Freddie- I'd appreciate seeing your definition of a centrist.
Also, I think there is a viable path forward for the Dems this election cycle, using a conservative tone, especially about social issues, combined with touting the widely popular, more progressive economic messaging.
There is general support across the political spectrum for making child-care, college, and home buying more affordable for middle class voters. The same for reducing prescription drug costs and raising taxes on the wealthiest tier of tax payers.
The tax code is very progressive. The wealthy already pay more than their fair share. It is the middle class that needs to step up and pay more.
So Biden times ten then. Spend even more than Joe and bankrupt the country further. America's affordability problems do lie in three sectors: housing, health care, and education.
Not coincidentally, these are three of the areas where government intervention—subsidies, tax incentives, regulations, and federal programs—has been greatest for decades. And by and large, those interventions have grown. The government is the problem, not the solution.
A real affordability agenda would tackle the root causes of these dysfunctional markets: the vast, dug-in government programs and special interests that have kept them going, and growing, for decades. It would start by owning up to the policy mistakes the government has made and promising to fix them, rather than piling on new interventions intended to patch over the problems created by the previous interventions.
Any politician with sufficient gumption could take up the cause. The message would be simple: The government has made many mistakes, and rather than make new ones, the first step is fixing the old errors.
How's this... look at snippets from AOC's speech at the 2020 convention and the 2024 convention. I would say the latter is using "a more conservative tone" and is also more effective as a piece of political propaganda.
Here is the quote from 2020, which to me comes across as elitist lefty blather (and I'm pretty close to being an elitist lefty):
"In fidelity and gratitude to a mass people’s movement working to establish 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed health care, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States; a movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past; a movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many, and who organized an historic, grassroots campaign to reclaim our democracy."
And here is a snippet from her 2024 convention speech:
"I am here tonight because America has before us a rare and precious opportunity. In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class—because she is from the middle class.
She understands the urgency of rent checks, groceries, and prescriptions. She is as committed to our reproductive and civil rights as she is to taking on corporate greed. And she is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring hostages home."
How would you characterize the change in tone and presentation?
AOC is a complete sellout to the Democratic party establishment and has been since she didn't oppose Iron Dome funding. You're merely recapitulating my point.
My comment was what approach would be most effective to get Democrats elected in November. Generally speaking, do you think AOC's pre-sellout quote from 2020 would be more or less effective as an approach this year?
Well, Bernie did use the rhetoric/approach that I am suggesting, but with more ambitious policy goals, and, since you're asking, I think even with those policy positions, he would have had a better chance of beating Trump if he had been the nominee. But that is old, tired news and this upcoming election has drastically different dynamics than 2016.
So, what do you think would be a better approach if the goal is getting Harris elected?
I just read the astonishing article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about Pomona's English Department. (One of my kids is a graduate.) It is a wild and depressing take on the sort of liberalism that has overtaken many of our "best" schools and is reflected in the politics of the publications you reference.
Yes, it is a buzzkill to warn that Kamala's victory has too little to do with whether or not she wins the popular vote. But it is a NECESSARY one. I don't give a damn if I'm harshing your vibe when I tell you this election will be horribly close and the good guys might not win. If that inspires you to get serious about a Democratic victory, great.
That article was a really fascinating read. I think it’s a great example of the phenomenon of going after supposed heretics in your ingroup rather than saving those efforts to oppose ideologies that are perhaps more significant to oppose.
“an essay that Kunin published in 2015 about Vanessa Place, a conceptual poet. Place had posted the novel Gone with the Wind line by line on what was then called Twitter. Many poets denounced Place’s project for being racist, and she suffered professional consequences. In his essay, Kunin called that an “intellectually irresponsible” accusation, in part because Place held seemingly identical opinions about racism as her critics. She’d described her piece as having antiracist aims. Kunin wrote that Place’s work should be viewed as an aesthetic failure, not an ideological one.”
And then on his own Substack, he writes: “What does “places like this” mean? For a start, imagine a workplace where some of the workers are afraid that their colleagues might be white supremacists, and some of the workers are afraid that their colleagues might be on the verge of calling them white supremacists. (There is usually some overlap between the two groups, and, in most workplaces of this sort, no white supremacists at all.)”
It’s like: white supremacy is a problem, so we need to fight against it…but going out and finding real white supremacists is too hard, so we’re going to take these internecine disagreements and spiral them out until they feel like an existential struggle. I suspect that Kunin is right that Place probably agreed with her critics on everything that was actually *material*. Her project (which, to me, seems kind of stupid anyway, but never mind) seems like an anti-racist project that merely landed wrong, rather than some kind of pro-racism thing.
Real white supremacists are immune to being shamed as white supremacists.
"You, you, you, cad! You Nazi!"
"Pretty much, yup....."
Not only that, but most English Lit types are best advised to avoid anything like a physical confrontation, lest their ass get most grievously beat.
Far safer and more fun to have one's bitch fights with other English Lit types, seeking out ever more abstract P.C. violations and calling the Inquisition on them.
I believe it was the recent election in France where there was a poll with the question "how Nazi are you? scale of 1 to 5" and they got a bunch of 4's and 5's. Not a majority but a scary number of people willing to say "yeah, that sounds okay I guess."
It's also a great example of people using "woke" arguments to bully their way into winning scarce internal resources. Beyond the ideological arguments, these profs were fighting over who gets to teach what classes, who gets funds to hold symposia, etc. This shit goes on all the time in academia and now often is accompanied by calling someone racist, misogynistic, etc.
Yep. See also, “I have a beef with a person; I got into a car accident and am having some mental health issues; therefore, all that stuff is his fault!”
Also, after checking out his Substack, the Innerlight Sanctuary stuff is even worse than the CHE article made it sound.
I've noticed that it's sharpest in departments that feel the most need to distinguish themselves: there's not that much in archeology or anthropology that can be rammed into 2024 partisan political slapfights, and in fact that's precisely the opposite of their fields of study--but by jove they're gonna make a STATEMENT about Glenn Youngkin using this Elamite midden heap
it's almost a punchline ten years running about how English departments have the berets and red banners, while the historians and philosophers with piles of Marighella and Sison aren't gonna be leading a revolution (against the campus admins, not any actual power) with a bunch of suburban kids majoring in slam poetry
I've always referred to the Democrats as "Plan B for the ruling class." When Plan A fucks up due to overreach, Plan B gets in, and is the next best thing.
That said, in the post-Trump era, the Democrats may have become Plan A.
I had a professor back in college who used to tell me that the difference between a Republican and a Democrat was a Republican would strangle you while cursing your name, and a Democrat would strangle you while saying "I'm very sorry I have to do this, changing economic realities require that..."
I recently read an essay by some old-time activist who was trying to get his people to distinguish "is this strategy successful" from "is our goal morally justified" and he just couldn't make it happen. Same old same old.
DeBoer: "Matt Yglesias’s piece today - which continues his genuinely sad collapse into just pure anti-left bitterness - is more or less a declaration of victory."
Yglesias:
"My sense is the vibesologists see the candidate swap as the ultimate vindication of vibes theory, but my view is that while it certainly underscores the importance of vibes, it also shows their limits.
"After all, if you look at the current state of the campaign, the Harris Vibes are immaculate while the Trump Vibes are bad.... But the actual polls and election odds are just okay for Democrats. They’re not bad — Harris is winning — but they’re not great. Harris’ polling lead is smaller than Biden’s in 2020 or Hillary’s in 2016, and Democrats are on track to lose the Senate. The vibes have swung much more than the polling, ..."
That doesn't look like a "declaration of victory." That looks like, "Things are promising, but ..."
Yglesias also claims that the Democrats might win if the pesky leftists (or the "psyop" that is pushing them, lol) just stepped out of the way and let the neolibs be brat and win.
He's declaring victory if things continue down this path.
The thing Yglesias is always gesturing towards without stating it outright is that Dems being as active and public about branding themselves as hostile to leftist excess would unlock massive electoral gains.
The fact that Nate Silver and Jonathan Chait are also always banging the same drum indicates to me that fundamentally these are just very online people who are becoming negatively polarized toward the bottomless ocean of obnoxious people in their replies. That's not real life.
I'm not sure I follow. The argument is that too many politicians and people within the party are pandering too much to views that only exist in the most online spaces, focusing on things most voters either don't prioritize highly (climate change) or actively dislike (defunding the police). The whole point is that they should be talking more about the things that people care about so they have a higher chance to win.
I think these replies, and FdB's original comment regarding Yglesias, are missing the fact that the people you mention are generally critical, or at least skeptical, of the idea that "vibes" are what matters most. Perhaps that's why FdB didn't catch the irony in MY's article headline.
Yglesias’s piece is very clearly talking about possible strategies for turning a close race into a victory. Sadly, I’m pretty confident that FdB either didn’t read the piece past the title or had already formed such a strong opinion of it that he was unable to interpret it. I also suspect he didn’t realize the title was somewhat ironic.
Kind of a shame because every time he criticizes MY his critiques always seem so disconnected from what MY actually said.
