This is fire and exactly the kind of point that gets lost when the “moderates” start waving polling crosstabs like crucifixes. Sinema and Fetterman didn’t just shift right. They collapsed their coalitions by trying to out-centrist the NYT editorial board.
I just wrote something that looks at this through a longer historical lens and how Trump’s return is less about him and more about the dead consensus that still thinks it can sell the same donor-fed strategy and win. It’s called The Real Culprits. Would love your thoughts if you’ve got a sec.
The Times also doesn’t acknowledge how “moderate” Republicans were all chased out of the party. Tillis is retiring bc he couldn’t win a primary and that seat is now more likely to flip Dem.
I think the NYT and the Dem consultant class has done this for so long that even they can't tell if they're doing this because they genuinely believe this is how you win elections or if it's just an ad hoc rationale for their personal preferences.
Cause while I'd still not buy their mediocre analysis, I'd at least take it slightly more seriously if they framed it as "Look, I want to do x,y,z progressive things, but that's just not where voters are at so we have to make it appear like Dems are moderate and then when we get elected we can do the progressive stuff." But instead the undercurrent is always "You dumb, arrogant libs don't know what you're talking about. Sit down and shut up while the grown ups and experts tell you how politics is done." It's patronizing along with being empirically wrong.
In both Sinema and Fetterman’s cases, they might have been more successful as “moderates” like Susan Collins, who never outright bashes her party and is almost always a reliable vote. The ACA is perhaps the one exception where her “no” vote stopped Trump from achieving anything.
Sinema would have likely lost re-election to Kari Lake, despite all her appeals to Republicans.
Clinton Neoliberal "Moderates" (yeah, right!) got us where we are now, with a Nazi government.
Not a deep thought, but something I've strongly felt ever since Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Dark Qween of Neoliberal Evil, rode her husband's name and padded resume to a Senate seat, a Secretary of State tenure marked by turning Libya into an open-air slave market, and two failed attempts at the Presidency.
great analysis, thanks
This is fire and exactly the kind of point that gets lost when the “moderates” start waving polling crosstabs like crucifixes. Sinema and Fetterman didn’t just shift right. They collapsed their coalitions by trying to out-centrist the NYT editorial board.
I just wrote something that looks at this through a longer historical lens and how Trump’s return is less about him and more about the dead consensus that still thinks it can sell the same donor-fed strategy and win. It’s called The Real Culprits. Would love your thoughts if you’ve got a sec.
https://www.stewonthis.com/p/the-real-culprits
The Times also doesn’t acknowledge how “moderate” Republicans were all chased out of the party. Tillis is retiring bc he couldn’t win a primary and that seat is now more likely to flip Dem.
I think the NYT and the Dem consultant class has done this for so long that even they can't tell if they're doing this because they genuinely believe this is how you win elections or if it's just an ad hoc rationale for their personal preferences.
Cause while I'd still not buy their mediocre analysis, I'd at least take it slightly more seriously if they framed it as "Look, I want to do x,y,z progressive things, but that's just not where voters are at so we have to make it appear like Dems are moderate and then when we get elected we can do the progressive stuff." But instead the undercurrent is always "You dumb, arrogant libs don't know what you're talking about. Sit down and shut up while the grown ups and experts tell you how politics is done." It's patronizing along with being empirically wrong.
In both Sinema and Fetterman’s cases, they might have been more successful as “moderates” like Susan Collins, who never outright bashes her party and is almost always a reliable vote. The ACA is perhaps the one exception where her “no” vote stopped Trump from achieving anything.
Sinema would have likely lost re-election to Kari Lake, despite all her appeals to Republicans.
Clinton Neoliberal "Moderates" (yeah, right!) got us where we are now, with a Nazi government.
Not a deep thought, but something I've strongly felt ever since Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Dark Qween of Neoliberal Evil, rode her husband's name and padded resume to a Senate seat, a Secretary of State tenure marked by turning Libya into an open-air slave market, and two failed attempts at the Presidency.