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The Explicit Politics of Evasion

Progressives pitch a policy of dodging hard questions & denying electoral reality.
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The Explicit Politics of Evasion​


Summarize

Progressives pitch a policy of dodging hard questions & denying electoral reality.​

Lauren Harper Pope
Since the election, the Democratic Party has faced two threats to future electoral success: evasion from mainstream Democrats, and delusion and denial from progressives.

Matt Yglesias recently discussed Elaine Kamarck’s1 landmark 1989 paper, The Politics of Evasion. In it, she warns of a Democratic Party that has refused to confront how their views deviate from voters’:

Democrats have ignored their fundamental problems. Instead of facing reality they have embraced the politics of evasion. They have focused on fundraising and technology, media and momentum, personality and tactics. Worse, they have manufactured excuses for their presidential disasters -- excuses built on faulty data and false assumptions, excuses designed to avoid tough questions.
In place of reality they have offered wishful thinking; in place of analysis, myth. This systematic denial of reality -- the politics of evasion -- continues unabated today, years after the collapse of the liberal majority and the New Deal alignment. Its central purpose is the avoidance of meaningful change. It reflects the convictions of groups who believed that it is somehow immoral for a political party to pay attention to public opinion. It reflects the interests of those who would rather be the majority in a minority party than risk being the minority in a majority party.
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When the Congressional Progressive Caucus announced their new leader last week, there was no refusal to confront how out of step the caucus is with mainstream voters. In fact, Congressman Greg Casar made the evasion strategy explicit in his interview with NBC’s Sahil Kapur:

He rejected the view that Democrats need to turn against immigrants or transgender people after Trump campaigned heavily on those issues in his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Instead, Casar said Democrats should change course by redirecting such attacks and accusing the GOP of fueling culture wars to distract voters from their agenda of helping the rich get richer.
“The progressive movement needs to change. We need to re-emphasize core economic issues every time some of these cultural war issues are brought up,” Casar said.
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This was days after Yglesias wrote:

Until now, though, I didn’t understand why the paper centered the idea of “evasion” so heavily. But as we see similar debates about party renewal play out, I get it.
Because on the one hand, you have people who are trying to shift the Democratic Party toward a bigger tent. On the other, you have those who are firmly opposed to structural changes or who are pursuing some kind of left-accelerationist strategies, people who are not particularly amenable to persuasion on this point. And in between is a very large camp of people who, I think, basically support the idea of growing the tent, but also don’t like fighting.
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From Policy Evasion to Electoral Delusion​

There is another aspect to the politics of evasion: delusion and denial.

In his press conference after being elected chair of the Progressive Caucus, Casar led with a doozy:

“If the Democratic Party was a little more like Chairwoman Jayapal and a little less like Joe Manchin, I think we would have won this election”
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Joe Manchin won his last Senate race in West Virginia with 50% of the vote against Patrick Morrissey, who won 46% of the vote. This year, Harris lost West Virginia with 28% of the vote while Trump took in 70%.

That means Manchin over-performed Harris in the state by a whopping 46 points (!). For context, Tester over-performed by 13 points this cycle.

Joe Manchin is an electoral behemoth, the likes of which we would be oh so lucky to see again.

Pramila Jayapal is … not. This year, Harris won Jayapal’s district by 74.5, while Jayapal won by only 68.4, a 6 point underperformance.

So, who do we listen to? The person who overperformed Harris by 46 points, or underperformed by 6 points?

It’s not clear that Jayapal’s brand of politics is even that exciting to Democratic voters — her sister lost a primary this year 47% to 33% against mainstream Democrat Maxine Dexter. Two squad members, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, lost primaries to mainstream Democrats.

Progressive Senators underperformed this year: Warren ran 6 points behind Harris, and Sanders ran a point behind (the only two incumbent Senators to underperform Harris).

It seems that being represented by a Squad member can actually make a district more conservative. Ayanna Pressley’s district in Massachusetts has swung to the right during her tenure. Ilhan Omar has consistently been one of the worst-performing Democrats in the House and this cycle ran 12 points behind Harris (Harris won by 62 points, Omar by 50).

Our view is simple: listen to the winners and the over-performers. And discount the earnest advice of those who run behind the ticket.

