The thing about that Chait thread is that he mostly seems upset that Sinema and Manchin are jeopardizing centrist hegemony over the Democratic Party.
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The *way* he frames this is key. The problem is not the policies per se, or even that the party would get shellacked in the midterms. The problem is the "Democratic establishment would be discredited." That's the real nightmare.pic.twitter.com/vB5QNM6CpX
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It's important to read the full context of Chait's thread -- it's in conversation with Will Saletan.pic.twitter.com/9ucHG2hwX0
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Saletan -- certainly in the context of this conversation but I think it's true more broady of his work -- really doesn't care about the ideological struggle within the Democratic Party, and his nightmare scenario is basically the return of Trump.
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Saletan doesn't talk about "the left," except in a broad, abstract sense of "the progressive agenda" and not getting enough of it passed. Chait *names* the left. It's the first place he goes when thinking through the political consequences of failing to pass the $3.5tril bill.
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The point I'm making is that this isn't actually a break or rupture in Chait's thinking, and it's certainly not a sign of him drifting leftward or turning on the party establishment.
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He's expressing the (well-founded) anxiety that Manchin and Sinema killing the bill will agitate, organize, and empower *his* political enemies to the left, only a year after Chait believed that particular political dragon had been slayed once and for all.
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David 2022-RELATED PUN Walsh Retweeted Ms Anne Thrope
Yes, to be clear, I think that it would be very, very bad for the bill to fail -- especially in the short- and medium-term.https://twitter.com/everydayangst1/status/1443198731088797696?s=20 …
David 2022-RELATED PUN Walsh added,
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My own anxiety is this: what if Chait is wrong? What if, instead of catalyzing a "burn it down" attitude among leftists, this posthistorical sense of "well, the forces arrayed against us are too strong, political change is impossible" intensifies?
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I think we have a pretty good track record, going back post-2004 fallout, that centrist failure embolden rather than dampens left energy.
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