Are liberals and progressives really winning the battles of ideas?

[stevenkesslar]

So here's the theory of the case:

In Wisconsin, a big win for liberals and a warning for the GOP

Quote

Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum say the result should be a flashing red warning light for Republicans about the dangers they face in 2024. They argue that Protasiewicz’s win shows that the dynamics that fueled the GOP’s lackluster showing in the midterms — most notably opposition to Trump and backlash to the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning abortion protections established in Roe v. Wade — are still swaying swing voters. Many also make the case that Republicans have little hope of pivoting away from such unpopular positions because of the intensely pro-Trump and anti-abortion views of the party’s core voters.

I've read a bunch of stories like this over the past week.  But the person I associate the most with this view is Morning Joe.  Scarborough argued both before and after the Wisconsin vote that sometimes particular elections really do tell us something about where the country is heading.  He pointed to the passage of anti-tax/anti-government Prop 13 in California in 1978 as a first wave of the 1980 Reagan Revolution.  Morning Joe's political judgment, especially coming at this with the views of a still conservative Gingrichy Republican, is pretty reliable. 

I'd agree with Joe's view that it may be less that liberals and progressives are winning the  argument, and more that the MAGA nonsense and election denial essentially makes it no argument at all.  At least for people in the middle.  Although he also points to specific issues, like abortion, as driving the country toward liberal and progressive positions.

I was really surprised last Tuesday.  I was hoping for a close win in Wisconsin, which recent elections would suggest.  It was more like a blowout for the liberal candidate.  And I thought the White pro-cop candidate would obviously win the Mayor's race in Chicago in this political climate.  Oops!  All the caveats apply.  It was a close race.  And it was an internal fight between Democrats, hardly a national referendum.  But if there is a strong pro-cop reaction, Chicago did not get the memo. 

And that counts, since of the really big cities it is usually Chicago that Foxy conservatives point to as Democrat hell on Earth.  You know, the same guys - yup, I mean you Tucker - who love Trump.  Except in private.  Oops!  What the fuck is happening?!   Tucker could not really be LOSING the argument, could he?

The easiest argument against my own argument is that Ron Johnson nailed a different Black guy running for Senate to the wall over "defund the police" in Wisconsin last Fall.  That said, it didn't work in Georgia or Arizona - both reddish states, still.  Nor did it work overall.  As that article above points out, the lack of a red wave in 2022 is probably the best data point for the theory that the national wind is at the back of progressives and liberals.  Pragmatic conservative Governors like DeWine and DeSantis and Sununu did well.  And were mostly rewarded for being pragmatists, I think.  But they should have done well in 2022, just list in 1994 and 2010.  DeWine barely won the Ohio GOP primary, but like Kasich won in a landslide in the general.  People in the middle like pragmatists.

I do buy the argument that the 1970's was a period of ascendant conservative thought.  With many rising conservative thought leaders and think tanks, and political stars like Reagan.  I can't be objective about it.  But Trump is no thought leader.  Nor is DeSantis, really.  He's your basic White competent conservatism on the inside with a dark MAGA-ish coating on the outside.  Which may or may not actually suit current Trumpy appetites in the GOP.

So, again, if liberals are winning, it may in part simply be by default.  Long-term surveys say back when Clinton won in 1992, maybe 1 in 4 Americans identified as liberal or progressive.  Now it is closer to 1 in 3, on a good day.  So the trend among the young for sure is going Democrats' way.  But liberals like me are nowhere near a majority.  

If we are only 1 in 3 Americans, why are so many things going our way?

[Latbear4blk]

4 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

So here's the theory of the case:

In Wisconsin, a big win for liberals and a warning for the GOP

I've read a bunch of stories like this over the past week.  But the person I associate the most with this view is Morning Joe.  Scarborough argued both before and after the Wisconsin vote that sometimes particular elections really do tell us something about where the country is heading.  He pointed to the passage of anti-tax/anti-government Prop 13 in California in 1978 as a first wave of the 1980 Reagan Revolution.  Morning Joe's political judgment, especially coming at this with the views of a still conservative Gingrichy Republican, is pretty reliable. 

I'd agree with Joe's view that it may be less that liberals and progressives are winning the  argument, and more that the MAGA nonsense and election denial essentially makes it no argument at all.  At least for people in the middle.  Although he also points to specific issues, like abortion, as driving the country toward liberal and progressive positions.