I’m going to need some of the context around when he said that. I’ve read way too much MY to believe that what he said is anything like what you’re implying he meant.
"The vibes genuinely are good right now, because deep down, Democrats really do hate Trump and want to beat him, and love having a dynamic nominee they’re proud of and think is a good role model for Americans."
I don't follow Yglesias so I have no idea whether or not he personally thinks Harris is a good role model for Americans. That quote is no evidence either way; it says that Democrats think she's a good role model for Americans, with "Democrats" referring to Democrats generally, not *every* Democrat, and not necessarily the author himself. He's describing what he sees as a common attitude, not asserting that belief himself.
I'm pretty sure he's projecting, though. It would have been better if he claimed Democrats think she's a better role model than Trump, which is an infinitely more defensible statement.
Exactly. Freddie's writing is great fun, but he writes the least charitable and accurate and most tendentious summaries of other people's writing I have ever encountered. It's quite extraordinary. He rarely actually grapples with the complexity of what an author writes or means but simply uses any hook to ascribe to them whatever views Freddie wants to disagree with.
In fairness, Freddie is incredibly prolific and gives great value to his subscribers, and I'm sure that truly engaging with other writers' would take a lot longer and probably be less fun for many of his readers. But I truly hope no one reads Freddie's summaries of other's people writing without fully reading the original pieces. Anyone who does will have a completely distorted picture of those other writers.
FdB is pretty much spot on in lots of ways. The common perception that that Harris is a winner is due to the DNC’s far superior PR campaign. If she (the D-party really) wins, it will just prove that money (properly spent) can buy any election. God help us.
It appears that the majority of voters would vote for a competent candidate who is not Donald Trump (the impact of the electoral map complicates the forecast). I think Harris's ongoing task to establish she can fit that role. As for money spent by campaigns, I'm not sure why either party would be absolved of the accusation of trying to buy an election.
Thankfully, they were defeated, as it seems pretty clear that an unmoored Democratic Party with no presumptive nominee for the last month would have been in far, far worse shape.
Look at history. Harris generated tremendous excitement in 2019 when she first became a candidate, raising enormous amounts of money, before flaming out spectacularly.
Politicians can learn from their mistakes. Obama, Biden, and Clinton all had major flameouts only to become better politicians later.
I'd also note that her "Copmala" biography played really, really poorly in the post BLM era. Now the liberal establishment likes cops again, so she's all in on being cop in chief, which swing voters like.
I was one of the folks who wanted there to be a competitive process to determine Joe's replacement rather than simply coronating Kamala. I thought that choosing the right candidate was more important than simply rallying around someone whose history suggested she didn't have what it takes to be a successful candidate (I was actually a Kamala supporter in early 2019 and then watched her candidacy implode).
So far I've been wrong. Hopefully that will continue to be the case and Kamala continues to be the candidate we thought she might back in early 2019. I'm cautiously hopeful but definitely think it's far from a sure thing.
I probably should have written "a seemingly competent candidate." We all know how Donald Trump handles himself and how he behaves as president, with the reality that as he has aged, his persona has become even more exaggerated. If Harris can present as "seemingly competent," the election will be about whether we want to sign up for four more years of Trump.
I would note that Harris still hasn't given a press conference or interview. If her team doesn't trust her enough to turn her over to the press that does not suggest to me that "competency" is one of her strengths.
But I would also make an unrelated note: there's a plausible argument to be made that the country is in a recession. 60% of respondents in a recent poll believe that the country is in a recession.
I just don't think vibes and PR are meaningful in that environment.
My guess on the interviews/press conferences is that they wanted to define their messaging/policy priorities before giving live question/answer sessions. It makes sense. They need to define the campaign first so they don't have to walk anything back. If she ends up not doing any over the next month, that would be more of a sign to me. She's been running for only 1 month right now though, they essentially have to define her immediately, and separate her somewhat from Biden's campaign messaging as effectively as they can.
As for a recession, we won't really know until after the election, but I wouldn't take survey results too seriously. American's have had a very pessimistic view of this economy for a while, even though GDP growth has been relatively strong. Forecasts are still around 2% GDP growth for Q3 right now, so weakening, but not close to recession. Of course they could be wrong, but I think if a recession is coming, it will be later this year or early next year, not starting in Q3.
This is true. Trump has become more erratic, and people already suffer from "Trump fatigue", though it's really fatigue about having the media complain about him 24/7.
If Trump would rein in his negative behaviors he'd have a much better shot at being elected, but he won't do so.
Harris has a history of baffling statements as well. But look at their convention speeches. Trump stayed on task for the first 10 minutes or so and then melted down into a less coherent version of his greatest hits. In comparison, Harris's speech last night was fairly well delivered. After eight years of Trump's erratic behavior, along with 18 months of worry about Biden's mental status, I think a lot of the electorate is ready for less drama.
Everyone has their own pet theory of why a candidate wins or loses, and it generally comes down to whatever proves their priors.
A year ago it was conventional wisdom that whichever party got rid of their codger and replaced him with "generic D/R" would win. And a Harris victory would likely be just that, same as on Earth 2 where Trump passed away peacefully in his sleep and De Santis beats Joe Biden.
I listened to Wait Wait a few times years ago and came away thinking this is a quiz show where, to win, you have to faithfully regurgitate the propaganda of the week. That seemed harmful, so I've avoided it ever since.
I think the sad thing is that you could make a pretty strong case that Democrats would be the party who could better combat inflation with a few simple arguments such as:
2) Trump had a chance to raise interest rates when the economy was hot in 2018, which would have very likely made less QE necessary in 2020, but when the stock market started sinking he put massive pressure on the Fed to cut rates again. Trump has been remarkably consistent(given how much he flies by the seat of his pants) in advocating for lower interest rates to boost asset prices and stocks.
3) The tariffs and economic nationalism Trump advocates for are also overwhelmingly inflationary in nature. If you put tariffs and other legal mechanisms in place to make it so cheaper overseas production is no longer an option, this means that corporations will pass those higher production costs on to the consumer. You can agree or disagree with the use of underpaid foreign labor, but it's almost impossible to deny this results in many parts of the CPI basket of goods being lower in price
4) Trump was in charge during COVID, something the GOP likes to step over, when all the policies which gave us the current spike in inflation were enacted. The Biden administration merely got stuck cleaning up the mess.
Anyhow, these are all easy and relatively non-controversial statements to make. Not sure why the Democrats aren't harping on this more. I'd be saying "Yeah, inflation is bad, but don't kid yourselves. Trump will almost certainly make it worse and objectively did so last time he was in office."
Inflation wasn't an issue until after Biden assumed office because he passed additional, unneeded stimulus packages in an attempt to pander to the public. With respect to the economy arguing for re-election for Biden or Harris is putting the fox in charge of the hen house.
U.S. inflation peaked at a lower level than pretty much every other OECD country other than Japan (which has had issues with a deflationary economy for decades). By global standards, it wasn't bad at all.
Inflation was high largely for three reasons:
1. Supply chain issues in 2021 taking a long time to get unstuck.
2. Run up in energy prices around the start of the Ukraine War.
3. The post-COVID labor force shortage requiring employers to offer large real wage increases, particularly for working-class service employees.
The last, in particular, was a thorny issue. Lots of workers retired early during the covid era, and with immigration essentially shut off for over a year, there was no new labor pool available to replace them quickly.
"The best of a bad lot" if I'm sure a winning argument. Plus "every other OECD country"? I am pretty sure Switzerland did not see significant inflation. By comparison the US comes off pretty poorly.
Larry Summers and Mohammed el-Erian warned the Biden team not to pass the third stimulus package and the infrastructure bill because of the potential for inflation. So did Joe Manchin. In response the administration and Yellen claimed that it was safe because inflation was "transitory". Who turned out to be right.
Switzerland certainly did have high inflation compared to their baseline, which is really what matters. They've had between 0-1% inflation since 2009, and it was over 3% at it's peak. That's a very significant percentage increase, and pretty comparable to the US's percentage increase for 2021/22, though yes, slightly lower.
Switzerland at 3% inflation would have experienced rates 3x their typical level. The US was at 4x. Not every country, even just the developed ones, went through horrific inflation. The real argument should be what they did right compared to what the US did wrong.
Wait, what? You're saying that the Biden/Harris team are "foxes in the henhouse" because under Biden the US did better on inflation than every other OECD nation EXCEPT SWITZERLAND?
This is a bad argument and you should find another.
This is patently false. Biden did pass additional stimulus, but it pales in comparison to what Trump did during COVID and at worst shares in some of the blame. The idea that the Biden Administration is exclusively responsible or even mostly responsible for our current inflation woes is only advanced by the financially and economically illiterate. As I previously stated, Wall Street agrees with my assessment or bond yields would not rise on the news of Trump winning getting significantly more likely.
Trump passed a bunch of stimulus because he was in charge during the pandemic and the lockdowns.
Biden passed a bunch of stimulus _knowing_ that Trump had already passed a bunch of stimulus that would be inflationary. In addition the economy was well on the way to recovery--what was the justification for handing out even more cash other than pandering?
