Thank you Frank Bruni for becoming the voice of reason at the Times. While several of your colleagues have spent the past two years rewriting the same I HATE TRUMP!!! columns, you've actually concentrated on ways that we can get past this and move ahead, rather than get stuck in a temper tantrum. Just know that the silent majority of Times readers are on your side.
13
I read a lot of wishful thinking. Many here wish people had the time and the mental space to make every agenda the top priority. Heck! Stop the confirmation of a new justice, keep the Dreamers in, overhaul immigration, tax the rich, get free healthcare, free college, stop wars, keep money out of politics, make it right by gender discrimination, make it right by racial discrimination, make it right by sexual orientation, make it right by disability, purge corrupted criminal police, stop Trump, get control of congress, take control of the senate, take control of the supreme court, stop tariffs (the new Democratic perspective), put up tariffs (the old Democratic perspective – as of 1.5 years ago), curb sexual abuse (any offense is a criminal offense), pick your bathroom, take down them catholic priests, more foreign workers, make housing affordable, before Trump: labor statistics are good, after Trump: labor statistics are bogus. Impeach Trump. Impeach Pence. Impeach Ryan. Remind Trump that democracy requires term limits. Reelect Obama and so away with term limits.
The author is just pointing out that many districts don't hold the same perspective as we do but are overall on the same bandwagon as we (other Democrats) are. Maybe it is time to go to night school and learn what "Pick the best option" means. There may bot be a perfect option, heck it even means there may not be any good option. Pick the best one.
It is not hard. Let's get SOME actual power before spending it.
7
She walks around Westchester knowing it's a moral victory.
If it makes you feel better, I can send you a few dozen participation trophies my kid has buried in her closet.
3
Sorry Frank. No one ever in The Middle Class or poor ever got more than BOTH Parties took from and gave back to the wealthy. Right and Center especially.
5
I am fairly progressive but I support positions that move in the direction i like. I don't know what to think about medicare for all but I think that medicare for those who can't get anything else has some point to it even though it would lead to a terrible risk pool. There is nothing radical about wanting to see the voting rights act honored. Many of the comments here are beating a dead horse. I will support anyone who is moving in what I consider to be the right direction and who can win. Does anyone remember what that was like? That is how parties die. They go too extreme and lose and then decide that it was because it was not extreme enough. Like British Labor. Nothing can be called progressive or anything else if it doesn't include winning.
5
I really hate to agree this time Frank. But I'm afraid you're right. I so want a progressive agenda!
But as much as I want to see a Congress who represents the more progressive 21st century (compared to the so outdated 19th thinking which seems so entrenched today), I kind of hope a centrist Democrat will snatch away a seat now held by a Republican.
That's all I hope for today. fewer Republicans, more Democrats. Otherwise, I have no hope left, and I cannot wait two more years to "maybe" see a change in DC.
syfredrick - to me, voting is a right AND the duty of every citizen.
And no, wars are NOT necessary evils, they are just evil.
Other than that, I agree 100% with your post.
6
"Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million votes.
That should not count as a loss."
Of course it counts as a loss! It counts as loss because American presidential elections count electoral votes, not popular votes...and that's the way it has always been. It's like saying you won a baseball game because you had more hits. Nobody cares if you had more hits, you win a baseball game by getting more runs.
It counts as loss because Donald Trump is president, not Hillary Clinton. That's the only bottom line that matters. There are no participation trophies or moral victories. A strategy that doesn't win electoral votes is the wrong strategy. A candidate that doesn't win electoral votes is the wrong candidate. I say this as somebody who voted for Clinton.
7
Ground Zero for this huge chasm our Congress and our nation was the ACA vote in 2009.
This nation does not do HUGE change fast and with only one party participating in the process.
This HUGE overreach by Democrats was accompanied by Nancy Pelosi holding a gun to the head of 65+ moderate Blue Dog Democrats. Those 65+ D's were immediately replaced in the 2010 election by Tea Party types.
What remained in the House was the far far left...and now a growing # of Freedom Caucus types...and few in the middle. IN fact, there are fewer than 10 Democrat moderates left in the HOuse..that's how rare they've become.
And yet this is a Republican problem?.....say the D's.
It's going to take 25 years for the D's to sort out this mess.
As a former moderate Democrat, the first order of business ought to be putting Nancy Pelosi out of business.
2
Sometime back before the election, the NYT ran a survey with questions related to issues at hand. (Abortion, guns, immigration, clean air, climate change...etc) It was intended to determine your rating on a progressive-conservative scale. After completion, it determined that lI was smack in the middle. I was in the Center. A registered Democrat in the Center.