I was really surprised last Tuesday.  I was hoping for a close win in Wisconsin, which recent elections would suggest.  It was more like a blowout for the liberal candidate.  And I thought the White pro-cop candidate would obviously win the Mayor's race in Chicago in this political climate.  Oops!  All the caveats apply.  It was a close race.  And it was an internal fight between Democrats, hardly a national referendum.  But if there is a strong pro-cop reaction, Chicago did not get the memo. 

And that counts, since of the really big cities it is usually Chicago that Foxy conservatives point to as Democrat hell on Earth.  You know, the same guys - yup, I mean you Tucker - who love Trump.  Except in private.  Oops!  What the fuck is happening?!   Tucker could not really be LOSING the argument, could he?

The easiest argument against my own argument is that Ron Johnson nailed a different Black guy running for Senate to the wall over "defund the police" in Wisconsin last Fall.  That said, it didn't work in Georgia or Arizona - both reddish states, still.  Nor did it work overall.  As that article above points out, the lack of a red wave in 2022 is probably the best data point for the theory that the national wind is at the back of progressives and liberals.  Pragmatic conservative Governors like DeWine and DeSantis and Sununu did well.  And were mostly rewarded for being pragmatists, I think.  But they should have done well in 2022, just list in 1994 and 2010.  DeWine barely won the Ohio GOP primary, but like Kasich won in a landslide in the general.  People in the middle like pragmatists.

I do buy the argument that the 1970's was a period of ascendant conservative thought.  With many rising conservative thought leaders and think tanks, and political stars like Reagan.  I can't be objective about it.  But Trump is no thought leader.  Nor is DeSantis, really.  He's your basic White competent conservatism on the inside with a dark MAGA-ish coating on the outside.  Which may or may not actually suit current Trumpy appetites in the GOP.

So, again, if liberals are winning, it may in part simply be by default.  Long-term surveys say back when Clinton won in 1992, maybe 1 in 4 Americans identified as liberal or progressive.  Now it is closer to 1 in 3, on a good day.  So the trend among the young for sure is going Democrats' way.  But liberals like me are nowhere near a majority.  

If we are only 1 in 3 Americans, why are so many things going our way?

American electoral system is not democratic and allows minority rule.

[Mavica]

10 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

If we are only 1 in 3 Americans, why are so many things going our way?

An obscene amount of money was spent on that court race:  $42 million.  As for 1 in 3:  to believe that is to be hallucinogenic.  Maybe 1 in 3 Democrats will describe themselves that way.  Not 1 in 3 of the overall electorate in the USA.  As for polls:  they are a very small sampling, and my observation has been that most people do not respond when called.  Let's not drink the kool-aid.  

[stevenkesslar]

3 hours ago, Mavica said:

An obscene amount of money was spent on that court race:  $42 million.  As for 1 in 3:  to believe that is to be hallucinogenic.  Maybe 1 in 3 Democrats will describe themselves that way.  Not 1 in 3 of the overall electorate in the USA.  As for polls:  they are a very small sampling, and my observation has been that most people do not respond when called.  Let's not drink the kool-aid.  

Memo to SK:  always fact check yourself.  

Gallup has measured this so consistently for so many years that I thought I had the numbers down.  Which of course means I should have fact checked myself.

So we are both partly right.  There has been an overall gradual growth of people who identify as liberal, as I knew there was.  But, as you said, 1 in 4 - not 1 in 3 - is now the high mark.  That chart goes to 2018.  I have seen more recent non-Gallup surveys in which it is close to one third.  And some of that gets into the difference between "liberal" and "progressive."  But liberals are the consistent minority in US politics in the past decades, for sure.

The growth of liberalism has definitely been among Democrats.  To me, those charts explain a few things.  First, why somebody more centrist like "Third Way" Bill Clinton would look attractive to Democrats in 1992, when liberals were a minority even among Democrats.  Whereas by 2022 lots of (younger) Democrats think "Socialist" Joe is not liberal enough.  It also explains why the 2022 backlash may not have been as bad as the backlashes in 1994 or 2010.  Since there are at least somewhat more liberals who actually prefer liberal policies.  And are maybe more willing to go vote in midterms to defend them.

