An Observation About “Classically Liberal” Punditry
"Classical liberals" really need to rediscover self examination
In Sunday’s post about political scientist Ruy Teixeira’s unsolicited advice to the Democratic Party, James referenced Matt Yglesias’s Pundit’s Fallacy: “that belief that what a politician needs to do to improve his or her political standing is to do what the pundit wants substantively.” I’ve always been a fan of that theory. I definitely think Teixeira’s post falls into that category. Additionally, I personally find Teixeira’s writing falling into a separate trap, which for lack of a better name I want to call the classical liberal fallacy.
This is something that I’ve been noting for a while on a number of wedge issues from “wokeness” to the current focus on trans rights to criminal legal system reform. Rather than trying to define this myself, I’m going to turn to a recent article published by writer John Ganz:
There are two classic tropes of centrist punditry here: one, the real problem is silly liberals, and two, the silly liberals are going to perversely hurt their own cause by being so silly. This is essentially a kind of social theater where the pundit sets themselves up in the role of a sensible man as opposed to the great mass of flip outs. Consciously done or not, this is often a form of baiting in the service of public exposure and controversy….
I’ve said before a lot of the fascism debate is about appearing to be an intellectual: being someone who doesn’t call things fascist willy-nilly because it’s so gauche and low-brow, someone who knows better than the mob. From time to time, all of us writers perform this social role involving supposed intellectual, moral, and aesthetic superiority. In a certain way; it’s an indispensable pose: we must arrogate a little, we must have the pretension to higher knowledge or judgment, otherwise no one would listen, but it’s important to reflect and ask oneself, “Am I just doing this because I think that’s what what one does, or do I really think this is important and true?”
Is there a good deal of over-the-top cant and hyperbole in political life and writing? Of course, but you can’t really police it, just approach the questions in the way you think is appropriate. In fact, the rhetoric of “Calm down!” is the same as “You are not feeling the moral urgency of this enough!” — they are both kind of insufferable public poses: if you think it’s important to be calm and analytical, be calm and analytical, if you think it’s important to warn of imminent danger, then do so.
https://johnganz.substack.com/p/both-worse
While Ganz was specifically writing about some of the articles circulating that complain that “liberals” are exaggerating when they say DeSantis would be worse than Trump (for the record Ganz’s position is they each would be bad in their own special ways), as I noted above, I think this pervades a lot of punditry–in particular folks of the “heterodox” school where a commitment to appearing “objective” often seems to mean dedicating more of one’s attention to the extreme excesses of the side you seemingly should be aligned to rather than the often more everyday excesses of the “other side.”
A prime example of that is Teixeira’s suggestion that Democrats need to move to the center on Criminal Legal System issues. For example, in the first of his essays on what the Democrats are getting wrong, Teixeria writes the following:
Biden did mention crime in his SOTU speech but it was in the context of providing more “resources” and “investments” which will allegedly “prevent violence in the first place”. The police were mentioned but mostly in the context of police reform. The latter is a worthy cause but conspicuously missing was any mention of what normie voters want the most: getting violent criminals off the street and into jail. Indeed, the only mention of prosecuting criminals was about “prosecuting criminals who stole relief money meant to keep workers and small businesses afloat”. Great idea, but, um, what about the violent criminals who make everyday life miserable in working class communities throughout the country, especially in black and Latino areas?
It is hard to miss the continuing influence of current Democratic Party orthodoxy, which views a strong law and order approach as essentially racist and seems way more interested in making it harder to arrest, jail and prosecute criminals. Voters have pushed back against this orthodoxy in cities from San Francisco to Minneapolis to New York but the national Democratic Party appears terrified to break with the activist groups and liberal elites who push “criminal justice reform” above all else.
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/revisiting-the-three-point-plan-to
This “the Democrats need to be tough on crime” position is a great example of the heterodox thinker’s embrace of “feels” above “facts” (or their overall deep lack of engagement with the current state of the Criminal Legal System). Let’s look at what actually is happening.
- Yes, many types of crime have risen since 2020 across the country. However, we are still not sure why. And the key term there is across the country. The rise has been seen in both red and blue states (in fact, if you do per capita analysis crime often is growing faster in “red” areas). It’s also occurred in “tough on crime” and “progressive prosecution” areas. In other words, it seems like current policing and prosecutorial policy has little impact on whether crime goes up or down in the short term–which is something that most criminologists would tell you if you asked them.
- Yes, we have seen progressive policies, or rather prosecutors, removed from office in places like San Francisco. However, we’ve also seen them elected in places like Los Angeles and reelected in places like Philadelphia (despite an increase in crime in both locations). And we have also seen “tough on crime” prosecutors and sheriffs defeated by progressive candidates in places like Shelby County Tennessee and LA. As Radley Balko has pointed out numerous times, people tend to only pay attention to the progressive defeats and not their victories when it comes to Law Enforcement.
- Yes, minority communities do experience the brunt of crime the worst. And yet, in many cases, they are also the very communities that are reelecting the progressive prosecutors. Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, a typical punching bag for heterodox writers, won reelection handily due to strong support from the black community. He also got support from both the Black and Latino police officer organizations despite his progressive stance. Likewise while a progressive prosecutor was recalled in San Francisco, directly across the bay in the far more racially diverse Alameda County a progressive prosecutor was just elected.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t room for debate on these issues but that requires a commitment to actually examining facts on the ground rather than reflexively deciding that Democrats have gone too far to the left on criminal legal system issues. This is doubly the case when the other side of the aisle is trying to enact policies like the non-unanimous application of death penalties and removing duly elected prosecutors over policy disputes in violation of the state constitution.
We see similar heterodox patterns within discussions of “wokeness” shudder on campus. A number of heterodox writers recently glommed onto a New York Times editorial from a “Princeton College Senior” (as the paper credited him) that ran under the headline My Liberal Campus is Pushing Freethinkers to the Right. The predictable thrust of the editorial is that campus wokeness is forcing right-leaning centrists like the author toward the left. And the usual crowd of “classical liberal” pundits immediately pushed this as further proof that cancel culture is out of control. None of those intellectual truth seekers apparently took the time to google the author’s name. If they had they would have discovered that the “Princeton College Senior” has been involved in Republican political campaigns in Texas for Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott since his early teens, was President of the College Republicans, and publisher of a Princeton conservative news outlet. He was also the campus correspondent for the activist organization Campus Reform a right-wing media and activism group fighting progressive excesses on college campuses. For an in-depth exploration of Campus Reform see Don Moynihan’s essay on the topic here.
Again, as with criminal legal system reform, I think there is a real discussion to be had on the topic of campus free speech. However, given the fact that one side is currently engaging in literally using the power of the state to take over colleges and installing panels of ideologues in order to remake colleges from the top down to be centers of right-wing thinking, perhaps pundits shouldn’t start from a position that “the left has gone too far.”
The allure of demonstrating one’s intellectual bonafides is very tempting. So too is public moralizing/ And, admittedly, to some degree that’s exactly what this post is as well. And a critical part of applying a critical lens is doing that to one’s own arguments as well. I think that’s the issue I take with so many of these “classically liberal” pundits. For example, given that two decades ago Teixeira was a prime advancer of the permanent democratic majority through demographics theory, it would be helpful to understand where he stands on where he might have been wrong*. Likewise, there was the time in 2009 when he authored a report called The Coming End of the Culture Wars. One might also expect that he’d think a little bit about how his move from the Center for American Progress to the American Enterprise Insitute (something discussed on OTB back in the day) could also have impacted his perspective. None of those things should be disqualifying, but some introspection (including asking why he’s always beginning from a base where the Democrats have gone too far based on his interactions with activists when, checks notes, the presumptive Republican nominee and former President gave a speech to followers where he pledges that if elected he would be “their retribution” on fellow country people they consider to be their enemies) would be really helpful.
Not to mention, that sort of self-evaluation is actually a part of “classical liberal” though, at least according to Rawls and others.
* – In a previous comment thread, long-time commenter Ken L. offered this additional background/critique of Teixeira’s posting that, at least on first glance, feels right:
He’s spent the last few years insisting his predictions were conditional on Democrats retaining the support of the “white working class”. Even if that’s true (I haven’t read the book), it simply raises an obvious question: why didn’t he anticipate the negative reaction of white working class voters to the very demographic changes he was signalling? Why didn’t he understand how the right could exploit white resentments?
