Do Democratic Party leaders benefit from doomerism?
They should get evangelical on voters.
American politics is full of uncertainty, but one thing that the Democrats completely trust is this – eventually, a Republican president will wreck the economy. His failure paves the way for the Democrats' return to power. This pattern has been so regular as to be predictable over the last half century. An entire generation of Democratic leadership counts on it.
These pendulum swings may seem comforting, as they suggest a kind of equilibrium at the heart of the American electorate. They should not be comforting, as they enable America's worst instincts. The Democrats don't really need to present an ideal vision of the future. They don't really need to fight for it. To win back power, all they have to do is wait. At some point, the Republican will blow up the economy. The outcome? A Democratic comeback.
Subscribe to the Editorial Board today! I know you like it. I know you'll love the price! For just $9 a month, you get so much, plus the satisfaction of supporting independent journalism. (Don't know if you're a subscriber? Check your status below.) –JS
The Democrats have sound policies. The problem is they collectively lack a unifying moral view. They do not ask Americans to be better. They do not invest in infrastructure that rewards public virtue. They do not go to war for the greater good. Instead, they tend to privilege the victimhood of disillusioned voters, even when they are victims of themselves.
In the run up to the midterm elections, the Democrats accuse Donald Trump of broken promises. Among other examples, they cite rates of inflation that have wiped out wage gains. But the president kept his promise. A majority of voters wanted whiteness to be dominant again. That's what he's doing. The problem is that whiteness causes ruin, even for those who vote for it. You can't have one without the other, but they didn't believe it, because, to them, whiteness is prosperity. What they're mad about now is their own desire backfiring on them.
If the Democrats win in November, which seems likely, the leadership will have incentive to control everything rank-and-file Democrats say for the purpose of seeming reasonable to these voters, therefore retaining hopefully their support in advance of the 2028 election.
The problem is there's no way to seem reasonable to Americans who desire freedom from consequences. To use the old cliche, Trump voters wanted to touch the stove. What they didn't want was the first-degree burns. Appeals to their self-interest will have limited effect if they are not accompanied by an ethical reaction. The Democrats need to get evangelical on these people, not only with a unifying moral view but a media infrastructure to transmit it.
Already subscribing? Give the EB as a gift!
Can the Democratic Party do that?
Yes, according to Matthew Sheffield. The holdup isn't money. There's plenty. The holdup is lack of will. "I have come to the conclusion that the current highest level Democratic leaders would rather lose than change their approach fundamentally," Matthew told me last week.
An expert of political media, especially on the right, Matthew was a source in a Post report about Ashley St. Clair, a former maga personality who recently revealed the extent to which rightwing media is directly paid for by billionaire Republicans. Matthew is also a Republican apostate (he left on moral grounds), so I asked if he thinks St. Claire is being genuine.
"She seems to," he said. "Having walked away from the easy money, I can recognize that's what she's done. I'm going to have to do a crowd-funding campaign, because there's no one willing to pay for media on the left. And the audience mostly just wants doomerism."
The left wants doomerism? I asked.
Here's his reply and the rest of our conversation.
Can you expand on that? The left wants doomerism?
I think a lot of the audience genuinely believes in some sense that Trump is inevitably going to destroy democracy. They think that there is no money available on the left, and that is why Republicans have been strong when he's on the ballot.
This seems to be an easier conclusion to believe rather than the actual facts: that Democrats at the elite level have wasted their money on poor campaign strategies, and that they are not very good at what they do.
It's very discomforting to have to face the fact that Kamala Harris was not a very good candidate, and that neither were the people who ran her campaign at the highest levels and the affiliated super PACs.
I have come to the conclusion that the current highest level Democratic leaders would rather lose than change their approach fundamentally. They are so obsessed with controlling the message at all times that they don't want to direct money or influence to people who are not under their control. But that way of doing politics doesn't work in the age of social media, because everyone can see that the messages that are pushed in this way are obviously coordinated and inauthentic.
The party leaders are thoroughly bought into neoliberalism. Rather than talk about how they're going to tear down monopolies and tax the billionaires who have destroyed our society, they talk about relaxing zoning laws and new tax credits.
John Stoehr
Is there a consensus among leaders or is there competition?
Inside DC, there seems to be a consensus. There in the thrall of amateur commentators like Matt Yglesias who have punished no serious political science work, or even a work of political theory.
But it seems that some Obama alumni have begun to realize that the Clinton way of doing things has failed. I wrote about this recently.
The problem for Democratic longterm thinking has been that Republicans destroy things invariably when they get the White House and so Democrats can win almost regardless of what they do.
So instead of building a longterm generative vision, the party is dominated by small-minded amateurs who think that recapitulating Bill Clinton in 1992 is a great idea. Never mind that Clinton himself did not get a majority that year.
Having seen the inside of both parties, there's such a dramatic contrast in terms of vision. Republicans are planning for the next five, 10, and 30 years. Democrats are only thinking about the next election.
And the media that they encourage largely reflect that. Everything is about reacting to whatever happened in the news that day, rather than developing a coherent vision of how we got here and how to fix it.
Love the Editorial Board? Leave a tip? Say $10?
That reactivity would explain their obsession with independent voters, no? As in: let's put all our energy into appearing reasonable to people who feel alienated. That plays by the GOP's rules, rather than they own.
Yes. Republicans have a larger vision, whereas Democrats are policymakers. They don't have a vision of the future or how to get there. To the extent there is one, it's "moar capitalism," which isn't how you win as a left party.
What do you think the Democratic vision should be? And should they pay influencers to help spread word of that visions?
I think that citizens should stop paying for candidates so much, because the money is wasted on ads.
As to the vision, it's not a simple question. We need political vision, philosophical vision, and metaphysical vision. I'm working on the latter two actually with a book manuscript in outline form if you want to look at it. Here's a very compressed overview of some of the political and philosophical parts.
Pretty much all "futurism" discourse is fascistic. And it's reflected in the films that get made and the cramped vision of "global class struggle" or "bean-counting capitalism" that get advanced.
We need to openly talk about beauty, love, knowledge and freedom. The rightwing talks of these things, and gets to own that discourse because we say nothing in response. As the Book of Proverbs puts it, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
I boil it down by saying that we need a liberalism that aims to make lives better at every level. Everyone deserves to laugh easily, think clearly and love freely.
