Jon Chait rhymes with Click Bait
I find Jon Chait extremely interesting and stimulating. I often check his blog and regret the rareness of his posts (look who’s typing). He usually overstates his case and has an even the liberal New Republic hippy punching background.
This subtitle is pure click bait
In the post Chait argues that the (surprisingly useful) concepts of Left and Right can’t capture the diversity of political views. In particular he notes the NBC-Survey Monkey result that a majority of people who support Sanders but not Clinton over Trump describe their orientation as “Moderate” placing themselves to the right of the median Clinton supporter.
It is clearly true that many people supported Sanders’s nomination for reasons other than his leftism — Chait notes that he keeps noting this. He puts it well
As I argued a month ago, Sanders has tapped into a good-government tradition that has run through a century of progressive politics, and animated campaigns by figures like Adlai Stevenson, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Jerry Brown, Howard Dean, and Barack Obama. Sanders has the image of an authentic, independent, non-corporate conviction candidate that contrasts perfectly against Clinton’s scandal-tainted persona.
If this is completely true, it provides no support for Chait’s subtitle. The claim that politics can’t be reduced to left and right is combined with the assumption that politics can be reduced to left and right, so if Clinton shouldn’t move left, she should move right. The subtitle is mere contrarian provocation, that is, click bait. So is mine.
According to Chait’s actual logic, to win Sanders supporters who don’t support her, Clinton shoult convince them that she is more honest than Trump. Since he is a con man and pathological liar, this should be possible.
The interesting question is whether strong support for Sanders suggests that Democrats should move left. Chait argues against this noting that not all Sanders supporters are leftists. This doesn’t follow at all. The general assumption (certainly Chait’s and mine) was that the label “socialist” was electoral poison. It clearly isn’t. Sanders calls himself a Democratic Socialist and leads all recent general election polls . He leads general election polls in North Carolina ! This isn’t your father’s electorate.
On issue after issue, the main stream Democratic position is to the right of the median adult’s (although elected Democrats are shifting their positions quickly).
This is true on Social Security, Medicare (click and search for “increase spending”), marijuana, taxes on the wealthy and corporations, , Medicare, and Medicaid, and Medicare-for-all (click and search).
The surprising support for Sanders is not all due to surprising leftism. However, it is additional evidence (as if any were needed) that the views of ordinary people in the USA on bread and butter issues are well to the left of those which members of the elite imagine ordinary people have.
update: Clearly Hillary Clinton isn’t following Chait’s advice as Dara Lind notes “Think Hillary Clinton is pivoting to the center? Her new video sure isn’t.
It’s a celebration of protests and difficult women.” What does the savvy disciplined (ok calculating) Clinton up to ?
Here the original point of my original post (which I forgot to type) is that Clinton absolutely does have to worry about Sanders supporters who *tell pollsters* they will vote for her. People who don’t end up voting don’t admit they won’t. In fact, people who didn’t vote don’t all admit it when asked. The key question for Clinton (and for Democrats always) is “will young people vote ?”.
This means that the problem is to get people who definitely will not vote for Trump but may not vote at all enthusiastic. I think this means that a lefty tone is optimal. In any case, it sure seems that Clinton thinks this.
Secretary Clinton has a much bigger problem than left vs. right. She has gone all in on a status quo affirmation of the Obama administration.
Defending this administration’s policies on the classic “bread and butter” issues of jobs and incomes is going to prove seriously problematic against any candidate who isn’t doing that. Even weirdly colored short fingered vulgarians.
But maybe she can hold it together. I mean she knows what a supermarket scanner is. Right?
History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes. (dunno who said that)
SNL cold opening sometime mid October – Set is duplicate of Clinton Vs. Trump debates. Amy Pohler as Secretary Clinton in a repeat of Jon Lovitz performance ca. 1988:
“I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy…”
I like Chait and this one confused me also. Seems like there is something there but I am not positive.
Could be that he is saying that Clinton moving far left enough to even capture the BernieBros of the world is not worth it simply because there aren’t enough of them. (My best definition of the Bros is that Bernie Sanders himself is not one). Even then, moving right makes no sense.
Meanwhile, reading AS it occurs to me that a thought I had months ago is undoubtedly true:
All Green Lanterns are BernieBros. And vice versa.
Left-right self identification is rendered meaningless by the fact that a large group values considering themselves moderates.
So the video is evidence Hillary is turning to the left?
