Doing Real Politics

November 9, 2021 11:16 AM

Jacobin magazine collaborated with YouGov to survey working-class U.S. voters and investigate:

• - How can progressives win in working-class America?
• - How can progressives more effectively engage low-propensity working-class voters across lines of race and geography, especially outside large cities?
• - What are the electoral advantages and disadvantages of various kinds of progressive platforms and messaging? Can different progressive messages work in different areas?

Some of their takeaways?

Their executive summary:

Working-class voters prefer progressive candidates who focus primarily on bread-and-butter economic issues, and who frame those issues in universal terms. This is especially true outside deep-blue parts of the country. Candidates who prioritized bread-and-butter issues (jobs, health care, the economy), and presented them in plainspoken, universalist rhetoric, performed significantly better than those who had other priorities or used other language. This general pattern was even more dramatic in rural and small-town areas, where Democrats have struggled in recent years.

Populist, class-based progressive campaign messaging appeals to working-class voters at least as well as mainstream Democratic messaging. Candidates who named elites as a major cause of America’s problems, invoked anger at the status quo, and celebrated the working class were well received among working-class voters — even when tested against more moderate strains of Democratic rhetoric.

Progressives do not need to surrender questions of social justice to win working-class voters, but certain identity-focused rhetoric is a liability. Potentially Democratic working-class voters did not shy away from progressive candidates or candidates who strongly opposed racism. But candidates who framed that opposition in highly specialized, identity-focused language fared significantly worse than candidates who embraced either populist or mainstream language.

Working-class voters prefer working-class candidates. A candidate’s race or gender is not a liability among potentially Democratic working-class voters. However, a candidate’s upper-class background is a major liability. Class background matters.

Working-class nonvoters are not automatic progressives. We find little evidence that low-propensity voters fail to vote because they don’t see sufficiently progressive views reflected in the political platforms of mainstream candidates.

Blue-collar workers are especially sensitive to candidate messaging — and respond even more acutely to the differences between populist and “woke” language. Primarily manual blue-collar workers, in comparison with primarily white-collar workers, were even more drawn to candidates who stressed bread-and-butter issues, and who avoided activist rhetoric.

posted by PhineasGage (105 comments total)

The NYT had a summary of this Jacobin poll today in their morning newsletter. Same data, different editorial spin.
posted by Nelson at 11:29 AM on November 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Candidates who prioritized bread-and-butter issues (jobs, health care, the economy), and presented them in plainspoken, universalist rhetoric, performed significantly better than those who had other priorities or used other language.

That's the formula, in a nutshell. I'd say it's had a lot to do with Bernie Sanders' success... but also Joe Biden's success. The former is an example of a lefty using this approach; the latter is more of a moderate. But a lot of other lefties, and a lot of other moderates, have stumbled, while these guys have stayed relatively sure-footed, at least rhetorically. And watching the two of them work cooperatively over the past year or so has been inspiring -- it's a model of collaboration that it would be nice to see more widely replicated in the Democratic party, and in progressive politics generally.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:40 AM on November 9, 2021 [25 favorites]

So this looks really, really interesting - well done and thoughtful - and I am so grateful for the full PDF laying out everything they did and what they found.

I would love it, though, if they could follow it up with a similar study comparing actual video clips and ads instead of text-based "quotes" (they call them "soundbites", but according to the PDF, participants read the statements as text rather than hearing them spoken).

I don't know what the numbers are on how people consume the minimal amount of political information they get, but I suspect there's a whole lot of video. (Personally, I hate video and love text, but I know I'm an outlier.) In the survey, they put text labels on the hypothetical candidates (one for gender, one for race/ethnicity), but the way people respond to that as part of seeing someone on video is immensely different from how they respond to a written label.

I would love to see people presented with clips of politicians outside of their districts (seriously, how many people know who Cori Bush is outside of St. Louis? I didn't, before I watched Knock Down the House), and asked to choose among THEM, based on actual campaign clips and ads. I think that would provide even better data.

... I know an older person who reads the paper every day to stay informed, but is still a pretty low-information voter. They do not watch Fox News. They hated both Hillary Clinton and Trump. They do have a lot of Republican friends, living, as they do, among older people in North Carolina. In the 2020 election, they voted for all Democrats - except for one: Madison Cawthorn. They are not happy with him, and regret that vote, but at the time, he seemed like a fresh young face with new ideas. (I mean, even from way across the country, I could tell his ideas were repellent, but if you're not getting a ton of great issue-based news, maybe you're just going to see a young man who played football in high school and tried to join the Navy before his accident, but isn't going to let being in a wheelchair stop him from serving his country.)

I think there are a lot of people out there who vote based on personality and emotional response, and it's really, really hard to quantify that. And of course racism and sexism and ablism enter into those impressions (and classism - it's good to get confirmation that working-class voters don't like upper-class candidates), but I really think there's an ineffable quality to individual candidates that strongly affects votes, and that's hard to quantify and recruit for.

I do, however, believe that how people are introduced to new candidates DOES make a difference, and sending my acquaintance extremely rare, carefully selected video clips of progressives I admire, along with me saying "so this is who AOC is, I just think she's SO COOL and SO SMART!" (to someone who will appreciate her being smart, not feel threatened by it) can make a small difference.

Anyway - this is very interesting research, and I'm so glad to have access to the full report.

Thank you so much for posting this, PhineasGage!
posted by kristi at 11:51 AM on November 9, 2021 [24 favorites]

Jacobin funded report upholds Jacobin's policy and rhetoric preferences. Quelle surprise.

First, let's deal with the elephant in the room - the use of "working class" here most likely needs to be prefaced with "white". Which isn't surprising - the usage of "working class" in American politics has traditionally been focused on the white working class - but it's worth remembering that a large part of the working class are people of color.

Second, there are quite a few findings that strike me as pissing on my leg and telling me that it's raining, in particular preference for minority and female candidates. Yes, I get that survey results routinely say people are quite happy with female candidates - and I've also seen the fire hose of misogyny unleashed on actual female candidates from people who are their ostensible allies. The findings aren't lining up to reality for me, which doesn't surprise me at all - these sorts of studies have the underlying problem that participants want to project a more positive outlook.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2021 [29 favorites]

Rather than engaging in motivated reasoning, Jacobin acknowledged some different views, as noted in the NYT summary Nelson linked to upthread: "A central conclusion is that infrequent voters are not a huge Democratic constituency just waiting to be inspired by a sufficiently progressive economic message. 'That’s just a fantasy,' Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin, a socialist magazine and one of the poll’s sponsors, told me, 'and it’s a fantasy we ourselves have engaged in.'"
posted by PhineasGage at 11:58 AM on November 9, 2021 [27 favorites]

Jacobin funded report upholds Jacobin's policy and rhetoric preferences.

This is what I expected to see too, but I don't see that here. Specifically, "We find little evidence that low-propensity voters fail to vote because they don’t see sufficiently progressive views reflected in the political platforms of mainstream candidates" -- does that sound like something Jacobin would say if not forced to by the evidence?

The furthest-left leftists I talk to continually put forth the hypothesis that leftists could win if they would only be just a little bit more leftist, since people secretly love that (but only if done in the most absolute terms possible, I guess). The survey seems to confirm that this is not actually how reality works, as we'd expect.
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:01 PM on November 9, 2021 [35 favorites]

So, people vote for the in-group candidate who says the things they like the most. I mean, this is kind of fucking obvious, but it's incredibly important to have some science behind it.

Great stuff. Now if we could just get the democratic socialists to put on a wide belt and work-shirt, and tell it like it was.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:07 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

Specifically, "We find little evidence that low-propensity voters fail to vote because they don’t see sufficiently progressive views reflected in the political platforms of mainstream candidates" -- does that sound like something Jacobin would say if not forced to by the evidence?

It's more that at this point even Jacobin can no longer pretend that the white working class is full of temporarily embarrassed progressives and be taken seriously. Which is progress, but it doesn't change the fact that the rest of the report aligns pretty much perfectly with Jacobin's position of focusing on "class" based rhetoric that ignores that in the US, race is a major part of class construction. And again, there are the results that seem quite at odds with what actually happens - like what we see with female candidates.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:09 PM on November 9, 2021 [15 favorites]

Excellent, I always approve of people who discover again and again that nobody likes it when you use big words that don't mean anything.
posted by rebent at 12:21 PM on November 9, 2021 [13 favorites]

The full report goes into detail about differences between responses from white, Black, and Hispanic working class people. There's also a section on how they define working class. The results are also split by income, urban/rural, mental/manual work...
posted by airmail at 12:24 PM on November 9, 2021 [19 favorites]

the use of "working class" here most likely needs to be prefaced with "white"

As airmail just said while I was writing this response, there's a whole section on race in the report. Really this is very thoughtful research. I'm not a big fan of Jacobin's editorial stance either but you can't just dismiss teir work as some pinko hack job. I understand the full report is a lot to read but it'd be nice if folks didn't dismiss the work out of hand without even understanding what's there.

Does Race Affect Working-Class Voters’ Views of Progressive Candidates?

1. Respondents from all racial groups were equally or more favorable toward female and minority candidates than white candidates.
2. Respondents from all racial groups were strongly supportive of progressive civil rights and health care positions, but whites were less supportive than other racial groups.
3. Woke candidates were viewed less favorably than other candidates by whites, but not by respondents of color.
4. Significant differences between black and Latino respondents indicate that similar electoral appeals by Democratic candidates are not likely to yield consistent results across these voter blocs.

