#progressive movement

GRAHAM PLATNER

Well, he's the news of the day, so it's worth looking at him in a bit more detail. First off… how in the hell did this take off in the first place?

Seriously, how did this guy get marketed as a working class Joe? He's the son of an upscale restaurant owner and the grandson of the architect who designed the restaurant at the top floor of the old World Trade Center. His mother basically bought him an oyster farm when it became clear that his military and security contracting career was finished. I don't doubt that he actually does oyster fishing work, but his primary interest in the business is capital, not labor.

All of that is even before we get to the fact that clearly not a single person did oppo research on this guy. Any political organization worth its salt would have found the Reddit posts and the Nazi tattoo. A sophisticated one probably would have unearthed at least one of the sexual assault/rape allegations as well. The fact that not a single person apparently bothered to look into whether this guy truly was who he sold himself as or whether there might be some skeletons lurking in his closet speaks to me not just of shoddy political tradesmanship, but of a movement that doesn't actually care whether its standard-bearers actually have real character as long as they can play the part on TV.

And here's the thing, if this was just specific to Maine that would be one thing, but progressives from all over the country roped themselves into this. In fact, nearly every national progressive, from Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren to Ruben Gallego to Ro Khanna, has gone to bat for this guy, apparently without doing a single bit of due diligence, and have stuck with him for way too many scandals even if they finally backed off after this one. As far as I can tell, AOC may be the only nationally prominent progressive who kept her distance.

THE GAMESMANSHIP

Watching the gamesmanship, particularly of Bernie Sanders, I'll admit, has also soured me a bit on the DSA/progressive movement. When Bernie wins, it's a confirmation of the people's will, but when he loses it's a conspiracy. When Biden negotiated with rivals Buttigieg and Klobuchar in 2020 to drop out and endorse him it was a nefarious plot but when he tried to negotiate with Sen. Warren to do the same it was totally fine. Even in the Maine election, he's demanding that Platner be replaced with a similarly progressive candidate rather than have a competitive election or convention unlike in 2024 when he insisted that Kamala Harris couldn't just take Joe Biden's place, despite having been part of the ticket with Biden, and that the issue must be settled openly at the convention.

Honestly, it's at least partly the conspiratorial edge to a lot of progressive thinking that makes me cautious about it. Nearly every statement is loaded with the idea of a mysterious "them" that's out to get "us". Don't get me wrong, I agree with the general critique that economic and political elites have colluded for far too long to exploit the majority of people but, and maybe I'm missing it, no one in this movement seems at all concerned with the fact that this particular framing seems guaranteed to attract conspiracy theorists. Even worse, the movement writ large seems not to think anything of standard-bearers (until very recently at least) like Platner going on shows hosted by antisemitic conspiracy theorists like Nate Cornacchia or reposting messages by antisemites, even alt-right ones like Stew Peters, on social media.

It very much seems to me that the movement is at risk of devolving into pure tribalism if it hasn't already, where anything they can be forgiven because they're the "good guys" working for the "greater good" but anyone else must be castigated for even the slightest step out of line, even doing the exact same thing they just did.

INTERNAL VS EXTERNAL

Over the current campaign cycle, and particularly in the last month, progressive/DSA candidates have ousted Democratic incumbents, and this has led to centrist Democrats mobilizing to try to stop these kinds of victories. The response from the progressive/DSA groups has been that centrists have mobilized faster against them than against Republicans and to try to make the case that this means they're the only ones that can really win political battles. Is that a fair accusation?

Well, I'm going to say yes and no to that. On the one hand, they're absolutely right that the rhetoric from centrist Democrats against these progressive insurgents has been more strident than their rhetoric about Republicans/MAGA. This is especially notable in the case of centrist Democrats representing bright blue districts and, for those Democrats, it's really their own fault that they've left themselves open to primary challenges from the left.

On the other hand, what would you expect centrist Democrats to do?

Centrist Democrats, particularly in swing districts, are the ones who have to win over people who voted for Trump and MAGA Republicans in order to win, sometimes they even have to get someone to vote for them who is actively voting for other MAGA candidates on that same ballot in order to win. Strident anti-MAGA or anti-Trump rhetoric is a net negative in that effort while attacking progressives who are seen by those same voters as too far left is a net positive.

Once in office, however, a centrist or even right-wing Democrat who holds a swing seat is likely to be far more cooperative in implementing any progressive agenda than the Republican who would be the likely alternative, which brings me to what is probably my most important issue with the current progressive movement.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FIGHT?

