I recall reading in the hard left Jacobin magazine some years ago - and I'm paraphrasing - "we are for a world without borders ..." I thought then and there the idiots were running the asylum.
Apparently, Jacobin and others who are even less supportive than Biden of the strategy of "peace through strength" aren't willing to oppose any form of aggression by authoritarian regimes. If the Russian invasion of Ukraine had been limited to its takeover of Russian-speaking regions of the country where a majority of the population MAY have preferred to secede from Ukraine, I might have had some sympathy for a more restrained response by the U.S. and NATO. But it is clear that the majority of people in Ukrainian-speaking parts of Ukraine value their self-determination so much that they are willing to fight for it at enormous cost.
I served as an Army officer, particularly in Korea, and as such was risking my own life in support of the principle of self-determination. Nowhere is the value of that more apparent than in the contrast between life in South Korea and North Korea (which not coincidentally is supporting Russian aggression in Ukraine). That is why I have politically supported military strength through alliances -- and the willingness to use it -- even after returning to civilian life.
Peace through strength is fine. Alliances, at least the ones we have, not so much. NATO (Needs Americans To Operate) is not only useless militarily but has evolved from a defensive alliance into an offensive one. The Soviets always considered it so but evidence contradicts this prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. Without getting into an argument about who was the aggressor in Ukraine about which I suspect we disagree, let's talk about Serbia. Since Serbia is a traditional ally of Russia, I can assure you that they were paying attention to this.
Serbia threatened no NATO country and was not even capable of threatening a NATO country. The conflict in Kosovo was purely internal to Serbia or a conflict between a non-NATO state and a non-NATO proto-state, depending on your point of view. In either case, not a NATO issue. It was essentially an ethnic/religious conflict. Yet NATO intervened and forced a change in the previously recognized Serbian border with Kosovo becoming independent. The similarities to the Donbas are striking except NATO is on the other side of the issue. The whole episode pretty much reinforced Russian beliefs about NATO being an offensive alliance. In the earlier Bosnian war, the NATO intervention was under the aegis of the UN with the Russians in apparent support.
We may never know what the Russians were up to in their initial strike toward Kiev. They didn't deploy enough troops for city fighting even against a citizen militia much less for occupying the whole of Ukraine. The two most credible theories I have seen are 1) a feint to distract from their real objectives in the Donbas and the land bridge to Crimea or 2) an attempt to spook the Ukraine government into fleeing or accepting neutralization. Maybe both. #2 clearly failed and #1 turned into a much harder grind than the Russians anticipated.
The notion of NATO being an "aggressor" is the sort of irrationality that only paranoid Russians or their apologists could actually believe. At least before the large scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, most countries in NATO were so unconcerned about military preparedness that they substantially fell short of their treaty obligations in defense spending. That is hardly what an alliance would do if it had "aggressive" intentions. If NATO overall, or the U.S. in particular, had such an orientation, wouldn't the citizens of the non-NATO countries of Europe (such as Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria) fear it? (In visiting those countries and keeping up on international news, I have never seen any indication that they do.) And why would the previously neutral countries of Sweden and Finland choose to join NATO? To invade Russia at the risk of nuclear retaliation? The people of western Europe aren't that stupid.
Reflexive anti-Russian viewpoints are hard for me to understand, though I do remember how I felt about the Soviet Union back in the 80s. I kind of scoff at the young me and my illusions.
Thank you for another brilliant recitation of inexplicable Dem policies. May I add the most insane? Reps authored a bill that would streamline deportation of convicted undocumented sex offenders, and domestic abusers, who confess to their crimes or are found guilty in a US Court of law. The bill would also bar any form of immigration by convicted sex offenders and domestic abusers.
Inexplicably, 140 House Dems refused to support law, during its' most recent vote. Reasonable people can differ, as to how many vetted migrants the US should accept annually, or what level of tax payer support, new arrivals should enjoy. It is not reasonable, to go to bat for convicted sex offenders and wife beaters, or to argue Americans must allow their importation, as if, we have a shortage of domestically produced variety.
Would love for someone to explain the widespread Dem resistance to removing self identified and convicted child molesters, rapists and domestic abusers. If Americans understood how many Dems are more concerned with protecting sexual predators, rather than women and children, Dems would have an even longer climb, back to the WH. Only a Press, dedicated to downplaying such votes, has saved the Party from public outcry. The vote would indicate Progressivism isn't a small issue within the Dem Party, but still, the overwhelming driver of Dem policy.
Finally, regarding oil production under Biden, oil production is the result of decades of exploration, leasing, permitting and preparation. Oil production did not hit a high during the Biden administration because of Joe, but rather, in spite of him.
If Texas were its' own country, the state alone, would hold the 4th largest oil reserves on the globe. Federal regulation, under Dems, undercuts that invaluable natural resource, at every turn. Less US extraction simply means, dirtier oil will be harvested elsewhere, around the globe, but like imported pedophiles, Dems seem unconcerned, with that fact.