There's a lot of detail starting on page 74.
posted by Nelson at 12:25 PM on November 9, 2021 [51 favorites]

Nthing that this is actually much better than one might expect from Jacobin... because it's reality-based, on a really granular, data-driven level, and not simply an affirmation of leftist viewpoints and rhetoric.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:48 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

First, let's deal with the elephant in the room - the use of "working class" here most likely needs to be prefaced with "white". Which isn't surprising - the usage of "working class" in American politics has traditionally been focused on the white working class - but it's worth remembering that a large part of the working class are people of color.
NoxAeternum

You have this exactly backwards: that's the elephant in the room progressives must acknowledge.

It seems to be a bedrock belief of progressives that, since they are fighting against racism and for minorities, minorities in turn must agree with their positions and support them. This, however, is simply demonstrably false when you look at how minority voters actually vote. It was the rock that sank the Sanders ship (well, one, the other being the expected tsunami of youth votes that would materialize out of nowhere).

The typical progressive response to this is what the article identifies: obviously minority voters secretly do support progressive policies and candidates, there just hasn't been a sufficiently Real Progressive running.

You keep talking about "reality" and "what actually happens", you might want to look into what that actually is, not what you firmly believe it should be. And if you really take issue with the data being presented here, please present your own data supporting your own views rather than vague denouncements of the source.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:49 PM on November 9, 2021 [41 favorites]

MetaFilter: The full report is a lot to read but it'd be nice if folks didn't dismiss the work out of hand without even understanding what's there.

Also MetaFilter: There's a lot of detail starting on page 74.

I really, truly, deeply love this place.
posted by PhineasGage at 12:51 PM on November 9, 2021 [28 favorites]

It seems to be a bedrock belief of progressives that, since they are fighting against racism and for minorities, minorities in turn must agree with their positions and support them. This, however, is simply demonstrably false when you look at how minority voters actually vote.

Well, yes - minority voters expect that candidates show support for them in particular, which is the whole point of identity based campaigning. There is a long, ignoble history of minorities being used as the price for progressive policies, which in turn has minorities taking a stance of wanting to see specific support for their position. If you look at the report's race section, you see that their findings are being driven by how white respondents respond - it's very much "we shouldn't use identity based rhetoric because it doesn't play well with whites." (And yes, I saw that Latinos rated low on identity based rhetoric as well, but I think that's more because the grouping is much looser. The bigger takeaway there is that there is no one size fits all campaign model, because you are dealing with multiple groups with their own goals.)

As for the gender portion, that might as well just be tossed. The problem there is that we live in a deeply misogynistic society that nevertheless does understand that misogyny - at least shown outwardly - is wrong. So we routinely get polling that says that yes, we're cool with a theoretical female candidate - and when an actual female candidate presents herself, she gets to deal with a wave of misogyny from all sides.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:14 PM on November 9, 2021 [13 favorites]

Specifically, voters across racial and ethnic lines don’t appear to be fans of a specific kind of “woke” messaging; although they aren’t necessarily against social justice goals, though they aren’t fans either. Going off a quick read the non-voters are more conservative across the board than the rest of the sample. They also appear slightly younger, more female, and more Hispanic than the rest of the sample, and a good portion of them indicate they don’t pay attention or have much interest in the news. I can’t help but wonder if between Sanders and Trump the pool of “reachable” non voters was exhausted over the last few years. Really, you could probably stretch that back to Obama depending on how they identify nonvoters or infrequent voters. Still, not great news. Also, they looked at PA, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Nevada. I wonder if something about Nevada specifically is showing up here.

I was hoping this would show up here. I didn’t have a chance to read it in depth - just a quick scan. I’m looking forward to doing so!
posted by eagles123 at 1:16 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yes, I get that survey results routinely say people are quite happy with female candidates - and I've also seen the fire hose of misogyny unleashed on actual female candidates from people who are their ostensible allies.

I have been a feminist all my days and plan to continue. Nonetheless, I have accepted the fact that there will probably not be an elected woman president in my lifetime. Maybe a VP that has to serve, God forbid. As such, I don't intend to throw my weight (such as it is) behind one again, unless the primaries narrow it down in such a way that I have to. Even then, I'm not buying champagne for election night again.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the nations that have had elected female leaders have parliamentary systems in which power is distributed differently and you're not voting for the leader directly, instead for the party, even if people understand who the leader is going to be.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:50 PM on November 9, 2021 [16 favorites]

We won't agree about the implications, NoxAeternum, but you do crystalize the point of difference with the phrase "the whole point of identity based campaigning." That approach is what these survey data - and the most recent electoral results - argue against.

Black precincts in Minneapolis were more likely than other Democratic precincts to vote against the police reform initiative on the ballot. Democrats all over the country have been losing ground with Hispanic voters over the past few elections. Identity based campaigning isn't working.

To pick just one more example, if we doubled the national minimum wage it would disproportionately benefit BIPOC workers, exactly because of the existing disparities. Surveys like this make clear we are more likely to win elections and then be able to enact such policies if we don't talk about the topic in racial justice terms but in terms of basic economic fairness. This whole extended conversation is about how best to win elections, which is the only way we are going to be able to implement actual governmental policies to make this a more just society.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:52 PM on November 9, 2021 [48 favorites]

Thanks for posting this, PhineasGage - super-interesting. From page 13:

Working-class voters prefer working-class candidates.

Consistent with recent studies, we found that working-class voters preferred lower status middle- and working-class candidates over business- or professional-class alternatives.15 In our sample, corporate executives were
seen as the least favorable by far, with lawyers the second-least favorable. Teachers, veterans, small business owners, and construction workers were more or less equally popular.

With regard to candidates’ gender and race, it is common among Democratic politicians and the media to assume that female candidates and candidates of color are less electable than white and male candidates.16 As Perry Bacon, Jr. writes “Electability ... at times ends up being used as an all-purpose cudgel against female and minority candidates.”17 Especially in light of Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity among non-college educated white voters in 2016, many also assume that female and minority candidates are particularly vulnerable among working-class white voters.18

To the contrary, our results suggest that any politically damaging prejudices against female and non-white candidates have faded among potential Democratic working-class voters. Overall, we find that female candidates and candidates of color are at least as appealing to working-class voters as white and male candidates. Interestingly, and in contrast to previous studies, black candidates in our study were preferred over white candidates not just among black voters, but also white voters.19 These results hold even when we compare respondents in competitive versus safe congressional districts (though the respondents’ preference for black candidates was reduced in competitive districts).

Having an electable candidate is important, but that doesn't mean "a white guy" is going to be the most effective candidate - often it's going to be a working-class black or Hispanic candidate. Like Eric Adams in New York.
posted by russilwvong at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

To pick just one more example, if we doubled the national minimum wage it would disproportionately benefit BIPOC workers, exactly because of the existing disparities. Surveys like this make clear we are more likely to win elections and then be able to enact such policies if we don't talk about the topic in racial justice terms but in terms of basic economic fairness.

Now, how do you propose dealing with issues that are specifically about racial justice? Or do they just get dismissed yet again? This is my core problem with all of this - we've been kicking the racial justice can down the road time and time again. At what point do we address this? And here's the thing - minority communities are watching this - as was pointed out earlier, one of the things that sunk Sanders in 2020 was that he didn't make those specific appeals, and saw minority votes instead move to other candidates that did.

(This also brings up another flaw in this report - it focuses entirely on non-voters, while not considering the impact of such campaign strategy on existing voting bases, which is a huge oversight. Alienating your existing base while trying to get more votes from non-voters is a recipe for electoral disaster.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:17 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

things that sunk Sanders in 2020 was that he didn't make those specific appeals

Yeah I remember him getting trounced in Nevada because of all the minority votes he didn't get.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:41 PM on November 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

It's a really interesting report, and strong methodology*, and thanks for posting it.

Something that would have been a real enhancement and is more effort but plausible in this day and age would be to hire actors and film a series of video clips that could be cobbled together automatically to feel like a political ad and include the soundbite, occupation and day one priority. It would help make the exercise a little more realistic, and would also help with the unconscious bias and systemic biases others have mentioned. It's easier to avoid those unconscious biases when you're checking a box for a candidate when it says they're Black, it's another to watch a person speak those words -- especially if there are versions where there are more differences; a light skinned Black woman named Angela vs. a dark skinned Black woman named Shontel.

But you know, perfect is the enemy of the good, and this is a good study.

* I recently wound up doing something similar for Canadian politics, but with a much worse methodology -- too many attributes in each candidate to make comparisons reasonable or even mentally tractable, and random combinations that made absolutely no sense; I was asked to consider a hypothetical Black candidate who spoke Mandarin as their first language and whose religion was Sikh -- it is highly likely that there is literally not a single person in Canada with this combination of properties, much less one from the subset of people involved in politics.
posted by Superilla at 2:42 PM on November 9, 2021 [6 favorites]

(This also brings up another flaw in this report - it focuses entirely on non-voters, while not considering the impact of such campaign strategy on existing voting bases, which is a huge oversight. Alienating your existing base while trying to get more votes from non-voters is a recipe for electoral disaster.)

They surveyed both voters and non-voters, and rather more voters than non-voters. Page 41 is where the breakdown between those two groups begins.
posted by Superilla at 2:52 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

Now, how do you propose dealing with issues that are specifically about racial justice?

By winning elections so you have the power to enact change.