Well done. Thank you.
So, just to be clear, the Left is never wrong and never overreaches or needlessly alienates or walks into a political trap they could have avoided?
That’s a relief. I was worried that with ongoing and accelerating defeats on abortion, education and trans rights it might be time to wonder if our tactics should be re-examined.
@Michael Reynolds:
Can you point out where in the post I wrote or otherwise suggested that?
Asking for a friend.
@Michael Reynolds:
These defeats may be pretty pyrrhic victories to the right, maybe now, maybe over time. Defeats like Dobbs are a lot more popular with old geezers than young people.
As for DeSantis/Florida, the policies are more about pandering to base GOP voters than reacting to anything *Democrats are doing (*other than Democrats in the FNC alternate reality).
@Michael Reynolds:
I straight up blame the centrists for what happened with abortion. Texira is actually a prime example of the complacency that thought the culture wars were over, Roe was the established law of the land, and prolifers are upright reasonable people that belive in health and rape exceptions.
Turns out they always should have been treated as crazy fanatics and compromise was never a possibility.
@Michael Reynolds: @Matt Bernius:
This looks like a pet issue with MR, worrying about provoking backlash, he brings it up often.
@charon:
Indeed. The defeat in Dobbs contributed a great deal to the Democrats retaining the Senate and the Republicans experiencing the worst midterm elections for either party in nearly 90 years.
All well and good, but we need to then explain why the left’s program in Mpls of police reform, went down to flaming defeat and the city council moved to the center all on the votes of the minority and low income wards of the city.
How the left has promised us that we would win elections in places that are purple to reddish, if we only had the right progressive candidate. Well Mandela Barnes was about as close to that candidate as we’ll find and he couldn’t beat the incumbent who had the lowest approval rating of any sitting senator.
How Lightfoot couldn’t even make the cut when seeking reelection.
How Stacy Abrams was crushed running a get out the base campaign, while Rapheal Warner succeeded while running to the center.
With regard to criminal justice reform, broadly, it’s not that the progressive policy initiatives are wrong, it’s that you are not going to get the voters to listen and entertain making change till they feel comfortable in their safety.
@Sleeping Dog:
This is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs applied to the political arena. Organizational behavior, as a science, is not emphasized very much anymore but there is a lot of concepts that have truth to them.
This is fair. And at the same time, I ask: if the across-the-board current spike in crime isn’t able to be attributed to policies (again we are seeing this happening everywhere at more or less similar rates regardless of politics or policy), then what should politicians and policy leaders do to make people feel safer?
Because if that’s working to enact more regressive policies that most likely won’t have an impact in the short term, how is that a win? And if it’s just changing what you are saying, how is that not empty rhetoric?
@Sleeping Dog:
Only in the minds of people who do not know Georgia did Raphael Warnock “run to the center,” or run a campaign that was substantively different policy-wise than Stacey Abrams. They are near-lockstep allies.
For that matter neither did Gretchen Whitmer, Fetterman, or any number victorious Democratic candidates run to the center. They are mainstream liberals like most of the Democratic Party; Manchin and Sinema they are decidedly not.
This phony divide continues to be phony.
@charon:
The same people who screech and squawk about how dEeMocRatS aRe lOsiNg!!11!! are the same people who insisted here — embrassingly and wrongly — that “Latinx” was going to cause a huge Red Wave in 2022. (Nonsensical analysis they quickly memory-holed after the vaunted Red Wave imploded in spectacular fashion.)
These constantly-wrong fatalistic drama queens and nattering naboobs of negativity should be ignored and left to chase whatever shiny object is Twitter’s main character on any given day.
Conversely, Democrats at the local, state and federal level need to follow the president’s lead by staying focused on promoting policies that improve our lives, increase prosperity, secure Americans domestically and our allies abroad, and reflect ethical values like freedom, democracy, and equality — especially for poor and historically-marginalized. The rest is noise.
