Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Partisan Politics (Page 11 of 20)

What’s the Worst Political Issue for Each Party?

Political parties in the U.S. are huge. They put together large coalitions with enormous platforms. As a result, they take on many popular issues and a few unpopular ones. Given these facts, we might think each party has a worst political issue. You know, something that drags them down and prevents them from building larger coalitions.

That’s what I’ll look at in this post. What’s the worst political issue for each party? I think the question has an answer, and I’ll defend one for both Republicans and Democrats.

Continue reading

Super Tuesday Disaster: One Year Later

After winning the Nevada caucuses – his third win in a row – it looked like Bernie Sanders was well on his way to securing the 2020 Democratic nomination. He built a winning coalition. He did really well in the early states among voters of color – especially Latinx voters. And he polled really well in the Super Tuesday states.

In short, everything looked great for Bernie.

But it didn’t happen for him, as everyone knows. After a big win in South Carolina, Joe Biden nudged Sanders out of the lead on Super Tuesday and defeated him handily in the later states.

What happened, and what lessons should the electoral left learn?

Continue reading

The Lincoln Project and the Democratic Party

Let’s follow up on one of those lessons from the Trump Administration. The Lincoln Project – a group of Republican ‘Never Trumpers‘ – ran a ton of anti-Trump ads during the 2020 campaign. Specifically, let’s look at how the Lincoln Project might influence the future of the Democratic Party.

Many mainstream Democrats believe they won in 2018 and/or 2020 because they won those mythical suburban, college-educated white voters who just love squishy, bipartisan moderates. We see this in, among other sources, the public words of Nancy Pelosi. We also see it in local candidates like Abby Finkenauer and national ones like Joe Biden.

Continue reading

Capitalism’s Heart Surgeon (New eBook!)

capitalism's heart surgeon

Some exciting news: Today I’ve released a new eBook! It’s called Capitalism’s Heart Surgeon: Elizabeth Warren and the Progressive Movement. And so, click the link to purchase on Kindle for a very accessible and affordable 99 cents.

Capitalism’s Heart Surgeon covers the Elizabeth Warren 2020 campaign and what it means for leftists. In short, I think the Warren campaign revealed differences on the left many of us hadn’t previously noticed. As leftists, it’s our job to put together a broad coalition of workers and tenants. The Warren campaign, by contrast, focused on highly educated progressives. And leftists have a complex relationship with that group that we should think about.

Having both the Warren and Sanders campaigns revealed some big differences on the left. We can and should learn from all this. In this eBook, I build on some of my past posts on Warren.

To read: Capitalism’s Heart Surgeon.

What Should The Left Expect From a Biden Presidency?

The U.S. left – especially the leftist factions most excited about Bernie Sanders – never figured out how to handle Joe Biden. Sanders folded right away. He endorsed Biden, and then he spent endless hours campaigning for him. Most progressive advocacy groups did the same. As usual, they dropped any and all non-electoral work to focus once again on electing Democrats. Now they’ve got a Biden presidency on their hands.

I won’t remind readers what I think of all this. If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know I think progressive advocacy groups fuck up by focusing on electing Democrats to office. They fail over and over, and they’re the Charlie Brown of politics.

But as Biden’s inauguration proceeds after the Trumpist insurrection, many issues remain unsettled. What should we expect from the Biden presidency? What kind of job will he do in office? And do progressives have any chance at all of ‘pushing Biden to the left’?

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »