Where do we go from here?

[finesse]

Right. I’m not suggesting that Democrats run as socialists, and I don’t think Faiz is. Bernie had called himself one for decades so had to call himself one to remain consistent and on brand. It’s more about the working-class centered politics and policy than the socialist label.

That would be fine if we got to do the labelling. This election tells you who they listen to. If it were us, we wouldn't need to be having this discussion. I still think that is the real issue. It's not what we have done or what we need to do. We're largely heading in the right direction. It's getting them to pay attention. Until we can, it doesn't much matter what we say. It sure didn't this election. Just look at all the polls about what voters believed.

 

[Paine]

That would be fine if we got to do the labelling. This election tells you who they listen to. If it were us, we wouldn't need to be having this discussion. I still think that is the real issue. It's not what we have done or what we need to do. We're largely heading in the right direction. It's getting them to pay attention. Until we can, it doesn't much matter what we say. It sure didn't this election. Just look at all the polls about what voters believed.

The labeling on the right is only effective insofar as it reinforces a sentiment about Democratic leadership and campaigns. That is, they are out of touch, coastal elites who don’t feel the economic pain that the average American feels. That is the dynamic Trump has played into since 2016. It can be defanged, IMO.

Again, I appreciate the discussion.

 

[BlueSmoke]

Like Faiz says, we’re talking about 4-5% of the population being the difference here.

NBC's Chuck Todd said on the last day of October that the Harris Campaign calculated they could not win unless they pulled the Nikki Haley REPUBLICAN voters. That's just stunning to me and appears to be what happened. The stunning part is that there weren't 4-5% gettable voters for Democrats. This indicates a pretty big refresh of the Democratic image will be needed.

I make a prediction that the 2028 Democratic Primary will come down to a boring Bill Clinton centrist type vs a Bernie Sanders enthusiasm type.

As this election proved: enthusiasm gets you the money, it gets you the ground game, its gets the celebrities out for you, it gets the huge rallies.........but if its not paired with something that appeals to small town America, it runs into trouble on election day.

 

[Paine]

NBC's Chuck Todd said on the last day of October that the Harris Campaign calculated they could not win unless they pulled the Nikki Haley REPUBLICAN voters. That's just stunning to me and appears to be what happened. The stunning part is that there weren't 4-5% gettable voters for Democrats. This indicates a pretty big refresh of the Democratic image will be needed.

I make a prediction that the 2028 Democratic Primary will come down to a boring Bill Clinton centrist type vs a Bernie Sanders enthusiasm type.

As this election proved: enthusiasm gets you the money, it gets you the ground game, its gets the celebrities out for you...........but if its not paired with something that appeals to small town America, it runs into trouble on election day.

You think Harris and Sanders would’ve run similar campaigns? What you’re saying about small towns is true, but I don’t see any evidence you get those people back by running a centrist campaign. Harris just ran a centrist campaign and lost. Clinton ran a centrist campaign and lost. Biden embraced economic populism on the campaign trail and won.

Like you say, Harris’ entire campaign was predicated on winning over disaffected Republicans rather than drumming up and turning out the Democratic base and non-traditional voters.

Small town folks want people who address their everyday economic circumstances, same as everyone else.

What does a centrist campaign look like to you? From what I can tell based on your posts, you’re more so talking about just being more in touch with working people. Are there centrist policy positions that accomplish this?

 

[gtyellowjacket]

You think Harris and Sanders would’ve run similar campaigns? What you’re saying about small towns is true, but I don’t see any evidence you get those people back by running a centrist campaign. Harris just ran a centrist campaign and lost. Clinton ran a centrist campaign and lost. Biden embraced economic populism on the campaign trail and won.

Like you say, Harris’ entire campaign was predicated on winning over disaffected Republicans rather than drumming up and turning out the Democratic base and non-traditional voters.

Small town folks want people who address their everyday economic circumstances, same as everyone else.

What does a centrist campaign look like to you? From what I can tell based on your posts, you’re more so talking about just being more in touch with working people. Are there centrist policy positions that accomplish this?

I got to say promising down payments for first-time home buyers and promising implement price controls on groceries doesn't reek of centrism. I think she got desperate and started trying to go for that economic populist argument but it was never going to happen. Inflation put her in a spot that anyone would have had a tough time climbing out of and she certainly is nowhere near the politician that we needed to do that.

 

[Paine]

I got to say promising down payments for first-time home buyers and implementing price controls on groceries doesn't reek of centrism. I think she got desperate and started trying to go for that economic populist argument but it was never going to happen. Inflation put her in a spot that anyone would have had a tough time climbing out of and she certainly is nowhere near the politician that we needed to do that.

She didn’t advocate price controls on groceries. She advocated passing a price gouging law during emergencies. Many states have these laws.

$25,000 assistance for first time home buyers is okay, but it isn’t economic populism by definition. It’s exactly the kind of center-left policy the Dems have perused for a long time now. That does not move the needle for people that can barely afford rent.

All the evidence and reporting shows that Harris’ pivot after the convention was towards the center. Her advisors were from the corporate world, and it showed. Her high watermark in the polls actually came when she was talking the most populist she did the entire campaign, around the time of the Walz selection.

 

[aGDevil2k]

She didn’t advocate price controls on groceries. She advocated passing a price gouging law during emergencies. Many states have these laws.

$25,000 assistance for first time home buyers is okay, but it isn’t economic populism by definition. It’s exactly the kind of center-left policy the Dems have perused for a long time now. That does not move the needle for people that can barely afford rent.

All the evidence and reporting shows that Harris’ pivot after the convention was towards the center. Her advisors were from the corporate world, and it showed. Her high watermark in the polls actually came when she was talking the most populist she did the entire campaign, around the time of the Walz selection

The Harris post-mortem is pointless. She was f'd because of being tied to Biden.

We should more talk about going forward

 

[gtyellowjacket]

She didn’t advocate price controls on groceries. She advocated passing a price gouging law during emergencies. Many states have these laws.

$25,000 assistance for first time home buyers is okay, but it isn’t economic populism by definition. It’s exactly the kind of center-left policy the Dems have perused for a long time now. That does not move the needle for people that can barely afford rent.

All the evidence and reporting shows that Harris’ pivot after the convention was towards the center. Her advisors were from the corporate world, and it showed. Her high watermark in the polls actually came when she was talking the most populist she did the entire campaign, around the time of the Walz selection.

You are dreaming. $25,000 of taxpayer money to first-time home buyers? How is that centrist?

And she proposed an anti-price gouging law, But didn't really go into a whole lot of detail on what may constitute an emergency. But her stump speech talked about how food prices shot up during covid when supply chains were disrupted but lamented the fact that food prices haven't gone back down when supply chains have normalized. So is she going to say it's okay for a covid-like disruption to increase food prices but now that the covid emergency is passed normal supply and demand somehow constitutes an emergency? That seems to be what She is implying.

I get it. Both candidates made ridiculous promises they have no hope of keeping and that's the way campaigns work. But to wave our hands and say that Price controls and tax money giveaways to young people in hopes that they will vote for her is rational centrist policy is pretty absurd.

 

[Paine]

You are dreaming. $25,000 of taxpayer money to first-time home buyers? How is that centrist?

And she proposed an anti-price gouging law, But didn't really go into a whole lot of detail on what may constitute an emergency. But her stump speech talked about how food prices shot up during covid when supply chains were disrupted but lamented the fact that food prices haven't gone back down when supply chains have normalized. So is she going to say it's okay for a covid-like disruption to increase food prices but now that the covid emergency is passed that somehow constitutes an emergency? That seems to be wha

I get it. Both candidates made ridiculous promises they have no hope of keeping and that's the way campaigns work. But to wave our hands and say that Price controls and tax money giveaways to young people in hopes that they will vote for her is rational centrist policy is pretty absurd.

Price controls aren’t centrist policy, but she wasn’t advocating for that. It’s not hand waving, it’s the truth.

$25,000 down payment assistance to first time home buyers is a center left policy, nothing more nothing less. It’s not radical by any means. It’s telling that these are the policies being picked to demonstrate that she ran a far left campaign.

Did Trump run a centrist campaign?

 

[Paine]

The Harris post-mortem is pointless. She was f'd because of being tied to Biden.

We should more talk about going forward

She could’ve won regardless of Biden if she had tried to actually distance herself from him. Talking about the failures of the Harris campaign is imperative to understanding how we move forward. The party has learned no lessons.