@DK:
I have seen surveys that claim most Latino/a people do not give a shit one way or the other about “Latinx.”
@DK:
Oh hayhoos, that’s an acid flashback! Very apt, and thanks for the giggle. Actually, very apt. Again, thanks!
And Matt, thanks for popping up with this post. Well done
@charon: Of course they don’t. It was always melodramatic, culture war distraction bullshit.
We all know which Twitterbrained posters are going keep falling for Faux News narrative nonsense, I don’t know why people even respond to them.
The thing I admire most about President Biden, even when I disagree with his final decisions, is his ability to stay focused on things that actually matter and ignore people like that.
It’s not nice to bait MR like that Mr. Bernius.
Ok, I was reflecting in what @Sleeping Dog wrote and why I don’t think it negates anything that I wrote above. And perhaps more why we seem to be talking past each other.
I totally agree with the data points shared, I question the simple interpretations drawn from those data points. Ultimately, taking all these data in aggregate, I think we see the limits of “one size fits all” lessons about what action parties need to take. It’s a reminder that politics is local (for example taking lessons away from Chesa Boudin or Lori Lightfoot need to seriously understand what was happening on the ground in both locations).
My issue, as always, is promising easy answers to difficult questions. And also being really aware of how the data points you select (or ignore) might align with existing confirmation/attention biases.
From previous experience in these discussions, I know that isn’t always a welcome perspective. And I think it would be helpful if you think Teixeira, for example, is right, then it would be useful to support why with specific in-depth examples that go beyond “X lost an election here” when the counterfactual exists that “Well, Y one an election here.”
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
While the “asking for a friend” was snarky (and I think MR would expect no less), I am deeply curious to understand how what I write is interpreted in a way that wasn’t intended at the time. There have been plenty of times I wrote something that came out sideways. And it’s always a gift when someone takes the time to walk me through that (even if I don’t end up agreeing with the critique).
Ultimately it may come down to I have the pundits/analysts that I like, because they say things I agree with and others have the pundits/analysts they like because they say things that they agree with. And that works. Though, if we’re not interested at looking at the facts underlying those takes, and actually question them from time to time, then we begin down the path towards FoxNews land where our feels (or the stories that we construct) are more important than any facts.
@charon: And just yesterday he wrote:
I’m really confused (seriously, this is not one of those times when I’m trolling him) what do leftists and progressives need to rethink about their positions? It looks like his point may well be “‘that kind’ should all STFU and maybe the rest will stop noticing them.” I’m not sure it works that way. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, in fact.
@DK: I think that’s supposed to be “nattering nabobs,” but maybe you were doing a poetic license thing.
@DK:..dEeMocRatS aRe lOsiNg!!11!!
I have seen this use of the alphabet by others. I am confused about the purpose. Is this for EMPHASIS? LIKE WHEN OCCASIONAL COMMENTERS USE ALL CAPS?
But not really since only SoMe cAPs ArE UsED??
All I know for sure is that my feeble brain had to read it several times and then write it out in all lower case before I saw “deemocrats are losing”.
(who are deemocrats?)
I guess it could have been the cat walking across the keyboard.
Being upset that the more strident liberals are doing their cause more harm than good on issues like defund the police* and need to chill/focus on other things/pick their battles has been a recurring theme with Michael Reynolds vs others in comment threads for a while now. I doubt I was the only one who thought you might be poking at him a bit. I just found it amusing.
*FWIW (which is nothing) I actually think the slogan Defund the Police is political malpractice. I prefer Pivot from Police, just from a messaging standpoint.
@Scott:
Yeah Maslow 🙂
@Matt Bernius:
A long reply to this and your later comment was eaten by template, so a short version. Where we are different is focus, mine is squarely on winning elections. My rational is that regardless who the Dem office holder is our issues and constituencies will be better addressed. I consider the rest grad seminar navel gazing.
@Mister Bluster: To my understanding, it’s a sarcastic dig at edge-lord keyboard warriors who say inane things just to be outlandish.
@DK:
IIRC correctly you’re from GA, so I’ll concede that, but point out that Warnock very much reached out to historically R voters, campaigning in those wards and asking for their vote.
