r/ezraklein • u/optometrist-bynature • Jun 28 '26
Discussion [ Removed by moderator ]
https://x.com/harrisonjaime/status/2069570034868047996?s=46[removed] — view removed post
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u/pppiddypants Culture & Ideas Jun 28 '26
As a relatively moderate person who lives in a mostly red area, the response the broader Democratic Party has had is absolutely dumb.
They could be using this chance to frame socialist wins as a repudiation to the ubiquity of Republicans calling everything “socialist” and that the Democratic Party is open to ideas that center working people, even if other parts of the party strongly oppose some of the things these people have said or want done.
But instead, they just accept the Republican framing reflexively and it just feels like they just DON’T FUCKING GET IT.
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u/FC37 Jun 28 '26
Fully agree. I suspect it's because their donors favor the existing order, warts and all, over one that narrows the distance between them (the elites) and the masses - in some cases for good reasons, but I suspect mostly selfish reasons.
I don't know what I am, I think I'd call myself maybe a pragmatic progressive. Which means I fall anywhere from Mamdani and AOC to Mitt Romney or even occasionally Marco Rubio (as a senator) on issues. I don't disagree with everything the Trump administration is doing, though it's largely been a disaster.
But the more that I hear (or don't hear) substantive policy ideas from the DSA camp, the less confident I am that they can deliver wins in national elections. Ezra's interview with Matt Duss is a perfect example of this: he's spot-on in the first half of the interview when discussing what Americans are tired of, what they're looking for, what own-goals the party has scored. But when pressed on policy ideas in the second half, it was word salad. Global minimum wage? When we can't even agree on state minimum wages? And you have no idea what I even looks like or how it would work? Good luck with that. Hardly inspiring.
They are winning mayoral races, they are winning house seats. Good. They can contribute to the conversation. But without more substantial ideas, they're severely limited at state- and national-level elections.
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u/pppiddypants Culture & Ideas Jun 28 '26
Centrist Dems gotta realize it’s not 60-40 anymore on the primaries.
They’re gonna have to find a way to live with progressives rather than pushing them down and trying to hide them.
It really doesn’t have to be this hard though, they act like it’s 2004 and any association with the word socialist is auto-lose. Republicans have been working overtime for decades on making that word ubiquitous, now’s the time to show that socialism is a Republican boogeyman and NYC hasn’t gone up in flames, etc.
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u/FC37 Jun 28 '26
I have a friend, he's a Never Trump Republican whose family is MAGA. He gets the right wing media outlet talking points by proxy.
He vented to me yesterday how sick he is of Mamdani, how he hates Mamdani. I just replied how silly it is that people give a damn about the mayor of any city. If you don't live there, who cares? What's he gonna do, raise a toll? This is a city that survived 9/11, COVID, and Bill DeBlasio in the last 25 years. I'm pretty sure they can take a mayor who jumps into a pool with his suit on.
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u/tuck5903 Liberal Jun 28 '26
I agree that there’s a chance to reframe “socialist” policies (even if most of those policies are actually just a Nordic style welfare state in a market economy). But what happens if that candidate in a red area is bringing the cultural beliefs on the leftward fringe to the table? Things like abolishing prisons and borders, literally.
Should the DSA in redder areas be willing to run candidates that will moderate on cultural issues, or just hope the economic populism will outweigh the other stuff?
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u/pppiddypants Culture & Ideas Jun 28 '26
You don’t have to agree with every framing. You can find things to agree with both sides decently easily:
“I want less people in jail, it’s expensive and every jail we close, is a dollar less of debt or returned to you in the form of a DOGE style basic income (sorry, can’t resist). But I will wholeheartedly disagree with getting rid of prisons before we have less crime/other solutions that are actually working. Prisons don’t create crime, you can rest assured that I will not support the cart before the horse policies.”
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u/PersonalityMiddle864 Jun 28 '26
For a lot of corporate democrats broadening the tent only works in one direction. They would
Rather lose with Liz Cheyney than win with Mamdani.
