I understand and appreciate what you're saying. I agree with it in principle, especially since Rs no longer will field pro-choice candidates.
But, at the same time, I am really damn tired of Ds essentially taking a knee in my local elections. My only choices now are extremists in every way. Even though I've worked for Planned Parenthood and strongly support abortion rights, I would hold my nose to vote for someone, anyone, who isn't full MAGA. . . or some other similarly crazy extremist from a third party.
3 years ago, I had a D choice for congressman only because he ran as a write-in candidate in the primary and managed to acquire enough votes to get on the ballot for the general election. He got about 40% in the general election, which was a strong performance. Local D organizers started thinking, "Maybe this area is more liberal than we thought if this guy can improve on typical numbers with a fully grassroots campaign with few donors, certainly no major donors. . ."
Instead of throwing support to this guy two years later, they stepped on his neck. They ran a candidate who checked all their boxes. When I asked them why they were so opposed to the grassroots guy the response was, "He's a good guy, but he can't win because he doesn't have the donor connections he needs like our preferred candidate does." Mmmhmmm . . . in the end, their candidate lost about 5% of the vote, scoring only about 35% of the votes cast. And now, it seems Ds see the district as hopeless again. 🙄
The reason last year's candidate did so poorly, IMO, was because she only had support from the urban center in the district. That is where most big D donors reside. They are important. But that's not where winning candidates are found in the district. Not in 25 years has a candidate from the city won. Their candidate was completely unknown to those everywhere else in the primarily rural district. And the local Ds are so woefully unequipped to run a campaign in the district that it was the end of summer before she finally started branching out to the local events in the district's smaller towns. She missed at least three major events in the communities that actually tend to decide elections for our district. She got very few endorsements, photo ops, etc from the small pockets rurally where Ds have (finally) started winning because average people are fed up with the Christian nationals who are far too powerful and vocal. The more successful grassroots candidate was from a smaller town, seemingly recognized this, and was rewarded by being pushed aside.
So, at this point, I just want our local D organizers to pull their heads out of their asses and find any candidate who can tap support in the smaller towns. I don't care if they are opposed to abortion because I doubt they could be worse than what I have now. The sanctimonious letters I get in response to asking for an open mind on abortion rights say things like, "Restricting abortion is for your own good! I'm sorry you're unable to appreciate that. But trust that men like me know a little bit more about these things than you." (Billboards from the local "pro-life" groups have started proclaiming, "Good for the baby, and good for the mother! So the letters echo that message).
I doubt a D trying to tap into a more moderate place overall would be quite so brazen. But, again, how am I worse off if they are similarly terrible? Because I'm proudly in favor of abortion rights, I'm supposed to limit my focus to only that issue and ignore the potential for significant improvement on other issues a "pro-life" Democrat could bring? That just seems short-sighted to me. But, I will admit that it's possible my thinking has become a bit warped because I'm so starved for an actual competitive election.
So very well written and exactly what I’ve been thinking. Not just about Klein in general but all those that are more about catering to what they think is ‘electable’. Just care about humans and their well-being - (ie… be a decent human with good leadership skills)It is really that simple. If, as a leader, you stand behind what you believe and your efforts are actions to lift (all) humans up, then people will want to be led by you. They’ll be activity working to get you in power. Once you start faking your beliefs or manipulating your words to what you think someone wants to hear, you lose credibility and become less trust worthy.
That didn't work when Bernie promoted it, and it won't work now. Backing an anti-choice mayor and complaining that "talking about identity politics like abortions and women's bathrooms" won't "help our candidates running in the South," didn't work for him, the Democratic Party or anyone else.
Support for legal abortion is the most popular position the Democratic Party has, including in Republican states, based on every election since actual abortion prohibition became an issue (vs. squishy declarations of being pro-life, with the corresponding ability to get an abortion when you and/or your partner wants one). If the Democratic Party starts backing candidates that are supportive of laws that lead to pregnant women bleeding out in parking lots, I'm out, as protecting people I care about from that is basically the only reason for me to support the national party these days.
I'd love someone to ask these men what fundamental human right they personally would be willing to sacrifice to help the Democratic Party win.
