The article, at The New Republic, is by Alex Shephard.
Substantively, it's another one of these Amy-Klobuchar-must-be-destroyed articles.
[T]he press has cemented her identity as a pragmatist because she fills a key narrative role in the 2020 race: serving as a contrast to the supposed idealists who are driving most of the conversation (and most of the voter excitement) in the Democratic primary. This is shaping up to be the defining conflict of the race...It's a bad day for baby-killing metaphors. Senate Democrats just blocked the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. And Trump tweeted, " The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth."
This is not a new conflict among Democrats, of course. To some extent, it has defined the party for the past half-century. The party’s rightward drift began in the mid-1970s, when the so-called “Watergate Babies” began to replace New Deal Democrats, but proceeded in earnest in the 1980s due to Ronald Reagan’s two landslide victories. The Democratic Leadership Council, formed in the wake of Walter Mondale’s defeat in 1984, pushed Democrats to embrace balanced budgets, welfare reform, and other centrist policies. The argument was that the Democratic Party must meet American voters where they were....
From a policy perspective, this shift has been an unqualified failure.... All four of the Democratic nominees who have lost elections since 1988—Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton—sold themselves as pragmatists rather than idealists. The two who won, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, wrapped their pragmatism in an idealistic narrative about the need for radical change....
And yet, amid the party’s [recent] decisive shift leftward, pragmatism threatens once again to smother ambitious new policies in the crib....
But let's get back to The New Republic's explanation of why Democrats ought not to flaunt their pragmatism. Ironically, it's for pragmatic reasons that they need to look idealistic:
It’s possible, for instance, that Klobuchar’s hypothetical smaller-scale health care push could hold on to more Democratic votes than Medicare for All—but there is no sense that it would win any more votes from Republicans. Despite the label, there’s nothing really that pragmatic about these policies, at least in this hyper-partisan moment....Got that? Pragmatism isn't pragmatic.
IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Boyd said:
Thanks for combing through that word salad for us, Professor.
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59 comments:
Finally, it is my turn to say, "That is how you get more Trump."
Kerry was a pragmatist? Could have fooled me.....
Hillary is a pragmatist?! That’s hilarious and 100% incorrect.
What a maroon!
Pragmatism - Noun - Looking at things and dealing with the world and situations in a realistic, logical, and functional way. Focusing on what works.
That word and Democrats have no business being in the same sentence, the same country, or the same planet together.
If it was 'in disguise' than its death is long overdue because it's been dead since WWII and Democrats have been schlepping its corpse and forcing it to wave high like something out of "Weekend at Bernies" for 70 years.
“Medicare for all” doesn’t sound very pragmatic to me.
If you show me two bills and one is Super Far Left and the other is just Plain Old Far Left, neither is “pragmatic” even though one is less extreme than the other.
Got that? Pragmatism isn't pragmatic.
If you find economics boring that's one way of looking at it. I get that Klobuchar's expansion of Medicare is bad policy that will lead to bad outcomes for people just as a Medicare for all plan will. Arguing the relative magnitude of the suffering of one policy over the other seems rather pointless and pragmatism don't much enter into it. Market based reforms of insurance and medicine are for the pragmatists.
I could point out the correlation/causation flaw in the why Democrats lose argument, but when your opponents are making a mistake...
The times they are a changing. Suddenly, the Dems have turned insane and cannot even keep a straight fake news narrative going for an entire article. Suddenly, the acceptance of Abortion Murder is being rejected. Suddenly, the praising of Communist Dictatorship as the ideal governance, is being rejected.
I blame Jordan Peterson and our magnificent President for effectively redoing Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" propaganda series that won public opinion in the USA to fight WWII.
And suddenly Methodists have just dumped a long planned gay agenda demanded of them. What are we going to see next???
"That is how you get more Trump."
I agree. The only candidate who can defeat Trump is Bernie.
Either Bernie or Da Nang Dick Blumenthal.
It might also be because of Klobuchar being an odious person, the "worst employer on Capitol Hill.