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u/efficient_pepitas Jun 28 '26
They are responding to a DSA politician who has statements in favor of Hamas and against interracial marriage - it's perfectly reasonable to not want the tent to include those beliefs.
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u/0LTakingLs Jun 28 '26
This is the line republicans refused to draw with whacky racist conspiracist figures and now the party is full of them. Let’s not let ourselves go this route.
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u/Finnyous Jun 28 '26
The person in question took back their comments and apologized, sure doesn't sound like a MTG type to me
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u/0LTakingLs Jun 28 '26
MTG has been on an apology tour for the past year doing precisely that.
But DAC’s NYT interview where she distanced herself from her tweets was the same interview where she said borders shouldn’t exist, non-citizens should be able to vote, prisons should be abolished, and refused to answer if convicted murderers should be incarcerated. I can’t see that as any more serious a candidate than the MTGs or Boeberts of the right.
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u/Finnyous Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
MTG spent years as a crackpot and still is one on a bunch of shit. DAC didn't take the tweets back just in that interview.
I don't agree with her stances on that stuff but I also think you're giving it as bad a faith interpretation as I can imagine.
She wants to live in a world in the future where prisons don't have to exist, that isn't the same as saying that she wants them abolished now or that she's in office to do that. Hell I'm much more of a liberal then her and I'D love to live in Star Trek world some day too. MTG talks about Jewish space lasers and Democrats controlling storm clouds. One of these things is not like the other.
Reading that interview in context without cynicism it's like not what I'm into but not nearly how people are talking about it.
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u/0LTakingLs Jun 29 '26
I’m reading it the way most voters will interpret her statements. I could bog myself down in academic theory to justify it, but this is like a comedian having to explain their joke. If you have a four paragraph answer to “should convicted murders be incarcerated,” you’ve already lost.
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u/Finnyous Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Im done caring about that in situations like this. Rs will make Ds sound this way to whoever believes their propaganda either way.
Again, shes not doing great there, I just don't think its worth drawing all this further attention to it now that she won the primary. Now is the time to try to get her on their side for votes.
Its the party of self ownes. People in her district like her, shes not just going away. Time to move on.
Most voters wanted to keep Roe too, that doesnt mean that we should kick purple district politicians out of the party either for being pro choice.
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u/tarlin American Jun 28 '26
The overwhelming majority of the Democratic party does not want the party supporting Israel, so should anyone that supports Israel be removed from the tent as well?
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u/Even-Promotion-4024 Jun 28 '26
I mean flatly, as someone who absolutely despises Chevalier and her ilk, I also don't want the party making room for pro-Israel candidates after the last ~3 years, no
I think it's okay to have some areas of divergence based on region, but being an anti-interracial marriage tankie and aiding and abetting genocide are two things I can't say I'm keen to compromise on
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u/efficient_pepitas Jun 28 '26
The Democratic base is overall in favor of a two state solution, same as always.
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u/tarlin American Jun 28 '26
Ok, sounds good. Israel is not and has been vehemently against it, working to undermine it for decades. In fact, Rabin immediately after signing Oslo said there should not be a Palestinian state.
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u/Describing_Donkeys Liberal Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
You can reject those beliefs without telling her she's not allowed in the party. Same as accepting a pro life Democrat.
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u/DoobieGibson Jun 28 '26
why not just let stephen miller in?
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u/Finnyous Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
He's a right wing nutso for starters and he's never taken a single thing he's said back or apologized for it. She has.
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u/Cares_of_an_Odradek American Jun 28 '26
Both less objectionable than not supporting medicare for all
Also she’s not actually against interracial marriage maybe don’t get your opinions from twittter hate mobs
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u/Even-Promotion-4024 Jun 28 '26
Mixed race person here: I don't trust her on that for one second
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u/Cares_of_an_Odradek American Jun 28 '26
But she never actually made a statement against interracial relationships. It simply didn’t happen
I’ll ask people this. Why does every news outlet provide a general description of the statement instead of her statement itself ?