Jayapal and other progressives consistently run behind even weak national performers like Harris. Meanwhile, Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez outperform even winning national Democrats, like Biden in 2020. They welcome independents into the coalition by taking common sense positions on issues like domestic energy, budget deficits and student loans, while progressives drive them out with extreme views.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus can maintain a strategy of Dodge (hard questions) and Deny (electoral reality), because they all represent safe blue districts. A Democratic Party that wins a majority cannot.

1
The Politics of Evasion
 
the cac mamba

the cac mamba

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AquaCityBoy said:
You're a 'Democrat' in the same way Ana Kasparian is a 'Democrat'
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you didn't vote democrat against trump in 2024, because islamic terrorists started a war in a foreign country overseas. and that was your #1 electoral issue

who the fukk are you to define what a democrat is? :childplease:
 
88m3

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Tony D'Amato said:
Dems have a serious Elon Musk problem and In seeing nothing on how to handle him
Click to expand...

the problem is bigger than Musk, I would imagine most see him for what he is at this point

voters willingly allowed Trump to win two elections and dominate congress and the courts and it has doomed this country for the foreseeable future

we need to get money out of politics
we need to get serious about foreign interference
we seriously need to look at regulating social media/internet/legacy media as it has become dominated and driven by dark money/ai/bots/foreign/bad actors
we need to get serious about the importance of winning elections and controlling the courts
Republicans need to be held accountable for inequality and failing to improve the lives of the American people
congress is largely deadlocked and we never get meaningful laws that actually benefit real people anymore
red states are overrepresented in the senate and house and the electoral congress is a sick joke



After this election I feel like society has shifted right and doesn't give a damn about each other particularly the most vulnerable in society and the left and nonvoters are just as culpable as the the far right/conservatives/White America
 
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the cac mamba

the cac mamba

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Tony D'Amato said:
Dems have a serious Elon Musk problem and In seeing nothing on how to handle him
Click to expand...
know what the problem is? as much of a fakkit that elon is, being the richest man on earth is always gonna be cool. everyone wants to be rich :dead:

republicans celebrate that. dems grovel and apologize and complain about wealth, all while being led by a woman who gets wealthy off insider trading :scust:

and yeah, pelosi is still the defacto leader of the dems. until hakeem tells her to shut the fukk up in public, and puts her in her place. imo, he hasnt solidified himself yet
 
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Tony D'Amato

Tony D'Amato

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88m3 said:
the problem is bigger than Musk, I would imagine most see him for what he is at this point

voters willingly allowed Trump to win two elections and dominate congress and the courts and it has doomed this country for the foreseeable future

we need to get money out of politics
we need to get serious about foreign interference
we seriously need to look at regulating social media/internet/legacy media as it has become dominated and driven by dark money/ai/bots/foreign/bad actors
we need to get serious about the importance of winning elections and controlling the courts
Republicans need to be held accountable for inequality and failing to improve the lives of the American people
congress is largely deadlocked and we never get meaningful laws that actually benefit real people anymore
red states are overrepresented in the senate and house and the electoral congress is a sick joke



After this election I feel like society has shifted right and doesn't give a damn about each other particularly the most vulnerable in society and the left and nonvoters are just as culpable as the the far right/conservatives/White America
Click to expand...
Musk has taken over for Rupert Murdoch. Twitter is his toy and its becoming more hateful by the day. While pushing topics he wants pushed. Its some real psychological shyt he's doing with twitter amd I really think people are naive to it.

I said before and I'll say again, Dems went overboard with that sanctuary city bs. All of that opened the door for trump. Then the tranny shyt was an anchor on the party. Perception became reality
 
Loose

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the cac mamba said:
know what the problem is? as much of a fakkit that elon is, being the richest man on earth is always gonna be cool. everyone wants to be rich :dead:

republicans celebrate that. dems grovel and apologize and complain about wealth, all while being led by a woman who gets wealthy off insider trading :scust:

and yeah, pelosi is still the defacto leader of the dems. until hakeem tells her to shut the fukk up in public, and puts her in her place. imo, he hasnt solidified himself yet
Click to expand...
Typical white incel response :dead: none of this have anything to do with the issues. tf does Nancy Pelosi have to do with billionaire oligarchs
 
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