Klein is right that Dems are in free fall in many states largely due to a collapse with non-college voters, and if I thought it was as simple as running candidates with conservative positions I’d agree that it was worth it to stop fascism (my hot take is that a President Romney is worth the price of no President Trump but that’s another story). The problem with Klein’s take is voters don’t work off of a policy checklist—they vote based on general image and feeling. They want candidates who seem like they’ll fight for them, who they can identify with, and who seems “cool” to them. They often don’t know where a candidate stands on an issue, or even misunderstand the candidate’s position (think of how many moderate Democrats are mistaken for anti-abortion by liberals who are already mad at them over another issue).
Part of the difficulty in “red” areas is that even if a candidate can present a winning image, they have to overcome their party’s overall image that gets associated with them. Democrats for a lot of these voters are seen as distant over educated elitists obsessed with labels and language, and even if this is grossly inaccurate it’s a hard image to overcome especially when Democrats are so poor at media and communication. Even a candidate who does image right will get dragged down by the party’s image.
Republicans, as absurd as it seems, portray an image as country-fied, churchgoing, patriotic, and friendly to business—they spent a lot of time cultivating this image and Democrats not only failed to puncture it they often reinforce it (look how they just accept that Republicans are “Christians” or mock them as “trailer park”—RNC should be paying liberals every time they say that sort of thing).
Until Democrats figure out how to communicate an image that appeals outside their comfort zone, they’ll be playing catch-up for a while.
I am confident that this image is preserved via the right wing media human centipede, which is funded by millionaire and billionaire pocket change. The array of podcasters, pundits, influencers and captive news media help suppress the falsity. Nancy Mace is a great example of this. Another fake is Kennedy out of Louisiana. Voices critical of such figures are easily suppressed. We have not even talked about friendly algorithms.
Republicans have mastered media and communication due to many decades of accepting that the old media worked against them—stupidly, Democrats keep relying on the MSM and pretend there’s nothing they can do about it. It’s a loser’s game.
Ezra Klein is a smart guy, but like a lot of entitled pundits, he thinks that if we just pull the right levers and water down a few policy positions, enough Trump voters will peel away to our side. That is just flat out nonsense. This isn't about policies, this is about culture wars and years of demonization by the far right liars like Limbaugh and Carlson and Bannon. Voters, especially the ones likely to be influenced by the asshole right, don't care about nuance.
Perhaps Klein can put his powers of deduction to work explaining why so many voters pull the lever to vote against their own self interest, or why they can't seem to recognize that the GOP of today doesn't care about anything but pure power, and will steamroll over them just as quickly as it suits that purpose. They don't have policies, they have tweets.
They’re suggesting that Democrats support candidates with anti-abortion positions that would’ve been considered extreme for many Republicans in the 1980s.
That's where the money is. We need to break the oligarchy.
Pro guns, pro oil, pro war, pro prison individuals are not pro life.
You said it better but yeah.
Dan Savage (of all people!) hosted wolf in blue clothing Ezra Klein on his podcast last spring and Klein said people should stop making their politics their whole personality. I was freaking outraged that this rich white dude, who was referring to trans people who are FIGHTING FOR THEIR GODDAMNED LIVES was spouting this shit. I wonder how much if his "personality" is being wealthy and powerful? Imagine the rukkus he would constantly make if his money was taken away!
There is always going to be a paycheck for an Ezra Klein. It is a rock-solid niche...anything to avoid the elephant in the room about bigotry.
Another annoying thing is voters who want to pick progressive policies like abortion access but still return the unreconstructed party to power...which of course will repeal or have some deferentisl ability to end-around the voter initiative. You know, like Florida or Missouri or even Ohio for starters.
Well, to be fair, it's very clear, at least to me at this point in time, that cultural issues are what is driving MAGA as well as the lefties right now, so finding candidates who can straddle that world IS important. So for that reason I think he (and Bernie, who would have won) has a point, it's just that reproduction is wrong issue on which to focus, because although that has been elevated in salience, lots of voters who are fine with bathroom bans are also supportive of pro-choice stances. I do agree that the language matters, although pro-life has NEVER meant that literally.
I understand and appreciate what you're saying. I agree with it in principle, especially since Rs no longer will field pro-choice candidates.
But, at the same time, I am really damn tired of Ds essentially taking a knee in my local elections. My only choices now are extremists in every way. Even though I've worked for Planned Parenthood and strongly support abortion rights, I would hold my nose to vote for someone, anyone, who isn't full MAGA. . . or some other similarly crazy extremist from a third party.
