“Harris and her party were so lacking in any positive vision that the public used progressive culture to fill in the blanks.”
Great point, although I’d add: Just because Harris campaigned more as a centrist doesn’t mean voters believed she was centrist. Instead, they believed Trump’s ads about positions she held and defended over decades. Even if she had a more positive vision, it would’ve needed to be authentic, believable.
Harris was about as inauthentic as they come. She is a pure weathervane. Who could believe her promises about anything, left right or center? Seems to have a nice family and knows how to kiss butt and that’s it. She’s the nice aunt more than the crazy one, but she’s still just your aunt not your president. I wouldn’t trust her to darn my socks.
Great job living up to your handle there. Your type is who this piece is directed towards. Maybe read the article and try to understand it before commenting.
Thanks. Political writing so often feels just like self-promotion, moaning, or worse, often with little to no display of self-knowledge. Your writing is different from that 'norm', and I appreciate it for that reason.
My extended family, and many of my acquaintances, are Trump supporters---some gleefully, some holding their nose---and it does seem that the reasons you give are their reasons.
There certainly is a gulf, as you point out. I recently told a colleague (academic---i.e., 95% chance that this person is 'lefty elite') that I had returned from a visit to see my family in rural Florida (panhandle). Her response: "Ugh, I couldn't stand to be there." Apparently she was serious.
How can we say to people "yes, he is the enemy of people who wrongly treat you with contempt, but it is still wrong to empower a moral reprobate"? I mean: How can we say it without coming across as (or being!) just *another* contemptuous 'elite'? That's a tough one to figure out.
Thanks for sharing all of this, Michael. I’m really struck by the contempt knowledge professionals have for Trump supporters. Of course they’ll vote for someone who takes their side.
I live in deep south and have friends and family big blue cities so I see both sides of this and am always struck by how fundamentally similar the attitudes are. Theres lots of folks down here who refuse to to leave the state, much less go to any big city up north because they sincerely believe these are some sci fi dystopians with gangs and antifas running wild, murdering any "ordinary American" they can get their hands on. And the friends and family (not all of them) in the big cities refuse to come down here because they sincerely believe its all Deliverence over here. And on the few occasions they do come and visit they very noticeably and obviously immediately start looking for signs that it is Deliverance
lol. A friend from grad school came to my wedding (many years ago, in the deep south) -- it was his first time here. He asked two questions: Why are people so friendly? Where do you keep the guns? (I keep mine at Walmart.)
What do you want to say about wedge issues though? For example, if Trump gets a lot of electoral mileage out of immigration, it seems to me the only options for democrats are:
(1) move to the center/center right on immigration. (Ie, throw marginalized migrants and asylum seekers under the bus.)
(2) explicitly oppose popular GOP positions on immigration. (ie, alienate normie voters.)
So when I hear you say progressives should neither alienate normie voters nor throw marginalized groups under the bus, I do wonder what stance on wedge issues you think could pull that off.
Maybe you're thinking there's a third option:
(3) don't talk about immigration-- when questioned about it, offer vague platitudes and then quickly change the topic--and try to get voters to focus on issues where your stances are more popular (eg, the issues you mention at the end).
I think that the democrats need to face up to the fact that they were way too lenient with their immigration policy. They were reacting to the previous administration’s harsh and cruel assault on immigrants themselves. And of course there were plenty of immigrant activists who were pushing for an extreme reversal of an obviously unpopular policy. But these groups had an immigration policy that resulted in unprecedented numbers of immigrants that could not be properly processed. Only after there was bipartisan support for tighter immigration controls Did the Biden administration slow the unpopular flood into this country. Even a lot of Hispanic voters didn’t support this lax policy. They need to admit their mistake and propose a sensible policy with wide voter support, especially with Hispanics themselves.
Exactly, a big mistake was made in terms of the number of people let in and the lack of resources to process them. Sure Trump's policies were demonstrably crueler and inhumane but if the Dems can't learn from this mistake and advocate for controlled legal immigration they are hosed!
Why, exactly, is our past immigration policy "an abomination"? I still don't understand this.
People who rail against immigration and "illegals" never seem to offer an explanation for how immigration negatively impacts them. There may be a legitimate explanation, at least in some cases, but I have yet to hear it; and while I live in the northeast, I have many friends and family members who do not, and I read a lot of sources from outside the progressive bubble.
The US has been divided over this issue before. Many times. Frankly, I think the whole immigration "crisis" is largely imaginary at this point. It began as something real, but now it's just a way to stoke racism and play on people's irrational fears, with little basis in reality.
Of course, the Biden administration could have done a lot more to ease those irrational fears, or even use them by pointing out (truthfully) that nearly every time they tried to pass a measure on immigration, MAGA Republicans blocked it.
Do some research on how a huge influx of undocumented immigrants impacts poor and working class people. Illegal immigration benefits the upper classes because it provides them with cheap labor for nannies, home health aides, house cleaners, janitors, landscapers, construction workers, etc.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia held a union sheet metal worker job, in a country where black American men (citizens) have the highest unemployment rates of any other group. Research how black Americans feel about the priority given to undocumented immigrants by "progressive" politicians.
It's not that people who oppose illegal immigration are racist, it's that people who support illegal immigration are classist.
I have yet to meet anyone who "supports illegal immigration."
I will gladly do some research; can you point me to any reputable sources on how immigration negatively affects poor working-class people in the US? Articles, books, etc.?