HR 7909 Violence against Women by Illegal Aliens Act. Not generally a Nancy Mace fan, but who on earth, would vote against streamlining the deportation of convicted sexual predators and domestic abusers?
Ok, I'll take a look. I am a little leery of zeroing in one one type of crime (however objectionable). All illegals who are a convicted of a crime should be deported.
What would the debate over illegal immigration sound like if the Americans who must compete against the illegals for jobs and government services were America lawyers, college professors and newspaper editors instead of American meat cutters, roofers and maids?
America's lawyers, college professors, and newspaper editors have given up on American citizens who work as meat cutters, roofers, and maids. The latter are hopelessly infected with bourgeois values like "the American Dream," "upward mobility," and "home ownership." The former pin their hopes on immigrants who can come in, displace those citizen workers, and bring openness to socialist and collectivist ideals to American society. As a bonus, the despair of the American citizens displaced from their jobs can provide further fuel to the fires of the Revolution.
Yes, and that further fans the flames of Revolution. And when they unionize, they are okay with paying union dues just as they had to pay off the caudillos back home.
You have absolutely nailed the 3 areas that killed the Democrats and will continue to as long as they support them. These are existential problems for the left and the Democrats if they continue on the path they are on One other thought. I think the left and the Democrats fall into these traps because they want to think of themselves as the forward , visionary reformers. Thus when a new idea erupts via some current issue they jump on it without a lot of analytical thinking. It appears to be emotion based and not a lot of thinking through how their new insight/vision will play out in the real world. A complete lack of understanding change control of the unintended consequences. Unless they get a leader who can help them deal with this they are in the wilderness for a while
Superb analysis as usual by Ruy Teixeira. America needs a strong two-party system, a competition of ideas, both to govern responsibly and in the public's best interest, but also as a dissenting voice, a check on the governing class by a loyal opposition.
Sadly, years of in-your-face Leftist orthodoxy and anti-American bullying and intolerance has not been disavowed and condemned by a Democratic Party that now must own what it will not abandon. Even more sadly, this abandonment of a moderate, more common sense middle is the hill today's Democratic Party is apparently willing to die on, but in dying inflicts serious if not lethal injury to our small "d" democracy.
Is the radical Left and it's vacuous, nutty idealogy worth the cost?
Another good piece. Summed up, I would argue that common sense won the day over luxury beliefs.
Minus the trans issue, which came to its apex this decade, this article could have easily been written as a warning circa 2015 vs. a eulogy in 2025. Most of what you write is why I voted for Trump in '16 and have in both elections since then. I suffered the public shaming, the loss of friends, and the overall silencing that came with vocally espousing much of what you write in this piece. And it only hardened my resolve.
I think that's something political analysts also need to consider...the barriers to crossing over to supporting Trump/America First are huge. There is a real cost to it. Once you commit, you are all in. I'd posit it will be harder to win these people back than with prior political conversions. Perhaps it's true belief or cognitive dissonance...either way, it's real.
You're missing the bigger picture. If you're in a Red MAGA stronghold in America--*particularly* an evangelical one--there is often also a huge cost to moving leftward, too. If you want to see public shaming, go to a gathering of evangelicals and try vocally espousing progressive ideas.
The barriers to moving across the aisle, in either direction, are the problem.
I don't disagree, but the country moved right in almost every state and county this election cycle. Did any 'Red MAGA strongholds' move left? GOP made material gains with historically Democratic contingencies. It will be difficult to win these voters back, especially if Trump has any level of success AND if Dems keep 'dying on their hills', to the point of this TLP article.
i don't want anyone to die. And I don't think single party rule leads to good things. Dems need to rid themselves of their left fringe. That's a lot easier said than done as even 'mainstream' Democrats have espoused the nastiest of the leftist tendencies. Their pivot back to the middle will be interpreted as politically expedient rather than principled/based.
I guess I still don't understand your view. If Trump and the GOP are doing nothing wrong, what role is there for the Democrats other than to applaud? Should they just run on the color blue and hope enough people before that color to red that they hold a few seats. It is interesting too that people keep saying that the Democrats should move to the center. Did the GOP move to the center after getting drubbed twice much worse by Obama than Harris was by Trump?
The so-called "left" is mostly a bunch of crackpots, conformists, authoritarians, and mentally disordered people who are completely ignorant of the subjects on which they pontificate. Unlike the activists in the black civil rights movement, they take no risks whatsoever while they tear down our cities, governments and lives of individual dissenters. They are mostly affluent people from affluent backgrounds who absorb no consequences for their antisocial behaviors. They are not dying on any hills, they live in fancy houses on them. When they get uncomfortable living in the squalor they have created in our cities, they move to safer and wealthier enclaves, from which they can continue to scold the rest of us. At some point, when their crackpot beliefs finally become unfashionable, the entire movement will disappear, perhaps quite suddenly. Meanwhile, the most effective strategy I have found in dealing with them is to tell them as often as I can that they are a small minority, that most Americans reject their beliefs, and that the Democratic Party lost the election.
