Opinion: Centrist Democrats should stop blaming progressives for Harris's loss (Los Angeles Times)

[ificandream]

Whether to use he/she pronouns in emails wasn’t a factor in the Harris-Trump race.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=916
From left to right: Commentator James Carville, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts), and Quentin Fulks, the deputy campaign manager for Vice President Kamala Harris's 2024 campaign. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images; Bruce Boyajian/The Washington Post; Melina Mara/The Washington Post)


By Perry Bacon Jr.
Los Angeles Times

Center-left and establishment Democrats are trying to marginalize the party’s left wing in the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss last month, in some ways mirroring what moderates — including Bill Clinton — did in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

The bashing of progressives started almost immediately after the election — and hasn’t stopped since. Commentator James Carville said Harris could “never wash off the stench” of left-wing rhetoric such as “defund the police.” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts) said: “Here we are calling Republicans weird, and we’re the party that makes people put pronouns in their email signature.” Quentin Fulks, who was Harris’s deputy campaign manager, said party activists too often force Democratic candidates to apologize, particularly hurting them with male voters, because, according to him, “men don’t like people who apologize.”

I hope this effort is unsuccessful. It’s based on a false premise. The Democrats’ biggest electoral problem isn’t its less-powerful progressive wing, but rather a centrist establishment that clings to power while constantly losing elections and major policy fights. And, as happened in the 1990s, a rightward move by Democrats on policy could hurt some of the most vulnerable people and groups in American society.

As election analysis, these takes aren’t particularly strong. Whether to put he/she pronouns in emails wasn’t a factor in Harris’s race against Donald Trump. The “defund the police” slogan was most prominent in 2020 — a year Democrats won the House, Senate and the presidency. Harris didn’t issue a big apology during her campaign. (Election results aside, politicians and anyone else in America who does something that they regret should apologize. I am disappointed I have to use space in a published article in 2024 to note that it’s plenty manly to say, “I’m sorry.”)

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/05/centrist-progressive-democrats-election-recriminations-blame/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3fd5e5a%2F6751e48de179af1b45e7176a%2F5972a8e29bbc0f1cdce864e4%2F18%2F59%2F6751e48de179af1b45e7176a

[Think. Again.]

1. centrist Democrats seem to be oddly comfortable in such a right-leaning position.

[rurallib]

2. My reaction to seeing something from the LA Times these days

is to think "MAGA mouthpiece" and move on

[ificandream]

4. Way off the mark on that one.

[sop]

3. Centrist Democrats often act like they detest the left more than the far right.

[Voltaire2]

10. they do. it is an observable fact.

[Celerity]

12. +1

[displacedvermoter]

5. God damned Carville was sure Harris

was going to win, though, so he is talking out both sides of his face again.

[elleng]

6. DAMN DMN DAMN!!!

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. Highlighting the money quote:

The Democrats’ biggest electoral problem isn’t its less-powerful progressive wing, but rather a centrist establishment that clings to power while constantly losing elections and major policy fights. And, as happened in the 1990s, a rightward move by Democrats on policy could hurt some of the most vulnerable people and groups in American society.

If we forget this, the Dems will be relegated to minority status for a generation.

Progressive policies are far more popular with the American people than conservative policies- as long as you don’t label them “progressive”, “liberal” or originating from the Democratic Party.

“Centrism” is a performative façade for cowards unwilling to take positions and support policies that might get them criticized on FOX or even CNN.

[Voltaire2]

9. Harris ran as a 'centrist democrat'.

Get back to me when an actual center-left democratic presidential candidate runs and loses, as that hasn't happened since 1972. That was more than 50 years ago. Instead we have had 'centrist' candidates ever since, and that 'center' has been moving ever rightward.

[kacekwl]

11. Please show me

Centrist Republicans. The whole party is MAGA loving boot lickers who shake in their boots when trump speaks. That all vote in lockstep with few exceptions. But god forbid any democrat creeps a little further left than some asshole likes. Bullshit.

[Cha]

13. So those dems in the Swing States that

didn't vote for Harris didn't have a Negative Impact on her loss?

In historic shift, American Muslim and Arab voters desert Democrats

https://www.voanews.com/a/in-historic-shift-american-muslim-and-arab-voters-desert-democrats/7854995.html