Which is also what Fetterman did, while taking populous economic positions. His one area of weakness was sentencing reform and pardons, but he defused that by showing that wasn’t a threat.
And your response to Barnes, Mpls and Lightfoot???
@Sleeping Dog:
@Matt Bernius:
Again, the only lesson to draw from Lightfoot’s loss was “don’t be a dick to everyone.” She was a dick to EVERYONE. She litterally pissed off the entire city. It wasn’t entirely her politics, but it was absolutely her.
The other thing about Lightfoot, policy-wise, was that she ran as a flaming progesssive but she governed as a radical centrist. If she has been less of a dick, she would have done better. And in a choice between her and Vallas, progressives would have lined up behind her.
@Beth:
I was hoping that someone who actually lives in Chicago would have posted this. Her tenure was not particularly smooth by any assessment. And her actual actions (including wgt policing and law enforcement) were in practice not particularly outside the mainstream.
Also, I’m not sure how much an off-cycle election should be taken as a proof point. This was also the case for Youngkin’s election in VA. BTW, that is something the hosts here have brought up again and again.
@Sleeping Dog:
I’ve highlighted a number of Prosecutor and other elections in the article where Democrats won on Progressive Campaigns. How did they do it? Running on issues that mattered locally.
Also, your acknowledgments on both Warnock and Fetterman’s successful campaigns seem to focus as much, if not more, on campaign outreach techniques as policy positions (in fact you largely seem to wave away all the counter factual in both examples). And understanding what plays… wait for it… locally.
The issue I see with “The Democrats need to do this to win” is that its trading that local work for a one-size fits all message. And honestly we’re talking about a message that is being constructed in opposition to whatever Fox News is apparently saying about them. That’s not a great approach for a broad coalition party.
Also, in the case of Warnock, I’m not sure any analysis of that race (or any race) can be done without also analyzing the weak opposition candidate and the impact he played on the outcome.
@Sleeping Dog:
So did Stacey Abrams and Mandela Barnes.
Now what?
Sleeping Dog:
Every Democrat cannot win every election in every race every time. ::shrug::
@Beth:
This is my understanding, which would undercut Teixeira’s thesis. If she governed like a radical centrist, it should have worked to her advantage.
A major problem with Teixeira’s approach is the assumption that the country is an ideological bell curve, and so it stands to reason that there are more people in the center, and so that is where parties and candidates should appeal. This is a common misconception that dominates American journalism and punditry.
It is a problem for a host of reasons, to include:
1. Even if the country as a whole is such a bell curve (and it probably isn’t) we don’t hold national elections. All elections in the US are bound by lines and the issue becomes the distribution of ideology inside those lines.
2. We don’t just have one issue that leads to electoral choices. In other words, there isn’t one curve, there are many (and some are more important than others).
One last point: Matt is correct to note that Teixeira (and many others) make a common pundit-y mistake by saying “Candidate X did Y and lost, so this proves that the issue is Y” while ignoring that candidate Z did Y as well, and won. Meaning the issue is not as clearly action Y as the initial claim might suggest.
@Mister Bluster: It is based on a meme and is intended to convey a slightly, if not fully off the chain, response.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
The specific example I had in mind was MR’s assertion that trans girls participating in high school sports stirs the MAGA’s up unnecessarily, combined with my impression that is a common position for him.
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
Poor example, and not what I was referring to, it is pretty obvious to most, not just MR, that “Defund the Police” is bad juju for Dems.
@Mister Bluster:
It’s a parody of “1337 sp33k” slang meant suggest the person being parodied is too on-line to be taken seriously.
@Michael Reynolds:
One other point on this… as far as I can tell the core defeat on Abortion was Trumps election and the ensuing shift of power on the Supreme Court that made the decision possible. If there’s been a specific policy or legislative loss on that, let me know.
Not to mention that Clinton ran a centrist campaign again Trump.
Ironically, it’s the death of RvW that most likely has led to the GoP focus on trans existence as a culture wedge issue. And that gets to a question: what’s the strawman Democratic position that is so far outside the norm? Drag brunches? That minors can get gender affirming care (that doesn’t include surgical options)?