Or do they just get dismissed yet again? This is my core problem with all of this - we've been kicking the racial justice can down the road time and time again. At what point do we address this?

This is your core misunderstanding. No one is saying to ignore issues of racial justice. In fact, the report literally says the exact opposite (from p. 5 of the report):

Progressives do not need to surrender questions of social justice to win working-class voters, but “woke,” activist-inspired rhetoric is a liability. Potentially Democratic working-class voters did not shy away from progressive candidates or candidates who strongly opposed racism. But candidates who framed that opposition in highly specialized, identity-focused language fared significantly worse than candidates who embraced either populist or mainstream language.

It's not about the racial issues, it's a question of messaging, whether you think it should be or not. So work on changing the messaging. Progressives often seem to think that since they have the Truth on their side, all they need to do is proclaim the Truth and messaging doesn't matter. But it really, really does. Republicans understand this very well.

saw minority votes instead move to other candidates that did.

You mean Biden, famous practitioner of targeted identity politics, who for example won black votes by massive margins in the Southern state primaries?

You keep just repeating what you believe must be the case over and over and are ignoring actual data from the actual minority voters for whom you claim to be championing. The approach you're advocating for simply doesn't work as evidenced by actual real-world election results. This doesn't mean you give up and stop fighting for your causes, it means you find more effective ways to fight for them, and that means understanding how to motivate voters based on actual real-world information.
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:52 PM on November 9, 2021 [46 favorites]

I feel like some sort of incantation should be recited before we relitigate 2016.
posted by clawsoon at 2:58 PM on November 9, 2021 [16 favorites]

The people I know who were saying this in 2020 (in the wake of the Floyd riots) were called bigots. These people were saying exactly this - racial issues are important but but the messaging can backfire if racial issues are discussed in a white-vs-others way, and other people responded, oh, you must not care about black people. I don't have a perfect example to share, but it feels something that's happened over and over.

I feel vindicated, but I'm also worried this won't change anything. Will Jacobin be adhering to this in its messaging going forward? Do people who were in their heart of heats trying their best to get a Democrat elected so progress could be made on racial issues, told by leftists they "must not really care about black people", ever get an apology?
posted by LSK at 3:07 PM on November 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

(Sorry my message is a bit worked-up, this has been a hot button issue for me for a while. I thought about just not commenting, since I disproportionately comment on politics here these days, but I feel like it's a question worth discussing, and the topic overall is better for having a robust thread with tough questions asked. I'm optimistic overall and hope this can be a piece of the larger puzzle of Democrat electability.)
posted by LSK at 3:10 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

But its kind of a super interesting point and I'd love to learn more - that idea that the language of progressives on racial issues does not resonate, but the actual policies do. That's an OK answer then.

In a way this says the left needs to become more populist and reject the cultural elites (i.e .Jacobin)
Rhymes with the surveys we've seen from Hispanic voters and their reaction to "Latinx"
posted by JPD at 3:35 PM on November 9, 2021 [13 favorites]

Interesting, but I wonder about the methodology - on page 11 is a sample of a head-to-head candidate choice. My concern is that they are asking people essentially "would you vote for a hypothetical [Black|White|Asian...] candidate in the abstract", but are not doing compaisons of actual candidates.

Is there research showing that self-reports like this actually are valid predictors of actual voting behavior, viz. racisim, implicit bias, etc?

Also, the entire sample was from YouGov:

"For this survey, we drew upon YouGov’s online panel of two million respon- dents in the United States. YouGov’s sample is a nonrandom, opt-in pool of respondents. To approximate a random sample of the United States population, YouGov employs a statistical procedure to identify individuals in the panel that are as similar as possible to randomly chosen individuals from the US population"

Sure, you can get a demographic match, but that doesn't control for the differnece which is "volunteered to participate in YouGov" which I would expect is an important one?
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:44 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

I read Canceling Comedians While The World Burns a few weeks ago, and felt that it discusses this problem really well. It's a critique of the Left (methods) coming from the Left (the writer is a Democratic Socialist). The thesis is pretty much "stop dunking on each other and promote good policies instead!"
posted by hopeless romantique at 3:45 PM on November 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

To the contrary, our results suggest that any politically damaging prejudices against female and non-white candidates have faded among potential Democratic working-class voters. Overall, we find that female candidates and candidates of color are at least as appealing to working-class voters as white and male candidates.

This quote alone tells us how utterly worthless this "research" is. Nobody needs to read to page 78 and beyond. This is all we need, because this is proof that their research has yielded verifiably false results.

I can't believe how many of you are taking this seriously in spite of the dang thing literally claiming there's no evidence of any prejudice against minority or female candidates. This is the equivalent of your math problem yielding a divide-by-zero result: if you don't take this as a sign that your work is flawed and you need to start over, you're not of sound mind.
posted by MiraK at 3:58 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

That "Canceling Comedians While The World Burns" title sure throws trans people under the bus, doesn't it?
posted by sagc at 4:05 PM on November 9, 2021 [15 favorites]

This quote alone tells us how utterly worthless this "research" is. Nobody needs to read to page 78 and beyond. This is all we need, because this is proof that their research has yielded verifiably false results.

Do you have data? Because they do. If you're going to say their study is "verifiably false," I'd be interested to see the verification.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:09 PM on November 9, 2021 [17 favorites]

It's a critique of the Left (methods) coming from the Left (the writer is a Democratic Socialist).

Yes, yes, brocialists lecturing us about the harms of identity politics is nothing new at all. It's Jacobin's entire brand, it's what all the infighting on MeFi is about, it's why this thread is already so full of leftists wagging their fingers at BLM activists and others who dare to openly speak about other progressive causes rather than stick to class alone. It's par for the course for this particular subset to think trans people's rights are not worth canceling anyone for.

Do you have data? Because they do.

I have reality on my side. *shrug* Since their data tells me that reality isn't real, their data is worthless. I don't believe it should be controversial on MeFi of all places to say that there does still exist prejudice against non-white, non-male, non-cis, non-straight political candidates. IDK if I'm wrong about that.
posted by MiraK at 4:10 PM on November 9, 2021 [11 favorites]

That "Canceling Comedians While The World Burns" title sure throws trans people under the bus, doesn't it?

I mean, only if you believe that yelling at people for telling offensive jokes is more important than universal health care, paid leave, minimum wage, or other actual quality of life improvements.
posted by hopeless romantique at 4:16 PM on November 9, 2021 [6 favorites]

Everyone believes their opinions represents reality. The purpose of doing research and polling is to get beyond one's own epistemic bubble.

I don't see this study as correlating so neatly with the opinions I've previously seen published on Jacobin. But whether it does or not, they went out and talked to a bunch of people -- they got outside their bubble. Kudos to them for that.

You're free to disregard the opinions of the people they surveyed, because of your views about Jacobin, but that kind of looks like shooting the messenger. Any politician who wants to get, and stay, elected, disregards public opinion at their peril.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:17 PM on November 9, 2021 [11 favorites]

No, hopeless romantique, I mean titling the essay that pretty directly attacks any trans person who does, in fact, dislike Dave Chappelle, including the ones who walked out from Netflix?
posted by sagc at 4:17 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

if you believe that yelling at people for telling offensive jokes is more important than universal health care, paid leave, minimum wage, or other actual quality of life improvements.

Are those our options? EITHER we care about universal health care, paid leave, and all that OR we get to tell at people for telling transphobic jokes? And we're only allowed to pick one??

Golly I guess you're right, those of us who chose to do the yelling sure have some fucked up priorities.

On the other hand, if it turns out we are allowed to pick "all of the above", that says something rather terrible about the folks who not only picked just one but also decided to yell at everyone who picked both.

Everyone believes their opinions represents reality. The purpose of doing research and polling is to get beyond one's own epistemic bubble.

Sorry but it isn't an opinion that there exists prejudice against minority and female political candidates. It is objective reality. Stop arguing that bigotry has stopped existing among the Democrat voting public, please. That is a fucked up thing for you to argue. You can try explaining Jacobin's research that contradicts reality in some other way, not by suggesting that reality is just an opinion.
posted by MiraK at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2021 [12 favorites]

MiraK, they are very much not claiming "there's no evidence of any prejudice against minority or female candidates". They're saying that prejudice against minority or female candidates does not, overall, affect their appeal to working class voters. To me, this is not hugely surprising considering there are tons and tons of women and people of color in the working class.
posted by thedamnbees at 4:23 PM on November 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

This is your core misunderstanding. No one is saying to ignore issues of racial justice. In fact, the report literally says the exact opposite (from p. 5 of the report):

Yes, the report says "hey, we don't have to give up on social justice issues, as long as we don't, you know, talk about them." Identity politics didn't just emerge spontaneously - it was a response to the refusal to address issues specifically affecting groups, by demanding that they be addressed. And that's the thing to note here - while this is being framed as just a change in messaging, what's actually being called for is the silencing of activists in favor of a "class" based messaging that intentionally leaves out the specific issues they are fighting for. "Strongly opposing racism" is the sort of phrasing that sounds great but is actually meaningless because it says nothing about how racism should be opposed.

Do you have data? Because they do. If you're going to say their study is "verifiably false," I'd be interested to see the verification.