Okay, so the worst you can say is that Biden added to the pandemic era inflation which was already baked-in, in which case I would say that yes, this is correct. The Biden Administration didn't take inflation seriously enough and didn't act quickly or significantly enough to address it. The causes of inflation are many and cross multiple administrations from both parties and I'd never argue otherwise.
I'm simply stating that voting for Trump as some kind of anti-inflation vote is absurd. The people who think putting him into office because "Biden caused inflation and Trump will fix it" are fools, plain and simple.
1. Biden had no reason to "add" to inflation other than pandering. He screwed the country because he was trying to buy votes.
2. Nobody but the Fed can do anything about inflation. How does the Fed do that? By raising interest rates enough to slow down the economy. As a side effect that also typically sends the country into recession and results in millions of people losing their jobs.
At this point the issue isn't who can fix inflation. A recession will take care of that. The issue is holding the people responsible for that recession accountable.
Voting for Trump isn't holding anyone accountable. Boggles the mind how you could even think that way. Perhaps Biden was "pandering," but you act as if only he does thing to please voters. As if Trump didn't do exactly the same thing, only worse, the entire 4 years he was in office.
It also isn't true that "Nobody but the Fed" can do anything about inflation, and this contradicts pretty much everything you've been arguing about Biden up to this point. Your arguments aren't even internally consistent.
That's really not an accurate portrayal of the inflation problem. Inflation was rising as soon as 2021 started, even before the stimulus package had any time to take effect. The monthly inflation rate in April/May/June was .08, far too soon for anything Biden did to take effect since the stimulus package was just passed in March, and was much smaller than total stimulus provided in 2020.
Inflation was a global phenomenon, not specific to the US. It was partly caused by supply chains, party caused by COVID stimulus, and partly caused by people spending less money during lockdowns which increased savings. And the Ukraine invasion provided a significant temporary bump in Spring 2022 as well.
To blame Biden for all the inflation is blatantly ridiculous. At best, his stimulus package exacerbated the situation by a point or so.
Google what Larry Summers and Mohammed el-Erian had to say in warning the Biden administration not to pass additional stimulus. Or Joe Manchin for that matter.
I'm not arguing they should have passed it. Probably they shouldn't have. But that doesn't mean it was the primary cause of inflation. The evidence doesn't support that.
`make a pretty strong case that Democrats would be the party who could better combat inflation'
First they would need to stop being unreconstructed neoliberals. Secondly they'd need to fire Jerome Powell, being very explicit that his policy choices not only did not help combat inflation but made the lives of people in this country much, much worse.
"That presidents can’t control inflation just speaks to the unfortunate irrationality that underlies the system." - I'm not sure I get this. What is irrational about this? In what way could the system be changed to allow the president to control inflation?
The president and congress of course do have the ability to control inflation - over stimulate the economy with federal spending, and you run the very real risk of causing inflation, especially in a situation where the ability to meet demand is constrained.
But to think that the president should be able to directly control any part of a $ 25 trillion economy, by themselves, seems to be wishful thinking, at best.
Larry Summers warned the Biden administration that additional stimulus ran the risk of kicking off inflation. Presidents can absolutely jump start inflation, they just can't rein it in.
While people will point to Hillary forevermore, my understanding from studies I read long ago (and unfortunately do not have links to) is that generally an impression of being the frontrunner helps win elections nine times out of ten. That is to say, being confident in victory is more predictive of electoral success in close races than the whole "fight like you're ten points behind" spiel, which actually demotivates voters.
This is for two reasons.
1. Those who are on the fence between supporting a candidate and not voting are far more likely to turn out if they think their candidate of choice is going to win. This is because for a lot of people, voting is a form of psychological labor, and they don't want to get invested in the process if they think their candidate of choice (and them, by proxy) will be defeated.
2. As weird as it sounds, the last few percentage points of undecided voters often seem to want to "pick the winner" through the bandwagon effect at the end of the race. They don't have strong feelings about either candidate or about policy in general, they just want to be sure they didn't make the wrong choice.
Given all of this, I don't think projecting confidence in victory is a bad thing, provided you still, you know, work your ass off in the campaign. And there's no sign that the Harris/Walz team is going to let up there. So I'm not sure what realism here achieves.
Glad you posted this, I was thinking the same thing. Dems have to 'act' like Harris is the obvious winner because that's generally how close races are won - people on the fence tend to pick whoever is perceived to be in the lead. You're spot on on this.
There's a lot of reasons why that didn't work in 2016, but suffice to say that was the exception to the rule. And the Dems know that.
The bandwagon effect is real. Among other things, it explains why third parties rarely get traction ("I don't want to 'waste my vote!'") and why post-election polling (when the results are known) invariably overstates the margin of victory (because humans like to be on the side of the winner).
While i think this is an important and true point, i think what freddie is pointing to here is a difference between “run like you’re winning” as a strategy and “take your win for granted because you’re so blinded by hubris and contempt for the enemy.”
Ah yes, the sarcastic/ironic disparagement from someone who has no substantive response. (Not to mention its memetic vacuousness... did you not read Freddie's post?)
I baptize your jaundice with green phlegm. Not gonna vote for Harris.
Not about to be condescended to by a supporter (I am assuming) of a party that condones the mass slaughter, if not outright genocide, of Palestinians.
Democrats have the power to do something about Palestinian suffering and they will not. For that, I will either be voting for Trump, writing in Biden, or voting third party.
I’m voting for Dr. Jill Stein, again. It’s a message to TPTB, but even more it’s a way to show ourselves just how strong we really are. The MSN suppresses any sign that there exists folks who believe that arming a genocide is wrong. This is one way to make our voices count.
You fail to understand, Freddie, that momentum is eternal and all trends will continue endlessly into the future. I predict Harris winning 90% of the popular vote.
Nobody I know in deep blue MA is complacent. Almost all my (female) friends are getting back involved in GOTV operations. What the vibe shift has done is re-awakened and re-energized the suburban women who’d felt burnt out and exhausted from the 2018 and 2020 efforts. And who were stressed but resigned and lackluster when it was Biden. I know it’s anecdote based but that’s all I got.
We all know this election will be excruciatingly close. And I have yet to talk to anyone in my left-of-center NYC crowd who believes a Kamala victory is a given. But cut us a bit of slack: For the first time in years it’s possible to feel at least a sliver of hope. And it’s an understandably intoxicating feeling. No one thinks it will be easy. But maybe, just maybe, she could actually pull it off. Personally I’ve never been a big Kamala fan, but I’m just happy that there might finally be a way out of the Trump morass.
I love your writing Freddie, but what I see from you now on the subject of Kamala is an odd sort of rage. I get the instinct to want to bring people back down to earth. But you needn’t do it with such sourness and contempt. Let us have five minutes to feel upbeat before the campaign really gets going; we all know that it’s going to get ugly and it will be a long slog.
You're forgetting that Freddie isn't a liberal. Deep down he knows the two-party system is one of the main reasons for our screwed up governance, and backing either candidate would feel like tacit acceptance of that system.
I could be wrong of course, maybe I'm reading him wrong. But I feel like his rant at Harris is not really aimed at her in particular, but at the dour reality of the system in general.
I conjecture that when someone finds an article that meets your (shifting) criteria you will then say: `Well, that's just one example and it's the exception that proves the rule.'
Are you really trying to say Freddie doesn't like all women because he thinks one is a bad presidential candidate? This isn't 2016, and the days of trying to vilify anyone who dares to criticize a presidential candidate who happens to be female are long gone.
Yes, he brings the same venom to Kamala as he does to Taylor Swift (!ha) as he does to Hilary. A mean, rabid, irrational obsession with how bad they are. He's great at rationalizing. But its not the same thing. Note - he doesn't have to like any of these people or their politics, but he's so particularly focused on how these people are ruined EVERYTHING, and are the harbingers of EVERYTHING being wrong - like, that can't possibly be true. He shits all over female empowerment culture - and he's right do do so, but it makes him rabid, and its ... not even for him. He could just not follow those instagram accounts. He won't listen to the female perspective on it. He write 5 articles about how stupid elite women are for every one article he writes about incels (some of who kill dozens of people at a time in shooting sprees). And he doesn't bring that same utter disgust to the latter.
Also, you probably don't notice as a man, but he's notorious for not acknowledging his female commentors.
Okay. You seem to be genuine about this, so why not give you the benefit of the doubt and maybe we can shed some light on it in the future. I really don't think it's true, but am certainly willing to test it going forward.
As for Harris:
I can't speak for Freddie on Kamala, but for myself I find her a lousy presidential candidate. Back in 2019 she was actually my favorite candidate for the Democratic ticket. I thought she was smart and tough and a good foil for Trump (which she still is of course). My problem with her then stemmed primarily from a small interview she did for one of the media companies during her run for the ticket.
The journalist asked her what she thought of another candidate (can't remember who) who had been rising in the polls, and she not only reminded the journalist how far back in the rankings that candidate was, but also tried to dismiss him entirely with a simple hand wave - like he was this little annoyance that was of no concern to her. At the time it struck me as very pompous and entitled, like she was such a badass candidate herself why would this other person be a threat to her. And ever since then I can't 'unsee' that arrogance with her, she wears it like a veil around her - not to Trump levels obviously, but it's there nonetheless.
