Discussing the "moderate power project" aka, centrist project 2025

 So, I saw TYT cover an article about the "moderate power project" aka, centrist project 2025. However, I was able to find the article itself, so I'm going to respond to much of it myself. I won't quote the entire thing, but I will be responding to snippets I feel worth responding to. 

If you ask folks at Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank, one of their party’s big challenges right now has a lot less to do with policy than with personnel: Pols like President Joe Biden win office by capturing the middle of the electorate, but then stock their administration with foot soldiers of the left.

“The center left tends to win at the ballot box, and then we’re outgunned the other 364 days of the year,” Communications Director Kate deGruyter told me. “And so we have to recognize that there’s an investment required in being able to make sure that the ideas that we see are popular, that are resonant with voters, are actually being carried out.”

 And if you ask me, the centrists control the democratic party, and it's hard to get any progressive concessions out of them. Really, are they pissed off they had to SHARE POWER with progressives who want things? Holy crap. They still control the democratic party's agenda and water everything down. They seem pissed that Berniecrats exist, and are gaining ground in the democratic party at all.

Also, as far as winning at the ballot box, you wouldn't win without progressives. And this election, you need every vote you can get, including mine. So let's stop talking about forcing progressives out of the room. Literally the only reason I came to the table this time, other than Trump being a psychopath, is because I do recognize that progressives have influenced the Biden administration and that it has exceeded expectations. 

Really if I had my way, all these "third wayers" would screw off and ride into the sunset. It's not 1992 any more. Young people (and even millennials reaching middle age these days) are progressive. We don't want the same old centrist policies. That's what the GOP should look like if the political spectrum was sane. And btw, the reason our political spectrum is INSANE is because YOU GUYS refused to cede power to us. You let all the populist energy go to the right and energize them when they were dying off. 

So, yeah. Let's not get it twisted. Progressives are part of your coalition. You screw us, I have zero qualms about screwing you. 

“We’re ensuring that center-left Democrats have a seat at the table,” said Destine Hicks-Lundy, a former Biden White House staffer who joined the think tank last week to lead the initiative, which is part of a new effort known as the Moderate Power Project. “We’re making contact with every moderate Democrat that is interested.”

 YOU ARE THE TABLE! Holy crap.

Added deGruyter: “They may not have a degree from an Ivy League institution, but they know how important it is to talk to voters in the middle about restoring order at the border and not to center your entire clean energy pitch on the climate benefits of EVs. As a group, these are people who understand how important it is for Democrats to hold the middle and would be critical advocates as decisions are being made to ensure that our ideas and messages will appeal to a broad coalition of voters.”

 Okay as an ex conservative who has a bit of a normie instinct, let me level with you.

I get it. You dont like the weirdo far leftist progressives who think everyone needs to give up their cars and that we need to go full "no human is illegal" on the border.

HOWEVER, you "centrists" are worthless. You dont reach normies at all. because normies can't tell wtf you ever do for them. You pass these overly complicated pieces of legislation you literally need an ivy league degree to decipher, filled with complicated logistics, long forms with strict requirements to get anything, and at the end of the day, voters don't feel like you did ANYTHING for them.

Voters like it when you improve their lives. but you centrist democrats are the party of the status quo. You wanna at best mess around the edges passing weird bills that no one can even apply to their personal situations when using the sociological imagination. Wtf has the chips act done for me for example? I know it's supposed to bring jobs to america but how? Does the average voter FEEL that? OF COURSE NOT! 

As a matter of fact, this is one of the reasons Biden's numbers are cratering, and why every centrist dem who ever runs and gets into office has their numbers crater after a while. And why half of them dont even connect with voters in the first place. Looking at you, Al, John, and Hillary. Because you dont do anything for them.

If Biden passed more stuff, I think he would be more popular. If peoples' wages went up, and they had universal healthcare, and had more student debt forgiven, and got paid family leave, and universal childcare, and did the things Biden campaigned on, I think that we'd be looking at a different reelection campaign. I think that people would LOVE biden, despite inflation. But sadly, we only had 50 senators, and 2 of them were traitors, and we barely passed anything. And now people are looking at whether they're better off than they were 4 years ago (which for them is actually 5-6 years ago, let's face it, they're thinking 2018-2019, not 2020), and they don't feel better off. because democrats havent fulfilled their campaign promises, and havent done anything for them.

I'm not even sure in this era of post COVID with high inflation a candidate could win on progressive policies, simply because the optics look bad (another issue associated with not perceiving the Biden administration as doing anything), but honestly? I also think part of the reason we're in this mess is because centrist dems have been disappointing.