When Bernie's policies are truly vetted and exposed since socialism is on the ticket, I don't think Bernie will poll as well as 2016. Besides he is really old and so white, and the only intersectionality he occupies is the one where the SJWs run you over.
It is not just insurance the whole health system needs to be reformed from education to drug costs and I trust Amy to do this with her balanced approached that allows me to keep my private health insurance. What will defeat Trump is himself.
"'Got that? Pragmatism isn't pragmatic.' If you find economics boring that's one way of looking at it."
My point is that displaying pragmatism as your brand is not pragmatic as a political strategy to get elected. Are you disagreeing with that point? I'm also characterizing Shephard's argument, so even if you are disagreeing with "Pragmatism isn't pragmatic [for getting elected]," you are not disagreeing with me.
Thanks for combing through that word salad for us, Professor.
Slightly OT and maybe a day late, but I've not seen any comments here regarding Kirsten Gillibrand's interview with Chris Wallace Monday evening. My wife and I were laughing at her most of the time. She seemed unable to present her ideas coherently and settled for filibustering Wallace.
I've not taken her too seriously for 2020, but in my mind she has even less creditability as a result of that interview.
"It's a bad day for baby-killing metaphors"
And is this what is called 'burying the lead'?....u know, metaphorically?
Since Bernie was brought up, one disappointment I had in the build up to the 2016 election was the Trump-Bernie debate that never happened. I would have paid good money to see that. Trump suggested it, Bernie responded enthusiastically, and Trump pulled the plug. I think that would have been an excellent and much-needed debate about the future of our country. I also think Trump would have obliterated Bernie. But Trump has good instincts, so maybe he knew there was danger if he went through with it.
Shorter Alex Shephard- I hate Democrat candidates that can attract independents and possibly win elections.
"I trust Amy to do this with her balanced approached that allows me to keep my private health insurance."
R/V, now I've got the wipe the coffee off my tablet.
"Thanks for combing through that word salad for us, Professor."
Now clean it!
If you want to read a discussion of the theoretical basis of Trump's presidency, I would suggest this book review at CRB.
The ends of our government are no longer determined by the people through public deliberation constrained by moral and natural limits; nor are they even to give the people what they want regardless of those limits. They are rather to force upon the people what “science,” the research universities and public intellectuals have determined they should want. Since these “discoveries” are held to be “scientific” and therefore incontrovertible, limits on administrative power are not merely unnecessary but harmful. When you know what’s right and necessary, why wait? Why let yourself be held up by mere procedural hurdles, or worse, by the contentless objections of the ignorant?
* * *
The bureaucrats who operate the machinery of the administrative state are, for the most part, merely crew. The pilots are those whom some (though not Marini) have taken to calling the “deep state.” But a simpler name for them is Angelo Codevilla’s “ruling class”: the people who revolve in and out of senior government, and lucrative private sector, positions; run the hedge funds, big banks and other corporations; set the tone and agenda for all society; and tell the administrative state what to do, either directly or indirectly. One might say that the deep state and the administrative state are a kind of coalition or partnership, though the former is most definitely the senior partner.
I think those are the people buwaya has been referring to.
From a policy perspective, this shift has been an unqualified failure.... All four of the Democratic nominees who have lost elections since 1988—Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton—sold themselves as pragmatists rather than idealists. The two who won, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, wrapped their pragmatism in an idealistic narrative about the need for radical change....
Why does Shephard use the word "policy" to mean the word "electoral"?
From a policy perspective, Bill Clinton's financier-centered centrism has defined the U.S. economic system for 30 years. From a policy perspective, the Democrats only successes have been centrist.
All four of the Democratic nominees who have lost elections since 1988—Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton—sold themselves as pragmatists rather than idealists. The two who won, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, wrapped their pragmatism in an idealistic narrative about the need for radical change....
then Jeff Brokaw points out... Hillary is a pragmatist?! That’s hilarious and 100% incorrect.