A country where Black American men have trouble finding employment, yes, but it's a big country. Are you suggesting Abrego Garcia took a job that probably would have gone to a Black person if he hadn't been there?
The position of Black Americans is a larger problem, but certainly also based on racism. There has been a systematic effort to trap Black Americans in poverty and the criminal justice system going back to at least the 70s. This is a much larger discussion--I can likewise point you to some great literature on the subject--but what do you think the whole "War on Drugs" was about?
Prison populations were dwindling in the 60s and 70s. People thought they might disappear forever; indeed, that's the way it went in other prosperous countries, or at least the population continued to decline.
But here in the US, all of a sudden tons of Black Americans started being imprisoned for minor drug offenses, people started making money from it, and now here we are.
"People who rail against immigration and "illegals" never seem to offer an explanation for how immigration negatively impacts them.”
Higher rents. Lower wages, especially for younger and less-skilled workers. More crime. Crowded schools and emergency rooms. More welfare spending. Less social trust and cohesion.
Even assuming that were true, how has it affected you personally?
There hasn't been more crime, particularly violent crime, which has been declining for decades.
Show me data on schools and emergency rooms getting more crowded because of illegal immigrants. I'll wait.
As for “less cohesion,” give it a rest. What you really mean is you’re uncomfortable around people who aren't like you. I suppose you're also against people having different religions, wearing different clothes, and celebrating different holidays. “Why do they have to push it in my face??”
I’d like to move but am currently “rent trapped”: my rent is relatively low because I’ve been here for years. But why do things have to “affect me personally”? I have eyes and a brain. I can see deterioration. I can be concerned for the country as a whole.
This is a hard problem, for sure, and I don't have an easy answer. On immigration, I think progressives have good reasons, not just instrumental ones, to moderate (will write about this more at some point). On wedge issues, I think progressives should hold their ground, argue civilly, and be more chill while also focusing their attention on winning issues (mix of your 2 and 3, I guess). What do you think?
I guess I think moderating on lots of these issues is the way to go, and would want to resist describing it as "throwing marginalized groups under the bus", while understanding that's how it will look to people who think the policies on these issues that are in fact just are also, unfortunately, unpopular.
If that were the best way to advance progressive goals, I'd agree. As David Frum once said, if liberals don't enforce borders, then fascists will. This applies broadly.
But you also have to wonder whether moderating is good long-term, whether as a bargaining move it invites conservatives to take more extreme positions, and probably many other effects that are hard to model.
Progressives are kidding themselves if they think they haven't been throwing vulnerable people under the bus for years. You threw poor people in dangerous neighborhoods under the bus by defunding police; you threw working class people under the bus (especially working class black men) by supporting illegal immigration; you threw incarcerated women under the bus by forcing them to share prison cells with males; you made things worse for trans people by promoting males competing against females in sports (way to highlight the HUGE difference between women and trans women); and you threw Jews under the bus by tolerating horrific levels of anti-Jewish hatred on Ivy League campuses and in Jewish neighborhoods(the actual Nazis are wearing Keffiyehs, not MAGA hats). You are not the pure little "good guys" you think you are.
Both parties conflate immigration with illegal immigration. The problem is the former: that it is nigh impossible to enter this country through legal channels. If progressives want to affect policy in a positive manner, they should start by developing policies that welcome immigrants, especially wealthy, educated, and productive kind. We can take your tired, your poor, too, but not if we don’t make sure we net all the big fish.
No matter how fast the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and the environment and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach. Even more important, realize that the stifling maze of environmental procedures that now must be followed to build anything has raised the price of necessities like mass transit and housing that the working class needs to survive. Figure out how to build stuff quickly.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
This is excellent, and btw overlaps with a lot of Republican positions at the moment. Off the top of my head I and about 80% of Americans would vote for this.
Also underappreciated by the left: Trump is charismatic. It is difficult to comprehend, given that he is an old man who speaks in word salad, plus his other well-known flaws, but it is true. Look back at the primaries before his first term. He sucked out all the oxygen from everyone else on stage. That weird, dark charisma helps drive the cult of personality.
I wish this piece had a lot more on the damage of the innately authoritarian “trans rights” movement.
I cannot overstate the damage Everything Trans has done to Democrats. It is impossible for a normal person to trust a party that sees the question “what is a woman?” as a cheap gotcha and not an extremely simple test for whether someone has been completely consumed by a postmodern ideology (really, in its core essence a religious concept of metaphysical gender).
I have always voted for Democrats but cannot and will not until they are able to acknowledge that biological sex is immutable and unchangeable, that the civil rights people have to say they have changed sex in some metaphysical way do not come with them some other right to require others play into this.
You still don’t get it. We like his policies. USAID has been a leftie slush pot for decades. It toppled governments. Which it shouldn’t do. It kicked back money to Democrat pols. Which it shouldn’t do. The IC has been anti American pro-globalist since the 60s. We want it reined in. LGB was fine. Transitioning children without their parent’s knowledge is so bad I can’t understand where the left is on this. It seems the left does not realize how much this one issue hurt them. Joe Biden picked Easter Sunday and re-named it ‘trans awareness day’. Do you not realize how much that was a slap in the face to half the population? We on the right want good well-managed VETTED immigration. We do not want open borders. That is insanity. It is also insanity to run $1.8T deficits. Insane! Don’t you get that?