Me, I'm actually one of those college grad (although not ivy league) progressives looking at Biden's actual actions, and giving him credit where credit is due. I'm grading on effort, not on results. Most voters, they go by results. And the results SUCK. And then YOU GUYS, you "centrists" wanna run even MORE to the center. Seriously, people dont vote for you because your policies are in an uncanny valley of suck. Republicans look at them and see them as inefficient wastes of tax dollars and go "see? government can't do anything right", and democrats look at them as worthless band aids that dont even address the problem.

And when progressives try to tell you what the problem is, you tell us that this is what we're gonna get, to STFU, and do we want trump to win. 

Screw you guys. Seriously. I'm voting for the administration, which has attempted to be progressive, but if you go back to being full centrist, I'm going green. I'm just gonna say that. I don't want a fricking worthless centrist democratic administration. Im voting Biden actually to prevent this kind of takeover from happening, because I know if Biden loses, you guys will just use it as an excuse to run to the right and never give us anything ever again. 

Either way, one thing I will say. I do admit progressives are going overboard. Especially on foreign policy and social issues. I am more center left on that. But on economics, yeah, I am a progressive populist. And you guys suck at politics. 

On the left, the most exasperated knock on the Obama administration was that, even if the liberal president may have wanted action after the financial crisis, he hired a bunch of Wall Street veterans who stymied efforts to make the fat cats pay.

 Yeah, we wanted progressive policies, not bank bail outs and a slap on the wrist to the people who crashed the economy. No crap shirlock!

And during the Biden years, a frequent refrain from disaffected centrists is that, however mainstream the 46th president’s instincts may be, the agencies of his government (and the workplaces of Democratic pols and policy groups) are chockablock with overly strident post-collegiate types who have allegedly spoiled his party’s reputation with normies.

 I've literally never heard this complaint before. It sounds like a dog whistle of "we want 100% control instead of 90% control, how dare progressives have a seat at the table." Also, the leaning into the college stuff again is fricking alienating. You want experts in your administration. people who can work policy and who understand policy. Not some fricking yokel off the streets who doesnt know how to do anything. Or maybe you do. Because they can be controlled and told what to do more easily. 

But yeah it kinda has this weird "bernie bro" vibe to it. Like, remember hillary's complaint about the white male college students/grads who are progressive and understand theory and how we need people who are more like working class black/latino women or something? That's what this comes off as. And I'm not even saying it is fully white male vs women/minorities. Lot of young progressive women of color are Berniecrats. But yeah, regardless, it has that same vibe of "you see you young progressive, you dont understand how normies think."

Uh, actually we probably do better than you, so STFU and get out of our way. 

Against that backdrop, it stands to reason that a think tank would want to get into the talent-bank business. What’s the point of all those white papers if a bunch of shaky appointees are going to go wobbly when it comes to turning them into actual policy?

 They cant get turned into actual policy because you centrists are a circlejerk of weaponized incompetence. You sabotage them and then tell us we're out of touch after you killed our ideas. Then you pass some crappy plan that doesn't do anything, act like it's a massive accomplishment, and then when the public isnt impressed and turns on you and you lose the election, you blame us for going too far left and run to the right. yeah, we got your number.

In an age of government paralysis, when a lot of wonky policy-crafting seems unlikely to ever lead to anything, being seen as a repository of personnel is also a chance to look relevant, get attention and raise money. At a place like Third Way, which has often been treated like an afterthought as progressives have gained influence in the Democratic coalition, it’s a savvy way to boost the organization’s profile.

Yeah thats the thing. They're afraid of losing power. So they're trying to power struggle against progressives and replace us. Even though centrists mostly just offer useless band aids that don't go anywhere.

To be fair, I did see the center for American Progress mentioned here, and they did run the medicare extra for all plan I like, so they aren't completely useless. But still, let's face it, they only promoted such a plan because of progressives. And they HATE that we pushed them to. Most centrists would be fine just patting themselves on the back for the success of the affordable care act and act like that's fine and no further changes are needed. 

If anything, one advantage of the biden administration's approach to policies is they took some of those big bernie ideas and scaled them down into more moderate proposals that kinda sorta do similar things and work. That isnt to say I like all of them or think they go far enough, but I do wanna point out part of the reason I've come back to the democratic table is because I understand what they did there, and I actually do support such actions. I would rather get back door access to my ideas being implemented if the full approach isn't feasible. Heck, in some cases like the climate, I LIKE the moderate approach. I'm NOT a green new dealer. 