What bothers me the most about her now is not really anything she did or say, it's how she became the nominee - she was anointed to it. That was some bonafide DNC b.s. right there, and it doesn't matter at all what sex the person is. I got the distinct impression from Freddie that that was at least part of his issue with her, and I would agree with him on that. This idea that the VP (of any party mind you) should just get an automatic bump to prez nominee is not only undemocratic, but immoral. And on top of that, no one, including the media, seemed to like her at all in the previous 3 years of her vice presidency.
It's indicative of the corruption and unfairness of our political system that this candidate just got shoved down our throats and we have no say in it. And even if it was someone like Obama in that position, I'd be saying the same thing. For me it's not about Harris' gender at all, it's about arrogance - both hers and especially her party's.
Also, it's OK to not like Taylor Swift---indeed to think that she's overrated and that it's a reflection of the immaturity of our culture that people in their 30s and above can't stop going on about songs written primarily for tweens and teens*--and he's recommended plenty of female musicians and other artists on this substack.
(*Bob Dylan's romantic songs since the album `Modern Times' are similarly childish.)
That line of attack worked soooo well in persuading people to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Glad to know that you haven't learned anything in the intervening years, as this undoubtedly means there's still a good chance that the Democrats will lose!
Well then, it should be easy for Freddie to write a piece about a woman who he respects who was never hot and he didn't want to bang.
Its so, so easy to prove me wrong. This isn't about Kamala, there is a whole world of women out there he can write about. Some of them are even in politics!
Other essayists substacks make fun of Freddie for how singularly obsessed he is at dragging the shit out of very specific women. I'm not the only person that's noticed it.
You know, maybe he could go after the Neotropics Bros as much as he goes after the Instagram Self Help Girls. That kind of thing.
`I'd really like to see Freddie write about a woman he likes and respects.'
Someone suggested his piece on Elizabeth Wurtzel, which you then found a reason to dismiss:
`He needs to write praise about one woman he's never had a fantasy about.'
Would disagree with that characterization but it's clear that you've made up your mind on this and are willing to rationalize away (i.e., move the goal posts) any example provided that runs counter to your claim.
Given that, it would seem that your issue is more with the force and validity of FdB's critique about someone you're behind, e.g., Kamala Harris, who is currently enabling the slaughter of Palestinians let's not forget, rather than any male chauvinism on his part.
No one was genuinely excited by the prospect of Biden as president in 2020, except insofar as he was believed to be the safest option to unseat Donald Trump due to hypothetical head-to-head polling. Witness how he floundered in the early debates, and lost the first three primaries by pretty wide margins. Yet once it became clear no one other than Bernie was viable, normie dem voters said "ugh, I guess" and fell in line. That didn't change his main qualification being "can defeat Trump."
In retrospect, I am of the belief his political skill was vastly oversold. He's been probably the best president on policy in my life, but being president in the modern era requires you to not only be an effective manager of the executive branch, but also to be able to sell it to the American people, which he was utterly inept at.
Biden got the American Rescue Plan Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the Inflation Reduction Act - pretty much the only sort of taxing/spending issues that can get around the rules for senate cloture. On regulatory matters like labor and antitrust, Biden's been considerably to the left of the Obama Administration as well.
But yeah, few people vote in a transactional matter based upon "if politician passes item X, I will support them." Nowhere was this more clear than stimulus checks and direct payments to families in the Cares Act under Trump, and then the American Rescue Plan. There were predictions that these policies would be massively popular, since you're directly cutting checks to voters, but in the end, they seem to have moved almost no one.
If people aren't grateful that a Presidential administration is directly sending them money, what will they be grateful for?
Those policy wins dumped money into an already overstimulated economy and kicked off levels of inflation barely below the all time highs of the 1970's, requiring the Fed to raise interest rates high enough that the country is either toppling into recession or has already entered into one. That's not a win in my book.
I read a study on what the stimulus checks were used for. For the most part, people bought big-ticket items on Amazon like new flatscreen TVs, and the money vanished almost immediately from the economy.
In contrast, most of the inflation rise which started in 2021 was due to rising costs for raw materials and/or labor. The first was mainly due to supply chain issues with a side helping of rising energy costs, the latter, the labor shortage. And the spike occurred well after the additional money sloshed through the economy.
There is an argument that the supply chain issues in particular had to do with the "unlocking issues" of the economy. Essentially we very quickly shifted from being homebodies who had Amazon packages delivered to us to spending normally once again, but the economy couldn't pivot in time. Yeah, it's plausible that the stimulus checks played a role here, as they allowed people to stay home longer, but given the supply issues were global, a change in local policy would have just helped on the margins.
Bottom line is I do think it's arguable that inflation would have peaked a few percent lower if we had made some different policy choices. However, it still would have been a politically painful period due to extrinsic factors beyond the policy control of Biden.
"But what if winning requires you to stop acting like a middle-aged teenager?"
You can take that sentence and get the hell out of here mister. We don't do adult around here!
Seriously though, both parties kind of do this nowadays. Both conventions were so theatrically posturing and emotionally charged I probably could not tell the difference between them and a high school pep rally.
The Dem convention gave me flashback to Star Was Celebration, of all things. All the "We <3 Kamala" signs might as well have been lightsabers waving in the air as Disney rolled out Mark Hamil or whoever.
I certainly remember HRC and her pantsuit nation idiots fumbling the ball at the 1 yard line. But remember Trump almost getting his head blown off? Everyone was convinced he was a lock for an easy victory after the bloody ear / raised fist photo. The one thing that is certain of this election is that there are multiple twists and turns to come.
The other thing that is certain in this election is that a major portion of the left remains devoted to their own irrelevancy by focusing on an issue that 1) is not a priority for the vast majority of people and 2) if people have a strong opinion about it at all then they don't agree with the left. It also only indirectly involves the USA and history tells us no serious candidate for President will do what the protestors want them to do. Bernie Sanders is remarkably good at sticking to his economic message but exiting the stage; AOC has decided she wants to be Pelosi.
Had Biden still been the candidate, it WOULD have been a lock.
Ironically, Trump getting his ear blown off is the thing that made Dem leadership shove Biden aside for Harris. Had that shooting not happened, I'm not sure Harris would have happened.
I agree. There was also a week or so of whiplash where it seemed like Biden might stay in, might drop out, is definitely staying in, then drops out. Harris has only been the candidate for a month! More insanity to come - I predict Harris or Walz will stumble in some minor way in the next few weeks and it will become a huge media spectacle. There are also theoretically some debates coming up.
I meant figuratively stumble, as in say something stupid or strange that then gets blown out of proportion. Of course, Trump does that several times a day but it mostly gets ignored.
Freddie- I'd appreciate seeing your definition of a centrist.
Also, I think there is a viable path forward for the Dems this election cycle, using a conservative tone, especially about social issues, combined with touting the widely popular, more progressive economic messaging.
Is more progressive economic messaging widely popular? Even the Washington Post and NY Times denounced Kamala's recently announced policies.
Do most agree that we need Biden's economic policies times ten?
There is general support across the political spectrum for making child-care, college, and home buying more affordable for middle class voters. The same for reducing prescription drug costs and raising taxes on the wealthiest tier of tax payers.
The tax code is very progressive. The wealthy already pay more than their fair share. It is the middle class that needs to step up and pay more.
So Biden times ten then. Spend even more than Joe and bankrupt the country further. America's affordability problems do lie in three sectors: housing, health care, and education.
Not coincidentally, these are three of the areas where government intervention—subsidies, tax incentives, regulations, and federal programs—has been greatest for decades. And by and large, those interventions have grown. The government is the problem, not the solution.
A real affordability agenda would tackle the root causes of these dysfunctional markets: the vast, dug-in government programs and special interests that have kept them going, and growing, for decades. It would start by owning up to the policy mistakes the government has made and promising to fix them, rather than piling on new interventions intended to patch over the problems created by the previous interventions.
Any politician with sufficient gumption could take up the cause. The message would be simple: The government has made many mistakes, and rather than make new ones, the first step is fixing the old errors.
My suggested list may or may not be good ideas. But for present purposes, what matters is that they are popular.
Socialism is popular among the uneducated.
Like, actual socialism? You must hang out with a different uneducated crowd than I do.
These are all explicitly Republican views.
`using a conservative tone'
A sentiment that a certain kind of Democrat voices every election cycle, most recently with respect to Bernie being too left for the electorate.
Given our political reality, it's worked just great so why change!
The point is getting elected, right?
How's this... look at snippets from AOC's speech at the 2020 convention and the 2024 convention. I would say the latter is using "a more conservative tone" and is also more effective as a piece of political propaganda.
Here is the quote from 2020, which to me comes across as elitist lefty blather (and I'm pretty close to being an elitist lefty):
"In fidelity and gratitude to a mass people’s movement working to establish 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed health care, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States; a movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past; a movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many, and who organized an historic, grassroots campaign to reclaim our democracy."