The question is how many young people will bother to vote to stop Trump. They are not enthusiastic about Hillary and never will be. They didn’t enjoy being called BernieBros and being insulted.
Hillarybots like Chait and EMichael enjoyed using the African American vote as a club, but there’s a chance their turnout won’t be as high without Obama running.
EMichael much prefers hippie punching ad hominems to evidence.
And yeah, “I wear his ad hominems as a badge of honor” (hat tip to Dan Quale)
AS,
The problem is you think it is ad homs.
@EMichael
project much? jesus.
Perfect issue for Hillary to leave Sanders in her progressive dust and Trump in her blue collar dust: make union busting a felony. Only market in which one side may use unchecked market muscle by firing the other side’s bargaining organizers — to prevent monopsony (employer, one buyer) from being equally balanced in deal negotiating (that’s “deal” as in Donald :-]) with a natural monopoly (organized employees, one seller).
Oh, it’s illegal to muscle organizers alright — and nobody would argue that it shouldn’t be illegal. There’s just doesn’t happen to be any working penalty other than being forced to hire the would be organizer back two or three years later (w/minimal comp for diff in wages) — after which most are fired within a year for “something else”, having no union to protect them from such.
Everybody (most anyway) think of the utter necessity of making union busting a felony for about one second — about as long as it takes to reflect on the “immovable political object” of how things are set up now and immediately dismiss it from thought because it’s, too different or something. ??? Here’s a little formulation that hopefully can make the thought of penalizing market busting on a grownup level last a few seconds longer:
In a labor market where wages are set by what I call subsistence-plus — bottom skills paid by the very minimum below which no one will show up; better English, Starbucks?; better education, Whole Foods?, paid off in increments above the bottom — where pay levels depend wholly on worker compared to worker, rather than on what the ultimate consumer might have been willing to pony up (like we focus on in minimum wage discussions), …
… even with a labor force of 100% rich country workers (one example, primarily American born taxi drivers — who will show up for $800/wk but not $400/wk) wages will be lower than in …
… a labor market with 50% rich country and 50% poor country workers (possible population example, Chicago — 40% white, 40% Black, 20% Hispanic) where wage levels are set by collectively bargaining — according to how much can be squeezed out of the ultimate consumer (again, same as in minimum wage discussions).
Only look at France or Germany where a mixture of rich country and poor country workers does not put French or German workers out of work (think American born taxi drivers and the Crips and the Bloods). Collective bargaining sets the rate of pay regardless of who is on the receiving end of the paycheck. In Chicago fast food work has been outsourced to Mexico and India while Chicago taxi driving outsourced all over the world.
There’s possibly another election angle (writing and thinking): collective bargaining could render immigration much more harmless appearing to some. Of course we know Trump supporters are on financially better off than most — many but not all.
Anybody ready to think for a couple of extra seconds?
Making union busting a felony, automatically backed by federal and 33 state RICO statutes (the latter necessary to deter employers from pushing the limits for too long) should be a shoe-in in progressive states (WA, OR, CA, NV, IL, NY, MD) if someone would just make it a national issue.
Hillary?
Peter,
You have become a ranting loon.
But I do love the incredible irony of a post that say Chait and I “enjoyed using the African American vote as a club” wherein you use “young people” as a club.
What does it say about democracy here in the USA when the two candidates for president are the most disliked of any candidate who has ever ran for POTUS and represent the same small class of people?
Lee:
Than you for your comment. First comments are always approved. You are free to wander now.
Lee:
Most disliked? It would be hard to believe they are the most disliked and still the top candidates in the popular vote.
Lee Hibbs,
To provide the self-evident answer to your perceptive question, it says that what we like to think of as a functioning democracy isn’t one. I cannot remember any Presidential candidates running for a first term who are as widely despised as these two, and in any other year neither would have a chance. Worse, absent a wave election, it means more of the same old universal hostility once she has been elected.
American democracy is like going to a Chinese restaurant with only two items on the menu, Foo Yung or Chop Suey, neither of which either appeals, nourishes or tastes good.
I’m puzzled why when we are told there is a generational change coming, all the candidate are so old. In fact Alzheimer’s free second terms seem definitely low probability at the moment. If Clinton wants the left isn’t it better (and probably better from her own point of view as I guess from personality she prefers to see herself as part of a team) to form a strong team candidacy with a young eloquent representative of left wing of the party (a latino would be really, really good). This seems better than trying to change herself.