and Hillary Clinton offered their fund-raiser audiences people to look down on, the "bitter clingers" of Pennsylvania and Trump's "homophobic, transphobic" deplorables, for the exact purpose of getting them to empty their pockets. If you say you don't know why their snob appeal is relevant, I believe you.
Coming from the guy whose SOTU addresses were filled with nothing but smugness, condescension and grandiosity.
Obama’s current message seems to be- it’s OK if you’re not as advanced and morally upright as we are. We will accept you despite your flaws.
This is supposed to be admirable and make us grateful that the Democrats are willing to stop criticizing the lesser people?
It still sounds nothing like- maybe some of our ideas need improvement and we’re willing to listen to people with other ideas.
I disagree that Obama's message is that "it's OK if you're not as advanced and morally upright as we are." He's as contemptuous toward his critics as ever and just as dishonest about it. Look in Obama's latest memoir, "A Promised Land." He wrote that the Tea Party was a racist organization, "the decendents of Jim Crow." Why? They did not propose racist policies like segregated schools. They did not apply a racial test for membership. Some of their candidates for office were not white. They neither preached or practiced racial discrimination, so why the raciam accusation? Because they disagreed with his policies, especially the taxpayer bailouts of failed bankers. Therefore, Obama concluded, they must be racist.
Yes, the contempt is still there, as in “we’ll accept you despite your flaws”.
See also: Matthew Yglesias' argument to expand the tent to include bigots.
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/bigots-in-the-tent
Obama forfeited my respect during the Rev. Wright flap and he's never earned it back. Empty vessel then, empty vessel now.
Great post! I'll be talking about Obama myself this week, since it's important to not get so caught up in today that we forget the lessons of the recent past. And it's true that Obama tried to see both sides all the time - I remember his parting shot against "latte-sipping liberals" (present! Guilty! 😉), and self-critique is essential for us all. Thank you again!
The futility of purity politics could be cured by the first lesson in Persuasion 101, something that every successful salesperson knows: don't gratuitously alienate prospective customers. Don't be smarmy and insincere - people see through phoniness - and also don't be dismissive and hostile toward people you hope to persuade.
To cite just one example: sneering at blue-collar people whose wages and job opportunities have been suppressed by a substantial migration of low-wage competitors to their local areas - and then denying that they have been economically hurt - will turn those people against you right away. Rational Democrats could peel substantial support away from the Trump GOP if their sneering Wokester wing - now the dominant faction in the Democratic party - had less power in the party.
But the thing is they largely don't actually want to win those voters. No, they simply WANT to destroy and demoralize them!
This was certainly an apropos subject The author is seeking more tolerance to expand the Dem Party. More tolerance, in all facets of government, would benefit both Reps and Dems. It would be more easily achieved, if DC returned to incrementalism.
Many of us of a certain age, learned that if the federal government was functioning properly, and the US was not at war, voters should rarely need to give DC a thought. What a concept!
More than anything our Founders feared centralized power. Another reason a republic was specifically chosen for our governance, was the Founder's belief that government that would most effect American daily life, should have closer physical proximity to citizens. Most Founders believed the remote federal government, should move at a glacial pace, if lives were not at stake.
The lack of incrementalism by both WH edict or the occasional Congressional vote, in the last decade or two, has fed the tribalism. It is much easier to find common ground debating a 3 point spread in the top tax rate, then if DC attempts to dictate what kind of vehicle every American will be forced to utilize. Likewise, for glibly seeming to suggest, Greenland might be invaded.
Determining a palatable number of immigrants allowed to enter the US each year is far easier than deciding the US should cease all interior border enforcement or outright ban most immigration.
What incrementalism does not generally produce is single Party rule. Perhaps that is the reason it seems to have fallen out of favor.
Baby steps utilized for the vast majority of DC action, would almost certainly beget more tolerance. Unfortunately, drastic policy by one Party, nearly always demands a drastic response. A return to incrementalism would likely benefit both political parties. It would certainly be a blessing to all Americans, in the long run.
Well, I miss incrementalism too. But the truth is it ended both because it was percieved as fuilling elite corruption without any real acountability through the Uniparty (it was!) and also because on many issues, including on immigration(!), it was going nowhere at all to solve problems that said uniparty had no real interest in solving.
Elite "experts" tried to determine the idial level of legal immigration, with zero input from those with interests differant from their own, and largely no acnowledgment that such diferances even existed. That got nowhere, yet many Dems seem to want to back to it... go figure, they are just saying "just do it our way!" while refusing to even aknowledge that that is what they are doing!