I am still waiting for a candidate to represent my views.
2
while I don't disagree with the main point of the article, that centrists are winning more primaries in Red districts than are the Far Left Progressives, the whole article avoids the actual problem facing all D's in the nation.
Only a massive and decisive overthrow of R control in either the House or Senate is going to do much to stop Trump and his gang of Hooligans (House Freedom Caucus, Mitch McConnell, etc) from destroying America.
The barriers to that type of upheaval are massive and rely specifically on D gains in Red states. These barriers include gerrymandered districts, aggressive attempts to limit voting by minorities, and an well honed hatred for anything they voters have been told is a "liberal" conspiracy to reduce the power of White People, such as taking away their guns or paying for a solid public education for all children.
Taking only moderate control of either or both houses will only give Trump a bigger megaphone to tweet out his grievances and lies about D's.
2
So, what is absolutely critical here is that the Democrats deliver the message...our message IS pragmatism; our goal is to get things done and get the people's government moving again!
...with a side order of progressivism. If we allow the Republicans, or the media, to paint us into a progressive picture...we're doomed.
As a loyal Dem all my life, and former elected official myself, all I can say is...stay on message! The future of our nation depends on it...on you!
7
Exactly right. Here in south central Pennsylvania’s newly redistricted 10th district, Democratic candidate George Scott, a Georgetown graduate with 20 years military experience and a degree in theology, is running to unseat an unpopular 3 term freedom caucus Republican who has done nothing for the people of this district. Mr. Scott’s three main issues are affordable, health care, good paying jobs, and quality public education - hardly radical, but it sure would be nice to have all three in exchange for gutted health care, budget busting tax cuts for corporations and the 1%, and the erosion of public education which lifted the greatest generation and their children into the middle class.
7
"Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million votes.
That should not count as a loss."
Of course it counts as a loss! It counts as loss because American presidential elections count electoral votes, not popular votes...and that's the way it has always been. It's like saying you didn't lose a baseball game because you had more hits. Nobody cares if you had more hits, because you win a baseball game by getting more runs.
I'm not sure what you are getting at with your broader point. However, as far as whether anybody to the left of Clinton would have won, I will point out that we - quite literally - will never know whether Bernie Sanders could have won those states in 2016. However, we DO know - as a certainty - that Clinton didn't.
When something doesn't work, try something else. That's the rational thing to do. Otherwise, as Einstein supposedly said, "insanity is trying the same thing over and over again while expecting different results."
7
I disagree with Bruni's take because of several lessons from 2016:
(1) Pundits and political operatives often have no idea where the real "center" is on a wide number of issues. By center, I do not mean the middle of some imaginary political spectrum, but where the swing votes lie. Donald Trump's politics - from protectionism to white nationalism - were so fringe that nobody took him seriously. Yet, he is in the White House now.
(2) All politics is local, and one-size-fits-all ideology for a national party hinders its ability to compete for control of Congress, let alone local and state offices. Doug Jones, Conor Lamb, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are all different ideologically, but they are all Democrats who won against expectations. Maybe the difference is they were running for very different constituencies.
So while I agree with Frank Bruni on a number of issues, he is wrong here to talk about how centrism is the key. It's not the key. The key is to realize that Alabama is not Pennsylvania, which is not Brooklyn. Let local leaders lead, and national candidates need to figure out how to frame their messages differently for different parts of the country.
5
There's no one "story" or strategy the Democrats can afford to pursue. Democrats have to tailor their platforms to local needs and interests. Connor Lamb may not have won as a socialist, but Bernie has plenty of support in plenty pf places. The Democrats need a big, flexible tent where so-called centrists -- really center-rightists like Bruni -- need to stop bristling and blustering every time socialism is mentioned.
7
I was very pleased when Bernie Sanders threw his hat in the ring, and thoroughly disgusted when he was given short shrift by the media and given no support whatsoever from the DNC. Bill Clinton made a sharp right turn during his administration and Obama didn't do a whole lot better. I couldn't abide Hillary's "incremental" changes and keeping the status quo. Americans on both sides of the great divide weren't interested in any more of the status quo, and changes so slow, half of us will die of old age before they're completely implemented. I voted for her as the lesser of two evils and hated myself for it, but what was the alternative? I think most Americans are. looking for a more progressive and forward-thinking country. We used to be a "can do" nation; now we think up excuses why we can't do anything really constructive. We're ready for a center that leans a little to the left. The DNC has to face the reality that rank and file Democrats want a party for regular people again instead of kow-towing to Wall Street and big corporations.