This is something we've seen over and over with this sort of polling - the poll says that there's no bias against a female candidate (this is because we ostensibly say that misogyny and sexism are wrong), but when an actual female candidate comes forth, they are barraged by misogyny often framed as "criticism" (because we actually live in a deeply misogynistic society.) If your poll is saying "no, really, we don't live in a sexist culture", that's a sign that your model needs work.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:24 PM on November 9, 2021 [13 favorites]

I mean, only if you believe that yelling at people for telling offensive jokes is more important than universal health care, paid leave, minimum wage, or other actual quality of life improvements.

Ah yes, the famous "I'm for worker solidarity, but only if they aren't organizing for trans issues, that would be identity politics", "I'm for healthcare, but maybe funding those controversial id-pol procedures is a bit too far to ask the working class to accept right now?", "Do we really want to prevent supporters of M4A from speaking just because they're prominent members of the Traditional Workers Party & sieg-heil one too many times?", etc.

Are there things we believe in or are we fine following focus groups down to just the right level of xenophobia to capture 51% of the vote?
posted by CrystalDave at 4:28 PM on November 9, 2021 [9 favorites]

They're saying that prejudice against minority or female candidates does not, overall, affect their appeal to working class voters.

And the point Mira and myself are making is that this is frankly bullshit, given how actual minority and female candidates get treated. Again, this is sort of an endemic issue because of how we talk about misogyny and racism in public versus how we deal with it culturally - the massive disconnect between the two makes polling here questionable at best.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:30 PM on November 9, 2021 [9 favorites]

Study: "To the contrary, our results suggest that any politically damaging prejudices against female and non-white candidates have faded among potential Democratic working-class voters. Overall, we find that female candidates and candidates of color are at least as appealing to working-class voters as white and male candidates."

This quote alone tells us how utterly worthless this "research" is. Nobody needs to read to page 78 and beyond. This is all we need, because this is proof that their research has yielded verifiably false results. I can't believe how many of you are taking this seriously in spite of the dang thing literally claiming there's no evidence of any prejudice against minority or female candidates.

Perhaps there is more than one reason that minority and/or female candidates do poorly in politics other than the biases of working class voters. Perhaps the non-working class Democratic/independent voters are biased against them. Perhaps the news media and social media are biased against them. Perhaps the fundraising class are biased against them. Perhaps the party apparatus is biased against them. Perhaps social equity problems prevent minorities and/or women from entering politics at all, or at least at the same rates as white men.

By assuming that since they do worse it must be voter bias -- to the point that any indication that voter bias is not strong ipso facto invalidates a study -- then you are also arguing that they are fighting on a fair playing field since these other explanations must not be the reason. Did you mean to come into this thread and give a hot take against the existence of structural racism?
posted by Superilla at 4:30 PM on November 9, 2021 [17 favorites]

They're saying that prejudice against minority or female candidates does not, overall, affect their appeal to working class voters

Yes, and that claim directly contradicts reality. If you doubt this, please take a look at election results nationwide and do a statistical analysis on the demographic characteristics of the candidates that actual voters found most appealing. Among working class democrat voters, or any other subsection of voters you like. There has never been a subsection of voters who find female and minority candidates exactly as appealing as white males across all nationwide elections. Single candidates have occasionally managed to pull extra support (e.g. Obama) but one Obama did not cause every other Black person running in every other race across the country to appeal to working class Democrats exactly as much as any white male.
posted by MiraK at 4:31 PM on November 9, 2021

It's utterly bizarre how "the data shows that people care about and are responsive to racial justice issues, it's just the particular messaging used that can turn them off" somehow becomes "So I guess we should just abandon fighting for racial justice at all, then!". Is the idea that the current approach isn't completely perfect and maybe a different approach might garner more support really so unthinkable that it needs to be rejected out of hand and attacked as a betrayal of principles?

Sheesh, some people here are engaging with this in almost willful bad fatih.
posted by star gentle uterus at 4:32 PM on November 9, 2021 [37 favorites]

If you doubt this, please take a look at election results nationwide and do a statistical analysis on the demographic characteristics of the candidates that actual voters found most appealing. Among working class democrat voters, or any other subsection of voters you like. They did NOT find female and minority candidates exactly as appealing as white males in reality.

Then just show this and stop with the screeds. Seriously, if this is so obvious and simple then just show us exactly what you've written here. Otherwise it's pointless to keep popping in here and insisting over and over that the numbers in this report are all wrong. If they're as ridiculous and wrong and counter to reality as you say then it should be trivial to demonstrate that.
posted by star gentle uterus at 4:35 PM on November 9, 2021 [17 favorites]

Yes, and that claim directly contradicts reality. If you doubt this, please take a look at election results nationwide and do a statistical analysis on the demographic characteristics of the candidates that actual voters found most appealing. Among working class democrat voters, or any other subsection of voters you like. There has never been a subsection of voters who find female and minority candidates exactly as appealing as white males across all nationwide elections.

This fact does not contradict their results, no matter how hard you assert it.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:36 PM on November 9, 2021 [9 favorites]

Perhaps there is more than one reason that minority and/or female candidates do poorly in politics other than the biases of working class voters

Really?

Are you seriously going to argue we should not draw conclusions about the aggregate racial or gender preferences of voters based on the aggregate racial and gender characteristics of the people they vote for?

This is the exact same kind of gaslighting as when someone experiences racism and you ask, "Well, how do you know it was racially motivated? That person SAID they aren't a racist. It might be some other factor that caused them to treat you this way."

Then just show this and stop with the screeds. Seriously, if this is so obvious and simple then just show us exactly what you've written here.

No, thanks, I'm not interested in proving the existence of racism and sexism to you. I'll bow out of this discussion, cheers. No more screeds.
posted by MiraK at 4:39 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

If you do bow back in to take a peek, please just consider the possibility that no one is denying the existence of sexism or racism but that voter behaviors might be more complex or nuanced than you seem to believe.
posted by star gentle uterus at 4:44 PM on November 9, 2021 [23 favorites]

Potentially Democratic working-class voters did not shy away from progressive candidates or candidates who strongly opposed racism. But candidates who framed that opposition in highly specialized, identity-focused language fared significantly worse than candidates who embraced either populist or mainstream language.

For those who have read the full report, do they give examples of what the populist version of strong anti-racist language sounds like?
posted by clawsoon at 4:45 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

In particular, what's the populist language for police reform?

Asshole billionaires have been winning working-class votes by paying people to craft populist language for the most obviously anti-working-class ideas possible, so surely there are ways to craft convincing populist language around progressive ideas.
posted by clawsoon at 4:53 PM on November 9, 2021 [12 favorites]

It's utterly bizarre how "the data shows that people care about and are responsive to racial justice issues, it's just the particular messaging used that can turn them off" somehow becomes "So I guess we should just abandon fighting for racial justice at all, then!"

Again, the whole reason that identity politics came about was in response to candidates who would say that they "stridently oppose racism" while doing nothing to address racism, to make them actually address racism (and other such issues.) This isn't changing messaging, it's saying to stop talking about these issues because they "scare off" working class voters (that is, white voters don't like confronting our country's toxic legacy.) Someone who says they are receptive to racial justice issues as long as you don't actually talk about them isn't actually receptive.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:57 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

MiraK, they are not saying prejudice doesn't exist!
Take Obama as an example, I think we can agree that a lot of people did not vote for him because of racial prejudice - there are lots of racists in the USA. On the other hand, i think there were also a whole lot of people (i would guess most Americans here on Mefi), who were pretty damn stoked to cast a ballot for the first ever black american president. It's easy to see how the prejudiced, racist voters could have had less impact on Obama's overall appeal than all the voters who thought it was about goddamn time for a black president. If that were the case, we could say that despite racist and prejudiced voters, Obama's racial identity did not reduce his overall appeal.
posted by thedamnbees at 5:02 PM on November 9, 2021

This isn't changing messaging, it's saying to stop talking about these issues because they "scare off" working class voters (that is, white voters don't like confronting our country's toxic legacy.)

But this framing is the problem. Take the example brought up above about the rejection of the police reform initiative in Minneapolis last week:

In the southwest precincts – where there are clusters of wealthy, white residents – there was very strong opposition to the amendment. But most precincts in North Minneapolis, which has the highest proportion of Black voters, also voted “no” on average. When looked at through the lens of race, the story of the amendment is complicated.

So are these black voters just stupid? Do they just not understand the importance of racial justice issues? Or could it be that these issues don't break down along simplistic neat racial lines, and that it's more complicated than "all we need to do is drag the racist white voters kicking and screaming into the light"? Could there have been other ways of pursuing the campaign that would have yielded more support? Are there ways to present the message of the need for police reform that would be more effective than the current ones?

This idea that there's only one way to approach these issues and any attempt to try other ways is racist is just nonsense. What is wrong with trying to figure out what voters actually want and what might work better to sway them?
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:10 PM on November 9, 2021 [19 favorites]

The left likes its slogans (e.g. defund the police!) which are arguably correct when explained but are counterproductive when it comes to making progress. There are other examples of positions that extremist activists take that go over the top and provide fodder for the right's disinformation machine.

I don't know why the craft of messaging in the wider political context is so derided, and narrow purity wins out. Sometimes the maximal demands help you win more in the compromise; but sometimes the maximal demands are so articulated that they crystalize opposition. The activists are so often clueless about the dynamics of real world politics.

I just read Doris Lessing's The Good Terrorist where, late in the book Alice, so quick with the slur "fascist," gets schooled by her supposedly backwards mother. "No one bothers to ask if it achieves anything, going on marches or demos. They talk about how they feel. That's what they care about." And: you are just a joke to the people who run this world; "they watch you at it and think: Good, that's keeping them busy."