Back when George W Bush was President, the illegal immigration issue was used as a rhetorical weapon by GOP elites with a basically shared interest in immigration with their Democrat counterparts, and basically all working class people as outsiders.
But that whole structure has fundementally chaged since then, as we no longer have a true unified national elite today. While we have record class inequality today, it's nature and basic structure has also fundementally changed as the traditional US coporate elite is now fundementally split horizontally along party and other lines along with every class below them. And we have a decidedly international and not US loyal tech and finance class of billionares being our current trans-partison power elite. Sure Trump like most polliticians uses insencere rhetoric at times for to appeal to his base.
But the rise of AI and automarion, the quite but real growth of guestworker programs, continued demographic changes do to immigration and their impacts on party vote and district lines, and the massive geographic and industry sorting by political party that has occured since the end of the cold war, have all led to a massive gap in real elite interests in regards to immigration (just to take on this one issue) between Democratic vs Republican elites today.
Less immigration, much less, is in the actual interest of private as well as government Republican elites today in a way that was not even close to being true 20 years ago. Meanwhile, Demoratic party voting and doner elites (as well as officials) are more demendent on high levels of immigration (and more hostile to most US born workers) then ever before.
Incrementalism was simply no longer functioning for public bennifit from the late 1990's onward if not sooner. This is because DC itself was indeed not functioning well, and because after the Cold war ended, inequality skyrockited in the neoliberal era and even among the elite itself, a new Cold Civil war gradually developed, and it has become increasingly uncivil since!
I have two reactions to this post. First, I want to indulge in bothsideism: Republicans are much the same, and worse. Republicans who take moderate positions are labeled RINOs and driven from the party. Any significant public divergence from the position of the President is likely to result in the threat of a primary challenge, and the MAGA candidates frequently prevail. Online ranks of podcasters help push followers further towards the extreme, dismissing those who disagree as "woke." The MAGA President flames apostates in posts that capture headline after headline. Etc., etc.
This is a national problem, not a Democratic or Left wing problem.
The second point I want to make is that this presents an enormous opportunity for Democrats. Unlike the GOP, where this behavior is linked to a single authority source, Trump, who clearly blesses this pattern and leads the charge on an almost daily (or nightly) basis, the Democrats already include liberals and Center Left members, both now in routine conversation with Independents and homeless "RINOs." Overwhelmingly, these liberal Democrats share many of the same basic views as the progressive Left, but in less doctrinaire form, admitting doubt where doctrine demands none, finding life and morality complex where doctrine is simple. Etc., etc.
But so long as a critical mass of those on the progressive Left are vocal in their intolerance and puritanism the MAGA-transformed GOP will make them the face of the Democratic Party and the advantage will be lost. The point is not that the progressive Left does not take positions that are worthy of respect and have worthy goals -- in many cases its positions have validity and its goals are ethical and worthy. But its illiberalism and shrillness, and an ideological narrowness that carries ideas and goals to extremes that exceed their validity perpetuate this seemingly permanent stalemate with the MAGA Right, locking everybody who is not a true believer into a downward spiral.
I disagree.
The GOP establishment did not want Trump in any way shape or form. Trump got the nomination *despite* the wishes and efforts of the Party. The voters overrode the Party Machinery and voted him to be the nominee. The GOP is not the unified Party Machine - it is the exact opposite.
The democrats are a Party machine, where candidate nominations more closely resemble coronations. Voters are a secondary consideration.
I would also say the number of former Democrats in the Admin, the fact that Trump's populist trade policy has more in common with old school Democrats like John Glenn and Fritz Hollings refutes your thesis.
GOP voters recognize Trump's numerous flaws and don't idealize him. They chose him simply because they think the left is worse.
I think the voter base of the GOP simply got fed up with what I call Washington Generals (from the Harlem Globetrotters) conservatives. Think the Mitt Romney oh-shucks type with a kick me sign on his back who loses by following the rules against a team that doesn't.
But in no way is the GOP even remotely comparable to the Borg that is the Democrat Party.
> "The democrats are a Party machine, where candidate nominations more closely resemble coronations. Voters are a secondary consideration."
Yup. The Democrats haven't picked a nominee since 2012. In 2016 Clinton had the debate questions ahead of time and the super-electors. In 2020, the moderates all simultaneously dropped out to allow Biden to grab the moderate vote while Sanders and Warren split the far-left vote. And 2024, well, we all know about 2024.