12
Change under Hillary would have taken decades wish we or she did not have. That is why we have Trump. He did what he said he would do... shake up the government good or bad. You may scoff at him but he will be reelected because more than any politician he is trying to keep his word. This may not be a good thing but his backers give him a bigger A for effort than anyone before him.
4
In addition to not representing liberal Democrats, these so-called Democratic Socialists are tied in with Bernie Sanders, and if he had not been in the picture Clinton would have won.
1/10 of Sanders supporters ended up voting for Trump, enough to carry the election. And Sanders and his supporters carried on with the absolute trashing of Clinton that Republicans had been doing for 20 years.
Their response? "Democrats ran a weak person." Baloney.
Clinton was the most qualified person running for President in many years.
Kristen Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders....thank them for Trump. And then they will come asking for our votes?
4
"Ocasio-Cortez grew the pie and she won."
She didn't so much grow the pie, but found the missing pieces somebody thought the dog ran off with. 100 million voters sat it out or voted third party in '16. But they were always there for the taking if someone bothered to make a proper effort. (Bernie did, but oh well...)
3
Clinton's defeat can also be accounted for voters who voted for Obama twice, and then voted for Trump in 2016. But Clintonistas never want to talk about them . . .
4
@Mark: These voters who switched to Trump did so to make a point. They thought Clinton would win anyway, so voted for Sanders to send a message.
They were Sanders supporters. Sanders supporters. Read that, read the studies. Sanders got us Trump, not Clinton.
And the middle, the Clinton Democrats, won't forget this.
And rtj: Clinton did as much as anybody could to reach them. She had substantive proposals. Bernie made no efforts to do anything except get attention to himself. His model for government can be seen in Venezuela. He sold out his country, and the far leftists bought it and went along with him---getting us Trump.
1
Mr. Bruni doesn't care about "regular" Americans. This column shows just how wrong and dangerous neoliberalism or centrism is to the rest of us. He's happy that neoliberals/centrists have embraced leftist social issues such as gay marriage (which helps him directly) and abortion rights while chipping away at financial security for the bulk of citizens. I'm all for abortion rights and gay rights and all those other "rights" but not at the expense of the health and well being of most citizens. It was Clinton and Obama's centrism that brought us Trump. People are afraid because wealth inequality became so enormous in the past 40 years that people were fed up and afraid and Trump used that to persuade them the real problem is the "other" rather than the wealthy. Here's an article from HuffPost outlining where some of the Obama administration members have ended up; read it, it's sickening and enlightening and explains why Ocasio-Cortez is the future.https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/so-how-are-obama-administration-alu...
8
Here's what you're missing, Frank: this isn't primarily about swing districts versus more liberal districts (definitions which are, in any case, fluid, and sometimes unpredictably so) so much as it is about energizing younger voters. This is also what the Democratic Party establishment has been missing. To stick to the political paradigm of swing versus safe districts is to remain stuck in the politics of the mid 1990s.
2
Quick Reminder: the "Freedom Caucus" is made up of members of the House of Representatives, people in a position to exercise actual power and make decisions that will affect millions of people nationally. The DSA is in no way equivalent. Please stop pretending there's some parity between the radical right that's now dominating the Republican Party, controlling the levers of power in the US government, and various organization and individuals who are identified with the left side of the political spectrum.
7
Dear Frank, the left and the democratic center (which is necessarily civilized, and therefore anti-Trump) walk hand in hand in this fight. I want to see a Congress populated with true believers like Ocasio and pragmatists like most mainstream Democrats, and then I want to see the left pulling the center as far as possible towards her.
We are currently living the exact opposite situation, because the far-right captured right and center-right and is now controlling all three branches of government.
We need strong medicine to cure our nation.
8
It's very troubling IMO that so many people here still insist that Americans are looking for a "left" agenda and that moderates don't succeed. What they consistently ignore is that moderates, from president on down, win popular votes; it's the Electoral College they need to be railing against.
Hillary Clinton not only received 3 million more votes than Trump, she received more votes than George W. Bush or Al Gore. Only Barack Obama in 2008/2012 has received more votes than Hillary Clinton in a modern presidential election. Aren't they both moderates?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/12/29/2016-vs-2012-how-trumps...
"...Clinton fell short of Obama’s 2012 popular vote totals by about 70,000. Third party candidates surged from 2.2 million votes in 2012 to just over 7.8 million in 2016."