Same with the modern infighting over identities. No judgment, no proportion, no context required for woke silencing.
posted by lathrop at 5:31 PM on November 9, 2021 [10 favorites]

This idea that there's only one way to approach these issues and any attempt to try other ways is racist is just nonsense. What is wrong with trying to figure out what voters actually want and what might work better to sway them?

That's not what I said, so you can put down the strawman.

My position is that Jacobin has been pushing for some time for a move to a "class" based narrative in which pushes to address specific issues affecting specific groups - "identity politics" - are set aside in favor of a narrative that tries to "unify" the working class by working on common issues while making noble but meaningless statements to those issues raised by specific groups. You know, the sort of narrative that identity politics was created in opposition to.

I'm not against trying something new, but that's not what is being offered - it's a regression to the past where groups were told to be quiet for the greater good, and as a result wound up suffering in silence.

As for the poll, let me point out again that if someone says that they're for something as long as you don't talk about it - they're not actually for it. Reducing calls for social justice to meaningless pap like "stridently opposing racism" isn't fighting for it, and it's folly to pretend otherwise.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:40 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

In particular, what's the populist language for police reform?

You could start with something like: we ask our police officers to do too much. There's no reason the people who execute warrants need to be the same people who issue traffic citations, who also respond to domestic disturbances and mental health crises. Let's get the folks in blue back to doing what they do best and let other professionals step in for other areas.

This might sound like police ass-kissing, but if you can take armed officers out of those situations where they're not really necessary, you'd do a lot to reduce the number of people shot by police, just by reducing the number of situations where police have the opportunity to shoot someone. You might not like the tone of the messaging, but it could get results.
posted by echo target at 6:02 PM on November 9, 2021 [23 favorites]

NoxAeternum, speaking of strawmen, maybe you should read the report instead of criticizing the things you imagine it says. Here's the relevant paragraph from the executive summary(page 5):

Progressives do not need to surrender questions of social justice to win working-class voters, but “woke,” activist-inspired rhetoric is a liability. Potentially Democratic working-class voters did not shy away from progressive candidates or candidates who strongly opposed racism. But candidates who framed that opposition in highly specialized, identity-focused language fared significantly worse than candidates who embraced either populist or mainstream language.
posted by thedamnbees at 6:06 PM on November 9, 2021

NoxAeternum, speaking of strawmen, maybe you should read the report instead of criticizing the things you imagine it says. Here's the relevant paragraph from the executive summary(page 5):

You mean the paragraph I've addressed several times, pointing out how "strongly opposing racism" is the sort of noble yet meaningless pap that identity politics came about in response to and in order to force candidates to actually discuss how they would oppose racism?
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:14 PM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

Here’s that series of studies on empirical outcomes for women candidates, MiraK - cited in this NYT article from 2016.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/upshot/the-problem-for-women-is-not-winning-its-deciding-to-run.amp.html

It appears that a given woman candidate is not less likely to win, but she’s almost certain to have faced many structural barriers on the way to becoming a candidate, and probably will have to deal with a bunch of stuff male candidates would, but it doesn’t seem to impact the raw chance of winning.
posted by taromsn at 6:30 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

MetaFilter: Noble yet meaningless pap
posted by wordless reply at 6:37 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

Yeah NoxAeternum but it doesn't say the things you're inferring. The distinction is between talking about racial justice issues with specialized academic language, and talking about racial justice in terms more familiar to the mostly non-college educated working class.
posted by thedamnbees at 6:40 PM on November 9, 2021 [9 favorites]

it is notable that the "cancelling comedians while the world burns" article that was linked earlier was published on quillette, which has a long history of anti-trans rhetoric and articles; it's a frequent stop for those in the "intellectual dark web", and has a weird habit of publishing racists after being founded by someone who's at least a little bigoted.
posted by i used to be someone else at 6:47 PM on November 9, 2021 [21 favorites]

As that NYT article points out:

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a gender penalty: It is difficult to quantify whether gender costs women votes because people are unlikely to admit sexism in polls, and women tend to wait until they are more qualified than men to run for the same office.

(Emphasis mine.)

Again, this is an endemic problem with polls on things like racism and misogyny - we ostensibly say these are bad, which influences poll responses, but the fact that we live in a culture that has deep issues with racism and misogyny means that those polls are poor indicators of actual response. Furthermore, the fact that women feel the need to bolster their resumes before running further illustrates how misogyny impacts their competitiveness.

Yeah NoxAeternum but it doesn't say the things you're inferring. The distinction is between talking about racial justice issues with specialized academic language, and talking about racial justice in terms more familiar to the mostly non-college educated working class.

Activists do not talk in "specialized academic language", as that would undermine their activism (and the study's examples of activist language as shown earlier demonstrate this.) No, the difference is (again, looking at the study's examples comparing activist versus populist rhetoric) that the activist language directly addresses that there are groups that are getting the short end of the stick and that needs to be addressed, while the populist example is more interested in widespread appeals that don't address those specific issues for those groups. Again, the whole reason identity politics came about is in response to this, to force candidates to actually address those issues.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:54 PM on November 9, 2021 [10 favorites]

> I read Canceling Comedians While The World Burns a few weeks ago, and felt that it discusses this problem really well. It's a critique of the Left (methods) coming from the Left (the writer is a Democratic Socialist). The thesis is pretty much "stop dunking on each other and promote good policies instead!"

Pretty typical victim-blaming disingenuous horseshit from Quillette here.

Resources people are using to defend themselves, their loved ones, or fellow members of the human race from being dehumanized are not the same resources that are used to support expanding the safety net or building high speed train lines. It takes someone 30 seconds to cancel their Netflix subscription, maybe 60 to send a tweet, and perhaps a few minutes to send an email to their complaints department. Enough of those subscription cancellations, tweets, and emails can sometimes deplatform (at least temporarily) someone whose act is built on harming others, and I guess if you and your loved ones aren't the one who's being harmed, it's pretty easy to sum that up as "dunking on each other". Meanwhile, if you can find me a similarly effective strategy for getting Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to vote for the Build Back Better act, I can assure you that a vast majority of people would be doing so, and I bet they'd still find time to fight for social justice causes as well.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:11 PM on November 9, 2021 [16 favorites]

You can't sneak trans rights and police reform past voters by never talking about them on the campaign trail then implementing them in office, it doesn't work like that. People care deeply about how their politicians vote on this stuff.

If you do get elected by conservative blue collar voters you're going to have to represent their terrible opinions on social issues or you'll be a lame duck single term politician. I guess you might get to help pass some good legislation if your timing is really good.
posted by zymil at 7:11 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

The linguistic debate is kind of obscuring that all of these messages should be locally tailored, which renders some of the results meaningless.

I agree that neither national polls nor Metafilter are great contexts to discuss which phrases are meaningless, and which are the true Word, since we are all in distinct states, parishes, wards and precincts, and one state's meaningless, infantile liberal sop is the others' refreshing expression of radical awakening.

But I also think it takes more than the One True Word of Justice, it takes a volume of messaging to make an impact against the barrage of corporate propaganda that people are soaking in their daily existence.

But this was a reminder not to dispair, and keep working for justice. Keep pushing
posted by eustatic at 7:44 PM on November 9, 2021 [10 favorites]

The difference between "populist" and "woke" language that factory123 quotes - one difference is speaking as a part of the group vs. from a remove, e.g. "This country belongs to all of us" vs "We need courageous leaders who will protect the most vulnerable" (i.e., does the speaker consider themselves vulnerable?). Another difference is the terms used to identify the in-group: "people who work for a living" vs "poor, immigrants, people of color" and "the most vulnerable".
posted by airmail at 8:15 PM on November 9, 2021 [7 favorites]

As for the poll, let me point out again that if someone says that they're for something as long as you don't talk about it - they're not actually for it. Reducing calls for social justice to meaningless pap like "stridently opposing racism" isn't fighting for it, and it's folly to pretend otherwise.

Is talking about something actually fighting for it, tho? Or is it just... talking about it?

What politicians do after they're elected matters a lot more, morally speaking, than how they talk about it before (and after) they're elected. An insistence that there is only one truly righteous way to talk about stuff seems like a shackle that it's pointless and counterproductive to put on candidates.

If they talk about issues in a way that works in the context of the race they're running, they're more likely to get elected and have a chance to address the problems. If they use the "correct" language and lose, nothing is gained by anybody -- including the vulnerable groups that they might otherwise have had a chance to fight for.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:28 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

Adding: I tend to think that Extremely Online folk (on the left, and otherwise) sometimes get overly exercised about language because, well, that's what the internet is made of -- words. Wielding words and arguing over words is thus the ideal, perhaps prototypical, online activity. But it's a poor substitute for accomplishing concrete change IRL.

(See also: academia, theology.)
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:48 PM on November 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Working-class nonvoters are not automatic progressives. We find little evidence that low-propensity voters fail to vote because they don’t see sufficiently progressive views reflected in the political platforms of mainstream candidates.

I'd say this is the bad news from the typical Jacobin perspective as I understand it. From what I can tell, this study is an effort to inform the strategy they hope the political factions associated with them will use to achieve their goals. I don't see any reason to believe it's being done in bad faith to convince anyone "outside their circle" of anything. In other words, this doesn't seem like a fluff poll designed to convince people to adopt policy X because it will help Democrats or whoever get elected. Rather, it seems they commissioned the survey for their own purposes of informing their electoral strategies.