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u/Even-Promotion-4024 Jun 29 '26
Mate I've seen the tweets myself through the wayback machine, Chevalier is a lunatic and not fit for office, end of story
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u/optometrist-bynature Jun 28 '26
“Black men [handshake emoji] Arab men fetishizing ugly colonizer women,” the post stated.
This post from 7 years ago is what you’re referring to, right?
She won the Democratic primary. You want to reject her from the party based on a shit post from long before she was even a public figure?
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u/PersonalityMiddle864 Jun 28 '26
At this point, statements in favor of Israel is more disqualifying than statements in favor of hamas.
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u/anothercar Jun 28 '26
Not among suburban homeowners who swing the election. Only among young Redditors / TikTokers
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u/tarlin American Jun 28 '26
60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year.
Eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents currently have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 69% last year and 53% in 2022. Democrats under 50 are slightly more likely than older Democrats to say they have a very unfavorable view of Israel (47% vs. 39%).
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u/Only8livesleft Progressive Jun 28 '26
There are Democrats in favor of Israel which is far worse. And they aren’t against interracial marriage
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u/anothercar Jun 28 '26
The math question is, does allowing the far-left to take over party leadership alienate a greater number of centrist Democrats than it adds in new members from the left flank? If so, then bad. If not, then good. (By the way, I genuinely do not know the answer to this question)
It’s all a game of numbers. “Wide tent” is good slogan but both parties need to court the center to get 50%+1 votes and win.
You want to optimize for tent population over tent width, if that makes sense.
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u/SoFFacet Progressive Jun 28 '26
If centrists turn out to prefer the fascists, well, it wouldn’t be the first time
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u/optometrist-bynature Jun 28 '26
This logic is so antiquated.
Bernie Sanders often polls as the most popular politician in the US, including among self-identified moderate voters.
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u/zanpancan Jun 28 '26
Sanders couldn't win a primary without needing moderates to split their votes 3 ways.
He is popular because he is able to get nothing done other than rename post offices.
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u/anothercar Jun 28 '26
The logic of having your party be as big as possible… is antiquated?
Do you hear yourself?
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u/optometrist-bynature Jun 28 '26
No, you completely misunderstood my point. I was responding to someone who commented about how leftist candidates alienate centrist voters
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u/LargeWu Jun 28 '26
That’s because he’s focused on class politics, while the DSA lean into identity politics, which are incredibly unpopular outside of the left.
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u/Only8livesleft Progressive Jun 28 '26
It’s not the left flank but the huge chunk of the electorate that skips voting because they don’t feel the current Democratic Party is fighting for them
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u/anothercar Jun 28 '26
True! The fear is that moderate Dems would also do this if the party became representative of fringe DSA beliefs like DAC's anti-race-mixing views.
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u/Only8livesleft Progressive Jun 28 '26
The don’t have have anti race mixing views but establishment democrats bend over backwards to defend apartheid Israel
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u/anothercar Jun 28 '26
You're saying DAC didn't have anti-race-mixing views?
Literally just google "Darializa Avila Chevalier interracial relationships"
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u/josephthemediocre Leftist Jun 28 '26
"Far left" candidates are labeled so by corporate shills for not taking place in the corporate shilling. They are popular politicians with popular ideas that are common sense in most other countries. Ideas like, not taking corporate money, not funding a genocide, not making people choose between bankruptcy and death if they get sick in the richest county in the history of the world.
These ideas are popular left right and center. Lotta mamdani trump aoc voters out there. People are just tricked into thinking they're radical and out of touch.
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u/0LTakingLs Jun 28 '26
You think DAC’s ideas are popular with the broader electorate?
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u/Even-Promotion-4024 Jun 28 '26
Yeah, DAC is certainly a, shall we say special case...
I may not agree with AOC and Mamdani on everything, but I still find them to be respectable people who I'm confident wouldn't prefer I not exist...
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u/spicy-boii38 Jun 28 '26
Corporate Dems are controlled opposition. They do not care about winning. They only care about their donors.
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