Do Democrats and progressives need a marriage counselor or a divorce lawyer?
Many moderate and liberal Democrats believe the party should sideline progressive advocacy groups. The groups sometimes make extreme and unpopular demands that damage the Democrats’ brand and prevent needed compromise. It appears to me that some critics would be happy kicking the groups to the curb.
I largely agree with the diagnosis (see here, for example), but not with the proposed treatment, for two reasons.
First, progressive interest groups are right about some important issues, and on these issues they need and deserve our support. Right now this is obviously true for trans people, who are being denied even the basic civil liberties needed to participate in society and avoid persecution. The Democrats should not just kick them to the curb. My point is not that trans issues should headline the Democrats’ communications efforts; under current circumstances that would be foolish. But there is no reason not to stand up for the right of all people, including trans people, to live their own lives in their own way, with their basic rights protected. I think there is also room to stand up for humanitarian foreign aid, which is popular when the concrete uses of the aid are described.
Second, it’s important to persuade progressives that they belong in the Democratic party. This means persuading them that they need to be open to compromise and tone down their unpopular rhetoric, but also that the Democrats can and will give them an important part of what they want. Few people endorse the more extreme items on the progressive policy agenda, but an acrimonious, public divorce could easily alienate reliable voters and cost Democrats a close election. It’s essential to criticize activists or politicians who make extreme demands, but that should be coupled with a clear statement of support for the elements of the progressive agenda that are fair, sensible, and popular (or at least not too unpopular).
What America needs is a liberal party. Currently, we have the extremist right-wing Republican Party and the conservative Democratic Party. There is no significant liberal/left party. More than two parties is unstable in our winner-take-all first-past-the-post system, so there won’t be a third party.
What America needs is to practice “non” judgement.
Also, to return to “I don’t agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say what you believe”.
Otherwise, US become disfunctional.
One of the problems with unpopular progressive demands is that many of them are not very real. Republicans feel compelled to reject them if their party tells them to reject them, even if there is almost no one asking for them. Democrats are sucked into the nuance of trying to explain what they really support.
I do not support setting up a situation where idiot young men can claim a right to enter girl’s bathrooms. I do support the idea that in most cases we can accommodate the desires of people who are not comfortable with the existing norms. Elevating the cases where private bathrooms are an unworkable solution seems like theater to me.
We have women’s sports. It is unclear to me why testosterone levels should be the deciding factor rather than X or Y genes. Someone gets left out either way.
Neither of these transgender issues should be allowed to let us backslide on teaching that systematic prejudice has had a real impact on American history. There is a limit to what can be done on accommodating some forms of diversity, but when science and history tell us that that the social advantage of accepting constraints on our behavior outweighs the individual costs, we should coerce compliance.
Sometimes that coercion is to maintain historical norms that some progressives think need changing. Even if things should change, some of the current backlash is the cost of trying to change too quickly. (Although most seems to be theater.)
Do politicians discuss nuanced issues without theater?
The Trump/Musk Administration is dismantling biomedical research, public health, the FAA, National Parks and Forests and US foreign aid. Their supporters are trying to distract Americans by pretending that bathrooms and sports are the problem and it seems people are falling for it.
I’ve been a long time fan of this blog and this is the first time I’ve felt a need to comment. As a progressive liberal myself, I’d like to know what progressive policies the author considers to be so divisive and brand damaging.
Fair question. There are some progressive slogans that seem obviously damaging – defund the police, abolish ICE – and overall positioning on immigration, climate, trans issues (bathrooms, sports teams, medical treatment for minors), and DEI and language policing hurt as well. Refusing to re-open schools and other institutions even after vaccines and paxlovid were widely available. This doesn’t mean that progressives are wrong on the substance on all of these issues, that’s a separate question. But even in cases where the public might be sympathetic to some aspects of the progressive agenda, centering issues that many people regard as secondary in importance can lead people to feel distant from the Democrats. That’s a big problem.
It’s not my claim that progressive rhetoric and policy positioning cost Democrats the election, though they might have. But I don’t see a path back to consistent majority status for the party, especially in the Senate, without either 1) a Trump-induced catastrophe of some kind or 2) a tack to the center by Democrats on economic and social issues (not all issues, but issues where the progressive position is unpopular). 2 would be better for all of us, but at this point 1 is looking increasingly likely.
