The left and right are not fundamentally symmetrical and cannot use identical tactics and expect similar results. Most crucially, the right can align with the wealthy and powerful in society and use their wealth and control of media to allow a minority coalition to win power. There is no equivalent strategy the left can pursue. Our only strength is that we want to help people and we are more accepting of diversity, which allows us to create mass movements more easily. But that’s really the only way we’re going to ever make real progress, and that means building a very large coalition that at minimum includes moderates, traditionally disenfranchised people, etc. We cannot win with just the base, it simply won’t work.
This is the most important group. A third of the population doesn’t vote. You have to give them something worth voting for, and being “not Trump” or “the party of reason” doesn’t cut it.
It’s a myth that independent is the same as moderate. This group includes people who are fed up with the establishment and the status quo, and it also includes low-information voters who vote based on vibes. You wanna engage them, you gotta have energy, you gotta have people who are enthusiastic to vote for someone and willing to promote them organically. Giving them more of the same thing we’ve had for decades isn’t going to reach disengaged voters, by definition, if it did, they wouldn’t be disengaged. It’s also not going to do anything to peel off Republicans, if you actually talk with them, they hate generic Democrats more than just about anything, and Clinton/Biden/Kamala had extremely low crossover appeal, despite putting substantial effort into it because they all read as generic democrats.
I have die hard Republican family members who the only democrat they ever had a nice thing to say about was Bernie Sanders, and the worst criticism of him they had is that “he’s not actually as different from the rest of the democrats as he puts on.” These people regard Clinton/Biden/Kamala as virtually demons. Why? Because for a lot of people, it’s not just about right or left, it’s also about “establishment vs outsider” and “fighter vs compromiser” and things like that.
You put a far-left candidate out there making fire and brimstone speeches about how billionaires are fucking you and we’re going transform the economy to work for ordinary people, someone who’s unapologetic and not afraid to pick fights with both parties’ establishment, that’s going to excite people, it’s gonna offer something new, it’s gonna cut across established cultural battle lines and bring more people into the political process. It could’ve worked with Bernie, if he’d been given a real chance, and it could work with someone similar in the future.
The thing is that this commitment to keep putting out moderate establishment centrists may not be far-left, but it’s far-Democrat. It’s far-blue tribe. The people these people appeal to were probably always going to vote Democrat regardless. Allowing left-wing policy may be more “extreme” on the left-right axis but it’s more flexible and adaptable on the other axes I mentioned. And at the same time, it would allow them to appeal to people’s direct material interests, and many left wing policies are broadly popular for that reason, even among people who end up voting Republican.
I think you’re interpreting this as me saying that we need moderate candidates to appeal to people who voted for Trump but I actually agree with most of what you wrote. I don’t think just any old leftist would work but my point is there does need to be some strategy or effort to widen the coalition, not just do everything the core voters want maximally.
For me, ideally this means left policies but maybe packaged in a slightly more palatable way. One thing that makes Trump appealing is that he’s been successful at convincing low-information voters that he’s some kind of reasonable, common-sense businessman. I don’t think this would exactly work for us but the point is that the persona and energy of the candidate is extremely important.
The left and right are not fundamentally symmetrical and cannot use identical tactics and expect similar results. Most crucially, the right can align with the wealthy and powerful in society and use their wealth and control of media to allow a minority coalition to win power. There is no equivalent strategy the left can pursue. Our only strength is that we want to help people and we are more accepting of diversity, which allows us to create mass movements more easily. But that’s really the only way we’re going to ever make real progress, and that means building a very large coalition that at minimum includes moderates, traditionally disenfranchised people, etc. We cannot win with just the base, it simply won’t work.
This is the most important group. A third of the population doesn’t vote. You have to give them something worth voting for, and being “not Trump” or “the party of reason” doesn’t cut it.
It’s a myth that independent is the same as moderate. This group includes people who are fed up with the establishment and the status quo, and it also includes low-information voters who vote based on vibes. You wanna engage them, you gotta have energy, you gotta have people who are enthusiastic to vote for someone and willing to promote them organically. Giving them more of the same thing we’ve had for decades isn’t going to reach disengaged voters, by definition, if it did, they wouldn’t be disengaged. It’s also not going to do anything to peel off Republicans, if you actually talk with them, they hate generic Democrats more than just about anything, and Clinton/Biden/Kamala had extremely low crossover appeal, despite putting substantial effort into it because they all read as generic democrats.
I have die hard Republican family members who the only democrat they ever had a nice thing to say about was Bernie Sanders, and the worst criticism of him they had is that “he’s not actually as different from the rest of the democrats as he puts on.” These people regard Clinton/Biden/Kamala as virtually demons. Why? Because for a lot of people, it’s not just about right or left, it’s also about “establishment vs outsider” and “fighter vs compromiser” and things like that.
You put a far-left candidate out there making fire and brimstone speeches about how billionaires are fucking you and we’re going transform the economy to work for ordinary people, someone who’s unapologetic and not afraid to pick fights with both parties’ establishment, that’s going to excite people, it’s gonna offer something new, it’s gonna cut across established cultural battle lines and bring more people into the political process. It could’ve worked with Bernie, if he’d been given a real chance, and it could work with someone similar in the future.
The thing is that this commitment to keep putting out moderate establishment centrists may not be far-left, but it’s far-Democrat. It’s far-blue tribe. The people these people appeal to were probably always going to vote Democrat regardless. Allowing left-wing policy may be more “extreme” on the left-right axis but it’s more flexible and adaptable on the other axes I mentioned. And at the same time, it would allow them to appeal to people’s direct material interests, and many left wing policies are broadly popular for that reason, even among people who end up voting Republican.
I think you’re interpreting this as me saying that we need moderate candidates to appeal to people who voted for Trump but I actually agree with most of what you wrote. I don’t think just any old leftist would work but my point is there does need to be some strategy or effort to widen the coalition, not just do everything the core voters want maximally.
For me, ideally this means left policies but maybe packaged in a slightly more palatable way. One thing that makes Trump appealing is that he’s been successful at convincing low-information voters that he’s some kind of reasonable, common-sense businessman. I don’t think this would exactly work for us but the point is that the persona and energy of the candidate is extremely important.