Tariffs are not Earth shattering. I have done some importing and buying things around the world for projects I have done over the last 13 years. Maybe $6M worth of goods. I have brought in about 120-150 x 40’ sea cans worth. Every country trades unfairly in many ways. The US is the least of offenders. China puts massive tariffs on US goods. Plus there are all sorts of other trade barriers put up. As far as investing goes, forget it. They won’t let you. They pretend to but they will never let it happen. Canada, my country, trades unfairly. Every single product has some tariff on it. It might be 3%, it might be 125%. Usually to protect a Quebec industry. Europe puts 10% tariffs on US cars. Trump said ‘fine. We are putting 10% on your cars. If you don’t want that, take them off ours and we will take them off you.’ I don’t see why anyone would object to that. Why is the left protecting Mercedes and BMW? As far as which is more important to me, both economic and cultural, both are so destructive. Canada during Trudeau Sr.’s rule ruined its economy by running deficits. You can do it until about 75% of GDP before it is apparent. You are well past that now. The US deficits are historic. Absolutely will destroy your economy. It has to be stopped. It is painful to stop it. You have ten years of hard times coming up. Less if you do it hard and fast. But you will wreck your economy if you don’t. And your intel CIA etc is basically evil and has had dirt on everyone for so long they ran your foreign policy into the ground. You might be unaware of this but Americans are hated around the world. It is because of USAID meddling. CIA meddling. America destroyed Ukraine, for example. It will never recover. The war should never have happened. It happened because American pols, mostly Dems but some Rs too, ran Ukraine as a giant kickback scheme. Russia had a legit beef against Ukraine. It was real. It should have been addressed. Instead America promoted the war. Slava Ukraini! Until, every last Ukrainian dies. Probably one of the most evil acts America has ever done. And stupid stupid left wing media promoted this idea of Ukraine winning! Against Russia!?!
Absolute nonsense. There were practically, open borders. And children are being transed. Puberty blockers exist. They are given to prevent puberty. Pre pubescent is childhood.
Just to clarify, what exactly are puberty blockers if not drugs to prevent…puberty? IE they must be given out to CHILDREN who have not gone through puberty yet.
Yes, you can, and I wish you would before posting all these absurd claims with no evidence to back them up.
No, despite the name, puberty blockers aren't prescribed before puberty begins, and there are many criteria that need to be met before they are prescribed.
...As you would know if you'd bothered to do any research. Here's a very simple explanation from a medical website.
Huh. Last I heard, most people there hated Trump and his policies, because they're largely decent folks who don't like being treated badly for no good reason.
Is USAID cultural or economic? Is balancing the budget rather than funding Transgender Operas in Peru cultural or economic?
Other than stopping illegal and/or immoral payments the only thing Trump is doing is putting on tariffs against countries ALREADY tariffing the US. Which to me is reasonable.
I am not a huge importer. But I have some experience. Over the last ten years I have imported about 180 x 40’ sea cans worth of goods. Maybe $8M. This is into Canada. And I have looked into exporting into China. Everything I have brought in has been tariffed. And throttled in one way or another. China is the worst.
Trump did not invent tariffs. Everyone is tariffing everyone. And worse than that, using non tariff hidden barriers.
Support secure borders; support Israel in their fight against Jihadism (which is ACTUAL Nazism); keep males out of female sports (otherwise, you fuel backlash against trans people, which leads to bathroom bills and bans on trans people in the military); support colorblind policies, rather than condescending racial policies that infantilize black and brown people; support strong police presence in poor, high crime neighborhoods; connect minimize wage laws to local housing costs; challenge zoning laws that limit the amount of housing built in low crime, prosperous areas; evenly distribute funding among school systems; and promote a public health insurance option. If the Dems do those things, I will go back to voting for the Dems in 2028. If they fail to do those things, especially the first three, I will vote for the GOP again in 2028. I am happy with what Trump has done at the border; I am happy with Trump's support for Israel and his opposition to the anti-Jewish hatred promoted on Ivy League campuses (Nazism began at prestigious German universities); and I am happy that sane, sex based rights have been restored to Title IX. None of the chaos under Trump is as bad as the terror of having a demented president asleep at the wheel while Iran gets closer to developing a nuclear weapon and unprecedented numbers of unvetted illegal immigrants (many of them violent gang members and sex traffickers) pour across our border in the name of "kindness".
Iran is getting closer to a nuclear weapon because Insane Clown reneged on the JCPOA. Republicans have been thwarting comprehensive immigration reform for years; the 2013 Gang Of 8 bill that passed the Senate and would have passed the House had it been voted on; 2018 after Insane Clown's failed government shutdown a bill that would likely have passed but Insane Clown reneged on it after self hating Jew Nazi wannabe Miller and Rotten Cotton talked him out of it; the 2024 Lankford bill that Insane Clown singlehandedly killed. Ethnic cleansing is a labor of love for the Nazi Party.
Just by writing sth like this half of the people on the left will call you a grifter/transphobr/white supremacist. Unless sth can be done about those people I will stay an independent, no matter what Trump does.
“Stop blaming voters. Trump won because progressives failed to offer a more persuasive alternative.” “Alternative”. Trump won because progressives have been wrong about a whole list of things. You listed many of them in this article. Immigration, defunding the police, cancel culture, etc. Combine that with the illegal actions the Biden and Obama administrations took like censorship, FBI investigations of parents, Catholics and political opponents, blue cities that look like third world cities, using the IRS to reject tax exempt status for conservative organizations, spying on reporters, hiding in plain sight a mentally diminished man who should have been removed from the Presidency, but instead actually was encouraged to run for a second term, etc. 75+M people saw that and said the democrats party is wrong about everything important to me.
