Offensive Takes From Last Month
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So to tempt voters away from literal fascism, have they been given candidates in the purple districts (D+4/R+4) who disagree with progressives about gun control? Who support banning late-term abortions? Who have qualms about trans women competing against cis women in college sports? Who favor changing asylum law to try to cut off the flow of migrants arriving at the southern border? Who think it’s a problem that college admissions offices discriminate against Asian applicants and low-income whites? I’m not saying every candidate in every swing district should dissent from party leaders on all those subjects, but how many dissent on any of them? For that matter, given that everyone agrees gasoline prices are politically significant, how much effort did Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden put into thinking about how how to spur an oil production recovery back when they were planning the transition?
You don’t need to like or approve of the fact that some voters are more fearful of the mainstream Democratic Party policy agenda than they are of GOP kooks. But factually, it is true. And the mainstream party leaders have repositioned themselves to the left of where they were 10 years ago based on the incorrect idea that persuasion no longer mattered and you could win elections purely by amping up the base.
Taking those kinds of ideological risks is a plan that makes sense if you believe the downside to losing is low. And, indeed, I think Reid is in fact overstating the risks for effect. But I still think losing is pretty bad. And if you agree with that, you ought to try hard to win — including trying ideological flexibility.
If Democrats shock the world and retain both the House and the Senate, I will eat crow and say all my complaining and malingering has been overblown and the top leaders have positioned things correctly. But I think the odds are overwhelmingly high that Democrats will lose at least the House and that they will regret that loss badly. I can only hope they will also learn to regret the ideological rigidity that made the loss almost inevitable.
“Ideological rigidity.”
This clown should have been driven out of respectable media when he responded to my outrage over 1,138 dead Bangladeshis by saying that different countries have different workplace safety standards….and that’s OK! But he’s as Beltway as David Broder ever could have dreamed of being and that means we will be dealing with his pointless takes for the next half-century. In any case, the idea that we should just turn anti-trans in order to appease some middle ground that doesn’t exist is beyond offensive. Either you stand for what’s right or you don’t. We know where Matt lies on that question.