Speaking of which, I'm gonna skip ahead and focus on this specific quote later on:

I suspect those details will actually matter a great deal, especially at an organization interested in providing staffers to Democrats. Many of the divides between center left and left are about cultural style as much as policy takes. Take the electric vehicles that deGruyter was talking about. Most of the left is in favor of transitioning to them. But is that because they’re better for climate change, or because they make our country less reliant on foreign petrostates, or because you think America’s taste for big cars is somehow gauche?

Centrists’ complaints on the subject often boil down to thinking that young progressives themselves tend to live in transit-rich cities and can’t empathize with folks who might like a car-centric life. It’s not clear what kind of resume items you’d look for if you wanted to assemble a roster of people with the correct centrist approach to that sort of thing.

 Okay, so, here's the thing. I like EVs, in part because they are more environmentally friendly, but also because THEY LET AMERICANS KEEP THEIR CARS. Those big city lefties want everyone to take public transportation and they want high speed rail and all of these weirdo green new deal solutions that won't work and most Americans don't accept. 

It's actually a compromise. And yes, for me, it is all about climate change and making us less reliant on fossil fuels. On climate change, we need to stop burning carbon. PERIOD. We need to shift our electric grid to renewables like solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and YES, EVEN NUCLEAR (something lefties hate for no apparent reason). But that still leaves the fact that we got LITERALLY MILLIONS of cars burning tons of fossil fuels. I dont want to make Americans get rid of their cars. I live in a smaller city, I understand we're a car centric society. We cant just slap public transportation on everything and expect it to work. I get that. EVs ARE THE COMPROMISE! Leftists complain that making them requires mining lithium in the third world with African slave labor and that that is also environmentally destructive. They don't like EVs either. They want everyone to take the bus or subway or train or ride a bike or some crap. That ain't workable either.

All I know is this. We have an unhealthy addition to oil (or "benzin" as Rammstein calls it, yes, they have a song about this). We need to break this addiction for the good of the planet. EVs isn't a perfect solution for either side. They do have downsides vs gas cars like range and time it takes to charge. Not good for road trips. Not a lot of places where the infrastructure exists for these cars to work. BUT, what we're doing with oil is unsustainable, and yes, since the article brought it up, it negatively affects our foreign policy too. And on the flip, what actual leftists and progressives want is totally unworkable.

Seriously, the progressives inside the biden administration who worked on his build back better and inflation reduction acts were brilliant people who had the important job of scaling down the cost of bernie's green new deal to something workable while still getting results. Again it's not perfect, but it's what we need to do.

I want to remind people that I dont actually view climate change legislation as sexy. It's not a priority of mine because i like the aesthetics of a green new deal. I'm a UBI guy. Every dollar spent on a green new deal is a dollar that could've been spent putting money back in peoples' pockets with a UBI, or giving them healthcare, etc. I don't want to spend tons of money on the climate. I support investing money in it because IT'S A LITERAL SOCIETY WIDE EXISTENTIAL THREAT THAT WE NEED TO ADDRESS SOONER OR LATER. And we've dragged our feet for too long. And you know what? The longer we drag our feet on solving this crisis, the more drastic the action we'll have to take later to minimize the effects of climate change. Unless you want the planet to cook, you know?

This is why i cant stand centrists. They literally don't want to address the problem. AT ALL. Or if they do, they do so in weaponized incompetent ways that barely do anything. We can debate the solution, but we need action. Biden had it right with build back better and these centrists whining about progressives informing it need to stfu and understand their era of politics is over. We NEED bold action to address problems in our society. We're sick and tired of moderates who just sit there with a finger in their nose going 'gee we can't do anything, but you better vote for us anyway."

Anyway, that's all I really have to say on this.

I'm just going to end this with a warning.

Honestly? You should be GLAD you put progressives in Biden's administration. Because of that, you actually earned my vote this time. I've become placated and satisfied, at least for the time being, because I like Biden's progressive actions. He's exceeded my expectations. he isn't everything I want. He isn't for a UBI. Or universal healthcare. He didn't do anything with that public option of his. But he does SOME things. He takes a few issues that I have and tries to take them off the table. And one of the reasons I've been more enthusiastic to vote for him than I was for hillary, or him in 2020 when I DID perceive him as a full on moderate, is BECAUSE of those progressives. 

But....if you stab me in the back, fill the next administration with centrists, do absolutely F all for me, and then come asking for my vote, I'm gonna basically tell you go to F yourselves like I did in 2016. You earned my vote this time. Don't push your luck. You push your luck, I'll send you packing. I don't care if you lose. Especially if we survive trump. I'm voting for you this time, but 2028 is fair game, and if you guys backslide into full centrism and push progressives out of the party, well, you can consider me gone with them. And I'm from Pennsylvania. Trust me. You NEED my vote. So don't screw around.