Which leads Me to say: In what Dream World did BILL Clinton run on an idealistic narrative about the need for radical change? I was 30 in 1992, so i sorta remember the Real World, and there wasn't any call for 'radical change' from Bill, until after 1994; when he switched to:
The Era of Big Government Is OVER
Bill's entire '92 campaign was a Win The South campaign. Bill (at least pretended that he) was a moderate
Henry said ... From a policy perspective, the Democrats only successes have been centrist.
I'd say that their only Electoral success have been people that (at least pretended that they ) were centrist. Remember the press telling us that O'Bama was a centrist? I do
Liberal writers are always fucking around with adjectives trying to make liberalism seem mainstream.
By he standards of 1988, Duke was a "pragmatist" he was a left-wing, card-carrying member of the ACLU. Hillary was thought of the in the same way. Even Mondull was supposedly the liberal who balanced the ticked for "pragmatic" Carter.
And of course, Clinton the "pragmatic" gave us Ginsburg and Breyer. The only thing "pragmatic" about the Clinton's were their love for the rich and big business.
Chris Hughes has turned the new republic into a worse dumpster fire than it was run by Michael straight a Soviet agent.
Just one sample to highlight how ridiculous this analysis is: it requires believing Hillary was more centrist/pragmatic than Bill.
These numbnuts can't find their way to home plate much less around the bases.
Carter made a big point back in 76 of saying he was not a liberal. 40 years later I'm still wondering what exactly he meant by that.
"A headline that makes me sad."
It's so sad you are sad. I can't believe those prog Dems can't be "serious" and "competent," or at least act as if.
Perhaps it should make me happy: since women's feelz will decide the coming elections, and Dems are intent on making you sad--they do, after all, despise you and people like you--it may mean that the right has a chance.
Overheard in a Washington restaurant:
Klobucar: "You! Go get me a house salad with the Brylcreem vinaigrette and make it snappy."
Aide: " Yes ma'am. Um...ma'am? There's something in your hair."
Klobuchar: "That's the problem with Chunky blue cheese, but I love that stuff."
Aide: "I cleaned the comb really good after lunch, ma'am, I swear."
Klobuchar: "Not your fault for once. I had a salad at home last night and I forgot to give you the comb this morning, what with all that was going on. In future, why don't you just plan on washing my comb first thing when you come in whether it needs it or not, okay? Now stop yakking and go get that salad, I'm starving."
Point of information for Alex Shephard. Bill Clinton absolutely ran as a centrist in 1992 — .he was a founder of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which is the actual organization that made the case, starting in the late 1989s, that the Democrat Party had to absorb the lessons of Reagan’s landslide victories and pull back to the center to win national elections. Shephard (1) simply doesn’t know his history, and (2) is totally not reading today’s electorate at all. No one thinks of the present Democrats as “idealists.” More like crackpots.
How big was Reagan’s reelection victory in 1984? In the last week of the election Mondale had to campaign hard in his home state to avoid a total 50 state sweep by Reagan.
Got that? Pragmatism isn't pragmatic.
I got that plus the notion that the ability to gain more votes in Democrat primary doesn't translate into more Republican votes in the general. That's odd on two fronts: It suggests Klobuchar is attracting the Democrat base with her pragmatic message, and it is all futile for Democrats because without Republican flipping sides, Trump will win.
I'm not sure how going further left attracts more Republicans. Already, Trump supporters are noting the hypocrisy of NeverTrump "conservatives" willing to support a far left socialist just to rid themselves of icky Trump. Pushing farther left will just make that hypocrisy more apparent.
Pragmatism is not good Box Office, especially if choosing a President is a casting decision, a role for which Trump is miscast. If there weren't a heavy show-biz element in politics, AOC wouldn't be the flavor of the month.
It's 1972 all over again.
"Da Nang Dick" sounds like an STD
supposed idealists who are driving most of the conversation (and most of the voter excitement) in the Democratic primary.
If by "supposed idealists" he actually means "the left wing fruitcakes and lunatics", then this sentence is true.
Pragmatism is not pragmatic in politics, meaning it is not an effective approach to getting elected. That makes sense to me in that if you are going to win against an incumbent you will have to differentiate yourself and your ideas. Trump isn't exactly a popular incumbent, but many people are better off today than they were before he was elected, and the country is in a better position internationally. Pragmatically acknowledging those things is an argument for more Trump.
The key for the Democratic Party is to position post-birth abortion as pragmatic.
Then it all falls into place.
I am Laslo.
Big Mike said...
Point of information for Alex Shephard. Bill Clinton absolutely ran as a centrist in 1992 —
He ran as one which is why he won. But he immediately proved that his substance was quite left of his image by immediately pushing a government takeover of healthcare. We only think of him as a moderate today because his own initiatives were defeated while those pushing this branding cite initiatives he was forced into to retain political viability (like welfare reform) as if they were his plans. In fact the only thing Bill deserves credit for is NAFTA.
None of this changes that he is still right of Hillary and essentially everyone else in the Dem party. It just shows you where the line starts.
I think the leftist problem with understanding reality is because they internalized that their radical campus cohorts represent all Dems. As they age and come across some Dems who at least try to deal with reality they misunderstand breaking out of their echo chamber as movement right by Dems generally.
The Dems have their proverbial problem, but it is getting rapidly worse: they need to look like a liberal whack job to get nominated, then have to tack hard back to the middle to pick up enough moderate votes to win the general election. The Dems aren’t becoming more moderate, but rather the independents in the middle that they need for the Presidency are slowly moving to the right. I don’t think that they could have gottten all but three of their Senate caucus to actually vote for infanticide, as they did Monday, in an earlier era. Nationally, 3rd trimester abortions are now down to 1/4 acceptance (and almost 3/4 rejection) nationally, while over 9/10 of their Senators voted in favor of 4th trimester abortions this week. Every one of the Dem Senators running for President also supports AOC’s Green New Deal, that would ban private jet transportation, cow farts, and gasoline powered cars, essentially moving us back technologically a century or so, in the name of preventing Anthropogenic Glibal Warming, that only exists because it’s supporters won’t show their work and tweak their underlying data, and if it were true, would probably be good for humans on the planet, not bad. But it has to be accepted as catastrophically bad in order to justify turning our country into Venezuela. Nothing pragmatic about any of this, but rather probably beyond radical, unless you define pragmatic as providing justification for full socialization of our country, with the Dem leadership and their top supporters being the only ones benefiting from the bankruptcy of the country.
Let’s look back at their Presidential candidates over much of our lifetimes:
JFK - cold warrior military hero
LBJ - running as the sane one against warmonger Goldwater, mostly hiding his radical social and economic agenda
Carter - ran as a social conservative and economic moderate against Nixon and Watergate
The Hump - progressive who lost
Dukakis - Ditto
Clinton (Bill) - tough on crime moderate who won agains GHWB who had broken his campaign promises
Gore - progressive who lost
Lurch - Ditto
Obama - first Black President, whose radical agenda was hidden by the MSM.
Crooked Hillary - epically corrupt progressive who lost. Her left wing credentials go back to college, and were on display when her husband was President with her attempt to socialize and destroy our healthcare system
If one wants to be elected president, one can't simply be a purely pragmatic political horse-trader. One needs the "vision thing." If one wants to get a major party nomination one has to make appeal to the party's values and symbols in a more than banal way. To win the general election one has to offers something more than "politics as usual." So "pragmatism" isn't always pragmatic.
Ronald Reagan was accused of being a stealth candidate - an extremist pretending to be a conventional Republican. Some people still think of him that way. But it might be more accurate to see him as a more pragmatic politician who took on the mantle of a visionary revolutionary to get elected (or perhaps, an ideologue who became a visionary, even as he evolved into a political pragmatist). His successor, George Bush could be seen as more pragmatic and centrist but lacked the inspiring "vision thing," and couldn't win reelection.
"Pragmatist" as applied to politics can be the opposite of "ideologist" or "doctrinaire," or it can be the opposite of "visionary" or "idealist." Mondale and Dukakis weren't complete ideologues by any means, but they did have a doctrinaire side than made them something other than pure pragmatists. What they lacked was a real vision and energy and capacity to inspire voters. I don't think Kerry had that doctrinaire side, but he was also lackluster, and incapable of inspiring the country.
Bill Clinton was never an ideologue or a doctrinaire by any means, but I doubt he was a great visionary, let alone an idealist. He was a pragmatist's pragmatist. But the country felt that it was hurting in 1992 and Clinton came in as the one who could heal it. Obama did address visionary themes, but the situation was similar. If the country thinks that it needs saving, someone who presents himself as a savior will make headway. Other Democrats (Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry, HRC) couldn't do that - and the country didn't want or need it when they ran.
Pragmatic means letting XY run in races meant for XX.
Ask Martina Navratilova.
Bruce Hayden you missed one of the more interesting of the Democratic Presidential nominees.
George McGovern, who lost in a landslide as an anti-war candidate.
McGovern volunteered for the Army Air Corps weeks after Pearl Harbor; did extremely dangerous training on the early models of the B-24 (with no hydraulic controls at that time); flew 35 combat bombing missions in Europe under incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances for which he was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters.
Of all of the Presidential nominees during our lives, the standouts for military combat service are Eisenhower, Kennedy, McGovern, Dole, McCain, GHW Bush, Kerry, and Ford.
People tend to see politicians in the other party as more ideological or extreme than people in those politicians own party do. And if we take Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy as the standard, politicians today are all more ideological and polarizing than in that postwar idyll. Even if we take Ford, Carter, and the first Bush and Clinton as the standard, most politicians today are more partisan and ideologically committed. So comparisons across time can be tricky.
Today, everybody has an ideological past and started out as a true believer - or they are trying to create an ideological present for themselves, and obscure their earlier pragmatism. Everybody enters a highly partisan environment as a representative of one ideological line or another. Nobody comes in like Ford or Nixon because local businessmen are looking for a candidate who can win or like Kennedy because their dad has money and ambitions for his sons or like Eisenhower because they are popular generals without strong political views that could alienate voters. So when we judge Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama we can't use the same standard we have for Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. There's an ideological element in today's politicians that was much weaker among their precursors. Even Mondale and Dukakis, who were true believers in their day, wouldn't fit well into today's political environment.
"The two who won, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, wrapped their pragmatism in an idealistic narrative about the need for radical change"
--
Yeah..like when Obama declared "The era of big government is over".
It is indisputable by now that lefty politicos and their consorts among the mediaswine are non compos mentos.
“The Party’s rightward drift”? Seriously? As for those “centrist” candidates: Democrat politicians always lie to conceal their progressivism to get elected by dupes. This writer is just pushing the Democrats’ version of Goebbel’s “big lie.”
His is correct about Bill Clinton’s pragmatism and the recent emergence of leftist loonies at the forefront of the Party who are pushing socialism, infanticide and other evidence of the economic illiteracy and moral bankruptcy of their party.
He writes, "From a policy perspective, this shift has been an unqualified failure..."
But he doesn't comment on policy, only elections. Maybe it has been an electoral failure, he argues that, but he has nothing to say about whether the policies were good, bad, or indifferent, as policies.
Wow, TNR used to at least have editorial standards.
"Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."
Ideally, the most pragmatic choice for the American electorate would be re-electing President Trump.
The two who won, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, wrapped their pragmatism in an idealistic narrative about the need for radical change—and they won two terms each.
Trump was the change candidate in 2016 and his change, thanks to the Democrats #resistance, is still playing out.
2020 is not going to be about change or the status quo, but about continuing the change in process or slamming the car violently into reverse.
That immediately negates the "Trump is crazy" argument you could make from a more centrist candidate. The new Dem argument is that Trump's ideas aren't crazy enough.
The Democratic Leadership Council, formed in the wake of Walter Mondale’s defeat in 1984, pushed Democrats to embrace balanced budgets, welfare reform, and other centrist policies.
And one of the leading policy journals fueling that push to the center was ---- The New Republic.
Learn some history, kid.