As a historian (new book at Christmas, "America in the 21st Century") I very much appreciate you doing so much of the "grunt work" in following some of these numbers.
I would say that the whole green/"climate change" issue is going to get far worse for its advocates, largely because all the alternatives are showing their deep structural flaws that make them unusable, while more and more people realize that "Gee, the earth's climate changes no matter what we do." Second, Richard Baris has a new poll out either today or Monday that shows Trump at 55% even in New England (!!) and Rs generall at +4 nationally. I think this is LOW. Pennsylvania, for example, saw another 16,000 net R voters, and it is my contention that John Fetterman, despite what he says now, will switch parties within 2 years because PA will be a red state. NJ is going to be a true tossup. There is nowhere on the map, save perhaps Colorado, where Ds are gaining---not even California. Overall Rs added 100,000 net in December alone.
So the problem is that "mediation" or "moderate" measures are not available for certain fundamental principles (there are only two sexes, the climate will change regardless of what man does, and ALL borders must be entirely secure and invaders thrown out before there can be discussions about "immigration reform." I think, and I think polling shows, this is now bleeding over into the H1B debate and those are going to be drastically cut. America will adapt or die, and American employees, especially young men who have been attacked and marginalized, must again be put front and center for us to defeat Chy-na.
I have agreed with much of what has been written by Ruy T and others in Liberal Patriot about the need for the Ds to get back to a majoritarian message and platform.
At the same time, we need to figure out the appropriate balance on a number of concerns that none of us should give up on, never mind "The Left". Here are a couple:
Diversity is a good thing, and the need to make amends for our shameful history of racial discrimination remains. The Rs almost NEVER acknowledge this basic truth, and want it out of our schools. People of good will should support the truth.
Global warming is a looming challenge that could well result in mass migration of hundreds of millions of people, ecological changes that could have profound economic consequences, and a tipping point from which it would be nearly impossible to dial back. What's the right balance here between fossil fuel production going forward and moving towards alternate fuel sources as rapidly as possible?
The borders need greater security. International asylum norms also matter for the sake of human rights and sharing some amount of the world's wealth that has been wrongfully appropriated--arguably stolen in many instances--from nations less-developed industrially to those more-developed world. What are the right policies here?
It's easy to say what's wrong, and far harder to make them better. I'd like to see the Liberal Patriot spend more time and energy prescribing how the Ds can do better in a way that maintains key parts of its base while also extending its appeal to the voting majority. The point about the Ds infirmities and mistakes have been well made for a while now. How about more guidance for how to emerge from the wilderness, beat Trumpism and MAGA back, and secure a more prosperous and just future for lower and working-income Americans.
Thank you Mr. McCoy, you seem to be one of the few people here that suggests that the Democrats should think about what should be done and urge the country do that. Everyone else seems to think the Democrats should simply do whatever worked for Trump to get almost 50% of the popular vote.
The hill the Left and the Democrats at large aren't willing to die on is ending the Forever Wars (except when one involves Jews defending themselves). I am so old I can remember when the Democrats were the peace party. No more. You mentioned the backlash to the Iraq war and of course there is Vietnam. One of the reasons that Bush is so reviled by the Right is starting the Iraq war and then bungling it. The Iraq war bears a startling resemblance to Putin's war being a preventative war of choice and being bungled (by both Russians and Americans). Difference is that Iraq isn't right on our border and didn't have nukes. Opposition to Vietnam was led by the Left even when a Democrat was President with the rest of the Democrats joining in when Nixon was elected. The Left being joined and energized by RFK and McCarthy was the proximate reason for LBJ declining to run, though he had a pretty grim medical diagnosis. So now peace has become another Right-coded issue. Trump's bombast sometimes gets in the way but Vance was selected for a reason.
I think there's a bit of tunnel-vision here, Ruy, and it's making your analysis here a bit shallow. There are several underlying wrinkles worth taking a closer look at, and you're bracketing one of the most important variables at work, which is the hyperpolarized political climate we're in.
For example, you mentioned that 12 Democratic senators crossed the aisle to vote on the Laken Riley act--but didn't note that that's actually a *huge*, filibuster-proofing, number in the hyperpolarized environment we're in. Lingering a moment to consider the signals that sends, and *why* there was such a big show of support (as in the incentives at work, not just "because it was the right thing to do"), is warranted.
You also didn't really touch on the fact that the bulk of Democrats in Congress didn't immediately go into #resistance mode at Trump's reelection--they have (so far, at least) notably taken a more wait-and-see approach, and have made overtures to cooperation, which is a fairly significant change, given that Republicans have been in #resistance mode since 2008 and mindless #resistance partisan warfare has long been the standard operating procedure of Congress.