It's really a massive, monumental undertaking. If anything, one could level a criticism that its almost too ambitious for its own good given the amount of comparisons they measured and how finely they sliced the data. Looking at the graphs, the error bars are extremely large, often overlapping to a considerable degree. Also, response bias is almost impossible to truly circumvent, but then again, that is true of any kind of survey research, so it's kind of an unavoidable hazard.

I thought this was interesting:

Consistent with recent studies, we found that working-class voters preferred lower status middle- and working-class candidates over business- or
professional-class alternatives. In our sample, corporate executives were
seen as the least favorable by far, with lawyers the second-least favorable.
Teachers, veterans, small business owners, and construction workers were
more or less equally popular.

I wish they could have included a category for "celebrities/reality TV stars". In any case, this suggests why someone like Trump did better than Romney in many areas with large numbers of working class voters. Romney pretty much seems like a corporate CEO straight out of central casting, something the Obama campaign was smart to capitalize on in 2012.

Overall, the broad outlines of this survey's findings do somewhat ring true for me when I consider the relative success of candidates like Trump, Sanders, and Biden compared to more polished, professional appearing candidates from both parties. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot teachers and construction workers who make it to the highest echelons of either party. I'd say the preference reflects a broad-based lack of trust in elites that seems to have started in the 70's, even if actual association with Democrats doesn't seem to hurt progressive candidates with these voters going by the survey results.

Also, I think the difference highlighted below showed up somewhat in the Democratic primaries, especially with regard to Sanders and somewhat to a lesser extent with Biden. Sander's theory of change (activating nonvoters) doesn't fare well in the survey, but I do think that 2016 Bernie was much more oriented towards a straight progressive populist appeal, while 2020 Bernie tended to be more "woke" and youth focused in his messaging. That probably cost him somewhat against Biden, though it probably wouldn't have made a difference because Democrats were most focused on perceived electability in 2020. Still, I think the tension is real and will persist going forward regardless of who the Democratic primary candidates are. I think the tension even might be reflected somewhat in this thread.

. Suburban and urban respondents were more favorable than rural/
small-town respondents toward candidates who focused on racial justice, highlighted progressive issues such as Medicare for All and a jobs
guarantee, and employed woke messaging.
2. Rural and small-town respondents viewed progressive populism
more favorably than other candidate messaging, while suburban and
urban respondents were most favorable toward mainstream moderate
messaging.
posted by eagles123 at 9:11 PM on November 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

Is talking about something actually fighting for it, tho? Or is it just... talking about it?

What politicians do after they're elected matters a lot more, morally speaking, than how they talk about it before (and after) they're elected.

Here's the thing - studies have shown that politicians do try to keep the promises they make on the campaign trail. This is the point of identity politics here - get candidates on the record to support action for the issues the group finds important so that they can be held accountable once in office. As was pointed out earlier, the strategy of trying to "submarine" a candidate into office doesn't work, for a number of reasons pointed out.

So no, this isn't about language - it's about understanding how politics works, and that if you want action on a specific issue, you need to get candidates backing it.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:20 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

does jacobin have an axe to grind? sure.
do people tell pollsters they are less racist and sexist than they really are in the voting booth? probably.
but do both the social and economic wings of the progressive movement need each other to win elections? Certainly.
elections lately show this to be true. a mostly economic message did OK with bernie doing well in the last presidential primaries, but he couldn't get the nod.
and mostly social justice messaging does even worse than that, outside of the most progressive localities.
even combined these two wings of the movement would barely eke out wins given the absurdly anti-democratic slant in the electoral college, the house, and especially the senate.
there are more senators who represent cattle than there are who represent the left.
so, time to make peace and compromise, because the other side ain't napping.
posted by wibari at 10:10 PM on November 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

If you want action on an issue you need legislators and executives who can actually do something about the issue. Getting a candidate to support an issue only to lose the election is not going to help.

You need to get the candidates elected for any of the agenda to happen though. Elections and voting need to be seen as tactical steps in any Progressive political movement. In the areas where identity politics will not get one elected one should not appeal to them. The candidate should believe in them and act on them in office, with a framing that fits in with the rhetoric that got the candidate elected in the first place.

This does not mean that activists should be quiet. It does mean that the activists are not always great choices as candidates if you actually want a Progressive agenda to have enough support in various legislatures to actually happen.

The concerns about Jacobin and their class issues foremost attitude should not cloud the issue that the survey is saying that the messaging of candidates needs to be something potential Democratic voters do not feel alienated by when they hear it. That may be galling, but the alternative seems to be handing the field over to those who will avoid Progressive issues altogether.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 10:11 PM on November 9, 2021 [6 favorites]

Adding: I tend to think that Extremely Online folk (on the left, and otherwise) sometimes get overly exercised about language because, well, that's what the internet is made of -- words. Wielding words and arguing over words is thus the ideal, perhaps prototypical, online activity.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that today. The internet is made of Pinterest image boards, Tiktok videos, reaction gifs and memes too. Looooots of people, especially younger people, are Extremely Online without ever visiting a page that is primarily text, such as this one.
posted by bashing rocks together at 12:53 AM on November 10, 2021 [4 favorites]

For what it's worth, and being hesitant to contribute to the talking past one another that has characterized the thread, I think the study really takes a wrong turn with the phrase "woke messaging," a term that because it is suggestive rather than clear, prompts arguments around whether its findings are "ignore racism" or "use simple words." And, in fact, use of the phrase undermines the findings, because it sounds like what they're talking about isn't a "woke" language issue, but a class language issue.

Just for an example, this sentence from a candidate: "We need courageous leaders who will protect the most vulnerable, fight for justice, and make transformative change." That's not woke language, that's distanced, consultant-and-focus-group language. It's not that the average working-class voter would glaze over on hearing the word "transformative," it's more that those kinds of words are a clear social signal, at this point in our politics, that this is a candidate who isn't interested in you at all. There's nothing stirring about them, nothing emotional, certainly nothing sympathetic.

It's not clear that the study understands this. "Woke candidates share a political style more than a set of policy ideas. This style includes a particular emphasis on race and anti-racism and a specialized vocabulary ... the specialized language has the effect of signaling a particular awareness of or attitudes toward certain group-specific issues or inequalities." (emphasis added) By more firmly pinning down that "specialized vocabulary" as a class issue, they could avoid a lot of the misinterpretation--if it is, indeed, misinterpretation--of "woke" as aligning with "cares about racism and will do something about it when in office."

Clearly you can talk about racism to working-class voters; I'd point to Senator Tim Scott as an example. (I suppose the counter here would be, yeah, but he's a republican and so he's not going to actually do anything about racism, which would be a valid point...he's not promising anything but the old 'rising tide lifts all boats,' but then, that does seem to get to the study's point about which rhetoric is more effective at getting votes?)

Voters don't matter, of course, if candidates can't make it through the party leadership's own prejudices, so the whole question of messaging becomes moot for these candidates. From a study called, "Do Local Party Chairs Think Women and Minority Candidates Can Win?": "In short, much of the available evidence suggests that, all else equal, women and candidates from minority groups are not less likely to win their elections if they run. Recent research has therefore pointed to the importance of considering first-stage dynamics that may preclude candidates who are not white males from running in the first place."
posted by mittens at 5:12 AM on November 10, 2021 [10 favorites]

In particular, what's the populist language for police reform?

I’ve definitely been wondering how many close elections would have gone better had it been “demilitarize the police” rather than “defund the police”, which sounds like something which polls at 10-20% no matter how many long essays people wrote about how it doesn’t really doesn’t mean what it sounds like.

I think the simple language talk is really important despite sounding so obvious: pick something voters like and talk about how you’re going to do it. Don’t pick a slogan which requires lengthy explainers — there’s no leftie equivalent of billion dollar companies like Fox or Facebook building an identity — and definitely don’t pick a slogan which your opponents can use to rally their voters simply by repeating it. It should focus on solving the negatives like violence, abuse of power, qualified immunity, etc. and force the Republicans to campaign on being the party of crooked cops. Most of the ideas polling so much better than the label is a huge warning sign.
posted by adamsc at 5:19 AM on November 10, 2021 [10 favorites]

I do think there's a thing where people pick holes in the language/words used for an idea, so that they don't have to argue with the concept itself. It happens in interpersonal stuff where one party is told that if they had made their reasonable request in a different way it would have been listened to, but that is actually a lie. The listener is just using that to avoid responding to the request. I think that Black Lives Matter is an example of a political slogan like this. Some people say that they don't like the phrase, but they're generally being disingenuous and don't want to admit that they are racist. It's as obvious in its intent as Think of the Children.

But in other cases, the language genuinely is a problem. IMO, Defund the Police is the latter. It doesn't quite mean what it sounds like. There are other ways of describing what you intend to do (reform the police and move some responsibilities onto more appropriate bodies) that are more accurate. In actual fact, it's not really about changing the budget for the police as it is about changing what they do.
posted by plonkee at 5:32 AM on November 10, 2021 [5 favorites]

Canceling Comedians is a book that came out in April of this year, well before the controversy over the Chapelle special.

I just want to say Chapelle has been promoting transphobic views for YEARS now and the protest that happened "this year" was because he finally got so bad people felt they had to do something.

