"The left is getting more sophisticated at winning campaigns" *against Democrats*. That part is really important and always left unsaid in these fantasies of progressive success. Our track record in contested races is abysmal.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-jamaal-bowman-beat-eliot-engel-new-york-democratic-primary-congressional-seat_n_5efa4cf9c5b6ca970913947d …
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The progressive left tried to run against Republicans in 2018 and failed, but they did well in intra-party primaries. So the goalposts and definitions of success have been moved. Now the task is to seize power within the caucus. None of this advances the goal of winning elections
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States containing 17% of American voters—most of them white and rural—are a Senate majority. This is a great injustice and an indictment of American democracy, but to fix that broken system, we need to win by its rules. That means re-learning to get votes in rural America.
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Those votes are available, because people's livelihoods have been looted by corporate multinationals, health care has disappeared into the cities, schools are deteriorating and you can't even buy fresh local produce in farm states. But we need to go out and pursue them.
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I think of this as a form of atrophy. Progressives have ideas that would connect well with rural voters if properly expressed, but they've forgotten how to convey those ideas in language and policy that isn't coded for a small college-educated elite with weird ideological quirks.
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Capturing the leadership of the geriatric, corrupt, ideologically bankrupt Democratic party from within is an easier project. But it's not going to teach progressives to actually speak persuasively to rural America. It will just entomb us in our parochialism
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A pressing problem in left politics is that a lot of podcasts, pundits, and blue-state political figures stand to benefit personally from a situation where we are a permanent minority. I'm not saying everyone is cynical about it, but it's hard to act against your own incentives
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When you pick people to support, whether you share my flavor of politics or not, make sure you are picking people who are neck-deep in the fight to win against Republicans, not people who are going to see a windfall and fresh book deal if we lose another election.
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