That said, one might guess from the charts above that Republicans would have dominated the Presidency during this whole period.  Since the overwhelming majority of the US calls itself moderate or conservative.  In fact, the only time a Republican won outright was 2004, when W. managed to get just under 51 % of the vote.  Even though a record 78 % of Americans called themselves moderate or conservative in 2004, according to Gallup.  What's obvious is that a lot of people who call themselves moderates vote Democrats in as President, including Obama and Biden (and Hillary, if we go by popular vote).

My college political science professor had a theory about this:  Americans are philosophically conservative and programmatically liberal.  His name was Paul Wellstone, and he was often accused of drinking Kool Aid.  Regardless, he managed to take out moderate Minnesota Republican icon Dave Durenberger and held the seat for 12 years, pretty much as the most liberal US Senator, until he died in a plane crash.  The whole thing about Republicans wanting to cut Social Security at this year's SOTU was a great example of why many Americans may actually be less conservative than they think, programmatically.  Trump gets that.  Which is why he is "hands off" on Social Security and Medicare.  Did I mention that Trump's approval rating as President hit the absolute low precisely when his party seriously tried to repeal Obamacare?

So my point still stands.  Yes, the Wisconsin election was one race.  And both sides poured endless amounts of money into it.  But it still may be a bellwether of things to come. 

Again, I know I can't be objective.  But my impression is liberals and progressives are winning the battle of ideas.  In part because Trump's big idea is that he won the 2020 election.  And 2024 should be about grievance and retribution.

 

 

[stevenkesslar]

I was going to post a few stories on abortion anyway, today.  It's a great current example of how MAGA Republicans seem to be helping Democrats win the war of ideas. 

There's a nice bumper sticker I've come across used by Democrats strategists:  "It's the extremism, stupid."  They make a great argument that Democrats are punching above their weight in part because both Trump and Ronny Republicans are so extreme.

@unicorn helped my argument along today by posting about the Great New Inclusivity Idea of Minneapolis, calling all those ancestral Lutherans to morning Muslim prayer.  So it's a good example of what can easily be tagged as liberal extremism.   But it's Minneapolis.  Even Twin Cities liberals seemed to have nailed the coffin shut on lefty extremism when 56 % of them voted NOT to get rid of the Minneapolis Police Dept. and replace it with a Dept. of Public Safety.  Meanwhile, a Black progressive just won the Chicago Mayor's race by promising to FUND the police.  Where's the extremism?

Well, it seems to be all over on the Republican side.

Surprise lesson from Wisconsin: Abortion may not be panacea for Dems

Quote

“We were careful to create a narrative early on about who Janet was, what was at stake in this election and who Dan Kelly was, and abortion fit within that,” Guarasci said. “Our paid media ends with ‘he’s an extremist that doesn’t care about us.’ Everything related back to that.”

Several of the top strategists for the Wisconsin race said the same:  it is the extremism, stupid.  To put it in abortion terms, it's not that America is a liberal nation where everyone wants abortion on demand.  It's that what we are actually getting is total abortion bans.  Not only from elected legislatures, but from Trump appointed judges.

Granted, progressives in Wisconsin had a shit load of money.  So they could get out a message in a way that Muslims in Minneapolis will never be able to, no matter how friendly their liberal City Council is.  But Republicans had a shit load of money, too.  The soft on crime stuff just didn't work when they tried it on a judge who talked about how she sent lots of bad people to jail.  

DeSantis could be walking into a general election trap on abortion

Democrats prepared to pounce after Florida governor backed a six-week abortion ban.

Which adds to the mystery of why supposed political genius Ron DeSantis is rushing to embrace an idea that even the vast majority of Floridians reject.  Did I mention how well Republicans have done recently in Michigan, or Wisconsin?  So I have to believe that he sees playing to the extremists in the Republican Party as what he has to do to even have a chance of running against Biden.  Which of course puts Biden, and Democrats, in a good position.  

Again, I'll draw a comparison to what @unicorn just posted.  Yes, liberals backing dawn Muslim calls to prayer sounds extreme, or just goofy.  But it's Minneapolis, not Florida.  Here's the same Ruy Tuxiera article I hyperlinked in that other thread where he states that, if Democrats lose too much of the White working class (5 % more), Republicans could have an electoral college lock on states like Michigan and Wisconsin until as far out as 2040.  Like he says, that should scare the shit out of Democrats like me. 