Let's look at what is, to my mind, a key example. Joe Manchin didn't go on tirades against MAGA or savage Donald Trump or Republicans for their support of Israel or any of their other nonsense. To the contrary, he would often go on FOX News and talk about things where he agreed with them and criticize progressives. Based on this, you'd probably expect that I'd say that Joe Manchin was a net negative for a progressive agenda, but you'd be entirely wrong. In fact, I'd say he was more positive for the progressive agenda than staunch progressives like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

Why would I say that? Well, look past the rhetoric to his actions. He voted to confirm 45 judges nominated by President Biden to the Federal Courts of Appeals and 187 judges to the Federal District Courts. He voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which allowed Medicare to negotiate some drug prices for the first time, mandated rebates from drug manufacturers who price gouge, imposed a new minimum tax on large corporations, increased funding for the IRS, taxed stock buybacks for the first time, invested heavily in renewable energy, extended enhanced subsidies for the ACA, and capped the price of insulin diabetics. Just as importantly, he was a Democrat in the Senate; his mere presence and partisan affiliation gave Democrats control of the agenda allowing them to bring up and consider even the progressive bills that didn't end up passing.

What would have happened if he hadn't been there? Well, we've seen what has happened since; a Republican won the seat who has been entirely hostile to the progressive agenda and voted against every single piece of it. More importantly, a Republican holding the seat contributes to Republican control of the Senate chamber, meaning that, regardless of whether they would succeed or fail on their own merits, progressive bills don't even come up for a vote.

Joe Manchin holding the West Virginia Senate seat meant that more progressive priorities passed than would have otherwise and even those priorities that didn't pass were at least discussed and sometimes voted on because he held a seat that would have otherwise been held by a Republican. By comparison, if Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders didn't hold their Massachusetts or Vermont Senate seats, the alternative would likely just be another Democrat who wouldn't change the calculus of passing legislation or launching investigations (something I haven't even mentioned yet, but is also super important!) at all.

Did he ultimately doom several progressive pieces of legislation like the Green New Deal, the Build Back Better Act, and the American Families Plan? Absolutely, but those bills wouldn't have passed even if he wasn't there, and to understand why is to understand what it really means to fight against Trump and MAGA.

And that, to me is the key critique of the progressive slogan that they are more committed to fighting Trump and MAGA than centrist Democrats are, look at the seats they're running for. Bernie Sanders holds the Senate seat in deep blue Vermont, Elizabeth Warren holds the Senate seat in deep blue Massachusetts, AOC holds a House seat that may be even deeper blue, Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Claire Valdez just won primaries in deep blue NYC districts, Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of deep blue New York City…

I could go on, but you get the point. All of them certainly have stronger rhetoric than the likely replacement, but the only strong progressive I can think of that holds a seat that might plausibly otherwise be held by a Republican is Ruben Gallego in Arizona and the only progressive insurgent I can think of who is/was actually running to unseat a Republican is/was Graham Platner.

Don't get me wrong, replacing a moderate Democrat with a progressive Democrat does move the Overton Window and shift the terms of the political conversation, it's not nothing, but the single most effective way to both fight against Trump/MAGA and enact progressive policy is to unseat Republicans and overwhelmingly it is centrist Democrats who are the ones doing that, not progressives.

WHAT ABOUT POLICY?

So I've written quite a bit now slagging on progressives, so you may be surprised to hear that, generally speaking, I agree with almost all of their policy objectives.

Seriously, I think a Green New Deal would be great for the country, I think that Defund the Police (accurately understood as dispersing many functions currently handled by police to other agencies better equipped and trained to handle them in order to free up police to focus on solving crimes) is a fantastic idea, I think government health care is long overdue, I think that free college education would be a huge boon to the economy, and I think that there are an endless number of places where the government can and should be doing far more to protect workers, consumers, and families and a whole lot less to protect and promote large corporations and the wealthy. Heck, I also think Democrats should be fighting harder against Trump and MAGA and I'd love to see them take the House, the Senate, or both, stymie the president's agenda, and investigate the living hell out of the most corrupt administration in living memory.