You looked at Wikler's public statement, but didn't really talk about his successful networking with moderates in Wisconsin, which is part of what has made him stand out in the party--and sort of contradicts the idpol approach suggested by that statement.
Looking at the way these appear to cut against the grain of the errors you think 'the left' is making--and whether they do or do not represent any signs of change, upon closer scrutiny--would give your analysis a bit more depth. Your piece with Judis analyzing whether Trump's reelection betokens a realignment or not was much more nuanced in this fashion, and thus much more interesting than this.
Also, your analysis is always better when you remember to distinguish the different species of leftist, as you have elsewhere--right now you're eliding the difference between center-left and DSA-style progressives. I'm sure you understand that both AOC and Ruben Gallego are not the same kind of leftist; but remember that many of your readers may not.
I don't think climate is much of a hill, let alone one anyone will die on. Most people hardly vote on the issue. China, India, and the rest of South and East Asia are who will determine the extent of climate change.
Our energy costs will rise or fall, we will continue to adapt to electric cars etc, and what we think about it is fairly immaterial.
Like Ruy says, climate ranks down the bottom. The other two issues are very big. Both are pocket book issues to one degree or another, and I'd consider course corrections on both to be moving leftwards not right. Supporting the workers of America? I can't think of a more lefty issue. Being against discrimination? A core Democratic lefty issue no matter who is being discriminated against. Asians, Jews, whites, men, all deserving of equal protection as much as anyone else.
This is the nth time the same poll-driven points have been made about the climate issue: "climate change as an issue has very low salience to working-class voters." I don't propose to rehash the debate engendered last time, but I do want to reiterate the fundamental point that climate change is not something where the polls decide what's an important issue: climate change has to be addressed or the consequences will be (even more) grave. The polls may give tactical indications that must be dealt with. But this is not like a political preference issue: the exogenous facts of climate change are there regardless of what we want to think, or what is convenient. So, despite the prospect of four years in the wilderness, the fundamental point about climate change is that a Call to Arms is needed, and will be even more needed after Trump: true leadership is required. The issue should not be cluttered up with other issues, as was the misguided "Green New Deal." But the issue cannot be ignored, certainly not because of poll results.
An actual discussion of what the realities are and what might work would be welcomed. The idea of hard-stop of fossil hydrocarbon use before 2050 is a nonstarter, and even if it were to happen, it'd take a couple hundred years for the CO2 to start to clear out and temperatures to move to what they would have been absent the burning of all the fossil fuels. In 200 years the sea levels will rise to the point that many currently habitable places won't be, regardless of whose predictions you believe.
Moving then to the discussion of solutions that would avoid that eventuality, there are two things that are currently technologically possible to amend this. One would be a lofted solar shield into a Lagrange position, specifically the L1 point between the Sun and Earth. Another would be inserting particulates into the atmosphere to attenuate solar radiation. Regardless of what is done with hydrocarbons and other fuel sources, something analogous to these two solutions will be required to avoid significant changes to the Earth over the next two centuries.
Of course, overdone, both of these could introduce a new Ice Age, so there is risk, but it is not as if sitting on our hands or arguing about CO2 is going to somehow avoid these changes. They will happen.
With regard to energy policy I am unsure who you mean by "the left." As you point out, Biden was very much an "all of the above" guy and energy production is very high. The "Net zero" was never seriously defended. It is not clear how the Democrats can "compromise" more on this without agreeing to tear down all the windmills, destroy all solar panels and require every American to buy a Hummer and drive 300 miles a day. As usual your logic goes, the "working class" according to some polls want this, so the Democrats should endorse whatever the "working class" wants without giving any thought to what the working class want according to those polls is good policy.
Excellent Insights from Ruy Teixeira.... I am a Jefferson, Jackson, and FDR Democrat who still believes FDR's Second Bill of Rights is relevant to the 21st Century.
US Rep. Sarah McBride (white trans woman) story fits your narrative. McBride is from Delaware, and a close friend to the Bidens. DE has one House seat, population is 20% Black. Dems cleared the field for McBride in the state Senate run, and again in 2024 for the US House. Who was pushed aside? Blacks. Somehow, D leadership decided trans outweighed race. Unsurprisingly (as DE is Biden's home state) McBride had no discernable GOP opposition in 2024. FYI, House seat had been held by a moderate D Black woman, who was elected to the US Senate last year - opening up the House seat.
I recall reading in the hard left Jacobin magazine some years ago - and I'm paraphrasing - "we are for a world without borders ..." I thought then and there the idiots were running the asylum.
To their credit, Jacobin isn't willing to die for the Ukrainian border.
But they are willing to kill Israel for Hamas.