And here is a snippet from her 2024 convention speech:
"I am here tonight because America has before us a rare and precious opportunity. In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class—because she is from the middle class.
She understands the urgency of rent checks, groceries, and prescriptions. She is as committed to our reproductive and civil rights as she is to taking on corporate greed. And she is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring hostages home."
How would you characterize the change in tone and presentation?
AOC is a complete sellout to the Democratic party establishment and has been since she didn't oppose Iron Dome funding. You're merely recapitulating my point.
My comment was what approach would be most effective to get Democrats elected in November. Generally speaking, do you think AOC's pre-sellout quote from 2020 would be more or less effective as an approach this year?
Well she got elected using both, equally as empty, rhetorical styles, so she's likely not much use as a case study.
Ponder the efficacy of the rhetoric you seem to favor with regards to 2016 and Bernie, Hillary, and Trump.
Well, Bernie did use the rhetoric/approach that I am suggesting, but with more ambitious policy goals, and, since you're asking, I think even with those policy positions, he would have had a better chance of beating Trump if he had been the nominee. But that is old, tired news and this upcoming election has drastically different dynamics than 2016.
So, what do you think would be a better approach if the goal is getting Harris elected?
The Dems are spiking the football. Will Lucy pull it off the tee like when Charlie Brown goes to kick it?
I just read the astonishing article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about Pomona's English Department. (One of my kids is a graduate.) It is a wild and depressing take on the sort of liberalism that has overtaken many of our "best" schools and is reflected in the politics of the publications you reference.
Yes, it is a buzzkill to warn that Kamala's victory has too little to do with whether or not she wins the popular vote. But it is a NECESSARY one. I don't give a damn if I'm harshing your vibe when I tell you this election will be horribly close and the good guys might not win. If that inspires you to get serious about a Democratic victory, great.
For much more on Pomona's English Department, check out https://weirdatmyschool.substack.com
Yes--this is referenced repeatedly in the CoHE article. Thanks!
That article was a really fascinating read. I think it’s a great example of the phenomenon of going after supposed heretics in your ingroup rather than saving those efforts to oppose ideologies that are perhaps more significant to oppose.
“an essay that Kunin published in 2015 about Vanessa Place, a conceptual poet. Place had posted the novel Gone with the Wind line by line on what was then called Twitter. Many poets denounced Place’s project for being racist, and she suffered professional consequences. In his essay, Kunin called that an “intellectually irresponsible” accusation, in part because Place held seemingly identical opinions about racism as her critics. She’d described her piece as having antiracist aims. Kunin wrote that Place’s work should be viewed as an aesthetic failure, not an ideological one.”
And then on his own Substack, he writes: “What does “places like this” mean? For a start, imagine a workplace where some of the workers are afraid that their colleagues might be white supremacists, and some of the workers are afraid that their colleagues might be on the verge of calling them white supremacists. (There is usually some overlap between the two groups, and, in most workplaces of this sort, no white supremacists at all.)”
It’s like: white supremacy is a problem, so we need to fight against it…but going out and finding real white supremacists is too hard, so we’re going to take these internecine disagreements and spiral them out until they feel like an existential struggle. I suspect that Kunin is right that Place probably agreed with her critics on everything that was actually *material*. Her project (which, to me, seems kind of stupid anyway, but never mind) seems like an anti-racist project that merely landed wrong, rather than some kind of pro-racism thing.
Real white supremacists are immune to being shamed as white supremacists.
"You, you, you, cad! You Nazi!"
"Pretty much, yup....."
Not only that, but most English Lit types are best advised to avoid anything like a physical confrontation, lest their ass get most grievously beat.
Far safer and more fun to have one's bitch fights with other English Lit types, seeking out ever more abstract P.C. violations and calling the Inquisition on them.
I believe it was the recent election in France where there was a poll with the question "how Nazi are you? scale of 1 to 5" and they got a bunch of 4's and 5's. Not a majority but a scary number of people willing to say "yeah, that sounds okay I guess."
It's also a great example of people using "woke" arguments to bully their way into winning scarce internal resources. Beyond the ideological arguments, these profs were fighting over who gets to teach what classes, who gets funds to hold symposia, etc. This shit goes on all the time in academia and now often is accompanied by calling someone racist, misogynistic, etc.
Yep. See also, “I have a beef with a person; I got into a car accident and am having some mental health issues; therefore, all that stuff is his fault!”
Also, after checking out his Substack, the Innerlight Sanctuary stuff is even worse than the CHE article made it sound.
Academic politics are so vicious *because* the stakes are so small.
Can Vanessa Place not find one single serious thing to do? Posting GWTW one line at a time on Twitter?
That was considered profound 10 years ago. Twitter was different. That was at least two significant culture shifts ago.
I've noticed that it's sharpest in departments that feel the most need to distinguish themselves: there's not that much in archeology or anthropology that can be rammed into 2024 partisan political slapfights, and in fact that's precisely the opposite of their fields of study--but by jove they're gonna make a STATEMENT about Glenn Youngkin using this Elamite midden heap
it's almost a punchline ten years running about how English departments have the berets and red banners, while the historians and philosophers with piles of Marighella and Sison aren't gonna be leading a revolution (against the campus admins, not any actual power) with a bunch of suburban kids majoring in slam poetry
What on earth makes you think Team D are "the good guys"?
I've always referred to the Democrats as "Plan B for the ruling class." When Plan A fucks up due to overreach, Plan B gets in, and is the next best thing.
That said, in the post-Trump era, the Democrats may have become Plan A.
Team D is the political will of the PMC made manifest, with various grievance groups as junior partners.
Team R is led by Local Gentry, with white evangelicals as sidekicks.
I had a professor back in college who used to tell me that the difference between a Republican and a Democrat was a Republican would strangle you while cursing your name, and a Democrat would strangle you while saying "I'm very sorry I have to do this, changing economic realities require that..."
The weepier and more emotionally charged democrats and liberals get, the more it is certain that they are trying to pull a fast one on you.
Axtually, something similar applies to conservatives and republicans, just that the subject matter tends to be different.
You are not feeling the joy then?
Well, we have to live in the world we've got. Until the system allows third parties to be serious contenders, one has to choose.
Has the Local Gentry lost their control? And here’s hoping the PMC does too.
Control of what? Team R? Not a chance.
Trump isn’t their choice, is he?
I concur. Time for a realignment.
63 years on this earth as a proud American.
However you justify voting for genocide.
Have a great day.
There is innocent blood on your hands.
Own it.
There is no moral living under capitalism, and that includes imperialist hegemony. Sometimes the "good guys" are merely "the better guys."
Criticizing the strategy is criticizing the goal.
I recently read an essay by some old-time activist who was trying to get his people to distinguish "is this strategy successful" from "is our goal morally justified" and he just couldn't make it happen. Same old same old.
DeBoer: "Matt Yglesias’s piece today - which continues his genuinely sad collapse into just pure anti-left bitterness - is more or less a declaration of victory."
Yglesias:
"My sense is the vibesologists see the candidate swap as the ultimate vindication of vibes theory, but my view is that while it certainly underscores the importance of vibes, it also shows their limits.
"After all, if you look at the current state of the campaign, the Harris Vibes are immaculate while the Trump Vibes are bad.... But the actual polls and election odds are just okay for Democrats. They’re not bad — Harris is winning — but they’re not great. Harris’ polling lead is smaller than Biden’s in 2020 or Hillary’s in 2016, and Democrats are on track to lose the Senate. The vibes have swung much more than the polling, ..."
That doesn't look like a "declaration of victory." That looks like, "Things are promising, but ..."
Yglesias also claims that the Democrats might win if the pesky leftists (or the "psyop" that is pushing them, lol) just stepped out of the way and let the neolibs be brat and win.
He's declaring victory if things continue down this path.
The thing Yglesias is always gesturing towards without stating it outright is that Dems being as active and public about branding themselves as hostile to leftist excess would unlock massive electoral gains.
The fact that Nate Silver and Jonathan Chait are also always banging the same drum indicates to me that fundamentally these are just very online people who are becoming negatively polarized toward the bottomless ocean of obnoxious people in their replies. That's not real life.
I'm not sure I follow. The argument is that too many politicians and people within the party are pandering too much to views that only exist in the most online spaces, focusing on things most voters either don't prioritize highly (climate change) or actively dislike (defunding the police). The whole point is that they should be talking more about the things that people care about so they have a higher chance to win.
I think these replies, and FdB's original comment regarding Yglesias, are missing the fact that the people you mention are generally critical, or at least skeptical, of the idea that "vibes" are what matters most. Perhaps that's why FdB didn't catch the irony in MY's article headline.
Yglesias’s piece is very clearly talking about possible strategies for turning a close race into a victory. Sadly, I’m pretty confident that FdB either didn’t read the piece past the title or had already formed such a strong opinion of it that he was unable to interpret it. I also suspect he didn’t realize the title was somewhat ironic.
Kind of a shame because every time he criticizes MY his critiques always seem so disconnected from what MY actually said.
MY's dumb ass thinks Kamala is a good role model. What does that tell you about his grasp on reality?