And how do we juxtapose a “classical liberal” concern about so far largely unsubstantiated rumors and intentionally misinterpreted policies by bad actors with the fact that, in mainline Conservative Media outlets and functions we have people *check notes* calling for the “eradication of transgender” (oh right, they meant the concept… not as if people are part of that concept). That’s before we get to efforts to disrupt the work of childerns hospitals and successful efforts to pass anti-trans legislation in state houses that have removed most rights from the minority parties?
I really want to understand how to square that circle. What’s an example of where democrats can move to the “cultural center” on Trans Rights?
@Steven L. Taylor:
Again, everyone does such a better job of TL;DR’ing my posts than I do.
Seems to me it’s just a question of tactics. Do you, as the GOPs have been doing with some success, motivate the base. Or do you try to appeal to the median voter? And in this age of polarization, should the median voter theory be changed to least repel the median voter. Which should you do? I don’t know, that’s why campaigns pay for consultants and polls and focus groups. As in all things, there are tradeoffs. Defund motivates some loyal D voters, but may demotivate the median voter.
A really good politician would find a way to do both. And it seems to me Biden did a good job of not triggering negative partisanship while, with a lot of help from TFG, he kept the base motivated. Kamala Harris and Jim Clyburn also kept Black voters, a key part of the base motivated.
The “justifiable backlash” theory fails the logic test since it never seems to work in the other direction.
Like, how many crazy things have been said and done by the biggest names in the conservative world?
Yet…where is the “justifiable backlash” from the liberal side?
Are sensible centrist liberals being “pushed” to embrace Maoist Communism or something?
Are reasonable people slowly moving to support mandatory abortions, and forcible sex change operations?
“Justifiable backlash” is really just a fig leaf for people to support something they would be ashamed to do openly.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Also, American political parties are not symmetrical, either in their positions or in the composition of their base.
For example, plenty of Trump voters support abortion rights, but not very strongly, and not nearly as strongly as the cultural grievance he peddles.
Whereas most Clinton/ Biden voters consider abortion rights an important litmus test for a candidate.
Were the Democrats to engage in some sly triangulation and “compromise” rhetoric on abortion, it would depress their side, while gaining them not a single swing voter.
The developing story about Biden’s immigration policy is a bit of empirical evidence. His policy is actually very conservative, but is gaining him nothing in Republican circles- They and the media still consider Biden to be Liberal On All Matters, regardless.
@Steven L. Taylor: “A major problem with Teixeira’s approach is the assumption that the country is an ideological bell curve, and so it stands to reason that there are more people in the center, and so that is where parties and candidates should appeal. This is a common misconception that dominates American journalism and punditry.”
Personally, I think it’s worse than that. Because the real pundit assumption is that the country is an ideological bell curve, so it stands to reason that there are more people in the center… which just happens to coincide exactly with what the pundit believes.
@Steven L. Taylor: “Meaning the issue is not as clearly action Y as the initial claim might suggest.”
It’s almost as if you’re claiming that correlation does not imply causation!
@wr:
I am deeply sad that I can only give a single thumbs up to this grad school bullshit.
@charon: Yes, I see your point. I think I’m trying (and probably unsuccessfully) to get at the enthymeme that takes “trans girls participating in high school sports stirs the MAGA’s up unnecessarily” to “our tactics should be re-examined.” Someone has probably explained this before and I’m slowly going senile, though.
@Matt Bernius:
Ask and ye shall recieve:
@charon:
Great example charon. So good in fact that I think we can use this to spin out a separate discussion. I’m going to work on a follow-up post about this.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I think it would have, except for the fact that she was an unmitigated, unrelenting jerk. To everyone. I have two hypotheses that I’m not willing to put a lot of time or effort into proving, but have been kicking around a bit:
1. Chicago is way more progressive than it appears to be, and
2. Chicagoans are done getting pushed around by a jagoff mayor and a bunch of moron/crooked alderpeople.
We went from Daley who was a tyrant but not a jerk, to Rahm who was a tyrant and a jerk, to Lori who was the same. Daley figured out if he didn’t move on he was going to jail, Rahm knew he was going to lose and didn’t run, Lori sniffed her own farts and thought we were going to crown her empress.
