- cross-posted to:
- politics
- cross-posted to:
- politics
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I don’t believe the polls either but the Democrats have been working way too hard to separate themselves from their progressive base. The mythos of centrism and a normally distributted body politic is to blame, but it continues to cost them. There is no center to court. If Democrats lean into progressism, they’ll win elections. It works. If they lean into trying to court Republicans, they’ll continue to fail.
If Biden goes unabashed progressive, unabashed enforcement of the rule of law against insurrectionists, he’ll be fine and ‘centerists’ (rightwing assholes who don’t want to be branded as rightwing assholes) will be forced to come along.nRight now he’s losing jg his base through his weak domestic policies and even weaker foreign policy. You can argue his hands are tied but that’s really not my problem. It’s his problem if he can’t navigate to specific policy goals against resistance. It’s literally what he has been elected to do
If Biden tried to court a cult based around lunatic conspiracy theories that he is a lizard person, well good fucking luck.
Why would he court progressives? Are they going to vote for Trump otherwise?
He needs to court Independents who might vote for Trump. Maybe give one promise to progressives, but his focus really should be on continuing to fix the deficit without a ton of new taxes.
They won’t vote at all otherwise.
Centrism is a failed political concept.
You winner can electionsnby driving out a base not courting a non existent center.
They won’t vote at all otherwise.
I highly doubt that. Biden would probably sign a progressive bill, he just won’t make pushing for it a campaign promise, and progressive voters understand that.
Centrism is a failed political concept
Strong disagree. This article shows that centrism is alive and well, and far more people want someone more centrist than more extreme vs the two major parties.
How you win elections depends on the political climate. Sometimes you court the center, sometimes you court a base, it just depends on what won or lost the last election. The article above shows that people are frustrated with the division in politics, so a centrist candidate would probably fare better than a more extreme candidate.
I agree with what you are saying about strategy, but my point would be that courting a center hadn’t worked in 20+ years, and that courting a base has been a consistently more effective strategy for winning the presidency since 1996. I think this is shown in the receipts, and 2000 was the sea change.
Courting the center is 1980s political wisdom that doesn’t materialize in victory in 2020+
It seems to have worked pretty well for Biden, Obama, and Bush. The pattern seems to be:
- rally your base in the primaries
- accuse opponents’ policies as being impractical
- adopt opponents best policies for the general
- attack most extreme policies of opponent to attack in the general to attract the centrists
- when elected, only do the 2-3 most popular policies and pretend like you didn’t lie about the rest
That way you get the best of both worlds, you build a base during the primaries, then attract the middle in the general election.
I just don’t agree that this is how those people were elected.
Bullet one is the key element, and Bush definitively did this, not only through the primary, but all the way to November. The Tea Party movement was a direct result of that strategy. Likewise with Bush’s second term, and both of Obamas.
Trump did the same, even more extremely.
Biden also did the same in the primaries, but I would agree on his post primary pivot, although it was still catering to a strong progressive base, and looky that, he got elected.
I agree on principal, but I disagree on your conclusion that Biden, Obama, or Bush II won by appealing to a center (in the general).
I think all three and every president since Bush II has won by driving a base, and that centrism is no longer the dominant paradigm (although I agree that it was in the post Reagan era).
Bush… Tea Party
The only thing resembling the Tea Party in Bush’s campaign was tax cuts (along with EITC expansion). That’s it. They weren’t particularly aggressive (esp compared to Trump’s), and he mostly did a stimulus package due to the tech crash.
The rest of his platform was pretty centrist, such as:
- non-interventionism - lol, he really didn’t stick to that, but it was in his campaign
- no child left behind - expansion of education and testing
- end reliance on foreign oil - has been a pretty consistent thing across the aisle
Nothing he campaigned on or did as President was particularly extreme. Gore, on the other hand, was relatively extreme WRT environmentalism, and Bush aimed to get those who didn’t agree with Gore.
Biden
Biden was only catering to progressives because everyone else was, and he was by far the least progressive of the frontrunners. If he’s the only one that’s saying something different, it needs to be really compelling or he’ll just get slaughtered in the debates.
Once he got the nomination, he didn’t need to cater to progressives anymore, so he focused on the center.
On the flipside, look at Romney, he was pretty centrist in the debates and got the nomination, but got slaughtered in the general election when he flipped more conservative. McCain had a similar strategy in 2008.
So now we’re all sliding together into 2024, knowing it’s (almost certainly) Joe Biden and Kamala Harris vs. Trump alongside some Republican masochist, just the way I wanted it.
This is the punditriest punditry that ever pundited 👅👢 Who but corporate, bootlicking pundits would claim to have wanted this ballot? I thank her for disclosing this up front so I can ignore the rest of her article.
I’m sure THIS year will be the year, right guys? Right???
Too bad. Supreme Court is taking up Trump’s case to get him back on the ballot in Colorado, states’ rights be damned. This is the time for the GOP’s SCOTUS to deliver, and deliver they will. Nothing anyone can do to stop it. The voters will have to decide.