 

[aGDevil2k]

She could’ve won regardless of Biden if she had tried to actually distance herself from him. Talking about the failures of the Harris campaign is imperative to understanding how we move forward. The party has learned no lessons.

A VP is never going to distance, fairly, from the P.

The party has learned no lessons? In the 3 weeks of your evaluation period?

 

[Paine]

A VP is never going to distance, fairly, from the P.

The party has learned no lessons? In the 3 weeks of your evaluation period?

The party has learned no lessons since 2016. Should’ve been more clear. Your point about her not being able to distance from POTUS as VP isn’t without merit, but the fact that she didn’t even try is damning.

The folks who ran her campaign should be exiled from the party. It’s likely they’ll be welcomed to run it back in 2028.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

You are dreaming. $25,000 of taxpayer money to first-time home buyers? How is that centrist?

And she proposed an anti-price gouging law, But didn't really go into a whole lot of detail on what may constitute an emergency. But her stump speech talked about how food prices shot up during covid when supply chains were disrupted but lamented the fact that food prices haven't gone back down when supply chains have normalized. So is she going to say it's okay for a covid-like disruption to increase food prices but now that the covid emergency is passed normal supply and demand somehow constitutes an emergency? That seems to be what She is implying.

I get it. Both candidates made ridiculous promises they have no hope of keeping and that's the way campaigns work. But to wave our hands and say that Price controls and tax money giveaways to young people in hopes that they will vote for her is rational centrist policy is pretty absurd.

Price controls aren’t centrist policy, but she wasn’t advocating for that. It’s not hand waving, it’s the truth.

$25,000 down payment assistance to first time home buyers is a center left policy, nothing more nothing less. It’s not radical by any means. It’s telling that these are the policies being picked to demonstrate that she ran a far left campaign.

Did Trump run a centrist campaign?

No. Trump did not run a centrist campaign.

But just saying that price controls or $25,000 checks to first-time home buyers is centrist or that Harris 's price control policy wasn't a price control policy doesn't really make it so.

 

[Paine]

No. Trump did not run a centrist campaign.

But just saying that price controls or $25,000 checks to first-time home buyers is centrist or that Harris 's price control policy wasn't a price control policy doesn't really make it so.

Ok. It also doesn’t make it so to say that Harris advocated “price controls” when that’s obviously not true. I don’t care about the housing assistance argument. Say it’s left wing if you want, it’s not a policy of economic populism which is what we’re arguing about here.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

Ok. It also doesn’t make it so to say that Harris advocated “price controls” when that’s obviously not true. I don’t care about the housing assistance argument. Say it’s left wing if you want, it’s not a policy of economic populism which is what we’re arguing about here.

How is giving away free tax money not an economic populism policy? That's exactly what it is.

And frankly a policy to control grocery prices is a price control policy. I'm not sure how you can say it's anything else but I would be somewhat interested in your thought process.

 

[Paine]

How is giving away free tax money not an economic populism policy? That's exactly what it is.

And frankly a policy to control grocery prices is a price control policy. I'm not sure how you can say it's anything else but I would be somewhat interested in your thought process.

Please pull up the policy for me. If the policy doesn’t say anything about price controls and the candidate didn’t say anything about price controls, how is it a price control policy? It was a price gouging policy, that’s it.

I don’t think you understand the definition of economic populism if you think it’s about “giving away money.”

You’ve shown time and time again that you really don’t think about these things that deeply, and you don’t seem to actually be interested in the point of the discussion.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

Please pull up the policy for me. If the policy doesn’t say anything about price controls and the candidate didn’t say anything about price controls, how is it a price control policy? It was a price gouging policy, that’s it.

I don’t think you understand the definition of economic populism if you think it’s about “giving away money.”

You’ve shown time and time again that you really don’t think about these things that deeply, and you don’t seem to actually be interested in the point of the discussion.

Are we arguing if a policy that prevents price gouging is a policy that controls prices? Because to me a policy that controls prices in a "emergency" is a price control policy, especially if politicians are the ones that get to declare the emergency.

Here is Kamala's quote from one of her Raleigh speeches. Does that sound like an emergency to you? It sounds more to me like whenever a politician's approval ratings were declining, they would declare an emergency and try to control prices.