You want to know what Americans think of democrats, look at their parties approval rating. I think only lawyers and used car salesmen have lower approval ratings.
While I agree with you that ignorance and disinformation are not the only issues, I think the fact that people supported Harris's policies while voting for Trump shows that they're a big part of the issue. Progressives absolutely need to reach out more to voters and explain clearly what's on the table and what the choices are.
I see so many MAGA lies being taken for granted even among people who are centrist. Abortion, trans rights, DEI, and even immigration aren't issues that directly affect most Americans--not negatively, anyway--yet that's all you hear about.
Of course, there's a reason for this. It stokes people up so they're distracted from the important things, and they turn against others who would naturally be their allies in the fight against elitism.
Personally, I think racism and sexism are far bigger issues than ignorance, and politicians have been exploiting it for centuries. People, including progressives, like to say Harris lost because she was unlikable or didn't have clear goals or all those nice acceptable reasons. I think the real reason is a lot simpler: Some people can't stand the idea of a Black woman president. In a way, what we're facing now is essentially backlash from Obama.
If we ignore that, if we try to claim that those issues no longer exist--I don't subscribe to the "both sides are the same" nonsense, but both sides do cling to that false narrative, in different ways--we will indeed continue to fail.
(Sorry for the repost, I posted by accident and then it wouldn't let me edit!)
Kumar writes “Once favored by voters with low income and low education, Democrats are now the party of wealthy, credentialed elites.”
That’s right, they are the party of the Mandarins. But Republicans are still the party of the Plutocrats, or what I call the capitalist elite, as they have been since their beginning (and even before)
The immediate problem from my perspective is as follows. Shortly into Bush II’s first term, I concluded that Republicans were worthless and swore off ever voting for any Republican for any office against any opponent. Having left a budget surplus, I saw Democrats as quite functional.
IN the 2015 Republican primary campaign, I surveyed the field and concluded the only candidate worth the powder to blow him to hell was Donald Trump. All the rest of the Republicans were the same worthless stuff, but Trump was different—possibly pernicious—but I did not think he had a chance. On the Democratic side it was like let’s take a page from the 1996 Republican primary. Just as it was (finally) Bob Dole’s turn (after everyone else had died) it was now Hillary Clinton’s turn. Well that when over for Clinton about as well as it did for Dole.
So now we had Trump. And yep he was pernicious (and worthless to boot). So Trump loses in 2020 and we get Biden and guess what? Democrats are now certified worthless. So in 2024 we have worthless vs pernicious. Some choice.
Whyt are we here? Aging dispensation.
How do fix that? New dispensation.
How do you get one of those? Don’t know, still working on it :(
Insane Clown in 2016 beat all the others because he proved to be better at being them than they were. Hillary flat out ran scared and her zero presence vacuum was filled by Russian bots and all manner of conspiracy theorists and assorted lunatic fringe. Biden in 2020 won by default because enough voters were sick of 4 years of non-stop clowning that Insane Clown basically threw the election preferring a civil war be fought over him. 2024 Democrats so paralyzed by polls stood for nothing and fought for nothing other than abortion. How do you get one of those? We had one of those all along. His name is Bernie Sanders. Insane Clown's own pollster Fabrizio acknowledges that Bernie would have kicked Insane Clown's fat ass into oblivion. Unfortunately Bernie is past his use by date and Democrats prefer Insane Clown to Bernie. Damn shame.
> Make no mistake, Trump’s rule is infinitely more harmful than the most extreme progressive policies.
Good essay but this goes too far. If progressives actually succeeded at defund the police all hell would break loose. Many extreme versions of left wing economic policy would also be clearly bad. I think what you mean to say is that Trump is worse than the policies progressives would have actually succeeded in implementing this election cycle. And on that I agree.
I'm really curious about Obama's immigration numbers and how many immigrants he deported. I know it's a lot, but I would like to see a comparison to Trump's numbers. I personally believe we should should increase the number of legal immigrants in the US because it helps keep Social Security solvent. I like to think of it as Abundance policy with large number of legal immigrants.
Beyond my personal feelings, I know that politically this is impossible. Democrats must be tougher on illegal immigration and close the asylum loophole if they want to win in the future.
Thanks for a sober clear eyed assessment, which I’m sure will fall on deaf ears. The Media Matters chart was eye opening and does not bode well for 2028 even if Democrats make changes.
“Harris and her party were so lacking in any positive vision that the public used progressive culture to fill in the blanks.”
Great point, although I’d add: Just because Harris campaigned more as a centrist doesn’t mean voters believed she was centrist. Instead, they believed Trump’s ads about positions she held and defended over decades. Even if she had a more positive vision, it would’ve needed to be authentic, believable.
Harris was about as inauthentic as they come. She is a pure weathervane. Who could believe her promises about anything, left right or center? Seems to have a nice family and knows how to kiss butt and that’s it. She’s the nice aunt more than the crazy one, but she’s still just your aunt not your president. I wouldn’t trust her to darn my socks.
Instead you got this Insane Clown madman. Hope you're happy. This is only the beginning. It will get a lot worse.
I don’t recall ever supporting the Clown, either. And those who did, sandwiched him around a dead guy. I’ve not been happy in decades.
