by liberal japonicus
I guess the big news is from the Michiganders and Abdul El-Sayed. I like Jamelle Bouie’s encapsulation of this, which is Vote Blue No Matter Who. If anyone has a more granular view of the race, please drop it in the thread and feel free to write about anything else.
The comments here on the internal politics of the Democratic Party are why I left this blog.
Donald, do you believe that there is consensus on this blog about the desired direction of the Democratic Party? I must say, that is not my impression. And, as I have said many times FWIW, I wish you had not left.
Donald’s comment here touches on something that I think about a lot. It’s not completely clear in my own head, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to articulate it all that well. But sometimes trying to articulate it helps clarify it for myself, so I’ll ask you all to bear with me.
The first thing I want to say is that I am in no way disagreeing with anything Donald said. This is all just stuff his comment got me thinking about.
So.
It seems to me that the domain of politics is power. Who gets to have it, what can they do with it, what are the limits of its exercise. Moral or ethical concerns may (and hopefully do) come into play, but they are not necessarily the primary focus of political life. The moral and ethical concerns are kind of a “nice to have”.
It resembles business in that way, maybe, except there the domain is money rather than power per se.
In addition, political actors typically are not (at least nominally) acting primarily on their own behalf. To a greater or lesser degree, they represent interests that are not necessarily their own.
All of this creates an environment that is extremely transactional. Doing something because it’s the “right thing to do” is kind of a luxury, and the ability to do “right things” without creating other effects – effects which are seen as harmful, perhaps equally so, to somebody somewhere – is really limited.
So we end up with situations like our culpabililty for what has to be seen as an exercise in ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is our friend, because Israel’s enemies are not our friends (mostly, except when they are), and Israel is one of the “good guys”, so what they do has a presumption of being “good”. Which, in the cases I’ve just cited, is not so. But here we are.
Does this excuse the actions of our political actors? No, it does not. They are responsible for what they do. But I also think what we can expect from political actors in the areas of doing “right things” is limited. Basically, it’s limited to what we can *make* them do.
Net/net, my expectations of moral and ethical goodness from political actors and the political process is fairly limited. Making the “right things” happen depends on people outside of those institutions creating the conditions where it is in the interest of power and those in power to do them.
All of this is further complicated by the US understanding itself as some kind of beacon of freedom and justice in the world. It makes it much harder for us to make an honest assessment of our bad actions.
We’re the “good guys”, so whatever we do must be “good”. Right?
I often wish I lived in a much less ambitious country, one where political goals were more along the lines of keeping the lights on and making sure people were basically safe and housed and adequately fed. Or at least had ready access to those things.
As far as the DSA stuff, I pretty much like the folks I’m aware of who identify as such because their focus seems to be on getting useful shit done. That seems like a positive use of power, to me.
The part of Donald’s response that resonates most strongly with me is this…
I’ve seen variations on this theme floating around a lot amongst my friends who are either leftists who work within the Democratic Party out of strategic necessity, or frustrated independents looking for a stronger response from Dems to the oligarchic authoritarianism that is driving America’s decline. The leftists I know are unified in their desire to see strong, clear conditions places upon American aid to Israel. The independents are less galvanized on this issue, but are strongly unified in their wish to reduce the influence of lobbyists and PACs on electoral politics, and to fight the concentration of wealth at the top of the economic scale.
The unfortunate truth is that the DNC and the Super PACs exist to collect the wealth of the donors, big and small, and direct that wealth in strategic ways intended to win the very next election.
This ALWAYS follows the path of least resistance, and it always leads to local concerns being sacrificed for broad appeal and a lack of anything that might create the opportunity for media controversy that could be weaponized against the party.
My ride-or-die pro-Israel Democrat friend in MI is STILL putting out three or more anti-El-Sayed posts a day, damning him for appearing in public with Hasan Piker, and ignoring all of the things not related to Palestine that helped win El-Sayed his primary – exactly what Donald is talking about.