“We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed, but our supply chains have now improved, and prices are still too high,” said Harris.

 

[superrific]

It talks about populism as a winning strategy. The article barely mentions whether Bernie would’ve won in 2016/2020 or not. Just a headline meant to get people to click, though obviously didn’t work with some of the posters here.

I wouldn’t have posted it if it was just about “would Bernie have won?” That’s something we’ve talked about ad infinitum here and not something Shakir or Klein think is relevant really. The article is just a transcript of Klein’s podcast episode with Shakir if you’d rather listen.

Thank you for posting that. I'm curious for your take. I'd say it's clear that Faiz didn't convince Ezra.

I think Faiz made lots of good points, as you do when discussing these issues. But he really, really didn't have a response to two important points:

1. Sure, describing the benefits of a policy can get people in a poll to say they love it. But those questions are hiding the downsides. The downsides, as it turns out, are highly unpopular. It's like saying, "we should all eat more steak. It's full of protein, it's easy to prepare and it tastes great!" When you frame it like that, how could you oppose it? But when you add, "oh, it's also high in calories, fat and cholesterol; it's expensive compared to other meat, and cattle farming is environmentally destructive," the picture changes, yes?

2. The Joe Manchin issue. Now, I've seen people dismiss this point as "we don't need WV anyway" which is fair at the presidential level but WV does have two Senators. Fine. The larger point is that it does not seem to be at all true that progressive candidates do well in non-liberal areas. Rather, the opposite seems to be true: people who live in purple areas want purple candidates. They don't want Bernie Sanders populism. Jared Golden was another name mentioned as a contrast to Bernie. Could be the same guy, but the voters are different.

Certainly the candidates think that tacking to the center is better than tacking to the left. It's weird for Faiz to attribute Manchin's success in WV to the way he connects with his constituents, and then ignore the fact that Manchin obviously thinks his constituents do not want Bernie Sanders policies for whatever reason. I mean, isn't that a real tension, if not full contradiction?

In general, Faiz's only response to this was "it's untested" at a national level. True. It's been tested at lower levels and the "tack center" view seems to be much better supported. But as you and I have discussed, it's true that we haven't tried it at a presidential level -- well, not exactly that. We've also discussed how it's hard to put up a risky, untested strategy when the stakes are so high. Each Senate seat we lose can take a long time to win back.

3. I guess the point is that it's always easy to find fault. Most of the progressive criticism of pragmatists is negative. It's, "you lost elections in 2000, 2004 and 2016 that you should have won" (we'll hold off on putting 2024 in there just yet). Yes, those elections were lost. Maybe Dems had a bad strategy. But what's the alternative? Ignoring the culture issues that seem to dominate the negative partisanship on the other side?

I don't watch Fox News, but my understanding from people who do is that culture war issues dominate there. And all the Trump people I interact with focus so much more on culture war issues than economic ones. Maybe that's just my crowd, but it's also true on this board. We get 10x the amount of anti-trans stuff from our conservative posters than any economic issue. We get a lot of cultural grievance of all stripes.

I get that you're aiming at the most persuadable 4-5%, but that's not much margin to work with. If we want to restore the Dem brand -- should that be necessary -- and start appealing more to the working classes in general, we're going to need more than 4%. And that means we're going to have to dive into the culture war stuff that seems to animate American politics so much more than economic issues.

 

[Paine]

Thank you for posting that. I'm curious for your take. I'd say it's clear that Faiz didn't convince Ezra.

I think Faiz made lots of good points, as you do when discussing these issues. But he really, really didn't have a response to two important points:

1. Sure, describing the benefits of a policy can get people in a poll to say they love it. But those questions are hiding the downsides. The downsides, as it turns out, are highly unpopular. It's like saying, "we should all eat more steak. It's full of protein, it's easy to prepare and it tastes great!" When you frame it like that, how could you oppose it? But when you add, "oh, it's also high in calories, fat and cholesterol; it's expensive compared to other meat, and cattle farming is environmentally destructive," the picture changes, yes?