Honestly, the fact that I generally agree with them on so much policy is what frustrates me so much about their approach to politics. They talk such a big game about taking the fight to Trump and far-right Republicans that it's just pathetic when you see that all they're really doing is fighting against other Democrats in safe district primaries; creating exactly the kind of "circular firing squad" they accuse moderates and centrists of creating. And look, on the surface, that kind of thing can appear harmless. After all, from the 10,000 foot level, it doesn't really matter a ton which Democrat represents a district as long as the party holds it and having more progressive bodies is useful to shift policy to the left, but that misunderstands how national elections actually work.

Every incumbent that is targeted by a progressive challenger has to raise money to defend against them, money that can't then go to swinging a Republican-controlled district. Every progressive primary challenger who catches fire and attracts media coverage is taking attention away from a potential challenger in a Republican-held seat, not to mention flooding the media with rhetoric that plays well in deep-blue districts but damages swing-district challengers. Every incumbent who has to defend their seat is an incumbent who can't raise money or campaign to unseat a Republican in another seat. Heck, the party campaign organizations have an incentive to protect their members and, even if they decide not to, a primary challenge is a distraction to the business of flipping seats.

And, look, if progressives were doing both, if they were both challenging incumbent Democrats to either unseat them or push them to the left AND mounting serious challenges to Republicans, I could respect that, but they're not doing that. At this point, all they seem to be doing is targeting Democrats and leaving centrist and even right-wing Democrats do the hard work of actually taking the House and Senate seats that will be necessary in order to actually fight Trump and enact liberal or progressive policy all while crowing that they're the only ones fighting.

I'm not writing all this criticism because I disagree with what progressives want to accomplish, I'm writing it because I agree with them on a whole lot of it and am completely frustrated with the fact that they're not actually doing what would be necessary to carry it out, lying about it, and attacking the people who are doing it.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

All right, I've been skating around this for a while, but I do need to address the inevitable comparison to MAGA. After all, particularly with regard to the DSA, parts of this are absolutely an often hostile organization with no real loyalty to the broader group seeking to take over the organs of a political party in order to advance their own objectives. There's also the kind of conspiratorial thinking that seems to percolate in both of them. And… yeah, there's not nothing to that comparison.

That said, I don't think it's a one-to-one comparison. Ultimately, the left in this country simply isn't as radical as the right and so the most extreme ends of it simply can't be as… let's say crazy. Don't get me wrong, there's a whole network of media trying desperately to portray them as even crazier than MAGA, but are we really going to pretend that opening government grocery stores is as extreme as government goon squads abducting or even killing people in the streets?

That said, I see way more similarities than I'm comfortable with, from a conspiratorial instinct about election losses to an instinct to protect their own rather than enforce standards to a total blindness to misogyny, antisemitism, and other racism in their own ranks. It's not enough for me to denounce the whole movement the way I do with MAGA, but it's certainly way more than I'm comfortable with.

I should also point out that the route that MAGA went through to take over the Republican Party simply isn't an option or, at the very least, is much more difficult in the Democratic Party. Simply put, MAGA took over the Republican Party by getting a factional candidate to win winner-take-all elections in a crowded field. Trump won huge slates of delegates in the early primaries despite not getting over 50% in any contest until over 28 states and territories had voted and it wasn't until 42 contests that he finally broke 50% in a state rather than a territory. In the end, Trump got almost 60% of the delegates with less than 45% of the vote, and that's including the late states where he was essentially running unopposed after other candidates dropped out.

This isn't something progressives can do in Democratic presidential primaries for the simple reason that Democratic primaries aren't winner-take-all. Something like Trump's early victory in South Carolina with only 32.5% of the vote that netted him all 50 of the state's delegates and gave him a commanding lead right at the start of the race simply can't happen on the Democratic side because all of the primaries allocate delegates proportionately. Progressives may still take over the party, but it's simply much more difficult to do with only factional support; any takeover will likely have to have significant crossover appeal in order to work.

CONCLUSION

Look, I'm sure this comes across as a lot more negative on the progressive movement generally than I actually am. While I do have issues with them, those issues are often more with specific individuals or organizations within the movement than with the movement at large.

That said, those individuals and organizations that I have issues with are often quite influential and could, conceivably, take over the whole movement. I think it's a valid concern and it's something I'm watching closely.

Overall, my main frustration with progressive politics at the moment is that they talk a big game about fighting Trump and Republicans but they only ever seem to actually be taking on fellow Democrats when it comes to real elections. If they were both primary-ing incumbents and taking on swing-district/state Republicans, I could respect that, but what they're doing now doesn't make it seem like they're actually trying to fight Trump or pass progressive policies, it makes it seem like they're just out for themselves.