For a dead guy he didn't do bad at all. I will take that or your aunt over this Putin wannabe madman traitor who belongs in jail any day.
Great job living up to your handle there. Your type is who this piece is directed towards. Maybe read the article and try to understand it before commenting.
Thanks. Political writing so often feels just like self-promotion, moaning, or worse, often with little to no display of self-knowledge. Your writing is different from that 'norm', and I appreciate it for that reason.
My extended family, and many of my acquaintances, are Trump supporters---some gleefully, some holding their nose---and it does seem that the reasons you give are their reasons.
There certainly is a gulf, as you point out. I recently told a colleague (academic---i.e., 95% chance that this person is 'lefty elite') that I had returned from a visit to see my family in rural Florida (panhandle). Her response: "Ugh, I couldn't stand to be there." Apparently she was serious.
How can we say to people "yes, he is the enemy of people who wrongly treat you with contempt, but it is still wrong to empower a moral reprobate"? I mean: How can we say it without coming across as (or being!) just *another* contemptuous 'elite'? That's a tough one to figure out.
Thanks for sharing all of this, Michael. I’m really struck by the contempt knowledge professionals have for Trump supporters. Of course they’ll vote for someone who takes their side.
I live in deep south and have friends and family big blue cities so I see both sides of this and am always struck by how fundamentally similar the attitudes are. Theres lots of folks down here who refuse to to leave the state, much less go to any big city up north because they sincerely believe these are some sci fi dystopians with gangs and antifas running wild, murdering any "ordinary American" they can get their hands on. And the friends and family (not all of them) in the big cities refuse to come down here because they sincerely believe its all Deliverence over here. And on the few occasions they do come and visit they very noticeably and obviously immediately start looking for signs that it is Deliverance
lol. A friend from grad school came to my wedding (many years ago, in the deep south) -- it was his first time here. He asked two questions: Why are people so friendly? Where do you keep the guns? (I keep mine at Walmart.)
What do you want to say about wedge issues though? For example, if Trump gets a lot of electoral mileage out of immigration, it seems to me the only options for democrats are:
(1) move to the center/center right on immigration. (Ie, throw marginalized migrants and asylum seekers under the bus.)
(2) explicitly oppose popular GOP positions on immigration. (ie, alienate normie voters.)
So when I hear you say progressives should neither alienate normie voters nor throw marginalized groups under the bus, I do wonder what stance on wedge issues you think could pull that off.
Maybe you're thinking there's a third option:
(3) don't talk about immigration-- when questioned about it, offer vague platitudes and then quickly change the topic--and try to get voters to focus on issues where your stances are more popular (eg, the issues you mention at the end).
I think that the democrats need to face up to the fact that they were way too lenient with their immigration policy. They were reacting to the previous administration’s harsh and cruel assault on immigrants themselves. And of course there were plenty of immigrant activists who were pushing for an extreme reversal of an obviously unpopular policy. But these groups had an immigration policy that resulted in unprecedented numbers of immigrants that could not be properly processed. Only after there was bipartisan support for tighter immigration controls Did the Biden administration slow the unpopular flood into this country. Even a lot of Hispanic voters didn’t support this lax policy. They need to admit their mistake and propose a sensible policy with wide voter support, especially with Hispanics themselves.
Exactly, a big mistake was made in terms of the number of people let in and the lack of resources to process them. Sure Trump's policies were demonstrably crueler and inhumane but if the Dems can't learn from this mistake and advocate for controlled legal immigration they are hosed!
Maybe it was all the murderers , rapists and gangbangers Joey let into the country 🤔
Why, exactly, is our past immigration policy "an abomination"? I still don't understand this.
People who rail against immigration and "illegals" never seem to offer an explanation for how immigration negatively impacts them. There may be a legitimate explanation, at least in some cases, but I have yet to hear it; and while I live in the northeast, I have many friends and family members who do not, and I read a lot of sources from outside the progressive bubble.
The US has been divided over this issue before. Many times. Frankly, I think the whole immigration "crisis" is largely imaginary at this point. It began as something real, but now it's just a way to stoke racism and play on people's irrational fears, with little basis in reality.
Of course, the Biden administration could have done a lot more to ease those irrational fears, or even use them by pointing out (truthfully) that nearly every time they tried to pass a measure on immigration, MAGA Republicans blocked it.
Do some research on how a huge influx of undocumented immigrants impacts poor and working class people. Illegal immigration benefits the upper classes because it provides them with cheap labor for nannies, home health aides, house cleaners, janitors, landscapers, construction workers, etc.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia held a union sheet metal worker job, in a country where black American men (citizens) have the highest unemployment rates of any other group. Research how black Americans feel about the priority given to undocumented immigrants by "progressive" politicians.
It's not that people who oppose illegal immigration are racist, it's that people who support illegal immigration are classist.
I have yet to meet anyone who "supports illegal immigration."
I will gladly do some research; can you point me to any reputable sources on how immigration negatively affects poor working-class people in the US? Articles, books, etc.?
A country where Black American men have trouble finding employment, yes, but it's a big country. Are you suggesting Abrego Garcia took a job that probably would have gone to a Black person if he hadn't been there?
The position of Black Americans is a larger problem, but certainly also based on racism. There has been a systematic effort to trap Black Americans in poverty and the criminal justice system going back to at least the 70s. This is a much larger discussion--I can likewise point you to some great literature on the subject--but what do you think the whole "War on Drugs" was about?
