I am interviewed at length on this subject in a new digital publication, The Signal. This interview was beautifully transcribed and edited and reads very well indeed. If you are at all interested in my thinking on this subject, this is an excellent source.
Thursday, July 21, 2022
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
The Ruy Teixeira Newsletter Returns!
Have you missed some of my latest rants about the parlous state of Democrats and the leff? Not to worry--they're all here in the latest Ruy Teixeira newsletter! Be the first one on your block to completely master Marxism-Leninism-Ruy Teixeira Thought (With American Characteristics?) Click through the link for the full newsletter and a subscription option.
Thursday, July 7, 2022
Some Liberal Patriot Messaging Advice for Biden
At The Liberal Patriot, Brian Katulis tries his hand at how Biden might be able to improve his political messaging.
"President Joe Biden traveled to Ohio this week to make the case directly to the American people for some of the things his administration is trying to get done.
This is the sort of trip outside of the Beltway bubble Biden needs to do more often if he wants to shore up his sagging political fortunes in advance of this fall's midterm elections. Sandwiched between last week’s trek to Europe and next week’s pilgrimage to the Middle East, what Biden said in Ohio had many of the ingredients needed to reconnect with working Americans – but there are still some elements missing he can add to make his case stronger.
Four months before the 2022 midterm elections, President Biden remains stuck at a low point in his political standing, with a job approval of 38%. Biden’s standing collapsed nearly a year ago last summer after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and the wall his domestic policy agenda hit due to the usual Washington dysfunction and gridlock, divisions within his own party, and several unforced errors in how Biden and his team chose to traverse America’s rocky political landscape.
Biden’s political standing in his own party is so precarious right now that the grumbles and complaints within his own party are growing louder, with some starting to pull out their knives and look for alternatives, a dynamic that will accelerate among Democrats if they lose as big as many predict this fall.
Other voices on the left remain saddled with delusions of grandeur, their heads stuck up their own advocacy agendas as they deny the hard realities of the current political moment like how inflation in gas and food prices affect ordinary working Americans.
That’s why it was good thing that Biden ignored voices trying to pull him down political rabbit holes like left-wing identity politics and went to Ohio, a key swing state, to talk to working Americans."
Read the whole thing at The Liberal Patriot!
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
To Regain the Support of “Culturally Traditional but Not Extremist” Working Class Voters Democrats Need to Understand the Compelling Political Narrative That Leads Them to Vote for the GOP.
Andy Levison is just right about this. I highly recommend you read his excellent memo.
Levison summarizes his argument as follows:
1. As the 2022 elections approach, a critical question for Democratic strategists is why a significant group of working class voters choose to support Republican extremists even though they themselves are more accurately described as “cultural traditionalists” rather than extremists. In opinion surveys and focus groups this group of white (and now also increasingly Latino) working class voters make clear that they do not actually believe MAGA/Q-Anon/Tucker Carlson conspiracy theories or view all Democrats as literal “enemies” but they nonetheless vote for extremist candidates who assert these views on election day.
2. A major reason for this is that working class voters do not make their political choices primarily based on examining specific issues and policies. They evaluate candidates based on their broader outlook and philosophy – a perspective that the candidates frequently present as a basic “story” or “narrative” about America.
3. The basic extremist narrative is actually undergirded by three profoundly important subsidiary narratives that are nested within the larger narrative and which long predate the modern MAGA ideology. These three linked sub-narratives are not inherently extremist. They express a genuine and understandable frustration and sense of abandonment by the Democratic Party.
4. Democratic candidates can identify with these narratives and seek ways to address the legitimate concerns that are a deeply felt part of the working class experience in modern America without endorsing the extremist narrative that has incorporated and exploited them with such marked success.
THEDEMOCRATICSTRATEGIST.ORG
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
What Should Voters in the Middle Do?
Declare independence! says John Halpin at The Liberal Patriot:
"Nothing ever changes with America’s broken political system. Despite reams of evidence that an increasing proportion of voters despise both political parties and want to see internal changes or alternative party choices, neither Democrats nor Republicans have gotten the message.
Republicans vie to elevate the dimmest bulbs in the country to office, pledging loyalty to a corrupt former president who actively sought to overturn an election he lost. In turn, Democrats vie to elevate those who live in a fantasy world where things like high gas prices or violent crime aren’t real problems while mystical structural forces and improper language use are keeping Americans in a permanent state of oppression.
Normal Americans—a mix of traditional conservatives, liberals, and moderates—look at the two parties and just shake their heads. Out to lunch. Whack jobs. Extremists. Arrogant blowhards. Clowns who don’t understand my life. They’re right. The two parties have failed to adequately represent the views of ideologically unaligned Americans. And the two parties don’t particularly care to change this situation as they make yet another call to the partisan ramparts ahead of the 2022 elections."
Read the whole piece at The Liberal Patriot!
Saturday, July 2, 2022
Things Aren't Looking So Great
Yascha Mounk describes the pickle we're in and has a few suggestions that rational, non-head in the sand Democrats should be pursuing. I think his suggestions make sense.
Mounk's suggestions:
* Democrats must prioritize federal legislation that clarifies how Congress should certify the outcome of future elections and minimizes partisan meddling in the process.
* Democrats must move back into the cultural mainstream. While they should full-throatedly defend the rights of minority groups, the party’s top leaders must strongly distance themselves from the excesses of the identitarian left.
* Democrats must demonstrate to the American people that they hear their concerns about inflation and the surge in violent crime. And while the tools that the White House has at its disposal to address either crisis are limited, Biden must use them as best he can, putting himself in a position to claim partial credit if there are genuine improvements by 2024.
* Democrats must pass the imperfect legislation for which they have the votes rather than holding out for the more ambitious deals that have proven elusive. If the White House was willing to compromise with moderates on issues like Build Back Better, the administration would have some genuine accomplishments to tout.
* Finally, Democrats who have a better chance of beating Donald Trump in 2024 than either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris should seriously explore a primary challenge, and fast. To protect themselves against bad faith attacks, candidates who wish to succeed would probably be well-advised to announce that they are running before Biden makes his own intentions clear.
Friday, July 1, 2022
Moderate Democrats Need a Worldview
If you haven't read the Jason Zengerle piece on the travails of moderate Democrats today, you really should. It's quite good and gives a good airing to those on both sides of the current divide in the Democratic party. I am quoted in there to pretty good effect I think, including this:
“The thing about moderates today is I don’t think they have a worldview,” Teixeira says. “They’re just reacting to what A.O.C. and the Democratic left are doing. But what’s their alternative? I don’t think they have an alternative. ‘Don’t do dumb stuff’ is not a worldview.” Perhaps one day in the future, maybe as soon as November, moderate Democrats will refashion their worldviews according to Teixeira’s and Yglesias’s Substacks and McElwee’s and Shor’s tweets the way Clinton and a previous generation of moderate Democrats once based theirs on “The Politics of Evasion.” But that day has yet to arrive."
Stay tuned!
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