Apparently, Jacobin and others who are even less supportive than Biden of the strategy of "peace through strength" aren't willing to oppose any form of aggression by authoritarian regimes. If the Russian invasion of Ukraine had been limited to its takeover of Russian-speaking regions of the country where a majority of the population MAY have preferred to secede from Ukraine, I might have had some sympathy for a more restrained response by the U.S. and NATO. But it is clear that the majority of people in Ukrainian-speaking parts of Ukraine value their self-determination so much that they are willing to fight for it at enormous cost.
I served as an Army officer, particularly in Korea, and as such was risking my own life in support of the principle of self-determination. Nowhere is the value of that more apparent than in the contrast between life in South Korea and North Korea (which not coincidentally is supporting Russian aggression in Ukraine). That is why I have politically supported military strength through alliances -- and the willingness to use it -- even after returning to civilian life.
Peace through strength is fine. Alliances, at least the ones we have, not so much. NATO (Needs Americans To Operate) is not only useless militarily but has evolved from a defensive alliance into an offensive one. The Soviets always considered it so but evidence contradicts this prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. Without getting into an argument about who was the aggressor in Ukraine about which I suspect we disagree, let's talk about Serbia. Since Serbia is a traditional ally of Russia, I can assure you that they were paying attention to this.
Serbia threatened no NATO country and was not even capable of threatening a NATO country. The conflict in Kosovo was purely internal to Serbia or a conflict between a non-NATO state and a non-NATO proto-state, depending on your point of view. In either case, not a NATO issue. It was essentially an ethnic/religious conflict. Yet NATO intervened and forced a change in the previously recognized Serbian border with Kosovo becoming independent. The similarities to the Donbas are striking except NATO is on the other side of the issue. The whole episode pretty much reinforced Russian beliefs about NATO being an offensive alliance. In the earlier Bosnian war, the NATO intervention was under the aegis of the UN with the Russians in apparent support.
We may never know what the Russians were up to in their initial strike toward Kiev. They didn't deploy enough troops for city fighting even against a citizen militia much less for occupying the whole of Ukraine. The two most credible theories I have seen are 1) a feint to distract from their real objectives in the Donbas and the land bridge to Crimea or 2) an attempt to spook the Ukraine government into fleeing or accepting neutralization. Maybe both. #2 clearly failed and #1 turned into a much harder grind than the Russians anticipated.
The notion of NATO being an "aggressor" is the sort of irrationality that only paranoid Russians or their apologists could actually believe. At least before the large scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, most countries in NATO were so unconcerned about military preparedness that they substantially fell short of their treaty obligations in defense spending. That is hardly what an alliance would do if it had "aggressive" intentions. If NATO overall, or the U.S. in particular, had such an orientation, wouldn't the citizens of the non-NATO countries of Europe (such as Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria) fear it? (In visiting those countries and keeping up on international news, I have never seen any indication that they do.) And why would the previously neutral countries of Sweden and Finland choose to join NATO? To invade Russia at the risk of nuclear retaliation? The people of western Europe aren't that stupid.
I see I was correct about us disagreeing which is why I wanted to talk about Serbia which you didn't mention.
Reflexive anti-Russian viewpoints are hard for me to understand, though I do remember how I felt about the Soviet Union back in the 80s. I kind of scoff at the young me and my illusions.
What, you never heard of the Comintern?
Perhaps. Maybe it's the NKVD name for Jacobin?
Thank you for another brilliant recitation of inexplicable Dem policies. May I add the most insane? Reps authored a bill that would streamline deportation of convicted undocumented sex offenders, and domestic abusers, who confess to their crimes or are found guilty in a US Court of law. The bill would also bar any form of immigration by convicted sex offenders and domestic abusers.
Inexplicably, 140 House Dems refused to support law, during its' most recent vote. Reasonable people can differ, as to how many vetted migrants the US should accept annually, or what level of tax payer support, new arrivals should enjoy. It is not reasonable, to go to bat for convicted sex offenders and wife beaters, or to argue Americans must allow their importation, as if, we have a shortage of domestically produced variety.
Would love for someone to explain the widespread Dem resistance to removing self identified and convicted child molesters, rapists and domestic abusers. If Americans understood how many Dems are more concerned with protecting sexual predators, rather than women and children, Dems would have an even longer climb, back to the WH. Only a Press, dedicated to downplaying such votes, has saved the Party from public outcry. The vote would indicate Progressivism isn't a small issue within the Dem Party, but still, the overwhelming driver of Dem policy.
Finally, regarding oil production under Biden, oil production is the result of decades of exploration, leasing, permitting and preparation. Oil production did not hit a high during the Biden administration because of Joe, but rather, in spite of him.
If Texas were its' own country, the state alone, would hold the 4th largest oil reserves on the globe. Federal regulation, under Dems, undercuts that invaluable natural resource, at every turn. Less US extraction simply means, dirtier oil will be harvested elsewhere, around the globe, but like imported pedophiles, Dems seem unconcerned, with that fact.
What bill are you referencing in your first paragraph? Do you have a bill #?