Prison populations were dwindling in the 60s and 70s. People thought they might disappear forever; indeed, that's the way it went in other prosperous countries, or at least the population continued to decline.
But here in the US, all of a sudden tons of Black Americans started being imprisoned for minor drug offenses, people started making money from it, and now here we are.
The prisons are not full of people convicted of “minor drug offenses."
"People who rail against immigration and "illegals" never seem to offer an explanation for how immigration negatively impacts them.”
Higher rents. Lower wages, especially for younger and less-skilled workers. More crime. Crowded schools and emergency rooms. More welfare spending. Less social trust and cohesion.
Even assuming that were true, how has it affected you personally?
There hasn't been more crime, particularly violent crime, which has been declining for decades.
Show me data on schools and emergency rooms getting more crowded because of illegal immigrants. I'll wait.
As for “less cohesion,” give it a rest. What you really mean is you’re uncomfortable around people who aren't like you. I suppose you're also against people having different religions, wearing different clothes, and celebrating different holidays. “Why do they have to push it in my face??”
I’d like to move but am currently “rent trapped”: my rent is relatively low because I’ve been here for years. But why do things have to “affect me personally”? I have eyes and a brain. I can see deterioration. I can be concerned for the country as a whole.
You can sneer but it’s well-established that diversity, especially rapid changes in it, decrease social trust. https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/9xa9wt/twelve_studies_that_show_how_diversity_decreases/
https://www.heritage.org/education/report/the-consequences-unchecked-illegal-immigration-americas-public-schools
https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116727/witnesses/HHRG-118-JU01-Wstate-CamarotaS-20240111.pdf
We have a way to process them. If there are too many to process, hire more officials to help.
Again, why is it a problem? Why is it "stupid"? How does it negatively affect the US to have people come here?
This is a hard problem, for sure, and I don't have an easy answer. On immigration, I think progressives have good reasons, not just instrumental ones, to moderate (will write about this more at some point). On wedge issues, I think progressives should hold their ground, argue civilly, and be more chill while also focusing their attention on winning issues (mix of your 2 and 3, I guess). What do you think?
I guess I think moderating on lots of these issues is the way to go, and would want to resist describing it as "throwing marginalized groups under the bus", while understanding that's how it will look to people who think the policies on these issues that are in fact just are also, unfortunately, unpopular.
If that were the best way to advance progressive goals, I'd agree. As David Frum once said, if liberals don't enforce borders, then fascists will. This applies broadly.
But you also have to wonder whether moderating is good long-term, whether as a bargaining move it invites conservatives to take more extreme positions, and probably many other effects that are hard to model.
Progressives are kidding themselves if they think they haven't been throwing vulnerable people under the bus for years. You threw poor people in dangerous neighborhoods under the bus by defunding police; you threw working class people under the bus (especially working class black men) by supporting illegal immigration; you threw incarcerated women under the bus by forcing them to share prison cells with males; you made things worse for trans people by promoting males competing against females in sports (way to highlight the HUGE difference between women and trans women); and you threw Jews under the bus by tolerating horrific levels of anti-Jewish hatred on Ivy League campuses and in Jewish neighborhoods(the actual Nazis are wearing Keffiyehs, not MAGA hats). You are not the pure little "good guys" you think you are.
Both parties conflate immigration with illegal immigration. The problem is the former: that it is nigh impossible to enter this country through legal channels. If progressives want to affect policy in a positive manner, they should start by developing policies that welcome immigrants, especially wealthy, educated, and productive kind. We can take your tired, your poor, too, but not if we don’t make sure we net all the big fish.
We'll take the poor who aren't wife beating gang members like Kilmar Garcia.
Yes
No matter how fast the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and the environment and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach. Even more important, realize that the stifling maze of environmental procedures that now must be followed to build anything has raised the price of necessities like mass transit and housing that the working class needs to survive. Figure out how to build stuff quickly.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
This is excellent, and btw overlaps with a lot of Republican positions at the moment. Off the top of my head I and about 80% of Americans would vote for this.
In other words be what most right wingers think.
Also underappreciated by the left: Trump is charismatic. It is difficult to comprehend, given that he is an old man who speaks in word salad, plus his other well-known flaws, but it is true. Look back at the primaries before his first term. He sucked out all the oxygen from everyone else on stage. That weird, dark charisma helps drive the cult of personality.
Yeah for sure. He's so funny too (and evil).
I wish this piece had a lot more on the damage of the innately authoritarian “trans rights” movement.
I cannot overstate the damage Everything Trans has done to Democrats. It is impossible for a normal person to trust a party that sees the question “what is a woman?” as a cheap gotcha and not an extremely simple test for whether someone has been completely consumed by a postmodern ideology (really, in its core essence a religious concept of metaphysical gender).
I have always voted for Democrats but cannot and will not until they are able to acknowledge that biological sex is immutable and unchangeable, that the civil rights people have to say they have changed sex in some metaphysical way do not come with them some other right to require others play into this.
You still don’t get it. We like his policies. USAID has been a leftie slush pot for decades. It toppled governments. Which it shouldn’t do. It kicked back money to Democrat pols. Which it shouldn’t do. The IC has been anti American pro-globalist since the 60s. We want it reined in. LGB was fine. Transitioning children without their parent’s knowledge is so bad I can’t understand where the left is on this. It seems the left does not realize how much this one issue hurt them. Joe Biden picked Easter Sunday and re-named it ‘trans awareness day’. Do you not realize how much that was a slap in the face to half the population? We on the right want good well-managed VETTED immigration. We do not want open borders. That is insanity. It is also insanity to run $1.8T deficits. Insane! Don’t you get that?