Eric, thanks for the reply. It seems to me that most of the issues you’ve listed are only perceived as brand damaging due to incessant negative hammering on them by the republicans and conservative leaning press organizations. DEI was implemented to improve workforce diversity, a very popular idea. Defund the police was a response to police force corruption. Fighting corruption is also popular. Energy usage regulation is in response to climate change which is already costing the country billions and people need home insurance. I think that the failure here is in the inadequate messaging response from the democrats and progressives to conservative spin on these issues.
Educating the public would go a long way on some issues. I used to believe everyone was born XX (female) or XY (male). But there are many variations. Klinefelter syndrome is XXY where a male has female traits. Swyer syndrome people have XY but female genitalia, no ovaries or testicles. XYY syndrome, XY mosaicism, XXYY syndrome and several others. Maybe if people understood this they would be more accepting of all sexual variations and open to solutions.
Mark:
You are banking on a lot of understanding here. The point being? No matter what you tell some people, they do not want to accept those variations in chromosomes as reasoning for some people being different than they are.
@Mark,
As a PhD geneticist, all I can say is “spot on.” Thanks for posting this.
I know what you are saying Bill. Some people still believe the earth is flat and you can’t convince them otherwise. But there are a lot of intelligent people who have never heard of the above mentioned chromosome variations. Not trying is the ultimate form of failure.
The Democratic Party and the nation is where we’re at because the Republican Party has methodically pushed the Overton Window to their desired social order. The Democratic Party having lost 3 presidential elections in a row decided the Republicans were correct when they said/say the nation was a center right nation via the “silent majority”.
People are correct when they repeat the line: why vote for a Republican lite when you can have the real thing. Clinton won on progressive language, just go read his stump speeches of the first campaign. Obama did too. The party however knew their money came by being all in on the conservative idea of social order/money. Triangulation was playing the right against the left and vice versa while staying supposedly neutral to the electorate. The Dems got lucky with Clinton due to the computer/internet age arriving. After the Bush/Cheney fiasco, the Democratic Party/Obama had an opening as FDR had and they didn’t take it. Hell, Obama kept trying to do the “grand bargain” to the point where the Republican’s position of anything Democratic is bad, vote no actually saved Social Security.
Meanwhile, the Republicans were pushing that window. Using their extreme positions to set up the next “moderate” step until we have now arrived at full tilt extreme being moderate within their party.
The Democratic Party needs to start using the progressive wing for what it can give them: force to push that Overton Window back. Hopefully back to where the nation feels there is an actual middle. The only reason the progressives look “extreme” is because as Mark Johnson correctly notes, they have been the ones the Republicans have used in their tactics to convince the nation that Democrats are extreme. With this Republican tactic came their building of their own, personal information machine. The Republican Might Wurlitzer as it is referred to. The conservative Democrats have accepted this position out of their short-sighted plan to win elections. It also benefited the conservative Democrat in that it made them look “moderate”.
Funny this progressive bad thing, this let’s not go too far thing as this very attitude/position has let what’s happening today.
Think about how little the nation heard of FDR or even the very liberal positions of Eisenhower, Kennedy or Johnson while the Republicans were propagandizing Reagan as some kind of saint/savior of the nation. They were the Democratic heroes of progressive policy which the party intentionally walked away from because that Mighty Wurlitzer had created the “we’re a center right nation” ear worm in them too.
The progressives have been warning the nation about the Republican party and what it was becoming, what it stood for decades. Since Reagan frankly.
The only way the Democratic Party can start winning and save this nation is to start embracing the progressive wing. Full throated embrace. Use it to push back against the beyond extreme ideology of the Republicans.
It is and always has been an ideological fight for the nations’ mind. The Democratic Party abandoned their ideology for what they believed was practical. And here we are with all the antisocial, destructive “ism” that are currently popular to describe what this nation has now become. You can’t win an ideological fight if your ideology is little differentiated from the ideology you are supposedly fighting. I mean, why would one even fight such a fight? Why would one expect to win…anything?
The progressive wing is the appendage that houses the historical ideology of the Democratic Party which materialized in the FDR New Deal period.
Damn it, the F’n civil war was an ideological fight. The Revolution was the birthing ideological fight. We’re in an ideological fight and the ideology is with the progressives. It is not with the “moderates” as they only have an ideology of “practicality” which is not an ideology but a strategy and tactic. And it’s practically killed this nation.