"I support anyone's right to be who they want to be. My question is: to what extent do I have to participate in your self-image?" may as well be a fucking slave owner talking about how they're fine with slaves having the self-image that they're human beings, but just wonders at what point they have to participate in the "delusion that they are actually human." This was in a bit about why Chappelle felt the NEED to misgender someone in medical distress, which is essentially saying he won't join their "delusional self-image." (I keep using the word delusion, because I swear to god the actual quote is "to what extent do I have to participate in your delusion," but googled everything online and seems to be "self-image." I really don't feel like going back to watch a several-years-old Chappelle special to prove myself wrong or not on that. Whether he said delusion or not, his unwillingness to gender her correctly means he considers it a delusion.)

Point being that anybody that had been paying attention would have realized this was a shit title for this book for at least the last four fucking years.

Also, isn't Joe Rogan a "comedian" who is spreading a fucking firehose of vaccine falsehoods? Maybe cancelling comedians actually can do some good if you can prevent them from fucking hurting people. Maybe the world is burning because of comedians like this.
posted by deadaluspark at 5:50 AM on November 10, 2021 [5 favorites]

So no, this isn't about language - it's about understanding how politics works, and that if you want action on a specific issue, you need to get candidates backing it.

It is literally about language. Specifically, how did poll respondents react to different types of political rhetoric? There is a distinction between actual political goals, and the rhetoric used to try and achieve those goals. Your position seems to be that only certain kinds of rhetoric can be used to advance a social justice agenda. If that rhetoric is unappealing to working class voters, as the study suggests, where does that leave us? Should progressive politicians just not even try to appeal to working-class voters?

Take affirmative action in university admissions as an example. There are different ways we can argue in favor of affirmative action. We could argue that all people should have equal access to higher education, and that affirmative action is a way to give people from marginalized groups better access to higher education. Alternatively, we could argue that people from marginalized groups face discrimination in university admissions and affirmative action is necessary to correct that discrimination.

Both of these arguments are basically correct, and both argue for the same policy. The difference is that the first argument appeals to a universal principle of equality, while the second appeals to the specific discrimination faced by marginalized people. The question is then, how should politicians talk about the issue in order to appeal to working-class voters? The findings of the study suggest that more inclusive, universal language is more appealing to those voters, which I find entirely unsurprising.
posted by thedamnbees at 6:53 AM on November 10, 2021 [3 favorites]

I mean, only if you believe that yelling at people for telling offensive jokes is more important than universal health care, paid leave, minimum wage, or other actual quality of life improvements.

The idea that people pushing back against being dehumanized, belittled, and made legitimate targets is "yelling at people for telling offensive jokes", as if vicious racist/misogynist/queerphobic rhetoric phrased in a way to provoke laughter is "just jokes", as if such "jokes" were not part of how society establishes marginalized people as illegitimate persons with illegitimate existences who may be abused freely, is fundamentally opposed to equality in any sense whatsoever.

Further, the reduction of activism against these oppressions to "yelling at people for telling offensive jokes" is disgusting in a way I don't have words for.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:46 AM on November 10, 2021 [12 favorites]

Both of these arguments are basically correct, and both argue for the same policy.

No, they aren't, and the "universal" approach not only misunderstands the purpose of affirmative action - namely that it's a corrective measure for past and present societal bias - but also opens the door for attacks on the policy framed in the same language, such as "you can't solve racism with racism." This is the problem with the "universal" approach - the simple reality is that many issues of racial or gender equality are specific to that particular group, and by that very nature don't fit into a "universal" framing. To take an earlier example, yes, raising the minimum wage would have an outsized impact on BIPOC individuals - but it doesn't help resolve the issue of bias in hiring making it significantly harder to get that job in the first place. That's an issue specific to those groups, and it's the sort of thing that winds up on the cutting room floor with the "universal" approach.

Again, identity politics didn't spontaneously appear from nowhere - it was the result of minority groups not having the issues that specifically affected them addressed because of the push to take a more "universal" approach meant that these issues specific to them wound up being ignored. And again, if someone says that they're all for racial justice just as long as you don't talk about it - that means they're not for racial justice.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:00 AM on November 10, 2021 [7 favorites]

And this WaPo editorial talks about how a new way to discuss race is being laid out by Joe Biden:

After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, demonstrations for racial justice engulfed the country. Many pundits, fearing a repeat of the politics of 1968, gave advice similar to what they are telling Democrats now: Biden should have a “Sister Souljah moment,” they said. He should condemn the excesses of Black protesters, partly to neutralize Republicans’ calls for “law and order.” Biden, these commentators believed, should essentially throw Black people under the bus to reassure White voters.

Biden rejected that tactic, however, and continued to speak candidly about race and racism. As he did so, he honored the Democratic base and Black voters, and — as the election results would go on to show — locked down White swing voters at the margins.

“‘I can’t breathe.’ ‘I can’t breathe.’ George Floyd’s last words. But they didn’t die with him. They’re still being heard. They’re echoing across this nation.” That was how Biden began his June 2, 2020, speech about Floyd’s murder. Biden then described Floyd’s death as a “wake-up call for our nation. For all of us.” And part of what we are supposed to wake up to is systemic racism. Floyd’s words, Biden said, “speak to a nation where too often just the color of your skin puts your life at risk,” one in which deaths from covid-19 and pandemic-related job losses were “concentrated in Black and Brown communities.” Racism was “part of the American character,” he said, but so was “the American ideal that we are all created equal.” He did not paper over the challenges of reconciling these two Americas but insisted, “We are at our best when we open our hearts, not when we clench our fists.”

posted by NoxAeternum at 8:27 AM on November 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

And this WaPo editorial talks about how a new way to discuss race is being laid out by Joe Biden:

I guess to just discuss it, but not actually fight for black voting rights or anything? This is exactly what people in this thread are saying.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:38 AM on November 10, 2021 [4 favorites]

And this WaPo editorial talks about how a new way to discuss race is being laid out by Joe Biden:

There's an element of "only Nixon could go to China" in Joe Biden's discussion of race. The guy praised segregationists, championed mass incarceration, and waffled on busing (at best). What he said in 2020 was important, but I don't know it's a model that would work for someone who wasn't already a known quantity.

I can't help but observe that moral obverse of the messaging strategy under discussion has already been successfully implemented by the right: have your candidates talk in dog-whistles ("states rights," "low taxes" "welfare queens") while the activist fringe says the quiet parts loud. The activist's goals were achieved over decades through supposedly race-neutral policies, while politicians maintained plausible deniability and kept the corporatists who were squeamish about open racism in the tent.
posted by reclusive_thousandaire at 8:50 AM on November 10, 2021 [12 favorites]

In particular, what's the populist language for police reform?

In most political situations it is probably wise is to bring a solution rather than a problem. If one brings only a problem, the other side can at worst offer their own solution and steal the show, or at best minimize it without having to deal with negating a solution. You definitely want your opponent whining and negating stuff, like a child, and not proposing goals and dreams like a leader. For example, imagine putting billionaires in a specific spotlight as the ones God or the economy gave money to in order to pay for our universal healthcare via a health tax. How would they counter that? They would need to come up with another method, which will look worse in comparison, as people now see those yachts and offshore accounts as their expensive healthcare.
posted by Brian B. at 9:10 AM on November 10, 2021 [3 favorites]

No, they aren't, and the "universal" approach not only misunderstands the purpose of affirmative action - namely that it's a corrective measure for past and present societal bias - but also opens the door for attacks on the policy framed in the same language, such as "you can't solve racism with racism."

You're moving the goalposts. The purpose of rhetoric is not to precisely describe to policy in question, the purpose is to convince voters to support the politicians advocating for that policy. Arguing for affirmative action by appealing to the universal principle of equality is completely consistent with arguing that it's a corrective measure for past and present societal bias. You can make both of those arguments without contradiction, they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the universal argument doesn't even make sense without the implicit acknowledgement of past and present societal bias.

And again, if someone says that they're all for racial justice just as long as you don't talk about it - that means they're not for racial justice.

Nobody is saying that. Nobody in this thread has said we shouldn't talk about about racial justice. The study we are talking about doesn't say that. Not even the working-class survey respondents are saying that. I happen to think that racial justice is so incredibly important that progressive politicians should use whatever rhetoric is effective in order to advance that cause. I care far more about electing progressive politicians who will enact a progressive agenda than I do about whether or not voters supported them for precisely the correct reasons.
posted by thedamnbees at 9:28 AM on November 10, 2021 [21 favorites]

This poll is about language and the choices people will admit to others. Elections are about a hell of a lot more.
posted by bashing rocks together at 9:58 AM on November 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

To put it another way, I happen to think the USA is profoundly racist country. But if I'm trying to convince someone to support an anti-racist political candidate, I'm not going to start with 'America is racist', even though that view is foundational to many of my political beliefs. I'm going to start with the far more palatable assertion that America shouldn't be racist, because I'm just trying to persuade them to vote, not trying to force my entire (university educated) worldview on them.
posted by thedamnbees at 9:59 AM on November 10, 2021 [8 favorites]

Working-class voters prefer working-class candidates... [A] candidate’s upper-class background is a major liability. Class background matters.

Living in Virginia, I never saw the McAuliffe campaign hurl this in a big way at Youngkin.
posted by doctornemo at 12:08 PM on November 10, 2021

orking-class voters prefer working-class candidates... [A] candidate’s upper-class background is a major liability. Class background matters.

Living in Virginia, I never saw the McAuliffe campaign hurl this in a big way at Youngkin.
Because as was stated in the VA election thread, McAuliffe is a member of the same social class, so it wouldn't have worked.