At the very least, Republicans like DeSantis are not helping themselves with the White working class with six week abortion bans.  At best, as Bill Clinton would argue, reacting against these bans helps nudge White working class people back into the Democratic tent.  It's then on Democrats to explain why they stand for the working class still, including Whites.

Tim Scott gets tripped up on abortion ban questions

The senator is courting the evangelical vote. But he has difficulty detailing where he is on one of the group’s main issues.

Quote

By Thursday morning in New Hampshire, Scott said he did believe some type of federal restriction should be implemented, and said if president, he would “definitely” sign into law a 20-week ban — a measure he has supported in the Senate.

“We have to have a federal limit on how far we can go, and that is something that we have to discuss,” Scott said in a local television interview in Manchester.

Scott seems to be reading the same polls everyone else is.  Supporting a 15 or 20 week abortion ban probably makes him electable as POTUS.  It probably makes him unelectable in 2024 among a GOP primary electorate that's clearly wanting to go Big Lie and Extremism, Stupid.

I'm interested in everything Tim Scott does.  To me, he is the conservative most interested in doing what Reagan spent decades trying to do, and finally did:  make what some called extremism look like sunshine and Goldfish crackers to a majority of Americans.  I see Scott as one potential engineer of a 21st century version of forward looking multi-racial Main Street capitalism.  That could attract the White, Black, Hispanic, and AAPI working class to the GOP.  Younger Black voters, who see the GOP as the party that elects Tim Scott, are already a bit more likely than their parents to vote Republican.

While it's early days, what's interesting is that Republican primary voters will have none of it. It's hard to argue they are racists, since they elected Tim Scott in South Carolina.  But they seem to be more interested in their extreme positions, than in what could actually win a majority.

All this suggests that the Biden Band Aid will hold through 2024.  The Working Class Joe shtick worked well enough that he won back Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2020.  And added Arizona and Georgia, of course.   Running against Trump helped.  And may again. 

It will be the economy, stupid, in 2024, for sure.  Even the bears, like Mike Wilson of Morgan Stanley, says that a shallow 2023 recession and S & P 3000 is a "50/50 coin toss."  And even if that happens, the pessimist in the room is saying, it will lead to a strong recovery in 2024.  That's what the pessimists are saying.  If his crystal ball is right, it means Biden will have the economy, stupid, mostly on his side by November 2024.   Some article in 538 just pointed out that Biden now is as unpopular as Carter was at the same point in 1979.  But he is also just as unpopular as Reagan in 1983, and Obama in 2011.  The good news for Biden, unlike Carter in 1980, is the inflation peak is rear view mirror.

That article about DeSantis came out a few days ago, before the "Pudding Ron" attack ad.  It's interesting that Trump in many ways is saying the things that make him the pragmatic Republican in the room.  Don't fuck with Social Security or Medicare.  Don't go extreme on abortion.  So he's painting Ruby Red Ron as the extremist, perhaps successfully.  Meanwhile, Trump himself has the lowest favorable ratings he's every had  (25 % favorable, according to ABC), thanks to his election lies and alleged law breaking.  Which is just getting started.

It's the extremism, stupid!

 

 

[unicorn]

One of the problems with US elections, is that Democrats tend to nominate those that are too far left, while Republicans nominate right-wing nuts, so one is left with voting for the lesser of two evils. California did a great thing when they switched to a primary system in which the top two vote-getters from both parties face off in the general election. This is how the east bay area of the SF Bay finally got left-wing Pete Stark out of office, and moderate Democrat Eric Swalwell in, for the largely Democratic district. Sure enough, in the primary Pete Stark had a plurality, but when the majority of the district was given the choice, they went with moderate Swalwell (who's done a great job!).

 

California's 15th congressional district election, 2012 Primary election

Party Candidate Votes Democratic Pete Stark (incumbent) 39,94342. Democratic Eric Swalwell 34,34736. No party preference Christopher "Chris" J. Pareja 20,61821 Total votes 94,908100.