I’m going to need some of the context around when he said that. I’ve read way too much MY to believe that what he said is anything like what you’re implying he meant.
"The vibes genuinely are good right now, because deep down, Democrats really do hate Trump and want to beat him, and love having a dynamic nominee they’re proud of and think is a good role model for Americans."
HUGE barf!
I don't follow Yglesias so I have no idea whether or not he personally thinks Harris is a good role model for Americans. That quote is no evidence either way; it says that Democrats think she's a good role model for Americans, with "Democrats" referring to Democrats generally, not *every* Democrat, and not necessarily the author himself. He's describing what he sees as a common attitude, not asserting that belief himself.
I like your username. :)
Thanks!
I'm pretty sure he's projecting, though. It would have been better if he claimed Democrats think she's a better role model than Trump, which is an infinitely more defensible statement.
Exactly. Freddie's writing is great fun, but he writes the least charitable and accurate and most tendentious summaries of other people's writing I have ever encountered. It's quite extraordinary. He rarely actually grapples with the complexity of what an author writes or means but simply uses any hook to ascribe to them whatever views Freddie wants to disagree with.
In fairness, Freddie is incredibly prolific and gives great value to his subscribers, and I'm sure that truly engaging with other writers' would take a lot longer and probably be less fun for many of his readers. But I truly hope no one reads Freddie's summaries of other's people writing without fully reading the original pieces. Anyone who does will have a completely distorted picture of those other writers.
FdB is pretty much spot on in lots of ways. The common perception that that Harris is a winner is due to the DNC’s far superior PR campaign. If she (the D-party really) wins, it will just prove that money (properly spent) can buy any election. God help us.
It appears that the majority of voters would vote for a competent candidate who is not Donald Trump (the impact of the electoral map complicates the forecast). I think Harris's ongoing task to establish she can fit that role. As for money spent by campaigns, I'm not sure why either party would be absolved of the accusation of trying to buy an election.
In terms of "competency" the DNC power brokers wanted an open convention precisely because they did not want to nominate Harris.
Thankfully, they were defeated, as it seems pretty clear that an unmoored Democratic Party with no presumptive nominee for the last month would have been in far, far worse shape.
Look at history. Harris generated tremendous excitement in 2019 when she first became a candidate, raising enormous amounts of money, before flaming out spectacularly.
Politicians can learn from their mistakes. Obama, Biden, and Clinton all had major flameouts only to become better politicians later.
I'd also note that her "Copmala" biography played really, really poorly in the post BLM era. Now the liberal establishment likes cops again, so she's all in on being cop in chief, which swing voters like.
I was one of the folks who wanted there to be a competitive process to determine Joe's replacement rather than simply coronating Kamala. I thought that choosing the right candidate was more important than simply rallying around someone whose history suggested she didn't have what it takes to be a successful candidate (I was actually a Kamala supporter in early 2019 and then watched her candidacy implode).
So far I've been wrong. Hopefully that will continue to be the case and Kamala continues to be the candidate we thought she might back in early 2019. I'm cautiously hopeful but definitely think it's far from a sure thing.
I probably should have written "a seemingly competent candidate." We all know how Donald Trump handles himself and how he behaves as president, with the reality that as he has aged, his persona has become even more exaggerated. If Harris can present as "seemingly competent," the election will be about whether we want to sign up for four more years of Trump.
I would note that Harris still hasn't given a press conference or interview. If her team doesn't trust her enough to turn her over to the press that does not suggest to me that "competency" is one of her strengths.
But I would also make an unrelated note: there's a plausible argument to be made that the country is in a recession. 60% of respondents in a recent poll believe that the country is in a recession.
I just don't think vibes and PR are meaningful in that environment.
My guess on the interviews/press conferences is that they wanted to define their messaging/policy priorities before giving live question/answer sessions. It makes sense. They need to define the campaign first so they don't have to walk anything back. If she ends up not doing any over the next month, that would be more of a sign to me. She's been running for only 1 month right now though, they essentially have to define her immediately, and separate her somewhat from Biden's campaign messaging as effectively as they can.
As for a recession, we won't really know until after the election, but I wouldn't take survey results too seriously. American's have had a very pessimistic view of this economy for a while, even though GDP growth has been relatively strong. Forecasts are still around 2% GDP growth for Q3 right now, so weakening, but not close to recession. Of course they could be wrong, but I think if a recession is coming, it will be later this year or early next year, not starting in Q3.
This is true. Trump has become more erratic, and people already suffer from "Trump fatigue", though it's really fatigue about having the media complain about him 24/7.
If Trump would rein in his negative behaviors he'd have a much better shot at being elected, but he won't do so.
Harris has a history of baffling statements as well. But look at their convention speeches. Trump stayed on task for the first 10 minutes or so and then melted down into a less coherent version of his greatest hits. In comparison, Harris's speech last night was fairly well delivered. After eight years of Trump's erratic behavior, along with 18 months of worry about Biden's mental status, I think a lot of the electorate is ready for less drama.
Everyone has their own pet theory of why a candidate wins or loses, and it generally comes down to whatever proves their priors.
A year ago it was conventional wisdom that whichever party got rid of their codger and replaced him with "generic D/R" would win. And a Harris victory would likely be just that, same as on Earth 2 where Trump passed away peacefully in his sleep and De Santis beats Joe Biden.
He hates Matt and I get it, he makes it very easy to hate him. But he wrote an article on 8/19 called “The election is extremely close”.
So you're saying there's a chance?
Dude, leave Wait Wait out of this.
There are better podcasts. Have some taste.
I listened to Wait Wait a few times years ago and came away thinking this is a quiz show where, to win, you have to faithfully regurgitate the propaganda of the week. That seemed harmful, so I've avoided it ever since.
I think the sad thing is that you could make a pretty strong case that Democrats would be the party who could better combat inflation with a few simple arguments such as:
1) Wall Street believes Trump's election would lead to higher inflation and this is objectively true. Google anything about bond yields spiking immediately after the disastrous June 26th Biden debate performance. The Bond market has to be honest about these things, there's too money at stake for them not to be. Higher yields mean higher inflation expectations. (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/trump-election-odds-treasury-bond-yields-inflation-deficit-debt-economy-2024-7)
2) Trump had a chance to raise interest rates when the economy was hot in 2018, which would have very likely made less QE necessary in 2020, but when the stock market started sinking he put massive pressure on the Fed to cut rates again. Trump has been remarkably consistent(given how much he flies by the seat of his pants) in advocating for lower interest rates to boost asset prices and stocks.
3) The tariffs and economic nationalism Trump advocates for are also overwhelmingly inflationary in nature. If you put tariffs and other legal mechanisms in place to make it so cheaper overseas production is no longer an option, this means that corporations will pass those higher production costs on to the consumer. You can agree or disagree with the use of underpaid foreign labor, but it's almost impossible to deny this results in many parts of the CPI basket of goods being lower in price
4) Trump was in charge during COVID, something the GOP likes to step over, when all the policies which gave us the current spike in inflation were enacted. The Biden administration merely got stuck cleaning up the mess.
Anyhow, these are all easy and relatively non-controversial statements to make. Not sure why the Democrats aren't harping on this more. I'd be saying "Yeah, inflation is bad, but don't kid yourselves. Trump will almost certainly make it worse and objectively did so last time he was in office."
They're not making those arguments because they're boring and you can't turn them into a meme.
Sad but true.
Inflation wasn't an issue until after Biden assumed office because he passed additional, unneeded stimulus packages in an attempt to pander to the public. With respect to the economy arguing for re-election for Biden or Harris is putting the fox in charge of the hen house.
U.S. inflation peaked at a lower level than pretty much every other OECD country other than Japan (which has had issues with a deflationary economy for decades). By global standards, it wasn't bad at all.
Inflation was high largely for three reasons:
1. Supply chain issues in 2021 taking a long time to get unstuck.
2. Run up in energy prices around the start of the Ukraine War.
3. The post-COVID labor force shortage requiring employers to offer large real wage increases, particularly for working-class service employees.
The last, in particular, was a thorny issue. Lots of workers retired early during the covid era, and with immigration essentially shut off for over a year, there was no new labor pool available to replace them quickly.
"The best of a bad lot" if I'm sure a winning argument. Plus "every other OECD country"? I am pretty sure Switzerland did not see significant inflation. By comparison the US comes off pretty poorly.
Larry Summers and Mohammed el-Erian warned the Biden team not to pass the third stimulus package and the infrastructure bill because of the potential for inflation. So did Joe Manchin. In response the administration and Yellen claimed that it was safe because inflation was "transitory". Who turned out to be right.
Switzerland certainly did have high inflation compared to their baseline, which is really what matters. They've had between 0-1% inflation since 2009, and it was over 3% at it's peak. That's a very significant percentage increase, and pretty comparable to the US's percentage increase for 2021/22, though yes, slightly lower.
Switzerland at 3% inflation would have experienced rates 3x their typical level. The US was at 4x. Not every country, even just the developed ones, went through horrific inflation. The real argument should be what they did right compared to what the US did wrong.