I think I also take 'all other things being equal' as a bit of a dodge - the number of people who are financially able to run for state or national office that have real working class backgrounds is pretty small. Maybe at the local level (city politics) this might be useful information.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:29 PM on November 10, 2021 [2 favorites]

Because as was stated in the VA election thread, McAuliffe is a member of the same social class, so it wouldn't have worked.

I didn't catch that thread - it's been an insane month here - but I can see the point. Which is a problem for some modern Dems.
posted by doctornemo at 12:42 PM on November 10, 2021

I'm not against trying something new, but that's not what is being offered - it's a regression to the past where groups were told to be quiet for the greater good, and as a result wound up suffering in silence.
There's a reason I'm trying hard to not chime in here, but I guess I failed...I'm from one of those groups that just needs to stay quiet for the greater good. Seriously, people from marginalized groups are the point, not the distraction. If you're not trans, or black, or a woman, it might be a good idea to not offer suggestions on why the Dems need to figure out how to change messaging to make fighting transphobia, or racism, or misogeny more palatable.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 3:18 PM on November 10, 2021 [12 favorites]

You have to hand it to identitarians, they have message discipline and put bodies on the line. Other Democrats could learn from this behavior, even if they disagree with the class analysis.
posted by eustatic at 8:51 PM on November 10, 2021

You have to hand it to identitarians

The far right european hate group? Huh?
posted by MiraK at 5:25 AM on November 11, 2021

Mod note: One comment deleted. Suggest a general de-escalation in here; threads go better when we can avoid putting words in other people's mouths; avoid the sarcastic turnaround and instead just say what you mean. And as always, recognize your own positioning, have some humility: if you're not from a marginalized group yourself, consider that you're coming from a place of less knowledge about matters affecting that group.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:14 AM on November 11, 2021

Ok, for the record, I’m not telling anybody to stay quiet for the greater good, and I don’t appreciate my comments being construed that way. I think we all share the goal of electing progressive politicians and the question at hand is how best to achieve that goal. And maybe well-intentioned, reasonable people can disagree on that question?
posted by thedamnbees at 8:06 AM on November 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

"Staying quiet for the greater good" is not an option –– it's destructive and inhumane, full stop. It's also bad strategy.
What I'm suggesting is a basic division of labor, with the shared goal of winning elections and enacting progressive policies:

• Have activists and progressives in safe blue seats get as loud as possible and shift the Overton Window left
• Let Democratic candidates frame their messages in ways that appeal to the broadest possible base
posted by reclusive_thousandaire at 1:31 PM on November 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

something I just stumbled onto:

Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology

It concerns recently published Pew Research Center data on the topic of deep divisions within both Democrat and Republican coalitions. Concerning the Dems:

The four Democratic-oriented typology groups highlight the party’s racial and ethnic diversity, as well as the unwieldy nature of the current Democratic coalition.

They include two very different groups of liberal Democrats: Progressive Left and Establishment Liberals. Progressive Left, the only majority White, non-Hispanic group of Democrats, have very liberal views on virtually every issue and support far-reaching changes to address racial injustice and expand the social safety net. Establishment Liberals, while just as liberal in many ways as Progressive Left, are far less persuaded of the need for sweeping change.

Two other Democratic-aligned groups could not be more different from each other, both demographically and in their relationship to the party. Democratic Mainstays, the largest Democratic-oriented group, as well as the oldest on average, are unshakeable Democratic loyalists and have a moderate tilt on some issues. Outsider Left, the youngest typology group, voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden a year ago and are very liberal in most of their views, but they are deeply frustrated with the political system – including the Democratic Party and its leaders.
posted by philip-random at 8:22 AM on November 12, 2021 [3 favorites]

Three years ago the Demos project released its research about the success of the race-class narrative not only over treating them separately but also over Trump-style messaging. But the debate is still centered around the idea that race is a losing proposition, period, and that's really disappointing.
posted by Anonymous at 5:48 AM on November 13, 2021

An article from Ryan Grim at the Intercept, talking about the Jacobin/YouGov study, a focus group with Biden/Youngkin voters in Virginia, and a memo from Andrew Levinson. It's Not Just White People: Democrats are Losing Normal Voters of All Races. In this context, "normal" seems to mean "not college-educated"; the median voter is not college-educated.

On education polarization:

In the Virginia election, two arguments that have been running parallel in Democratic circles for the past several years finally collided. One is the question of how Democrats should position themselves in the ongoing culture war, with jockeying over fraught and contested concepts like wokeness and cancel culture. Critical race theory is one example of this; Democrats can’t seem to agree on whether it’s a good thing that should be taught and defended or a Republican fabrication that’s not being taught in elementary schools at all. The other is the round-and-round debate over race and class: Are voters who flee Democrats motivated more by economic anxiety or by racial resentment and eroding white privilege?

While these debates have unfolded, Democrats have seen a steady erosion in support among working-class voters of all races, while gaining support among the most highly educated voters. That movement would point toward class divisions driving voter behavior, but the rearing up of critical race theory as a central plank of the Republican Party appeared to throw the question open again. Maybe it’s racism, after all?

Properly understanding how different voting blocs understand the terms of the debate, however, unlocks the contradiction: The culture war is not a proxy for race, it’s a proxy for class. The Democratic problem with working-class voters goes far beyond white people.

Now, for the portion of the Republican base heavily predisposed to racial prejudice, the culture war and issues like critical race theory easily work as dog whistles calling them to the polls. But for many voters, and not just white ones, critical race theory is in a basket with other cultural microaggressions directed at working people by the elites they see as running the Democratic Party. Take, for instance, one of the women in Barefoot’s focus groups. When asked if Democrats share their cultural values, she said, “They fight for the right things and I usually vote for them but they believe some crazy things. Sometimes I feel like if I don’t know the right words for things they think I am a bigot.”

posted by russilwvong at 8:55 AM on November 16, 2021 [4 favorites]

When asked if Democrats share their cultural values, she said, “They fight for the right things and I usually vote for them but they believe some crazy things. Sometimes I feel like if I don’t know the right words for things they think I am a bigot.”

The irony is that she votes, and her would-be critics likely don't because the candidates are flawed.
posted by Brian B. at 9:23 AM on November 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

“Once they let you get away with running around for ten years like a king hoodlum, you tend to forget now and then that about half the people you meet live from one day to the next in a state of such fear and uncertainty that about half the time they honestly doubt their own sanity. These are not the kind of people who really need to get hung up in depressing political trips. They are not ready for it. Their boats are rocking so badly that all they want to do is get level long enough to think straight and avoid the next nightmare.”

(Hunter S. Thompson - Fear + Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72)
posted by philip-random at 8:28 PM on November 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

An article yesterday by Jonathan Chait talking about how Biden is squeezed between progressive donors and cynical centrists: Joe Biden’s Big Squeeze.

The Democrats had a plan to rescue their party and the country: Biden would steer clear of the faddish slogans and radical demands that had seized his party’s base and focus relentlessly on practical benefits desired by the working-class voters who had deserted Democrats for Donald Trump. The elegance of this plan was that polls showed support not only for the new social provisions that would form the heart of his legislative agenda in his first year — child care, community college, expansions of Medicare and Medicaid, and so on — but also for the sources of their funding. The money would come from taxing the rich, bargaining down the cost of prescription drugs, and going after wealthy tax cheats.

... Biden’s presidency began to disintegrate without his abandoning the center at all. He found himself trapped instead between a well-funded left wing that has poisoned the party’s image with many of its former supporters and centrists unable to conceive of their job in any terms save as valets for the business elite. Biden’s party has not veered too far left or too far right so much as it has simply come apart.

We've talked enough about the left wing. Chait on the centrists:

Rather than helping to correct the Democrats’ problems with the electorate, Manchin, Sinema, and their centrist House allies have compounded them. The story of Biden’s domestic agenda is that it was crippled by a small but crucial faction of Democrats who came to be persuaded by the C-suite view of the world. And all the while, those Democrats persuaded themselves that they were the authentic voices of the people.

One recent poll asked voters to identify the features of the Build Back Better plan that most appealed to them. The top five were, in order, adding dental and vision benefits to Medicare, home health care for the elderly and disabled, letting Medicare negotiate prescription-drug prices, Medicare coverage for hearing, and free community college. Democratic centrists in the Senate eliminated three of them from the bill completely and gutted a fourth. “Bizarrely,” observed Democratic pollster William Jordan in September, “the parts of Biden’s agenda that are most popular seem to be most at risk right now.”

The centrists did not, for the most part, object to the spending. What they ruled out was the policies Biden had come up with to pay for the spending.

posted by russilwvong at 10:37 AM on November 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

The grim irony is that, in attempting to court non-white voters, Democrats ended up turning them off. It was not only that they got the data wrong — they were also courting these “marginalized communities” in ways that didn’t appeal to them. For the reality is that the Democratic Party’s most moderate voters are disproportionately Latino and Black.

The Chait piece goes on to demonstrate the dismissive tone that activists brush this aside with, implying that those moderates aren't educated to know the difference between left, right and wrong. Then it recaps Shor's theory of the divergence between the educated left and the non-educated right-leaning, and the need to reconcile this politically for the Democrats. All sound criticism except that much of the left's activism is raw and emotional, and not based on some high-planed theory. It leaves it open to the idea that it is designed to divide from within.
posted by Brian B. at 9:05 AM on November 24, 2021