Notably, Leonhardt makes a weak case in his advice for Vice President Harris that many will view as unsurprising. The link chosen to support his claim that Democrats are “well to the public’s left” on transgender issues merely directs readers to another New York Times article by Pamela Paul, which has already been fact-checked and found to contain false and misleading information. The Pamela Paul story falls far short of supporting the idea that the public is significantly opposed to transgender issues.
While some polls show opposition to aspects like sports participation, more recent surveys indicate that the public is against bans on gender-affirming care and does not view transgender issues as particularly salient or worth legislating over. Gallup, Navigator, and the LA Times have all released polls within the last three months showing that the American public views trans issues as a major distraction, opposes forced outing policies, and rejects bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. In Gallup’s case, multiple ways of asking about gender-affirming care bans did not affect the result.
If Vice President Harris wishes to follow advice that will win her elections, listening to Leonhardt may be misguided. Many politicians have previously attempted to run on anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ platforms with little success. For instance, Moms for Liberty and Project 1776, organizations promoting fiercely anti-LGBTQ+ and conservative policies, lost 70% of their races in the 2023 school board elections. Similar forces saw anti-trans politicians defeated in Michigan, Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and many other swing states.
I had to look up the phrase “Brahmin left” as I’d never heard it before. It was apparently coined by an economist, Thomas Piketty, in a paper on wealth inequality. In it, among other ideas, he used this phrase to describe a shift in voting patterns where highly educated people, who used to vote more to the right, were now voting more left in western societies. It seems an odd choice to me as Brahmin is the name of the highest ranking caste in India’s caste structure. That basically included the wealthy and the powerful and to me doesn’t conjure up associations with high education. The American Enterprise Institute, a right leaning think tank, says the phrase characterizes “Western left parties increasingly bereft of working-class voters and increasingly dominated by highly educated voters and elites.”
I gather that the phrase has been adopted by Republicans as a slur against the left in their efforts to characterize themselves as the party of workers.
There is no party of workers. If there were, we would have single payer health care, mandatory 2-4 weeks paid vacation per year, mandatory paid sick leave, parental leave, 25$ minimum wage, among other benefits.
We do not have a workers party
We don’t have a dedicated workers party but we do have an anti-workers party. One party has worked towards all of those things you listed in some shape or form.
Sounds like the term I’ve heard a lot: “Champagne socialist”.