@Matt Bernius:
Those liberal prosecutors have survived and flourished, because they took care of job one, that is they continued to prosecute crimes, while at the same time implementing reform and importantly explaining why to the community. Plus a they got their prosecuting team on board with the reforms.
I’m not going to defend Teixeira, as I said earlier I have no disagreement with the OP and he’s not a player anyway. My contention is that all races are local, in some you can be to the left of AOC and in others you need to be to the right of Manchin. IMHO, I find the progressives are demanding litmus tests and pursuing purity politics in much the same fashion as the Teixeiras of the world.
Successful Dem candidates emphasis the policies and programs that will be popular in their district/state and they’ll pay lip service to the rest and to insist that they should whole heartedly endorse and run on the broader Dem platform is asinine. I know you’re not saying that, but there are others here that do.
I live in PA and watched the Fetterman campaign closely. Was really terrified we would get Oz. He very much made it a point to address centrist/right wing issues like crime and energy. I also agree worth eh above that defund the police was political malpractice. In practice few cities have done it and virtually all have since increased spending. Reform the police for better safety would be better.
Steve
@Sleeping Dog:
And, not to be flip, but crime rates went up under them too. And their opponents ran against them saying they were not prosecuting people.
All that said, I think we’re getting closer to an agreement that performance matters a lot (as does campaigning). This is why I think both @Beth and I focused on her well-documented utterly crappy performance as a mayor versus any specific Democratic positions or policies.
@steve:
For what I feel is the gazillionth time, can anyone name a state-wide Democratic Candidate who ran on “Defund the Police”? Heck, I’ll take House Candidates too. Seriously if this was such Democratic Politicial Malpractice, then there should be lots of easy-to-find examples.
Or, if it’s simply the case that activists stating this is defacto enough for it to be the party’s responsiblity, then how should we take right-leaning activists talking about erradicating transgenerism?
I’ve created a new post where I challenge all of you to address @charon’s example from earlier:
Here is the prompt:
Admittedly, this might be a terrible idea, but I’m interested to see what folks write on the topic:
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/phantasy-politics-moving-democrats-to-the-center/
@Michael Reynolds: “So, just to be clear, the Left is never wrong and never overreaches or needlessly alienates or walks into a political trap they could have avoided?”
This is sort of a confession that you don’t have a real point.
@Matt Bernius:
Voters don’t read studies, or articles past the second paragraph.
I want to snarkily refer to this as the Competent Person’s Fallacy — the belief that other people want to do even the minimal amount of work, and/or are motivated by facts over feelings. But I think that’s too cynical.
But, it brings up a problem — how do you get good governance, with feedback mechanisms that reward good governance, when most voters cannot take the time to understand issues in depth, even a little bit?
Getting elected and governing are two entirely separate skills.
@Beth:
This seems to be the worst of all possible approaches.
@Gustopher:
Reason 2 why she lost and a big part of why people hate her.
@Matt Bernius:
For what it’s worth, and sticking with Lori, she ran on the implication that she was going to do something about CPD. Shame on us for believing her.
@Matt Bernius: You are correct that Defund the Police is an activist phrasing, particularly BLM, more than a candidate message. And since a whole lot of candidates do support BLM (implicitly and explicitly) it’s an easy attack to make.
And when right wing activists declare they want to eradicate transgenderism, I’m perfectly fine slamming the Republican party for it.
Stuff like this is just basic politics, which is why I think it’s fair to sometimes question the tactics of activists within a political movement (left or right).
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
Fair, so should Democrats, in the interest of moving to the center, not support BLM?
Or would it be better to have offered up “Of course, Black Lives Matter. All lives matter!” in the wake of George Floyd and others in 2020? I suspect Teixeira would recommend that approach. But how does that actually play out?
I’m not trying to play “gotcha” here, I’m seriously asking how you find a center position here and support key members of your base.
Matt- Not a good analogy. Republicans really do support eliminating transgenderism.
Steve
@Matt Bernius:
Not a good idea, not finding any “center.” “All lives matter” is a right wing slogan, associated with the kind of people likely to fly the Blue-line Flag when they are not flying the Gadsden flag.