@Chuck. Who could forget McGovern McNothing? (I obviously did) A liberal running against a President who had effectively won the Vietnam war that his predecessors had started then screwed up royally, causing tens of thousands of American dead. The death toll dropped sharply every year of Nixon's first term, and by the election, the draft had been (permanently) suspended (I lost my 2S deferment in June of that year, after 4 years, and sat out that summer as 1A, and then, I think, it was Sept that the draft was suspended).
Lurch Kerry is, in my mind only kind of a war hero. He kept trying to avoid combat, joining the Naval reserve, volunteering for river boat duty at a time when they weren't seeing combat, and after their mission changed, went into combat with enough abandon that he endangered everyone around him, then took a quick out with 3 Purple Hearts, one likely self inflicted, and got transferred out, something that likely wouldn't have happened with drafted Marines or Army troops. But he was a moderately well connected Navy officer, so he got away with it. Then, of course, he appears to have effectively deserted after returning stateside, and likely did not come close to completing his reserve commitment, but while tokenly still a Navy officer met with the enemy and lied to Congress about atrocities there. On the flip side, I was lucky enough to be young enough that I could spend effectively the last 4 years of the war in college. He was enough older that he didn't have that opportunity. So I really shouldn't be throwing stones.
Eisenhower is another interesting case. He was a number cruncher and superb administrator. He very quickly attracted the attention of top brass, and spent a good portion of his service as an aide to them, until, of course, he became the boss. Which is to say that he was essentially the one ordering Dole into the fight in Italy that permanently disabled him, and McGovern into that bomber for his 35 missions over Germany (which really was one of the most dangerous jobs during the war). But for the most part, he spent WW II being chauffeured around England, then Europe, wearing a sharply pressed uniform (thanks to his valet), having an affair, and likely experiencing comparatively little personal danger. On the flip side, likely no one else we had could have done the job he did, winning the war in Europe as quickly and efficiently as he did. So, it really depends on how you define war hero.
Talking about Eisenhower, my father came within probably several hundred feet of him fishing one day, before he was intercepted by the Secret Service. Everyone knows that he liked to fish by Frasier, CO. But he also fished by Buffalo Creek about an hour southwest of Denver. Turns out one of Mamie's high school friends, a Marian Small, had a summer cabin there, and while Mamie was visiting Marian, Ike would go fishing. My grandparents had a girl's camp in the area, and hence why my father was fishing there that day. My grandmother knew Marian decently well, and I remember visiting her on a number of occasions. And yes, with a name like that, you would be correct if you thought that she might be 6' tall.
I was aware that they were still publishing the New Republic. I had not supposed anyone was still reading it.
"The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth."
This is, surprisingly, not even slightly exaggerated. The Left has gone from regarding abortion as a necessary evil to seeing it as a positive good. One has to wonder what image is in the mind of a pediatrician who speaks of keeping a baby comfortable while discussing whether to kill it. How will you keep it comfortable? Shouldn't its mother hold it to her breast, keeping it warm and nursing it? And then how will you kill it? Governor? How do you plan to kill the comfortable baby?
I am unable to believe that a Democrat COULD BE pragmatic. Can't do it!
Lurch Kerry is, in my mind only kind of a war hero.
A friend of mine was in Swift Boats with Kerry. I've never asked him about it and he has not volunteered anything, They were there at the same time, not the same unit,
The Left has gone from regarding abortion as a necessary evil to seeing it as a positive good... How do you plan to kill the comfortable baby?
It's not a fetus anymore. It never was, other than in technical terms of art, and to aid and abet the comfort of advocates and activists for selective and cannibalized-child.
what I took from that: We don't have to meet the people where they are. Basically, screw the people, they are rubes and don't know what's best for them.
Which, I mean, we KNEW. But its still nice to see them being clear about it.
Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton—sold themselves as pragmatists...
That actually made me laugh out loud.
Just how far out of touch do you have to be to even consider those people as pragmatists, let alone believe it?
I'd love to read a story about who's dropping the dirt on Klobuchar and various other candidates. Journalists sure aren't finding that information. It's being handed to them. But by who? Which other Democratic president contender is doing that?
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