2. The Joe Manchin issue. Now, I've seen people dismiss this point as "we don't need WV anyway" which is fair at the presidential level but WV does have two Senators. Fine. The larger point is that it does not seem to be at all true that progressive candidates do well in non-liberal areas. Rather, the opposite seems to be true: people who live in purple areas want purple candidates. They don't want Bernie Sanders populism. Jared Golden was another name mentioned as a contrast to Bernie. Could be the same guy, but the voters are different.

Certainly the candidates think that tacking to the center is better than tacking to the left. It's weird for Faiz to attribute Manchin's success in WV to the way he connects with his constituents, and then ignore the fact that Manchin obviously thinks his constituents do not want Bernie Sanders policies for whatever reason. I mean, isn't that a real tension, if not full contradiction?

In general, Faiz's only response to this was "it's untested" at a national level. True. It's been tested at lower levels and the "tack center" view seems to be much better supported. But as you and I have discussed, it's true that we haven't tried it at a presidential level -- well, not exactly that. We've also discussed how it's hard to put up a risky, untested strategy when the stakes are so high. Each Senate seat we lose can take a long time to win back.

3. I guess the point is that it's always easy to find fault. Most of the progressive criticism of pragmatists is negative. It's, "you lost elections in 2000, 2004 and 2016 that you should have won" (we'll hold off on putting 2024 in there just yet). Yes, those elections were lost. Maybe Dems had a bad strategy. But what's the alternative? Ignoring the culture issues that seem to dominate the negative partisanship on the other side?

I don't watch Fox News, but my understanding from people who do is that culture war issues dominate there. And all the Trump people I interact with focus so much more on culture war issues than economic ones. Maybe that's just my crowd, but it's also true on this board. We get 10x the amount of anti-trans stuff from our conservative posters than any economic issue. We get a lot of cultural grievance of all stripes.

I get that you're aiming at the most persuadable 4-5%, but that's not much margin to work with. If we want to restore the Dem brand -- should that be necessary -- and start appealing more to the working classes in general, we're going to need more than 4%. And that means we're going to have to dive into the culture war stuff that seems to animate American politics so much more than economic issues.

Thanks for the detailed response. I agree that Faiz didn’t seem to convince Ezra. Their argument was very similar to many we’ve had and they came to the same point that we have.

I agree that Dems will have to change their tune on some cultural issues. It goes to what we’ve both talked about in terms of an economic focused message + faith based message.

Red state Dem governors (and even some Rep governors in red states) are good examples to look to when examining how to handle these culture issues.

Andy Beshear does it through his faith. He’s vetoed anti-trans legislation in Kentucky and makes it clear that trans people are humans deserving of the same rights as everyone else. From there you can pivot to talking about universal rights, including economic rights.

Something along the lines of “we are all God’s children” has been a premise of the liberal left for a long time.

I really appreciate you bringing the religious aspect into this because I think it has helped my thinking. Not in terms of being naïve about what evangelical religious people actually tend to vote on, because my family is full of them. But in terms of crystallizing a message that has worked for left movements in the United States multiple times: universalist messaging wrapped in semi-religious to outright religious language.

 

[Mulberry Heel]

NBC's Chuck Todd said on the last day of October that the Harris Campaign calculated they could not win unless they pulled the Nikki Haley REPUBLICAN voters. That's just stunning to me and appears to be what happened. The stunning part is that there weren't 4-5% gettable voters for Democrats. This indicates a pretty big refresh of the Democratic image will be needed.

I make a prediction that the 2028 Democratic Primary will come down to a boring Bill Clinton centrist type vs a Bernie Sanders enthusiasm type.

As this election proved: enthusiasm gets you the money, it gets you the ground game, its gets the celebrities out for you, it gets the huge rallies.........but if its not paired with something that appeals to small town America, it runs into trouble on election day.

I've read that as well, and I think it was a miscalculation on their part. I don't think they needed Nikki Haley Republican voters to win. Instead it seems clear from the voting results that what they really needed to do was to hang on to Biden's 81 million 2020 voters, which they failed to do. She spent a vast sum of money relentlessly trying to win over Republicans who were uneasy about Trump, and yet she ended up getting almost the exact same percentage of Republican votes that Biden did - 6%. Democrats need to give up on the idea that there are Republicans who are persuadable - they're not. Instead they need to work more on actually getting their own base out to vote, and winning back minority voters that Republicans have been able to peel away.