Tariffs are not Earth shattering. I have done some importing and buying things around the world for projects I have done over the last 13 years. Maybe $6M worth of goods. I have brought in about 120-150 x 40’ sea cans worth. Every country trades unfairly in many ways. The US is the least of offenders. China puts massive tariffs on US goods. Plus there are all sorts of other trade barriers put up. As far as investing goes, forget it. They won’t let you. They pretend to but they will never let it happen. Canada, my country, trades unfairly. Every single product has some tariff on it. It might be 3%, it might be 125%. Usually to protect a Quebec industry. Europe puts 10% tariffs on US cars. Trump said ‘fine. We are putting 10% on your cars. If you don’t want that, take them off ours and we will take them off you.’ I don’t see why anyone would object to that. Why is the left protecting Mercedes and BMW? As far as which is more important to me, both economic and cultural, both are so destructive. Canada during Trudeau Sr.’s rule ruined its economy by running deficits. You can do it until about 75% of GDP before it is apparent. You are well past that now. The US deficits are historic. Absolutely will destroy your economy. It has to be stopped. It is painful to stop it. You have ten years of hard times coming up. Less if you do it hard and fast. But you will wreck your economy if you don’t. And your intel CIA etc is basically evil and has had dirt on everyone for so long they ran your foreign policy into the ground. You might be unaware of this but Americans are hated around the world. It is because of USAID meddling. CIA meddling. America destroyed Ukraine, for example. It will never recover. The war should never have happened. It happened because American pols, mostly Dems but some Rs too, ran Ukraine as a giant kickback scheme. Russia had a legit beef against Ukraine. It was real. It should have been addressed. Instead America promoted the war. Slava Ukraini! Until, every last Ukrainian dies. Probably one of the most evil acts America has ever done. And stupid stupid left wing media promoted this idea of Ukraine winning! Against Russia!?!
USAID funded farmers, who are now suffering.
Biden never renamed Easter "trans awareness day," I have no idea where you got that nonsense.
No one is "transitioning children."
There were never open borders.
Absolute nonsense. There were practically, open borders. And children are being transed. Puberty blockers exist. They are given to prevent puberty. Pre pubescent is childhood.
Haha okay person in Canada. I'll just take your word for it even though I live in the US and have access to information
Just to clarify, what exactly are puberty blockers if not drugs to prevent…puberty? IE they must be given out to CHILDREN who have not gone through puberty yet.
We don’t here in Canada. Apparently there is something called the Internet I can check things on. It sounds awesome.
Yes, you can, and I wish you would before posting all these absurd claims with no evidence to back them up.
No, despite the name, puberty blockers aren't prescribed before puberty begins, and there are many criteria that need to be met before they are prescribed.
...As you would know if you'd bothered to do any research. Here's a very simple explanation from a medical website.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075
They are given out at the start of puberty. They are given out to children.
And you are living somewhere other than the US?
And you're from Canada?
Huh. Last I heard, most people there hated Trump and his policies, because they're largely decent folks who don't like being treated badly for no good reason.
No, I live in the US, I just read facts
I just did. I might be recorded as Pulseguy. Not Mystic William.
Is USAID cultural or economic? Is balancing the budget rather than funding Transgender Operas in Peru cultural or economic?
Other than stopping illegal and/or immoral payments the only thing Trump is doing is putting on tariffs against countries ALREADY tariffing the US. Which to me is reasonable.
I am not a huge importer. But I have some experience. Over the last ten years I have imported about 180 x 40’ sea cans worth of goods. Maybe $8M. This is into Canada. And I have looked into exporting into China. Everything I have brought in has been tariffed. And throttled in one way or another. China is the worst.
Trump did not invent tariffs. Everyone is tariffing everyone. And worse than that, using non tariff hidden barriers.
Support secure borders; support Israel in their fight against Jihadism (which is ACTUAL Nazism); keep males out of female sports (otherwise, you fuel backlash against trans people, which leads to bathroom bills and bans on trans people in the military); support colorblind policies, rather than condescending racial policies that infantilize black and brown people; support strong police presence in poor, high crime neighborhoods; connect minimize wage laws to local housing costs; challenge zoning laws that limit the amount of housing built in low crime, prosperous areas; evenly distribute funding among school systems; and promote a public health insurance option. If the Dems do those things, I will go back to voting for the Dems in 2028. If they fail to do those things, especially the first three, I will vote for the GOP again in 2028. I am happy with what Trump has done at the border; I am happy with Trump's support for Israel and his opposition to the anti-Jewish hatred promoted on Ivy League campuses (Nazism began at prestigious German universities); and I am happy that sane, sex based rights have been restored to Title IX. None of the chaos under Trump is as bad as the terror of having a demented president asleep at the wheel while Iran gets closer to developing a nuclear weapon and unprecedented numbers of unvetted illegal immigrants (many of them violent gang members and sex traffickers) pour across our border in the name of "kindness".
Iran is getting closer to a nuclear weapon because Insane Clown reneged on the JCPOA. Republicans have been thwarting comprehensive immigration reform for years; the 2013 Gang Of 8 bill that passed the Senate and would have passed the House had it been voted on; 2018 after Insane Clown's failed government shutdown a bill that would likely have passed but Insane Clown reneged on it after self hating Jew Nazi wannabe Miller and Rotten Cotton talked him out of it; the 2024 Lankford bill that Insane Clown singlehandedly killed. Ethnic cleansing is a labor of love for the Nazi Party.
