*sigh*, it's a big topic these days, idk what to say, but Kyle Kulinski is kinda having it with Bill Maher and I wanted to give my thoughts.
On the one hand, Kyle has a point. If you're willing to vote for the republican party in this day and age, you're on the right, period. Even more so, for all the talk of how illiberal the left is, the right is basically fascist. I don't care if you think the left is too far left, holy crap, the right is a bigger problem NOW.
The problem with the left is if socialists and communists take over the democratic party 10-20 years ago, THAT'S a threat. And LONG TERM, maybe it is. I certainly am leery of DSA for that reason these days. A little bit of them is good, and will give us social democratic goals. Most DSA candidates are running on social democratic priorities, and even if further left, yeah, we're gonna see good results short term, even if a few of them are far left.
The problem comes as they gain more power. What if they become a majority of the democratic party? or a majority of the government? Well, then we literally got blue MAGA. yeah, Again, if this is our tea party moment, we do gotta worry that maybe in 10-20 years from now, we'll have a MAGA moment if these guys gain TOO much power, and start throwing out ALL moderates. We need SOME. I mean, keep in mind my overall philosophy. Conservatives (as in, conserve the status quo, not the whackjob "regressives" we call "conservatives), progressives. The two need to operate in harmony against each other. Progressives try to change things, but conservatives stop it from being too much too fast. Right now, we got conservative democrats and regressive republicans. That's a HUGE problem. We want the democrats to be progressive again. We just can't afford for them to be TOO progressive where they start changing too much, too fast, and too irresponsibly. It's a balance. And ideally, we get it right. But right now, we need more progressive politicians. If some of them are DSA, well, a little DSA won't kill us. It's when they start becoming more than 50% of the government that we begin having problems.
And, keep in mind, unlike what Bill Maher says, many progressives, even DSA ones, aren't full on seize the means of production. Most of them want goals aligned with social democracy, at least in the short term. Higher wages, medicare for all, free college, public housing, a green new deal. hell, Darializa Avila Chevalier, for for all of her faults, is pro UBI of all things. Bill Maher is freaking out about Zohran Mamdani and his socialist grocery stores. it's just wild. There's red scaring over literal communism, but then there's crapping on good things.
I ain't saying we all have to agree with every left wing proposal. Im not big on a green new deal. I thought Biden's BBB framework was better on that. I ain't even die hard on medicare for all these days. I'm actually for an aggressive public option instead. On the flip side, a lot of other people don't like my UBI ideas. We're not gonna all agree. But we should agree that things are fundamentally fudged and we need the biggest recalibration of the economy since the original new deal, and we should pass a suite of progressive legislation to get that done. If you wanna be on the team, we at least need to agree that broadly. I dont want centrist liberalism. Nor do I want communism. I want social democracy. But, at this point, it seems like to get that, we need a broad tent, with some to my right, and some to my left. That I can accept.
In this moment, if you freak out over the mere thought of social democracy, like people like Bill maher are doing, feel free to leave the democrats and never come back. Really. I'm done with centrists who oppose even social democracy. If youre concerned about literal communism that's one thing, but if you just hate the idea of all progress, you're not on the team, get out. Likewise, if you're so far to the left nothing but literal communism will satisfy you, well....go have fun voting for a third party that gets <1% of the vote, you're not on the team either.
If we can agree on social democratic goals now, you're on the team. We need to move left of where we are. That doesnt mean we need to go FAR FAR left, and again, we need to restrain the coalition from doing that long term. But that doesnt mean we moral panic over people who want socdem priorities. Seriously, this is MY beef. If you look at mere SOCDEM priorities, and you cant agree on THAT? Feel free and vote republican, you're not on the team. Like seriously, if trump's fascism is more acceptable than you than say, zohran mamdani's leadership in new york, or abdul el sayed in michigan, or troy jackson in maine, well....idk what to tell you, you're tastes suck and youre pretty much a republican to me. So go have fun with that.
And for people who wonder what the hell I'm thinking calling people republicans and telling them to vote that way, thinking that that's a suicidal strategy, no, it's not. It's actually genius. Here's the thing. Centrist democrats demotivate the base. For all the talk of how we need swing voters, we bring them in by giving them something to vote for. The answer isnt to always moderate to the point we get this bland flavorless politics made in a lab (which is what mainstream democratic politics is). It's to enthuse people to get them to vote for you. And to basically reverse uno chuck schumer, for every moderate republican we alienate, maybe we'll bring in 2 working class voters who would otherwise sit it out or vote republican. Seriously, elections are won by enthusiasm. over the course of my life, the side that panders to annoying centrist types almost always loses. The only election in the past 30 or so years I've seen a plainly uncharismatic candidate win was 2020, and that's because trump governed so badly anyone could win. Even then, he only barely won. In 2008, I was part of that centrist demographic, and you know what? The democrats didnt need me, they needed millions of enthused young people who wanted change. And they lost subsequent elections because they couldnt maintain their momentum, because centrism is a massive momentum killer in politics. No one LIKES centrists. They tolerate centrists. And centrists create low energy coalitions that lose elections.
Hell, if we throw those centrists out and they vote republican and republicans pander to them, it kills two birds with one stone. First of all, it moderates them and their priorities, which neutralizes the fascism threat. Second of all, it shrinks their coalition because more conservative values voters will stay home if they dont elect crazies. And that's what we want. A more moderate republican party and a more progressive democratic party is exactly what we need. If we neutralize MAGA by demotivating them and flooding them with centrists who moderate everything they do, then that's a win. If we move the overton window to the left with a progressive populist coaliton, that's a win. So no, it's not stupid to tell these guys to leave the democrats. I'm fully convinced whatever side gets stuck with these losers won't win elections, and that voters will vote for progressive candidates, at least in the short term.
I do think voters will eventually tire of populism and change, but only after the first big wave of change, which fixes many of the issues. The coalition that was fired up for change in the 1930s and 1940s was significantly more divided by the 1960s when Kennedy and Johnson were in office. The reagan coalition that was fired up in the 80s and 90s became divided by the 2000s and was becoming anemic in the 2010s until trump came around. And even then, I'm convinced trump is the final hurrah of that coalition unless they can radically change our democracy to run by permanent minority. Which is why it's so openly fascist. This is the last gasp of the reagan coalition fighting for its life. If we can form a new coalition around social democracy, that will hold for a while, and then eventually fall apart as well, while politics returns to "normal" for a time. But we gotta get through this change wave first.
And yeah, that's my strategy. Have a huge wave of change. Maybe a second smaller wave 20 years from now. And have some normalcy in between. Keep the leftists from fully taking over the democrats, but keep it progressive at the same time. Really. The threat of DSA and their illiberal tendencies are a problem in the long term. But right now, the big threat is trump. I aint concerned about DSA taking over government and doing anything radical any time soon. And if we get to that point, well, it means we succeeded with social democracy, and the rest of the overton window will hopefully be hard against them. Even I'll become conservative by that point, pulling us back to sanity.
But yeah. It's like worrying that the heat will cook us alive one day when we're currently freezing to death. That's what all of this feels like. It's stupid. Let's raise the thermostat to a comfortable level before we worry about whether it will eventually get TOO hot.
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