I’m reminded here of the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” where MLK criticizes the white moderates for their squeamishness:
Now I do want to acknowledge, before saying anything more here, that many of the people who are faithful Democratic supporters are moderate African-Americans who read King’s letter and see it as applying to the “rich white privileged DSA types” who are opposing Democratic candidates who have campaigned in black churches, pledging to fight for the VRA in this moment when it has been gutted.
I get that.
I acknowledge that need.
They are right to demand that we continue to fight for racial justice.
But they also need to acknowledge the tensions that their centrist coalition continues to attempt to suppress in the name of expediency, and find a common cause that cross-cuts, rather than just assembling the minimum coalition needed to 50+1 the current electoral situation while preserving their own most prized concern.
And through it all, they need to show fierce support for the others who show up to fight against the greedy, nihilistic illiberal factions that are vandalizing the country in the name of GOP power.
Front to enemy.
It ain’t the DSA.
And to me, in a nutshell, those two responses by russell and nous are just an example of why at times this blog can be one of the most worthwhile places in cyberspace.
Michael, she was loved and cared for by you and she loved you.
I’m so sorry for you and your family’s loss.
I thought about dumping this in the current open thread, but it’s on-topic for the current conversation in this one, so I’ll drop it here, and risk it being orphaned in a collective shift to the new one.
In line with what I was saying in my response to Donald.
Talarico has read the memo, and is lining up his targets and knocking them down…:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/powell-memo-1971
Of course he also says that “Since the late 1970s, megadonors and corporate special interests have been buying politicians in both political parties,” so we’ll have to see if the people howling about DSA attacks on “both parties” also decide to try to tone police Talarico. Hopefully not, because it’s a message that energizes a lot of people who have been hopeless and cynical for a long time.
From the outside, the argument in the Democratic Party seems to come down to this. One group thinks the way to win elections is to go for as broad a coalition as possible. Which means tacking to the center (or tacking right, if you prefer that formulation) when it comes to the general election. Because that’s where there are more votes to be had. That involves compromises, but that’s the nature of politics in a democracy. Unsatisfactory as those compromises can be at times.
The other group argues that the way to win is to go strongly left.** They argue that going away from the center has been successful for the far right, so it’s obviously the way to win. Or, at least, no impediment to winning. And this has the added advantage of avoiding compromising anything. (Well, until you notice the internal disagreements on specific issues. But that’s a different discussion.)
The trouble I see with the second position is twofold, albeit the two are related. First, the country is not homogeneous. Something that is radical (left or right) in one place can be completely mainstream somewhere else. A local candidate will need different focus to win in different places. Which just moves the compromises from the campaign trail into the legislature. But compromises will still be necessary to get things done.
Second, the far right found a large body of non-voters and infrequent voters on the right who could be energized and turned out to vote. For the same tactic is to work on the left, there needs to be a similar, large, population there that can be turned out to vote. No surprise if that is the case in some places. But is it the case in enough places? So far, the evidence is weak.
** Yes, “right” and “left” a fuzzy terms with different meanings in different contexts. But we need a shorthand, so we don’t have to start every discussion with 6 pages of definitions of terms.
The Talarico speech is interesting and I’m trying to line it up with Burnham and Manchesterism, (which already has a wikipedia entry) which partakes of both an appeal to nostalgia as well as a way to deal with the power that corporations have amassed. (I’m sure most people know this, but just to note, Manchester was where Fredrich Engles got sent to and where he wrote Condition of the Working Class, which led to him collaborating with Marx)
Also potentially of interest is Hasan Minhaj’s interview of Ta Nehisi Coates.
https://youtu.be/jUyIjQLh9J0?si=IWCK2DlR2Q1Kt4VY
Minhaj suppresses his urge to make jokes and Coates suggests that the game is rigged and one shouldn’t participate.
I think what you describe, wj, is what a lot of centrists think, picturing politics as a continuum from reactionary to revolutionary, and picturing something like a bell curve of voters distributed along that path from one end to the other. And the centrists, in their frustration, then sometimes imagine the sparsely populated ends of the continuum as joining up and confirming the horseshoe hypothesis that either end anchors in madness.
I’m not so sure it’s that simple.