HR 7909 Violence against Women by Illegal Aliens Act. Not generally a Nancy Mace fan, but who on earth, would vote against streamlining the deportation of convicted sexual predators and domestic abusers?
Ok, I'll take a look. I am a little leery of zeroing in one one type of crime (however objectionable). All illegals who are a convicted of a crime should be deported.
and even all people who have entered illegally.
What would the debate over illegal immigration sound like if the Americans who must compete against the illegals for jobs and government services were America lawyers, college professors and newspaper editors instead of American meat cutters, roofers and maids?
America's lawyers, college professors, and newspaper editors have given up on American citizens who work as meat cutters, roofers, and maids. The latter are hopelessly infected with bourgeois values like "the American Dream," "upward mobility," and "home ownership." The former pin their hopes on immigrants who can come in, displace those citizen workers, and bring openness to socialist and collectivist ideals to American society. As a bonus, the despair of the American citizens displaced from their jobs can provide further fuel to the fires of the Revolution.
Also, illegal aliens will work for Third World wages.
Yes, and that further fans the flames of Revolution. And when they unionize, they are okay with paying union dues just as they had to pay off the caudillos back home.
You have absolutely nailed the 3 areas that killed the Democrats and will continue to as long as they support them. These are existential problems for the left and the Democrats if they continue on the path they are on One other thought. I think the left and the Democrats fall into these traps because they want to think of themselves as the forward , visionary reformers. Thus when a new idea erupts via some current issue they jump on it without a lot of analytical thinking. It appears to be emotion based and not a lot of thinking through how their new insight/vision will play out in the real world. A complete lack of understanding change control of the unintended consequences. Unless they get a leader who can help them deal with this they are in the wilderness for a while
Superb analysis as usual by Ruy Teixeira. America needs a strong two-party system, a competition of ideas, both to govern responsibly and in the public's best interest, but also as a dissenting voice, a check on the governing class by a loyal opposition.
Sadly, years of in-your-face Leftist orthodoxy and anti-American bullying and intolerance has not been disavowed and condemned by a Democratic Party that now must own what it will not abandon. Even more sadly, this abandonment of a moderate, more common sense middle is the hill today's Democratic Party is apparently willing to die on, but in dying inflicts serious if not lethal injury to our small "d" democracy.
Is the radical Left and it's vacuous, nutty idealogy worth the cost?
Do you know how many millions of Americans agree with you?? We're crying out for a REAL leader.
Another good piece. Summed up, I would argue that common sense won the day over luxury beliefs.
Minus the trans issue, which came to its apex this decade, this article could have easily been written as a warning circa 2015 vs. a eulogy in 2025. Most of what you write is why I voted for Trump in '16 and have in both elections since then. I suffered the public shaming, the loss of friends, and the overall silencing that came with vocally espousing much of what you write in this piece. And it only hardened my resolve.
I think that's something political analysts also need to consider...the barriers to crossing over to supporting Trump/America First are huge. There is a real cost to it. Once you commit, you are all in. I'd posit it will be harder to win these people back than with prior political conversions. Perhaps it's true belief or cognitive dissonance...either way, it's real.
You're missing the bigger picture. If you're in a Red MAGA stronghold in America--*particularly* an evangelical one--there is often also a huge cost to moving leftward, too. If you want to see public shaming, go to a gathering of evangelicals and try vocally espousing progressive ideas.
The barriers to moving across the aisle, in either direction, are the problem.
I don't disagree, but the country moved right in almost every state and county this election cycle. Did any 'Red MAGA strongholds' move left? GOP made material gains with historically Democratic contingencies. It will be difficult to win these voters back, especially if Trump has any level of success AND if Dems keep 'dying on their hills', to the point of this TLP article.
Yes, the Republicans own those working class voters and will own them until they screw up. Democrats can’t get them back just because they want to.
Don't you want the Democrats to die? Is there any role for them if everything Trump wants is perfect?
i don't want anyone to die. And I don't think single party rule leads to good things. Dems need to rid themselves of their left fringe. That's a lot easier said than done as even 'mainstream' Democrats have espoused the nastiest of the leftist tendencies. Their pivot back to the middle will be interpreted as politically expedient rather than principled/based.
I guess I still don't understand your view. If Trump and the GOP are doing nothing wrong, what role is there for the Democrats other than to applaud? Should they just run on the color blue and hope enough people before that color to red that they hold a few seats. It is interesting too that people keep saying that the Democrats should move to the center. Did the GOP move to the center after getting drubbed twice much worse by Obama than Harris was by Trump?
See for example, Sasha Stone. She has much the same analysis as Ruy but has decided that the Democratic Party can't change.