Just by writing sth like this half of the people on the left will call you a grifter/transphobr/white supremacist. Unless sth can be done about those people I will stay an independent, no matter what Trump does.
Same.
“Stop blaming voters. Trump won because progressives failed to offer a more persuasive alternative.” “Alternative”. Trump won because progressives have been wrong about a whole list of things. You listed many of them in this article. Immigration, defunding the police, cancel culture, etc. Combine that with the illegal actions the Biden and Obama administrations took like censorship, FBI investigations of parents, Catholics and political opponents, blue cities that look like third world cities, using the IRS to reject tax exempt status for conservative organizations, spying on reporters, hiding in plain sight a mentally diminished man who should have been removed from the Presidency, but instead actually was encouraged to run for a second term, etc. 75+M people saw that and said the democrats party is wrong about everything important to me.
You want to know what Americans think of democrats, look at their parties approval rating. I think only lawyers and used car salesmen have lower approval ratings.
While I agree with you that ignorance and disinformation are not the only issues, I think the fact that people supported Harris's policies while voting for Trump shows that they're a big part of the issue. Progressives absolutely need to reach out more to voters and explain clearly what's on the table and what the choices are.
I see so many MAGA lies being taken for granted even among people who are centrist. Abortion, trans rights, DEI, and even immigration aren't issues that directly affect most Americans--not negatively, anyway--yet that's all you hear about.
Of course, there's a reason for this. It stokes people up so they're distracted from the important things, and they turn against others who would naturally be their allies in the fight against elitism.
Personally, I think racism and sexism are far bigger issues than ignorance, and politicians have been exploiting it for centuries. People, including progressives, like to say Harris lost because she was unlikable or didn't have clear goals or all those nice acceptable reasons. I think the real reason is a lot simpler: Some people can't stand the idea of a Black woman president. In a way, what we're facing now is essentially backlash from Obama.
If we ignore that, if we try to claim that those issues no longer exist--I don't subscribe to the "both sides are the same" nonsense, but both sides do cling to that false narrative, in different ways--we will indeed continue to fail.
(Sorry for the repost, I posted by accident and then it wouldn't let me edit!)
Kumar writes “Once favored by voters with low income and low education, Democrats are now the party of wealthy, credentialed elites.”
That’s right, they are the party of the Mandarins. But Republicans are still the party of the Plutocrats, or what I call the capitalist elite, as they have been since their beginning (and even before)
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-mandarins-and-capitalists
The immediate problem from my perspective is as follows. Shortly into Bush II’s first term, I concluded that Republicans were worthless and swore off ever voting for any Republican for any office against any opponent. Having left a budget surplus, I saw Democrats as quite functional.
IN the 2015 Republican primary campaign, I surveyed the field and concluded the only candidate worth the powder to blow him to hell was Donald Trump. All the rest of the Republicans were the same worthless stuff, but Trump was different—possibly pernicious—but I did not think he had a chance. On the Democratic side it was like let’s take a page from the 1996 Republican primary. Just as it was (finally) Bob Dole’s turn (after everyone else had died) it was now Hillary Clinton’s turn. Well that when over for Clinton about as well as it did for Dole.
So now we had Trump. And yep he was pernicious (and worthless to boot). So Trump loses in 2020 and we get Biden and guess what? Democrats are now certified worthless. So in 2024 we have worthless vs pernicious. Some choice.
Whyt are we here? Aging dispensation.
How do fix that? New dispensation.
How do you get one of those? Don’t know, still working on it :(
Insane Clown in 2016 beat all the others because he proved to be better at being them than they were. Hillary flat out ran scared and her zero presence vacuum was filled by Russian bots and all manner of conspiracy theorists and assorted lunatic fringe. Biden in 2020 won by default because enough voters were sick of 4 years of non-stop clowning that Insane Clown basically threw the election preferring a civil war be fought over him. 2024 Democrats so paralyzed by polls stood for nothing and fought for nothing other than abortion. How do you get one of those? We had one of those all along. His name is Bernie Sanders. Insane Clown's own pollster Fabrizio acknowledges that Bernie would have kicked Insane Clown's fat ass into oblivion. Unfortunately Bernie is past his use by date and Democrats prefer Insane Clown to Bernie. Damn shame.
> Make no mistake, Trump’s rule is infinitely more harmful than the most extreme progressive policies.
Good essay but this goes too far. If progressives actually succeeded at defund the police all hell would break loose. Many extreme versions of left wing economic policy would also be clearly bad. I think what you mean to say is that Trump is worse than the policies progressives would have actually succeeded in implementing this election cycle. And on that I agree.
I'm really curious about Obama's immigration numbers and how many immigrants he deported. I know it's a lot, but I would like to see a comparison to Trump's numbers. I personally believe we should should increase the number of legal immigrants in the US because it helps keep Social Security solvent. I like to think of it as Abundance policy with large number of legal immigrants.
Beyond my personal feelings, I know that politically this is impossible. Democrats must be tougher on illegal immigration and close the asylum loophole if they want to win in the future.
BLACK BODIES
TRANS KIDS
Thanks for a sober clear eyed assessment, which I’m sure will fall on deaf ears. The Media Matters chart was eye opening and does not bode well for 2028 even if Democrats make changes.