General election: Democratic Eric Swalwell 120,38852, Democratic Pete Stark (incumbent)110,64647. Total votes231,034100. Democratic hold

[Pete1111]

On 4/11/2023 at 12:00 AM, stevenkesslar said:

So here's the theory of the case:

In Wisconsin, a big win for liberals and a warning for the GOP

I've read a bunch of stories like this over the past week.  But the person I associate the most with this view is Morning Joe.  Scarborough argued both before and after the Wisconsin vote that sometimes particular elections really do tell us something about where the country is heading.  He pointed to the passage of anti-tax/anti-government Prop 13 in California in 1978 as a first wave of the 1980 Reagan Revolution.  Morning Joe's political judgment, especially coming at this with the views of a still conservative Gingrichy Republican, is pretty reliable. 

I'd agree with Joe's view that it may be less that liberals and progressives are winning the  argument, and more that the MAGA nonsense and election denial essentially makes it no argument at all.  At least for people in the middle.  Although he also points to specific issues, like abortion, as driving the country toward liberal and progressive positions.

I was really surprised last Tuesday.  I was hoping for a close win in Wisconsin, which recent elections would suggest.  It was more like a blowout for the liberal candidate.  And I thought the White pro-cop candidate would obviously win the Mayor's race in Chicago in this political climate.  Oops!  All the caveats apply.  It was a close race.  And it was an internal fight between Democrats, hardly a national referendum.  But if there is a strong pro-cop reaction, Chicago did not get the memo. 

And that counts, since of the really big cities it is usually Chicago that Foxy conservatives point to as Democrat hell on Earth.  You know, the same guys - yup, I mean you Tucker - who love Trump.  Except in private.  Oops!  What the fuck is happening?!   Tucker could not really be LOSING the argument, could he?

The easiest argument against my own argument is that Ron Johnson nailed a different Black guy running for Senate to the wall over "defund the police" in Wisconsin last Fall.  That said, it didn't work in Georgia or Arizona - both reddish states, still.  Nor did it work overall.  As that article above points out, the lack of a red wave in 2022 is probably the best data point for the theory that the national wind is at the back of progressives and liberals.  Pragmatic conservative Governors like DeWine and DeSantis and Sununu did well.  And were mostly rewarded for being pragmatists, I think.  But they should have done well in 2022, just list in 1994 and 2010.  DeWine barely won the Ohio GOP primary, but like Kasich won in a landslide in the general.  People in the middle like pragmatists.

I do buy the argument that the 1970's was a period of ascendant conservative thought.  With many rising conservative thought leaders and think tanks, and political stars like Reagan.  I can't be objective about it.  But Trump is no thought leader.  Nor is DeSantis, really.  He's your basic White competent conservatism on the inside with a dark MAGA-ish coating on the outside.  Which may or may not actually suit current Trumpy appetites in the GOP.

So, again, if liberals are winning, it may in part simply be by default.  Long-term surveys say back when Clinton won in 1992, maybe 1 in 4 Americans identified as liberal or progressive.  Now it is closer to 1 in 3, on a good day.  So the trend among the young for sure is going Democrats' way.  But liberals like me are nowhere near a majority.  

If we are only 1 in 3 Americans, why are so many things going our way?

The suggestion that the Wisconsin election is a warning to the GOP reminds me the night Obama won the first time, how the mainstream media predicted the times are changing for the GOP, that demographics heavily favor the Dems in years to come.  Do we know how wrong that prediction was?

There were many, many Obama counties in the Midwest where now the pendulum has swung so far to the right it seems stuck there.  A lot of pundits try to explain what is going on with these voters.  Bless them for trying. 

What scares me the most (and maybe this is part of our modern voting behavior) is how many Bernicrats thought Trump was clearly a better choice vs. Hillary Clinton and to a lesser degree with Biden vs. Trump.  My nephew was attending U of Iowa in Iowa City (which is a very Blue place) when Biden ran.  Obviously Biden was unpopular in Iowa.  But I was shocked when my nephew parroted how strong the mistrust of centrist Dems, that when Bernie Sanders lost the nomination, his belief how Trump was as good a choice as any of the rest of the Dems.  For example he definitely reflected the trend to hate on Buttigieg.  Perhaps that is just an anomaly, how Buttigieg is gay, the lefties feel betrayed he is not positioned at the far left end of the teeter totter, just hanging on by his fingertip, where they believe all gays ought to be.  

But back to Wisconsin, if their Supremes can fix their gerrymandering problem, then yes the GOP might be a little worried.  Beyond that, I wouldn't bet the farm on voting behavior.