3 years ago, I had a D choice for congressman only because he ran as a write-in candidate in the primary and managed to acquire enough votes to get on the ballot for the general election. He got about 40% in the general election, which was a strong performance. Local D organizers started thinking, "Maybe this area is more liberal than we thought if this guy can improve on typical numbers with a fully grassroots campaign with few donors, certainly no major donors. . ."
Instead of throwing support to this guy two years later, they stepped on his neck. They ran a candidate who checked all their boxes. When I asked them why they were so opposed to the grassroots guy the response was, "He's a good guy, but he can't win because he doesn't have the donor connections he needs like our preferred candidate does." Mmmhmmm . . . in the end, their candidate lost about 5% of the vote, scoring only about 35% of the votes cast. And now, it seems Ds see the district as hopeless again. 🙄
The reason last year's candidate did so poorly, IMO, was because she only had support from the urban center in the district. That is where most big D donors reside. They are important. But that's not where winning candidates are found in the district. Not in 25 years has a candidate from the city won. Their candidate was completely unknown to those everywhere else in the primarily rural district. And the local Ds are so woefully unequipped to run a campaign in the district that it was the end of summer before she finally started branching out to the local events in the district's smaller towns. She missed at least three major events in the communities that actually tend to decide elections for our district. She got very few endorsements, photo ops, etc from the small pockets rurally where Ds have (finally) started winning because average people are fed up with the Christian nationals who are far too powerful and vocal. The more successful grassroots candidate was from a smaller town, seemingly recognized this, and was rewarded by being pushed aside.
So, at this point, I just want our local D organizers to pull their heads out of their asses and find any candidate who can tap support in the smaller towns. I don't care if they are opposed to abortion because I doubt they could be worse than what I have now. The sanctimonious letters I get in response to asking for an open mind on abortion rights say things like, "Restricting abortion is for your own good! I'm sorry you're unable to appreciate that. But trust that men like me know a little bit more about these things than you." (Billboards from the local "pro-life" groups have started proclaiming, "Good for the baby, and good for the mother! So the letters echo that message).
I doubt a D trying to tap into a more moderate place overall would be quite so brazen. But, again, how am I worse off if they are similarly terrible? Because I'm proudly in favor of abortion rights, I'm supposed to limit my focus to only that issue and ignore the potential for significant improvement on other issues a "pro-life" Democrat could bring? That just seems short-sighted to me. But, I will admit that it's possible my thinking has become a bit warped because I'm so starved for an actual competitive election.
So very well written and exactly what I’ve been thinking. Not just about Klein in general but all those that are more about catering to what they think is ‘electable’. Just care about humans and their well-being - (ie… be a decent human with good leadership skills)It is really that simple. If, as a leader, you stand behind what you believe and your efforts are actions to lift (all) humans up, then people will want to be led by you. They’ll be activity working to get you in power. Once you start faking your beliefs or manipulating your words to what you think someone wants to hear, you lose credibility and become less trust worthy.
Ezra Klein is a liberal? He's doing a great job of hiding it!
Unfortunately it seems liberals are full of people with a lot of self doubt and a lack of confidence.
With "friends" like these, American democracy doesn't need any more enemies.
The Do-Nothing Dem leadership continue to dither as our nation is sold into Republican dictatorship.
That didn't work when Bernie promoted it, and it won't work now. Backing an anti-choice mayor and complaining that "talking about identity politics like abortions and women's bathrooms" won't "help our candidates running in the South," didn't work for him, the Democratic Party or anyone else.
Listening to idiots like Ezra Klein and Neera Tanden has a great bearing on the state of the Democratic party.
Support for legal abortion is the most popular position the Democratic Party has, including in Republican states, based on every election since actual abortion prohibition became an issue (vs. squishy declarations of being pro-life, with the corresponding ability to get an abortion when you and/or your partner wants one). If the Democratic Party starts backing candidates that are supportive of laws that lead to pregnant women bleeding out in parking lots, I'm out, as protecting people I care about from that is basically the only reason for me to support the national party these days.
I'd love someone to ask these men what fundamental human right they personally would be willing to sacrifice to help the Democratic Party win.