Why is it that people think there are more votes to be gained by cheating a bit towards the opposition than there are cheating towards the more radical end of their side? Why not picture something more like the overlapping 2D spaces of a Venn diagram, with multiple bell curves traveling along each, leaving different potential centers depending on which of the lines are combined? Why not consider a 3D map that takes into consideration the concerns of bioregions, or of generations, or of religions or sectors – things that do not map neatly onto a simple right/left continuum?
I understand that people simplify political compromise the way that you describe it, but I think that this is fatally reductive if you have any hope of creating a diverse coalition with any energy or sense of common cause.
It does make things easier for Carville, Rahm, and their tribe, though. They can remix their central proposition ad infinitum.
I’m not sure that’s exactly the thought process. My impression, FWIW, is that the “far left” folks aren’t taking that position for reasons of canny electoral strategy. My sense is that they feel the positions they hold are (a) what the folks they want to represent want, and (b) are not well represented by whatever else is available at the moment.
And I think they are probably right, in the areas where they do well.
I would say it would harder for someone who is further left to do well at a national level, i.e. POTUS, or in some cases at a statewide level, e.g. Senator. But positions like House rep or mayor are sufficiently local that “non mainstream” positions could be the mainstream, where they are.
I really do wish the (D)’s would pay more attention to what folks in particular places want and need, instead of arguing about whether candidates who do reflect local interests are “breaking ranks” and making the party look bad.
Maybe somebody in e.g. Utah or Mississippi really does care that the (D) candidate for Senate in MI has a funny name, or that the mayor of NYC is having the city open grocery stores. But to be honest, I suspect it’s just not top of mind.
First, Michael, I’m a widower. If you want to talk, you’ve got my email, I’m here.
Second, why shouldn’t politicians speak for what they believe in? Voters will vote as they think best, but telling the truth ought to be the default..
That would doubtless be more accurate. The challenge is to do it verbally, without diagrams. Any time you are having a discussion, and not just about politics, it’s a tradeoff between precision and ease of understanding. Being politics geeks here, we might be able to come up with something a bit less one dimensional. (I submit that merely using one liberal-conservative axis and one libertarian-authoritarian axis isn’t much, if any improvement.)
Suggestions anyone?
Amen.
Why not picture something more like the overlapping 2D spaces of a Venn diagram, with multiple bell curves traveling along each, leaving different potential centers depending on which of the lines are combined? Why not consider a 3D map that takes into consideration the concerns of bioregions, or of generations, or of religions or sectors – things that do not map neatly onto a simple right/left continuum?
i think you answered your own question a half-dozen times.
everyone knows what a horseshoe looks like, but even then they typically have to puzzle-out what “horseshoe” theory is describing.
just picture a 3D map that takes into consideration the concerns of bioregions, or of generations, or of religions or sectors!
and you’ve lost 95% of the people listening.
cleek – and that describes the situation we are in, where people would rather believe something simplistic and wrong that they could picture easily, than trust something more correct that they had a hard time picturing.
I mean, we all kinda know that’s where we are — Socrates’ feverish Republic. Death by epithumos.
Hmmm… I didn’t take nous to be describing something that politicians would go out and present to voters, but something politicians and strategists would consider in campaign messaging – what issues to present and how to present them – and in determining who to support as candidates.
Someone somewhere needs to deal with complexities at some point, right?
hairshirthedonist understood me as I intended. The problem that I have with Carville and Emanuel is that they are the pundit equivalent of AI sycophancy where the myth of the simple right/left bell curve strategy is involved, and they will hallucinate moderate centrist swing voters in order to fulfill their prompt and preserve that pretext.
It might be interesting to do an actual study. Find out if the distribution really is a bell curve, or bimodal or even trimodal. And whether those peaks are anything like symmetrical. Even with a simple linear graph, there’s so much more that can be done if you don’t insist on assuming a normal distribution.
I wouldn’t be surprised if such studies were done in the past. But I wonder what the distribution looks like today.
Warning: probably extremely naive and unrealistic views ahead.
I absolutely see the advisability (and sense) in candidates running for local office to focus most on what local people want and need.