Wait, what? You're saying that the Biden/Harris team are "foxes in the henhouse" because under Biden the US did better on inflation than every other OECD nation EXCEPT SWITZERLAND?
This is a bad argument and you should find another.
This is patently false. Biden did pass additional stimulus, but it pales in comparison to what Trump did during COVID and at worst shares in some of the blame. The idea that the Biden Administration is exclusively responsible or even mostly responsible for our current inflation woes is only advanced by the financially and economically illiterate. As I previously stated, Wall Street agrees with my assessment or bond yields would not rise on the news of Trump winning getting significantly more likely.
Trump passed a bunch of stimulus because he was in charge during the pandemic and the lockdowns.
Biden passed a bunch of stimulus _knowing_ that Trump had already passed a bunch of stimulus that would be inflationary. In addition the economy was well on the way to recovery--what was the justification for handing out even more cash other than pandering?
Okay, so the worst you can say is that Biden added to the pandemic era inflation which was already baked-in, in which case I would say that yes, this is correct. The Biden Administration didn't take inflation seriously enough and didn't act quickly or significantly enough to address it. The causes of inflation are many and cross multiple administrations from both parties and I'd never argue otherwise.
I'm simply stating that voting for Trump as some kind of anti-inflation vote is absurd. The people who think putting him into office because "Biden caused inflation and Trump will fix it" are fools, plain and simple.
1. Biden had no reason to "add" to inflation other than pandering. He screwed the country because he was trying to buy votes.
2. Nobody but the Fed can do anything about inflation. How does the Fed do that? By raising interest rates enough to slow down the economy. As a side effect that also typically sends the country into recession and results in millions of people losing their jobs.
At this point the issue isn't who can fix inflation. A recession will take care of that. The issue is holding the people responsible for that recession accountable.
Voting for Trump isn't holding anyone accountable. Boggles the mind how you could even think that way. Perhaps Biden was "pandering," but you act as if only he does thing to please voters. As if Trump didn't do exactly the same thing, only worse, the entire 4 years he was in office.
It also isn't true that "Nobody but the Fed" can do anything about inflation, and this contradicts pretty much everything you've been arguing about Biden up to this point. Your arguments aren't even internally consistent.
That's really not an accurate portrayal of the inflation problem. Inflation was rising as soon as 2021 started, even before the stimulus package had any time to take effect. The monthly inflation rate in April/May/June was .08, far too soon for anything Biden did to take effect since the stimulus package was just passed in March, and was much smaller than total stimulus provided in 2020.
Inflation was a global phenomenon, not specific to the US. It was partly caused by supply chains, party caused by COVID stimulus, and partly caused by people spending less money during lockdowns which increased savings. And the Ukraine invasion provided a significant temporary bump in Spring 2022 as well.
To blame Biden for all the inflation is blatantly ridiculous. At best, his stimulus package exacerbated the situation by a point or so.
Google what Larry Summers and Mohammed el-Erian had to say in warning the Biden administration not to pass additional stimulus. Or Joe Manchin for that matter.
I'm not arguing they should have passed it. Probably they shouldn't have. But that doesn't mean it was the primary cause of inflation. The evidence doesn't support that.
Again, Trump has lockdowns and a recession to deal with. He at least had an excuse for stimulus.
By the time Biden got in the lockdowns and the recession were in the past and the economy was in recovery. And he passed stimulus...because?
You're not even engaging with my point? I literally said "they probably shouldn't have" passed it. What are you trying to argue with me about?
I'm just saying Biden's stimulus package was not the primary cause of inflation.
`make a pretty strong case that Democrats would be the party who could better combat inflation'
First they would need to stop being unreconstructed neoliberals. Secondly they'd need to fire Jerome Powell, being very explicit that his policy choices not only did not help combat inflation but made the lives of people in this country much, much worse.
"That presidents can’t control inflation just speaks to the unfortunate irrationality that underlies the system." - I'm not sure I get this. What is irrational about this? In what way could the system be changed to allow the president to control inflation?
The president and congress of course do have the ability to control inflation - over stimulate the economy with federal spending, and you run the very real risk of causing inflation, especially in a situation where the ability to meet demand is constrained.
But to think that the president should be able to directly control any part of a $ 25 trillion economy, by themselves, seems to be wishful thinking, at best.
The irrational part is voting as though the President controlled inflation.
Larry Summers warned the Biden administration that additional stimulus ran the risk of kicking off inflation. Presidents can absolutely jump start inflation, they just can't rein it in.
While people will point to Hillary forevermore, my understanding from studies I read long ago (and unfortunately do not have links to) is that generally an impression of being the frontrunner helps win elections nine times out of ten. That is to say, being confident in victory is more predictive of electoral success in close races than the whole "fight like you're ten points behind" spiel, which actually demotivates voters.
This is for two reasons.
1. Those who are on the fence between supporting a candidate and not voting are far more likely to turn out if they think their candidate of choice is going to win. This is because for a lot of people, voting is a form of psychological labor, and they don't want to get invested in the process if they think their candidate of choice (and them, by proxy) will be defeated.
2. As weird as it sounds, the last few percentage points of undecided voters often seem to want to "pick the winner" through the bandwagon effect at the end of the race. They don't have strong feelings about either candidate or about policy in general, they just want to be sure they didn't make the wrong choice.
Given all of this, I don't think projecting confidence in victory is a bad thing, provided you still, you know, work your ass off in the campaign. And there's no sign that the Harris/Walz team is going to let up there. So I'm not sure what realism here achieves.
Glad you posted this, I was thinking the same thing. Dems have to 'act' like Harris is the obvious winner because that's generally how close races are won - people on the fence tend to pick whoever is perceived to be in the lead. You're spot on on this.
There's a lot of reasons why that didn't work in 2016, but suffice to say that was the exception to the rule. And the Dems know that.
The bandwagon effect is real. Among other things, it explains why third parties rarely get traction ("I don't want to 'waste my vote!'") and why post-election polling (when the results are known) invariably overstates the margin of victory (because humans like to be on the side of the winner).
While i think this is an important and true point, i think what freddie is pointing to here is a difference between “run like you’re winning” as a strategy and “take your win for granted because you’re so blinded by hubris and contempt for the enemy.”
Harris may win? Trump may win?
I, unlike you, can't vote for either of them. Genocide has determined my vote. A peace candidate is my choice this Noverber. People Planet Peace
Stunning and brave.
Ah yes, the sarcastic/ironic disparagement from someone who has no substantive response. (Not to mention its memetic vacuousness... did you not read Freddie's post?)
I baptize your jaundice with green phlegm. Not gonna vote for Harris.
Not about to be condescended to by a supporter (I am assuming) of a party that condones the mass slaughter, if not outright genocide, of Palestinians.
Democrats have the power to do something about Palestinian suffering and they will not. For that, I will either be voting for Trump, writing in Biden, or voting third party.
I’m voting for Dr. Jill Stein, again. It’s a message to TPTB, but even more it’s a way to show ourselves just how strong we really are. The MSN suppresses any sign that there exists folks who believe that arming a genocide is wrong. This is one way to make our voices count.
You fail to understand, Freddie, that momentum is eternal and all trends will continue endlessly into the future. I predict Harris winning 90% of the popular vote.
Jeez, Freddie, don’t be harshing my vibes buzz, man.
Nobody I know in deep blue MA is complacent. Almost all my (female) friends are getting back involved in GOTV operations. What the vibe shift has done is re-awakened and re-energized the suburban women who’d felt burnt out and exhausted from the 2018 and 2020 efforts. And who were stressed but resigned and lackluster when it was Biden. I know it’s anecdote based but that’s all I got.
We all know this election will be excruciatingly close. And I have yet to talk to anyone in my left-of-center NYC crowd who believes a Kamala victory is a given. But cut us a bit of slack: For the first time in years it’s possible to feel at least a sliver of hope. And it’s an understandably intoxicating feeling. No one thinks it will be easy. But maybe, just maybe, she could actually pull it off. Personally I’ve never been a big Kamala fan, but I’m just happy that there might finally be a way out of the Trump morass.
I love your writing Freddie, but what I see from you now on the subject of Kamala is an odd sort of rage. I get the instinct to want to bring people back down to earth. But you needn’t do it with such sourness and contempt. Let us have five minutes to feel upbeat before the campaign really gets going; we all know that it’s going to get ugly and it will be a long slog.
You're forgetting that Freddie isn't a liberal. Deep down he knows the two-party system is one of the main reasons for our screwed up governance, and backing either candidate would feel like tacit acceptance of that system.
I could be wrong of course, maybe I'm reading him wrong. But I feel like his rant at Harris is not really aimed at her in particular, but at the dour reality of the system in general.
Everyone, including Freddie, will deny this and point to a thousand other reasons he's upset, but maybe Freddie just doesn't like women.
I'd really like to see Freddie write about a woman he likes and respects.
Just so it's clear you're full of shit here, then: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/elizabeth-wurtzel-1967-2020-3e7
He needs to write praise about one woman he's never had a fantasy about.
So Lana del Ray is off the table too.
I conjecture that when someone finds an article that meets your (shifting) criteria you will then say: `Well, that's just one example and it's the exception that proves the rule.'