Well said! Acting like the GOP Lite has never convinced voters to leave the real GOP in any event, no matter what Ezra Klein thinks…
Klein is right that Dems are in free fall in many states largely due to a collapse with non-college voters, and if I thought it was as simple as running candidates with conservative positions I’d agree that it was worth it to stop fascism (my hot take is that a President Romney is worth the price of no President Trump but that’s another story). The problem with Klein’s take is voters don’t work off of a policy checklist—they vote based on general image and feeling. They want candidates who seem like they’ll fight for them, who they can identify with, and who seems “cool” to them. They often don’t know where a candidate stands on an issue, or even misunderstand the candidate’s position (think of how many moderate Democrats are mistaken for anti-abortion by liberals who are already mad at them over another issue).
Part of the difficulty in “red” areas is that even if a candidate can present a winning image, they have to overcome their party’s overall image that gets associated with them. Democrats for a lot of these voters are seen as distant over educated elitists obsessed with labels and language, and even if this is grossly inaccurate it’s a hard image to overcome especially when Democrats are so poor at media and communication. Even a candidate who does image right will get dragged down by the party’s image.
Republicans, as absurd as it seems, portray an image as country-fied, churchgoing, patriotic, and friendly to business—they spent a lot of time cultivating this image and Democrats not only failed to puncture it they often reinforce it (look how they just accept that Republicans are “Christians” or mock them as “trailer park”—RNC should be paying liberals every time they say that sort of thing).
Until Democrats figure out how to communicate an image that appeals outside their comfort zone, they’ll be playing catch-up for a while.
I am confident that this image is preserved via the right wing media human centipede, which is funded by millionaire and billionaire pocket change. The array of podcasters, pundits, influencers and captive news media help suppress the falsity. Nancy Mace is a great example of this. Another fake is Kennedy out of Louisiana. Voices critical of such figures are easily suppressed. We have not even talked about friendly algorithms.
Republicans have mastered media and communication due to many decades of accepting that the old media worked against them—stupidly, Democrats keep relying on the MSM and pretend there’s nothing they can do about it. It’s a loser’s game.
Ezra Klein is a smart guy, but like a lot of entitled pundits, he thinks that if we just pull the right levers and water down a few policy positions, enough Trump voters will peel away to our side. That is just flat out nonsense. This isn't about policies, this is about culture wars and years of demonization by the far right liars like Limbaugh and Carlson and Bannon. Voters, especially the ones likely to be influenced by the asshole right, don't care about nuance.
Perhaps Klein can put his powers of deduction to work explaining why so many voters pull the lever to vote against their own self interest, or why they can't seem to recognize that the GOP of today doesn't care about anything but pure power, and will steamroll over them just as quickly as it suits that purpose. They don't have policies, they have tweets.
They’re suggesting that Democrats support candidates with anti-abortion positions that would’ve been considered extreme for many Republicans in the 1980s.
That's where the money is. We need to break the oligarchy.
Pro guns, pro oil, pro war, pro prison individuals are not pro life.
You said it better but yeah.
Dan Savage (of all people!) hosted wolf in blue clothing Ezra Klein on his podcast last spring and Klein said people should stop making their politics their whole personality. I was freaking outraged that this rich white dude, who was referring to trans people who are FIGHTING FOR THEIR GODDAMNED LIVES was spouting this shit. I wonder how much if his "personality" is being wealthy and powerful? Imagine the rukkus he would constantly make if his money was taken away!
There is always going to be a paycheck for an Ezra Klein. It is a rock-solid niche...anything to avoid the elephant in the room about bigotry.
Another annoying thing is voters who want to pick progressive policies like abortion access but still return the unreconstructed party to power...which of course will repeal or have some deferentisl ability to end-around the voter initiative. You know, like Florida or Missouri or even Ohio for starters.
Well, to be fair, it's very clear, at least to me at this point in time, that cultural issues are what is driving MAGA as well as the lefties right now, so finding candidates who can straddle that world IS important. So for that reason I think he (and Bernie, who would have won) has a point, it's just that reproduction is wrong issue on which to focus, because although that has been elevated in salience, lots of voters who are fine with bathroom bans are also supportive of pro-choice stances. I do agree that the language matters, although pro-life has NEVER meant that literally.