You are right about the GOP "establishment" in 2015-16. The GOP at that point was not unified. It is now the MAGA GOP and more unified than any party I can recall since the Reagan GOP.
I'm not sure what "thesis" of mine you refer to. Obviously there are many former Democrats who have joined the MAGA movement, and some of Trump's have some common points with policies advocated by some Democrats in history.
The Democratic leadership has indeed pushed to avoid a presidential candidate who was tied to the progressive Left because, as you note, many general voters are profoundly turned off by the more extreme positions associated with that wing of the party. My point is that given the clear disillusionment of Independents and a few in the GOP with the radicalism of Trump 2, Democrats have an opportunity to reverse that dynamic if the progressive left moderates some of the extreme positions and behavior that have pushed away so many voters that are not MAGA true believers.
I was refuting your thesis that the GOP has purity tests and is driving people from the party. There is much more ideological diversity in the GOP than the democrats.
We will see if the GOP is truly turning away independents or whether this is an astroturfed wishcasting exercise on the part of the mainstream media and the polling companies. Color me skeptical.
The biggest problem the democrats have is attracting men to the party. And as long as they are the party of Angry AWFLs they will continue to hemorrhage support from that demo.
Susan Collins doesn’t have a serious primary challenger. It’s highly likely John Fetterman will, and we know what happened to Kristen Sinema.
The GOP has a Trump is best described with words that aren’t fit for a family publication problem. The Democrats have a most people think their policies are insane problem. Trump will be gone in 3 years. The GOP pivoting to Trump light strikes me as far more plausible than the Democrats dropping the crazy. But you never know.
The GOP knows it is unlikely to retain the Maine Senate seat without Collins. I granted with "bothsideism" that the problem the post highlights concerning Democrats is real.
There is a distinction between Democratic policies and progressive advocacy. I would describe the GOP as having a MAGA problem.
> "I want to indulge in bothsideism: Republicans are much the same, and worse. Republicans who take moderate positions are labeled RINOs and driven from the party."
I appreciate your thought experiment but don't think it works.
The Left
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For the left, an intellectual says "women have penises" and tens of millions of white women on Facebook dutifully intone "women have penises". They could have lived the rest of their lives without ever entertaining that thought and been no worse off. Instead, they demonize anyone who dares dissent from the new liberal consensus. See also: JK Rowling.
The Right
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By contrast, Trump was summoned. There was an enduring, decades-long disconnect between the party and the elites on immigration. Trump's famous "escalator speech" was borderline racist, but Trump is smart. He knew that mouthing platitudes about immigration would not get him anywhere. It would be standard campaign rhetoric of being all things to all people. So he indulged in what economists call "costly signaling". He burned bridges with the establishment to prove his credibility to the base.
This is not Trump leading around the party by the nose, its the opposite.
JMan, The implications of the two extreme positions are interesting to explore. The fight over the "women have penises" premise concerns terminology and identity ideology. I think it is utterly idiotic -- trans women (generally) have penises; biological women do not: *everyone* understands this to be true. The serious social question is the manner and limit to which we should treat trans women (and trans men, for sports) as women. It's a very difficult issue, and Rowling has justifiably attacked one wing of the Left for insisting it is not.
The implications of Trump's open racism have included the infusion of open white nationalists into the GOP, including in positions of executive responsibility, and the mobilization of a masked army tasked with rooting out and deporting millions of people without criminal records (other than illegal entry -- and many not even that) who have become part of US communities.
The fact that MAGA voters are enthusiastic about the latter is precisely what makes those who are Independents and Republicans uncomfortable with the personal grossness of Trump and the brutality of his policies potential audiences for a non-extreme Democratic party.
You first paragraph proves my point. A whole bunch of words that say nothing.
The second paragraph is simply wrong. Trump is the least racist president we've ever had, including Barack Obama, which is why the realignment that TLP has documented has only happened on Trump's watch. However, Trump also has the Obama-like Rorschach test quality which allows people to see him many different ways - so he's hated by those who want the approval of Enlightenment secular types.
But in three years, he'll be gone. Whereas the far-left will still control 100% of all leftist institutions from academia, NGOs to media entities.
I would say that numerous powerful people within the structure of the Democratic party do pretty much the same purity tests and purges that Trump and his loyalists do. It is just less centralized at present for Democrats then for Republicans.