The so-called "left" is mostly a bunch of crackpots, conformists, authoritarians, and mentally disordered people who are completely ignorant of the subjects on which they pontificate. Unlike the activists in the black civil rights movement, they take no risks whatsoever while they tear down our cities, governments and lives of individual dissenters. They are mostly affluent people from affluent backgrounds who absorb no consequences for their antisocial behaviors. They are not dying on any hills, they live in fancy houses on them. When they get uncomfortable living in the squalor they have created in our cities, they move to safer and wealthier enclaves, from which they can continue to scold the rest of us. At some point, when their crackpot beliefs finally become unfashionable, the entire movement will disappear, perhaps quite suddenly. Meanwhile, the most effective strategy I have found in dealing with them is to tell them as often as I can that they are a small minority, that most Americans reject their beliefs, and that the Democratic Party lost the election.
As a historian (new book at Christmas, "America in the 21st Century") I very much appreciate you doing so much of the "grunt work" in following some of these numbers.
I would say that the whole green/"climate change" issue is going to get far worse for its advocates, largely because all the alternatives are showing their deep structural flaws that make them unusable, while more and more people realize that "Gee, the earth's climate changes no matter what we do." Second, Richard Baris has a new poll out either today or Monday that shows Trump at 55% even in New England (!!) and Rs generall at +4 nationally. I think this is LOW. Pennsylvania, for example, saw another 16,000 net R voters, and it is my contention that John Fetterman, despite what he says now, will switch parties within 2 years because PA will be a red state. NJ is going to be a true tossup. There is nowhere on the map, save perhaps Colorado, where Ds are gaining---not even California. Overall Rs added 100,000 net in December alone.
So the problem is that "mediation" or "moderate" measures are not available for certain fundamental principles (there are only two sexes, the climate will change regardless of what man does, and ALL borders must be entirely secure and invaders thrown out before there can be discussions about "immigration reform." I think, and I think polling shows, this is now bleeding over into the H1B debate and those are going to be drastically cut. America will adapt or die, and American employees, especially young men who have been attacked and marginalized, must again be put front and center for us to defeat Chy-na.
I have agreed with much of what has been written by Ruy T and others in Liberal Patriot about the need for the Ds to get back to a majoritarian message and platform.
At the same time, we need to figure out the appropriate balance on a number of concerns that none of us should give up on, never mind "The Left". Here are a couple:
Diversity is a good thing, and the need to make amends for our shameful history of racial discrimination remains. The Rs almost NEVER acknowledge this basic truth, and want it out of our schools. People of good will should support the truth.
Global warming is a looming challenge that could well result in mass migration of hundreds of millions of people, ecological changes that could have profound economic consequences, and a tipping point from which it would be nearly impossible to dial back. What's the right balance here between fossil fuel production going forward and moving towards alternate fuel sources as rapidly as possible?
The borders need greater security. International asylum norms also matter for the sake of human rights and sharing some amount of the world's wealth that has been wrongfully appropriated--arguably stolen in many instances--from nations less-developed industrially to those more-developed world. What are the right policies here?
It's easy to say what's wrong, and far harder to make them better. I'd like to see the Liberal Patriot spend more time and energy prescribing how the Ds can do better in a way that maintains key parts of its base while also extending its appeal to the voting majority. The point about the Ds infirmities and mistakes have been well made for a while now. How about more guidance for how to emerge from the wilderness, beat Trumpism and MAGA back, and secure a more prosperous and just future for lower and working-income Americans.
Thank you Mr. McCoy, you seem to be one of the few people here that suggests that the Democrats should think about what should be done and urge the country do that. Everyone else seems to think the Democrats should simply do whatever worked for Trump to get almost 50% of the popular vote.
The hill the Left and the Democrats at large aren't willing to die on is ending the Forever Wars (except when one involves Jews defending themselves). I am so old I can remember when the Democrats were the peace party. No more. You mentioned the backlash to the Iraq war and of course there is Vietnam. One of the reasons that Bush is so reviled by the Right is starting the Iraq war and then bungling it. The Iraq war bears a startling resemblance to Putin's war being a preventative war of choice and being bungled (by both Russians and Americans). Difference is that Iraq isn't right on our border and didn't have nukes. Opposition to Vietnam was led by the Left even when a Democrat was President with the rest of the Democrats joining in when Nixon was elected. The Left being joined and energized by RFK and McCarthy was the proximate reason for LBJ declining to run, though he had a pretty grim medical diagnosis. So now peace has become another Right-coded issue. Trump's bombast sometimes gets in the way but Vance was selected for a reason.
I think there's a bit of tunnel-vision here, Ruy, and it's making your analysis here a bit shallow. There are several underlying wrinkles worth taking a closer look at, and you're bracketing one of the most important variables at work, which is the hyperpolarized political climate we're in.
For example, you mentioned that 12 Democratic senators crossed the aisle to vote on the Laken Riley act--but didn't note that that's actually a *huge*, filibuster-proofing, number in the hyperpolarized environment we're in. Lingering a moment to consider the signals that sends, and *why* there was such a big show of support (as in the incentives at work, not just "because it was the right thing to do"), is warranted.