And maybe he does?
Are you really trying to say Freddie doesn't like all women because he thinks one is a bad presidential candidate? This isn't 2016, and the days of trying to vilify anyone who dares to criticize a presidential candidate who happens to be female are long gone.
What the actual phuck.
Yes, he brings the same venom to Kamala as he does to Taylor Swift (!ha) as he does to Hilary. A mean, rabid, irrational obsession with how bad they are. He's great at rationalizing. But its not the same thing. Note - he doesn't have to like any of these people or their politics, but he's so particularly focused on how these people are ruined EVERYTHING, and are the harbingers of EVERYTHING being wrong - like, that can't possibly be true. He shits all over female empowerment culture - and he's right do do so, but it makes him rabid, and its ... not even for him. He could just not follow those instagram accounts. He won't listen to the female perspective on it. He write 5 articles about how stupid elite women are for every one article he writes about incels (some of who kill dozens of people at a time in shooting sprees). And he doesn't bring that same utter disgust to the latter.
Also, you probably don't notice as a man, but he's notorious for not acknowledging his female commentors.
Okay. You seem to be genuine about this, so why not give you the benefit of the doubt and maybe we can shed some light on it in the future. I really don't think it's true, but am certainly willing to test it going forward.
As for Harris:
I can't speak for Freddie on Kamala, but for myself I find her a lousy presidential candidate. Back in 2019 she was actually my favorite candidate for the Democratic ticket. I thought she was smart and tough and a good foil for Trump (which she still is of course). My problem with her then stemmed primarily from a small interview she did for one of the media companies during her run for the ticket.
The journalist asked her what she thought of another candidate (can't remember who) who had been rising in the polls, and she not only reminded the journalist how far back in the rankings that candidate was, but also tried to dismiss him entirely with a simple hand wave - like he was this little annoyance that was of no concern to her. At the time it struck me as very pompous and entitled, like she was such a badass candidate herself why would this other person be a threat to her. And ever since then I can't 'unsee' that arrogance with her, she wears it like a veil around her - not to Trump levels obviously, but it's there nonetheless.
What bothers me the most about her now is not really anything she did or say, it's how she became the nominee - she was anointed to it. That was some bonafide DNC b.s. right there, and it doesn't matter at all what sex the person is. I got the distinct impression from Freddie that that was at least part of his issue with her, and I would agree with him on that. This idea that the VP (of any party mind you) should just get an automatic bump to prez nominee is not only undemocratic, but immoral. And on top of that, no one, including the media, seemed to like her at all in the previous 3 years of her vice presidency.
It's indicative of the corruption and unfairness of our political system that this candidate just got shoved down our throats and we have no say in it. And even if it was someone like Obama in that position, I'd be saying the same thing. For me it's not about Harris' gender at all, it's about arrogance - both hers and especially her party's.
He barely acknowledges his commenters, period!
Also, it's OK to not like Taylor Swift---indeed to think that she's overrated and that it's a reflection of the immaturity of our culture that people in their 30s and above can't stop going on about songs written primarily for tweens and teens*--and he's recommended plenty of female musicians and other artists on this substack.
(*Bob Dylan's romantic songs since the album `Modern Times' are similarly childish.)
He has called Sula his favorite novel... come on...
Are you a man?
Ahahahaha!
That line of attack worked soooo well in persuading people to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Glad to know that you haven't learned anything in the intervening years, as this undoubtedly means there's still a good chance that the Democrats will lose!
Well then, it should be easy for Freddie to write a piece about a woman who he respects who was never hot and he didn't want to bang.
Its so, so easy to prove me wrong. This isn't about Kamala, there is a whole world of women out there he can write about. Some of them are even in politics!
Other essayists substacks make fun of Freddie for how singularly obsessed he is at dragging the shit out of very specific women. I'm not the only person that's noticed it.
You know, maybe he could go after the Neotropics Bros as much as he goes after the Instagram Self Help Girls. That kind of thing.
`I'd really like to see Freddie write about a woman he likes and respects.'
Someone suggested his piece on Elizabeth Wurtzel, which you then found a reason to dismiss:
`He needs to write praise about one woman he's never had a fantasy about.'
Would disagree with that characterization but it's clear that you've made up your mind on this and are willing to rationalize away (i.e., move the goal posts) any example provided that runs counter to your claim.
Given that, it would seem that your issue is more with the force and validity of FdB's critique about someone you're behind, e.g., Kamala Harris, who is currently enabling the slaughter of Palestinians let's not forget, rather than any male chauvinism on his part.
Sheesh, get on the side of the kinder, gentler genocide with pastel colors, already!
In "years"? What's Joe Biden, chopped liver?
No one was genuinely excited by the prospect of Biden as president in 2020, except insofar as he was believed to be the safest option to unseat Donald Trump due to hypothetical head-to-head polling. Witness how he floundered in the early debates, and lost the first three primaries by pretty wide margins. Yet once it became clear no one other than Bernie was viable, normie dem voters said "ugh, I guess" and fell in line. That didn't change his main qualification being "can defeat Trump."
In retrospect, I am of the belief his political skill was vastly oversold. He's been probably the best president on policy in my life, but being president in the modern era requires you to not only be an effective manager of the executive branch, but also to be able to sell it to the American people, which he was utterly inept at.
So all those policy wins were no cause for celebration?
And in terms of policy wins, what are they again?
Biden got the American Rescue Plan Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the Inflation Reduction Act - pretty much the only sort of taxing/spending issues that can get around the rules for senate cloture. On regulatory matters like labor and antitrust, Biden's been considerably to the left of the Obama Administration as well.
But yeah, few people vote in a transactional matter based upon "if politician passes item X, I will support them." Nowhere was this more clear than stimulus checks and direct payments to families in the Cares Act under Trump, and then the American Rescue Plan. There were predictions that these policies would be massively popular, since you're directly cutting checks to voters, but in the end, they seem to have moved almost no one.
If people aren't grateful that a Presidential administration is directly sending them money, what will they be grateful for?
Those policy wins dumped money into an already overstimulated economy and kicked off levels of inflation barely below the all time highs of the 1970's, requiring the Fed to raise interest rates high enough that the country is either toppling into recession or has already entered into one. That's not a win in my book.
I read a study on what the stimulus checks were used for. For the most part, people bought big-ticket items on Amazon like new flatscreen TVs, and the money vanished almost immediately from the economy.
In contrast, most of the inflation rise which started in 2021 was due to rising costs for raw materials and/or labor. The first was mainly due to supply chain issues with a side helping of rising energy costs, the latter, the labor shortage. And the spike occurred well after the additional money sloshed through the economy.
There is an argument that the supply chain issues in particular had to do with the "unlocking issues" of the economy. Essentially we very quickly shifted from being homebodies who had Amazon packages delivered to us to spending normally once again, but the economy couldn't pivot in time. Yeah, it's plausible that the stimulus checks played a role here, as they allowed people to stay home longer, but given the supply issues were global, a change in local policy would have just helped on the margins.
Bottom line is I do think it's arguable that inflation would have peaked a few percent lower if we had made some different policy choices. However, it still would have been a politically painful period due to extrinsic factors beyond the policy control of Biden.
"But what if winning requires you to stop acting like a middle-aged teenager?"
You can take that sentence and get the hell out of here mister. We don't do adult around here!
Seriously though, both parties kind of do this nowadays. Both conventions were so theatrically posturing and emotionally charged I probably could not tell the difference between them and a high school pep rally.
The Dem convention gave me flashback to Star Was Celebration, of all things. All the "We <3 Kamala" signs might as well have been lightsabers waving in the air as Disney rolled out Mark Hamil or whoever.
I certainly remember HRC and her pantsuit nation idiots fumbling the ball at the 1 yard line. But remember Trump almost getting his head blown off? Everyone was convinced he was a lock for an easy victory after the bloody ear / raised fist photo. The one thing that is certain of this election is that there are multiple twists and turns to come.
The other thing that is certain in this election is that a major portion of the left remains devoted to their own irrelevancy by focusing on an issue that 1) is not a priority for the vast majority of people and 2) if people have a strong opinion about it at all then they don't agree with the left. It also only indirectly involves the USA and history tells us no serious candidate for President will do what the protestors want them to do. Bernie Sanders is remarkably good at sticking to his economic message but exiting the stage; AOC has decided she wants to be Pelosi.
Had Biden still been the candidate, it WOULD have been a lock.
Ironically, Trump getting his ear blown off is the thing that made Dem leadership shove Biden aside for Harris. Had that shooting not happened, I'm not sure Harris would have happened.
I agree. There was also a week or so of whiplash where it seemed like Biden might stay in, might drop out, is definitely staying in, then drops out. Harris has only been the candidate for a month! More insanity to come - I predict Harris or Walz will stumble in some minor way in the next few weeks and it will become a huge media spectacle. There are also theoretically some debates coming up.
Stumble figuratively or physically?
I meant figuratively stumble, as in say something stupid or strange that then gets blown out of proportion. Of course, Trump does that several times a day but it mostly gets ignored.