@Tony W:
@Steven L. Taylor:
@Stormy Dragon:
Thank you for the replies.
Interesting post, a few thoughts:
I’m not really sure how classical liberals, especially in scare quotes, is relevant here. It’s an overarching political philosophy that seems only tangentially related to punditry. And, you don’t state it, but I’m presuming you think Teixeira is a classical liberal? I don’t know, maybe he is, but I think I can confidently assert that he doesn’t speak for all who share that philosophy. So the idea that “classical liberals” specifically (as opposed to anyone else) need to rediscover self-examination presumes that they, as a group, are somehow in a unique need for more introspection.
Secondly, closely related to the pundit’s fallacy is the pundit critic’s fallacy. Critics (me included) tend to cherry-pick what we think they are wrong about which is usually informed by our own biases and predilections. And while pundits are often wrong, but they aren’t always wrong. And we also have to realize that most of what we do here on this blog is not much different – it’s small-scale punditry.
Everyone reading this comment is not a normal or median American, we are a small cohort that is really into politics and political discussions and most here are firmly in the Democratic camp. It’s important to remember, to paraphrase, I think, Matt Yglesias, that the median voter is a fifty-something white woman without a college degree living in an unfashionable city who doesn’t follow politics, much less is deeply steeped in the “facts” of any particular issue.
So I think the reality is that most voters embrace “feels” over “facts.”
On the issue of crime, the reality is that if crime is rising, a non-trivial number of Americans will want to see their political leaders appear to do something about it, and that something has to make sense to a non-expert. That’s why, IMO, “tough on crime” changes in the law tend to be popular when crime rises even though some of those policies don’t tend to do much. By contrast, if one is going to support shorter jail terms, automatic bail, not prosecuting certain crimes at all, and other measures that tend to be more popular with progressives, and intuitively appear to be nicer to the criminal class to normies, then the reality is that is not going to be popular with a majority of voters.
In short, if people think crime is a problem, then you have to have an answer for how you intend to address that problem to reduce crime and explain it in a way that is intuitive and that normies can understand.
In the same way, the fact of the matter is that campus progressive politics is not popular with most of America. And the reality is that it’s widely discussed in the wider media so people are aware of it, and it is closely associated with the left end of the Democratic party. Democratic candidates who run for office need to be able to respond when they are asked about it in a way that will not cost them votes. Again, complaining about uniformed voters and Fox News does not solve this problem.
The final thing I’d note is that the constituency matters. One must deal with the reality that a Democrat running in West Virginia will have to have a very different campaign than one running in California. And the other side of this is there are two constituencies a candidate has to deal with – the primary voter constituency and the general voter constituency. It’s long been the case that candidates have had to appeal to more extreme primary voters to get the nomination and then tack back toward the center to be competitive in a general election. But with political sorting and more candidates in safe seats, many politicians don’t even need to worry about winning the general because there are a non-trivial number of Americans who will vote for a sack of potatoes as long as it has the right letter next to it. If those people are a majority of the general constituency, then only the primary matters, which means candidate incentives are all about pleasing the base. This also has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with feels. And speaking of feels:
Doesn’t matter. The defund movement was/is part of the Democratic coalition and it’s pretty easy to paint with a broad brush. That’s just normal politics – partisans ALWAYS try to argue that the most extreme elements on the other side are what that side actually represents. And why do partisans do this? Because they know that painting the other side as extreme will turn off normie voters. Because normie voters are important in many elections if you want to win. So if you are a Republican and you want to win an election, then forcing the Democratic candidate to deal with the extreme elements of their party like defund is just smart campaigning. Pointing out a candidate’s support for bail or sentencing reform when crime is rising and when voters think crime is a problem is smart campaigning. The notion that voters are not informed or that Fox News is bad doesn’t change any of that.
@Chip Daniels:
You forget that only liberals have agency. All of the conservatives vote inexorably for Rs because they can’t help it and actual policies don’t matter. Only liberals sometimes vote for Rs because of things that Ds say or fail to say. There are no centrists or undecideds; only will-vote-Ds, must-vote-Rs, and might-vote-Rs.