Trump is a fegurhead. It is fundementally mistaken to think the GOP's positions and behaviors are from Trump. No, they became such before him and will not dissapear when he goes. Trump is their leader, for now, but he has been selected as such and behaves as he does because of his base which was developed and led by a longstanding previously outsider rival elite within the GOP that overthrew the existing GOP elite with widespread (but not unified) Republican voter support.
Trump is how he is largely because the broader party elite now largely condones such rhetoric and engages in it, not the reverse. Trump just seems more extreme and volatile then most because he is the US president after all and because he was the initial leader of the movement that transformed the top of the GOP. Democrats need to get it through their thick heads that once Trump is gone, while there will be some changes, it will NOT be the end of MAGA nor of Trump's style of Politics anytime soon.
Saint Barack was the leader of the Great Awokening.
Now the left / MSM is trying to memory hole the whole thing.
IMO Obama was a lot closer to being a competent chief executive than he was at inauguration. He was in no way the great mediator portrayed in this piece but he did learn that you have to give in order to get.
Y’all need to get over “Trump is the devil”. He’s there and not going anywhere. While his manner can be annoying his efforts to follow through with his promises separate him from the political pros. If you can’t find something you can work with him on it’s because your afraid of your priesthood.
Another recycled TLP diatribe. How about less ink preaching and more ink educating?
The truth is, even though he was the first and so far only Black US president and ushered in the current political era, Obama is still the last US President from a very differant former era of US politics, especially for Democrats. Obama is from the end of the post Cold War neoliberal era, and from the post World War Two White Flight era as well. The great recession and it's long tail may have been the end of these but the new, current era had not truly begun then, not untill maybe 2015 or so.
Obama's latist statements might be consistent in tone with many of his past ones but are even more mild this time, not emphacising any real need for compromise but just ways of speaking to or engaging with people. Well, that is important, sure, or rather would have been say, a decade ago, but at this polerized point will get almost precisely nowhere in todays US politics. When he was pesident, depite some polerizing rhetoric, much of Obama's speaches had a unifying as well as hopeful and comforting quality for a politically diverse array of people.
Today, even the same style would merely be seen as patronizing by many of his then working class or conservative leaning supporters, not to mention outright disloyal or concilitory to "the enemy" by much of the left. Obama's style would simply never work today. His presidency might seem recent to many of us who are now well into middle age or seniorhood, but Barack Obama is now truly from the old days and a long gone former era and style of US politics.
Healing our current era will not be easy. But the first step is comminication and even wanting to change. I frankly do not see that happening. In fact, actual larger civil conflict and/or an actual non Democratic and or/failed government (and economy) seems far more likely in the near future, and are currently very real looming threats.
Healing would mean actually listening to (by both sides of this divide!) and perhaps even considering, completely differant perspectives of reality itself in many casses of not merely "the ignorant" but of "treasonous enemys" by those who "know" they are right, -because they have been "educated accordingly"! It would mean seeking actual policy compromise despite the costs, at times even with those labeled "terrorists" by one's own side! That is just a no go in practice. And it would mean dealing with two parties that now both work actively against thier own candidates when they don't tow the line.
No, the first step is admiting that we are already at war, a war that Democrats increasingly feel they can and should win irregardless of how ruinous the cost might be, even if it is still mostly a cold war for now. And then we have to actually want to end this war and seek to do so, before we can even begin to work on healing normal politics or regaining trust. The first step is to stop being in denial of the real situation we are facing.
Ideally both parties would have some from both sides of any issue. Pro and anti abortion, pro and anti climate, pro and anti illegal immigration, pro and anti deficit spending etc. It makes it easier to shift policy as the public changes it's views or as policy becomes informed by it's implementation.
Both parties get locked in to taking ridiculous stances on issues no one dare question from their own side. Men being women, anti vaxers and who won in 2020. Trump right now is constrained by the old GOP of the pro business side who hate E verify.
I was ok with Obama's gun clinging remarks as he appointed Salazar at Interior, big deal for someone putting 400 lbs of meat in the freezer to feed the kids. I did a lot of knocking on doors to get Obama elected, and then to keep the senate, and re election again. The health care at the end was a lot better than nothing but a lot less than expected. Ended up liking the guy more than the some of the policies of his party.
> “ Both parties get locked in to taking ridiculous stances on issues no one dare question from their own side.”
No.
One party has taken ridiculous stances. The other party is centrists from 1995.
Please all the pro-life Democrats currently holding office.