I know that I have a deserved reputation here for being insistent that the only way to achieve anything significant is to actually win elections and therefore power. But is it impossible for a national party, in this case the Dems, to agree on a basic list of popular issues which all their candidates support, for example: universal healthcare, SCOTUS reform, nationwide abortion entitlement, a tax system which protects/rewards working people more than billionaires, strong support for historic allies, strong action on institutional corruption, the end of Citizens United? All of these are surely uncontroversial for the vast majority of the electorate, and would sharply differentiate them from the Republicans.
When it comes to controversial matters of principle (e.g. trans rights, support for Israel) is it beyond human ingenuity to initiate a national conversation such that individual candidates, while supporting the party’s roster of must-agrees, state when questioned what their own belief is, but say that they are prepared to duke it out in the legislature if elected?
And anyone running for POTUS could equally say what their own belief is, but that they are prepared to engage with and listen to the national and legislative conversation on the issue.
None of this would preclude the ability to concentrate on the astounding failures of Trump 2: the Iran war, the cost of living, DOGE, ICE killings, the diminution of healthcare access etc etc.
And of course, even if any of this was practical, the Dems would still have to cope with Fox and other sources of disinformation and propaganda. But surely what we are talking about, aren’t we, is how to make it clear what all Dems basically agree on, and that those issues are to the inarguable advantage of the American people?
OK, over and out. Ridicule me if you must.
Signed
Pollyanna
A stab at describing the political typology.
wj – the distribution of what?, though, is the question. I suspect that every election issue has its own version of a bell curve, and that individual voters can be located at different places in the distribution depending on the question, and on how they weight that particular issue in overall importance. And, like running a query on an ever changing dataset, I suspect that the value of that approximated center will shift around depending on when you query, on how well you balance the competing issues, the immediate context, etc.
Data analysis is more art than science IME, and a quant approach based on the wrong set of assumptions when fitting a curve can lend an air of certainty to institutional choices that are nothing but convenience and wishful thinking.
The one thing I will say is that the growing number of independent voters should convince both parties that their current modus operandi are not working for most people, and that they are misconceptualizing something fairly foundational in their approaches.
My attempted edit finally showed up! Ignore this!
CharlesWT – potentially useful typology, but what the crystal ball readers in the political parties need to figure out from that particular sorting hat is the various tipping points that will drop enough of each type into your bucket for you to win. I can think of many ways that someone can end up in the left out left, for example, and many of those are going to be mutually exclusive of each other. It’s not the results that you need to sort, it’s the decision trees that lead to those results.
Bonus points for casting enough doubts on the other party’s bucket to steal their vibes and make them cry in frustration.
Charles, it would be really useful to know how those various groups are defined. Specific answers to a couple of questions? A particular mix of answers (weighted how?)?
Without that, it’s as much about the viewer’s personal prejudices as anything else.
But is it impossible for a national party, in this case the Dems, to agree on a basic list of popular issues [such as x, y and z?]
I feel like one of the problems for the left is that when people are animated by individual issues that put them on the left side, they can often feel they are given the short shrift when other individual issues move to the fore. For example, if a person is really really animated by the issue of animal experimentation, if they take (or are encouraged to take) a zero sum approach, thinking that any work on any other issue was taking away focus, it gives you fragmentation despite (or perhaps because) they agree on a basic list of issues. I feel like this was equal for both sides until Reagan was able to create a big tent of conservativism that had abortion, states rights, neo conservatives and some other flavors. This is a harsh observation that is probably shaded by my own position on the political spectrum, I feel like the reason these groups began to work together was that before that, individual groups and players had some intellectual integrity and good faith, but now enough people were happy enough to get their policy put forward and ignore any disagreements they might have on other points, allowing the creation of a united front. That’s exacerbated by a media landscape that tilts right and takes advantage of that.
Charles, it would be really useful to know how those various groups are defined.
”American politics is deeply divided along partisan lines – and for many Americans, the choice between the two parties feels stark, even existential.
But beneath that familiar red-blue partisan divide is a much more nuanced picture: Many Americans hold a complex mix of values and beliefs that don’t always fit neatly into either major party.”
Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology: Nine groups show the conflicting values underlying today’s polarized politics