Some background on popularism.
Everyone has things they want to accomplish politically that they can achieve and things that they can't achieve.
Perceptions over what can be achieved for any given political group or party differ both within and outside those groups and parties.
In politics, it can be the case that attempting more than can be achieved can cause you to achieve less both immediately and in the future.
But failing to attempt to achieve more due to fear of that outcome also preempts success and prevents progress.
The fundamental disagreement between popularists and left Democrats is ultimately only about what can be accomplished now. Behind all of the set dressing and theory and infighting, the conflict is fundamentally no more complex than that. The left of the Democratic party feels that a more progressive political agenda is achievable for the party, while the popularists believe that such an agenda is not achievable. What’s achievable amounts to what can be accomplished legislatively thanks to elections as well as considerations over whether accomplishing those things will result in electoral backlash so extreme it outweighs the progressive value of those accomplishments. For example, Obamacare was a major Democratic victory that almost certainly resulted in some electoral backlash.
Part of the complication of this debate is that what’s worth it in terms of achievement and backlash is value-laden; it’s a debate of political morals hiding inside of a debate about process, efficacy, and tactics. Was Obamacare worth expanding Republican Congressional gains in 2010? This depends entirely on your view of Obamacare as policy.
The uselessness of the popularism debate lies in the constant spillover of those value-laden questions into the strategic debate. “Getting what we want” is not a value-neutral consideration because what we want is value-laden and forever complicates the “how do we get what we want” strategic considerations.
Of the various sideshows that attend this debate, the most relevant and important in my view is the question of whether Democrats can win by appealing to nonvoters to come out to the polls or whether they must appeal to swing voters, likely moderating their policies and rhetoric in doing so. Unfortunately, this is an empirical question and not a question that can be solved through abstract debate, as well as one that likely varies from election to election and issue to issue.
The left critics of popularism are correct in arguing that many of the basic observations of that school of thought are banal and unhelpful in untangling the immediate questions of what Democrats should do now. They are also correct that reflexive deference to what appears currently possible can lead to supporting straightforwardly immoral policies. Additionally, they are right to say that nothing is achievable if you don’t try and that American politics has steadily changed over time in response to progressive demand.
The popularists are right that their left critics are often guilty of dismissing concerns about popularity and electability out of hand, typically by insisting that such concerns are racist or otherwise immoral. The popularists are also convincing in insisting that the median voter and the median Democrat are both well to the right of the kinds of pundits and writers who press for more left-wing change. They are further correct to say that, taken to a certain extreme, insisting that moderate/centrist/swing voters cannot be persuaded to endorse left-wing goals amounts to a kind of nihilism and giving up on the basic work of politics.
I think the only useful way to ever have this debate is in the specific and not in the general. Can X Democrat make an appeal for Y policy in Z election? Will that appeal make that Democrat more or less electable in that specific race? More intangibly and harder to assess, would that Democrat refusing to push for that policy in that race and thus conceding to right-wing pressure, real or imagined, do damage to the broader progressive campaign to achieve that policy? It’s just impossible to ever resolve these questions outside of the specifics of a given moment, district, and issue. “Should Democrats generically retrench to popular stances?” is not a useful question. “Should John Fetterman embrace strict anti-carbon policies in his race for Senate in Pennsylvania against Mehmet Oz?” is a useful question. Whether the answer is yes or no can be debated sensibly. Abstract conceptions about popularism cannot.
Personally? I think the left can get a lot less than what it wants to out of the American electorate right now, but that is literally always true. On some issues, bold leadership could help reorient the political conversation. On other issues asking for too much could cause Democrats to lose winnable elections and ultimately make policy more conservative. I certainly have opinions on specific questions; I think many Democrats who do not have safe seats can nevertheless push a hardline on abortion, whereas I think those same Democrats cannot take a similarly uncompromising stance on immigration. That’s based on my read of those issues and where the country is and which messaging is effective for swing-seat Democrats and which isn’t. I could easily be wrong about both. But my point here today is that the only useful arguments we can have are on exactly those terms: this issue, this race, these candidates. The rest is differences of political values masquerading as differences of political strategy.
You’re absolutely correct but the problem is increasing civic engagement on the local level. Without a community commitment to local news sources, that’s gonna be a harder sell than it ever was. Which is why one of my local news channels recently did a piece on edible tape that holds burritos closed: it’s a universal issue.
"...the question of whether Democrats can win by appealing to nonvoters to come out to the polls or whether they must appeal to swing voters, likely moderating their policies and rhetoric in doing so. Unfortunately, this is an empirical question and not a question that can be solved through abstract debate, as well as one that likely varies from election to election and issue to issue."
Analysts like David Shor and Ruy Texeira would argue, I believe, that "turnout is bullshit". Given political polarization whipping one side into a frenzy also whips the other side into a frenzy so that the numbers cancel out. 2020 was the perfect example: Trump lost by 44,000 votes out of over 100,000,000 cast--essentially a tie. That led pundits like Zaid Jilani to declare that the liberal dream that most Americans agree with them and they outnumber the other side had been revealed to be nonsense.