[alvnv]

I believe that after 8 years of Dubya, anybody on the democratic ticket would have won, including Hillary or Bernie. That’s why their primaries were so brutal. Similarly, Trump won, partially, because of Obama-fatigue. Yet, if it wasn’t for gerrymandering, republicans would not have one a single presidential election in the XXI century.

[Marc in Calif]

19 hours ago, unicorn said:

This is how the east bay area of the SF Bay finally got left-wing Pete Stark out of office, and moderate Democrat Eric Swalwell in, for the largely Democratic district.... 2012 Primary election

The year 2012 was so long ago! 😇

And the East Bay has much more than just one congressional district! 🤩

I think you need to read more and try to keep up.  😉

[Marc in Calif]

8 hours ago, Pete1111 said:

What scares me the most (and maybe this is part of our modern voting behavior) is how many Bernicrats thought Trump was clearly a better choice vs. Hillary Clinton and to a lesser degree with Biden vs. Trump.  My nephew was attending U of Iowa in Iowa City (which is a very Blue place) when Biden ran.  Obviously Biden was unpopular in Iowa.  But I was shocked when my nephew parroted how strong the mistrust of centrist Dems, that when Bernie Sanders lost the nomination, his belief how Trump was as good a choice as any of the rest of the Dems.  For example he definitely reflected the trend to hate on Buttigieg.  Perhaps that is just an anomaly, how Buttigieg is gay, the lefties feel betrayed he is not positioned at the far left end of the teeter totter, just hanging on by his fingertip, where they believe all gays ought to be.  

This is all very true. Yet some supposedly "left" individuals (talking about you, Glenn Greenwald) went so far "left" that they starting adopting the same views as neoconservatives and even common right-wingers.  And, actually, not all of those Bernie Bros were genuine "lefties" at all. 

Remind anyone of this fascinating surface?

[stevenkesslar]

14 hours ago, Pete1111 said:

What scares me the most (and maybe this is part of our modern voting behavior) is how many Berniecrats thought Trump was clearly a better choice vs. Hillary Clinton and to a lesser degree with Biden vs. Trump. 

So the idea that Berniecrats are voting for Trump in measurable numbers surprises me.  Let me make sure I understand what you mean

Here's my main pushback point:  anybody who wants to see Democrats win should be grateful to Millennials and Gen Z.  Period.  No qualifications.  There should be nothing but gratitude that, but not for Millennials and Gen Z, Trump would have won decisively in both 2016 and 2020.  So many Republicans would have won that if they wanted an authoritarian dictatorship where - duh! - of course Trump and Trumpists win every election automatically, they could have voted it in.  They would have had a big enough majority that they wouldn't even need to lie about winning.

Now, all Berniecrats are not young.  And all young people are not Berniecrats.  For example, you didn't say "young Berniecrats," and maybe that's not who you mean.  Hence, why I want to check on what you know.  I have nieces and nephews that are Berniecrats, and not wild about either Biden or Buttigieg.  But they despise Trump.  So they made damn sure they voted for Democrats in both 2020 and 2022.

What we know for a fact is that 63 % or so of voters under 30 voted Democratic in the midterms.  And, like with every demographic, that was a BAD result for Democrats in 2022 compared to 2020 - being a midterm, even if there was not a huge red wave.  To put it more pointedly, lots of talking heads say young voters basically blocked the red wave.  I'm pretty sure a lot of those young voters are Berniecrats or progressives, or whatever you want to call them.  Same thing just happened in Wisconsin, to follow with my poster child of this thread.  It was young voters in and around Madison that made sure the election wasn't even close.  My guess is abortion may be relatively more urgent to young voters.

So instead of worrying about the Berniecrats, I'm looking forward to having more of them as more young people come of age to vote.  And more older Trump voters cast their final ballot.  Which basically seems inevitable.  Unless there is a huge and unexpected shift in ideology.  To replay some of my greatest hits, I could see someone like Tim Scott maybe appealing to lots of Gen Z types who like diversity and like small businesses and Main Street capitalism.  But the polls say they mostly despise Trump.  Trump's sure not drawing them to the GOP, according to polls and election results.

What kind of "Berniecrats" do you know that are voting for Trump?  Or can even stand him?

There's a few nuances that I can think of that would explain some of this. 