You also didn't really touch on the fact that the bulk of Democrats in Congress didn't immediately go into #resistance mode at Trump's reelection--they have (so far, at least) notably taken a more wait-and-see approach, and have made overtures to cooperation, which is a fairly significant change, given that Republicans have been in #resistance mode since 2008 and mindless #resistance partisan warfare has long been the standard operating procedure of Congress.
You looked at Wikler's public statement, but didn't really talk about his successful networking with moderates in Wisconsin, which is part of what has made him stand out in the party--and sort of contradicts the idpol approach suggested by that statement.
Looking at the way these appear to cut against the grain of the errors you think 'the left' is making--and whether they do or do not represent any signs of change, upon closer scrutiny--would give your analysis a bit more depth. Your piece with Judis analyzing whether Trump's reelection betokens a realignment or not was much more nuanced in this fashion, and thus much more interesting than this.
Also, your analysis is always better when you remember to distinguish the different species of leftist, as you have elsewhere--right now you're eliding the difference between center-left and DSA-style progressives. I'm sure you understand that both AOC and Ruben Gallego are not the same kind of leftist; but remember that many of your readers may not.
I don't think climate is much of a hill, let alone one anyone will die on. Most people hardly vote on the issue. China, India, and the rest of South and East Asia are who will determine the extent of climate change.
Our energy costs will rise or fall, we will continue to adapt to electric cars etc, and what we think about it is fairly immaterial.
Like Ruy says, climate ranks down the bottom. The other two issues are very big. Both are pocket book issues to one degree or another, and I'd consider course corrections on both to be moving leftwards not right. Supporting the workers of America? I can't think of a more lefty issue. Being against discrimination? A core Democratic lefty issue no matter who is being discriminated against. Asians, Jews, whites, men, all deserving of equal protection as much as anyone else.
This is the nth time the same poll-driven points have been made about the climate issue: "climate change as an issue has very low salience to working-class voters." I don't propose to rehash the debate engendered last time, but I do want to reiterate the fundamental point that climate change is not something where the polls decide what's an important issue: climate change has to be addressed or the consequences will be (even more) grave. The polls may give tactical indications that must be dealt with. But this is not like a political preference issue: the exogenous facts of climate change are there regardless of what we want to think, or what is convenient. So, despite the prospect of four years in the wilderness, the fundamental point about climate change is that a Call to Arms is needed, and will be even more needed after Trump: true leadership is required. The issue should not be cluttered up with other issues, as was the misguided "Green New Deal." But the issue cannot be ignored, certainly not because of poll results.
An actual discussion of what the realities are and what might work would be welcomed. The idea of hard-stop of fossil hydrocarbon use before 2050 is a nonstarter, and even if it were to happen, it'd take a couple hundred years for the CO2 to start to clear out and temperatures to move to what they would have been absent the burning of all the fossil fuels. In 200 years the sea levels will rise to the point that many currently habitable places won't be, regardless of whose predictions you believe.
Moving then to the discussion of solutions that would avoid that eventuality, there are two things that are currently technologically possible to amend this. One would be a lofted solar shield into a Lagrange position, specifically the L1 point between the Sun and Earth. Another would be inserting particulates into the atmosphere to attenuate solar radiation. Regardless of what is done with hydrocarbons and other fuel sources, something analogous to these two solutions will be required to avoid significant changes to the Earth over the next two centuries.
Of course, overdone, both of these could introduce a new Ice Age, so there is risk, but it is not as if sitting on our hands or arguing about CO2 is going to somehow avoid these changes. They will happen.
With regard to energy policy I am unsure who you mean by "the left." As you point out, Biden was very much an "all of the above" guy and energy production is very high. The "Net zero" was never seriously defended. It is not clear how the Democrats can "compromise" more on this without agreeing to tear down all the windmills, destroy all solar panels and require every American to buy a Hummer and drive 300 miles a day. As usual your logic goes, the "working class" according to some polls want this, so the Democrats should endorse whatever the "working class" wants without giving any thought to what the working class want according to those polls is good policy.
Excellent Insights from Ruy Teixeira.... I am a Jefferson, Jackson, and FDR Democrat who still believes FDR's Second Bill of Rights is relevant to the 21st Century.
Jackson and especially Jefferson were small government guys. I doubt they would have agreed with FDR.
US Rep. Sarah McBride (white trans woman) story fits your narrative. McBride is from Delaware, and a close friend to the Bidens. DE has one House seat, population is 20% Black. Dems cleared the field for McBride in the state Senate run, and again in 2024 for the US House. Who was pushed aside? Blacks. Somehow, D leadership decided trans outweighed race. Unsurprisingly (as DE is Biden's home state) McBride had no discernable GOP opposition in 2024. FYI, House seat had been held by a moderate D Black woman, who was elected to the US Senate last year - opening up the House seat.