First, a lot of Independents are anti-Establishment types who would go for either Sanders or Trump before a Clinton or a Bush.  But that isn't essentially about being a Berniecrat.  It's about feeling deep cynicism about government and politics in general.  Which Trump uses to appeal to his base for sure.  Drain the swamp!  One wonders why, having failed to drain the swamp for four years, the same folks now want to give Trump another shot.  Indictment and all.  Whose swampy now?

Second, Berniecrats got a big disappointment in 2020, based on what they thought they'd learned in 2016, when Bernie won Wisconsin and Michigan.  The theory was that White working class and rural folks liked Bernie better than Hillary because of his populism and progressivism.  Or not.  The Wisconsin map tells it all:

In 2016 green was Bernie.  He took almost every county with 57 % of the vote. (The big exception was Hillary took Milwaukee.)

In 2020 blue was Biden.  He did take every county in the Democratic primary, with 63 % of the vote.  Turns out it wasn't so much that White working class and rural folks wanted Bernie's agenda.  One simple explanation I heard is that in 2016 working class Whites in the Rust Belt liked the old White guy better than the liberal woman.  When it was two old White guys running against each other in 2020, and Biden was the more moderate one, the choice looked very different.  All that grassroots organizing Berniecrats did in states like Michigan and Wisconsin to connect with the working class and win in 2020 basically got crushed.  And a big part of that spontaneous tidal wave is people just wanted to get rid of Trump.  And they saw Biden as the way to do it.

My sense of the movement around Bernie is that they are mostly pragmatic - like Bernie.  They know they are not a majority.  So they are taking their victories where they can.  And mostly they seem to know that to do that, and actually get things done,  they have to have a majority.

It is the somewhat older, more moderate, and mostly White working class voters that are the issue in states like Wisconsin, as Teixeira keeps screaming.  Teixeira's point is in part that the excesses of the true ideological Berniecrats, who have no love for Trump, does help drive some of the White working class toward Trump.  I think he is right.

 

 

 

[Mavica]

15 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

My sense of the movement around Bernie is that they are mostly pragmatic - like Bernie.  They know they are not a majority.  So they are taking their victories where they can.  And mostly they seem to know that to do that, and actually get things done,  they have to have a majority.

No, I don't think so.

[stevenkesslar]

On 4/17/2023 at 12:31 AM, stevenkesslar said:

My sense of the movement around Bernie is that they are mostly pragmatic - like Bernie.  They know they are not a majority.  So they are taking their victories where they can.  And mostly they seem to know that to do that, and actually get things done,  they have to have a majority.

 

9 hours ago, Mavica said:

No, I don't think so.

LOL.   Of course you don't.

Even so:

Progressives eye new Congress emboldened by midterm wins

Quote

Voters delivered victories to progressives in districts across the country, including in Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Hawaii, California, Pennsylvania and Vermont, creating a geographically diverse picture of where left-wing Democrats can win. 

Quote

Jayapal told reporters on Sunday that of the 18 candidates the Progressive caucus endorsed this cycle, 15 have won their races.

The poster child for both of our cases is Build Back Better. 

On the one hand, it was an embarrassing shit show.  And it made progressives look Not Ready For Prime Time.  On the other hand, it was a huge reach - especially given how divided America, and the House and Senate, are.  The fact that progressives got huge chunks of it, like most of the climate change stuff, was a huge victory.  Which I suspect helped convince young progressives to go vote in the midterms. 

On the days when he is not busy sucking Donald Trump's cock, I think Kevin McCarthy deserves a lot of credit for running a similar play on the conservative side.  There are only so many districts progressives like Max Frost can win in.  What McCarthy did is find women and conservatives of color that can do what Frost did in Florida in right of center and even swing House districts.  To me the 11th Commandment of the GOP now can be summarized this way:  "What McCarthy winneth, Trump taketh away."  Most of the heavy hitters in the Senate and Guv races Trump championed lost.  Most of the women and conservatives of color McCarthy nurtured in both 2020 and 2022 won.

Progressive Jamie McLeod Skinner would be a poster child for your argument.  She barely took out centrist Oregon Democratic incumbent Kurt Shrader in the primary.  Despite the fact that all the Democratic swamp creatures, starting with Biden, endorsed him.  What a progressive winning the primary in Oregon 5 basically did is hand the district to a Republican last November. So there are downsides.  That's one case where you can say progressives went too far, and just lost.  But, as Jayapal said above, there were a lot more wins than losses in 2022.