Along with the Electoral College, look at the 3rd party vote above and realize those voters, along with voters who stayed home, played a part in Trump's rise to power.
And it's those 3rd party/stay home/write-in voters on both sides - who by all data sets/polling are commonly white, above age 40, male, & educated/affluent - who are going to have to decide: Do you want to continue your "No more compromises!" idealistic stance - or do you wish to live in a functioning democracy? It should be quite clear to you by now that you can't have both.
P.S. For people who lived through George McGovern, many sure don't remember it, do they?
13
Yay moderate Dems! You will keep the GOP in control all all Federal branches. And you deserve it with your constant selling out and cowardice.
7
Mr. Bruni—As much as I relate to your general views, being a gay man, I have to say that strategic appeasement of the opposition—expressed here as centrism, when radicalism is required—will get the country nowhere. People are angry, frustrated, disenfranchised, sometimes oppressed and maligned from the Right...... And so it's a time to get into the streets, trumpet progressive (humanistic) ideals, and move the country away from the idiocy of conservatism—not to shut up, lie low and, in a cowardly way, suppress their urge to create a more equitable and robustly enfranchising democracy. Larry Kramer would shake his fist at you for such notions.
Especially for LGBTQ people (and not to diminish the needs of everyone else), being angry and loud about their ideals is what we need as a country now. The Right claims to be the voice of the American People; it's only via complacency and antipathy among the demoralized, sane citizens that such a narrative will hold true.
America: You know who you are. Get out and vote in November.
6
Boy oh boy, the Times is beginning to put its thumb on the scales once again, just like they did in 2016. Two years later and I think they still give Hillary a 65% chance of winning.
6
Thank you thank you. Please shout this from the rooftops and the hilltops. People are failing to understand this crucial point in the fight to save our country from a corrupt dictator. Democrats, right when your country needs you to occupy the middle, and a big footprint in the middle that may need to include some bluedog democrats, you appear to be veering further left, leaving the middle unoccupied. This is a suicide strategy for democrats - we MUST occupy the center, and even some of the center right.
8
America has long been socially liberal, fiscally conservative. You can call them Reagan democrats, or Clinton republicans.
Not only is this where the action is, this is the very bullseye of Putin's war on America - the place where most of us agree, and where even if we don't, the underlying principles align; truth, the rule of law, equality and freedom.
5
So this article is boils down to: "Third Way believes that we can win with third way politicians" What's next "Susan Collins believes more Americans should pay attention to Susan Collins"?
Here's an important bit of data that Third Way and the like everyone to ignore: the low turnout in swing states. Clinton and the third way politicians persuaded Democrats in the industrial heartland to stay at home. Meanwhile Trump brought new voters to the polls.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/registered-voters-who-stayed-home-p...
This shouldn't have surprised us since it was exactly what G.W. Bush did to Kerry. In that race, the evangelicals showed up and the Democratic Socialists stayed at home.
Now I'm expecting to receive the same, tired, response I usually get when making this point. "those voters are stupid!!!! vote for the Democratic nominee or you get [insert evil Republican]"
But calling potential voters stupid doesn't do anything but make us feel good about ourselves -- it's catharsis, not strategy.
Future elections will be won by the candidate who brings the most new voters to the polls.
Fewer than 26 percent of eligible voters wanted Trump to be president. Think about that for a moment -- 26 percent. Only 56 percent of eligible votes cast a ballot. Progressives only need to change those numbers by 3 to 4 percent to win.
Third Way is thinking about how to a get bigger slice of the pie, Ocasio-Cortez grew the pie and she won.
7
"Ocasio-Cortez grew the pie and she won."
She didn't so much grow the pie, but found the missing pieces somebody thought the dog ran off with. 100 million voters sat it out or voted third party in '16. But they were always there for the taking if someone bothered to make a proper effort. (Bernie tried.)
1
Thomas Frank would work for me. But he'd scare way too many horses around these parts, especially those on the op-ed bylines.
1
I'll just call balls and strikes here if I can. The Dems are cannibalizing themselves by fighting over left versus too far left and dems versus socialists, etc. But it is moderates who vote consistently and if there are far left pols on the ticket in places other than SF or NY, they will simply scare away traditional dems who will end up voting red. In the meantimes there are Repubs who are reading the comments section here and laughing all the way to their expanding lead in house/senate seats.
9
Progressive, Democratic-Socialist, Centrist--it doesn't make a bit of difference to me. If they have a "D" by their name, they have my vote. This is a year to vote AGAINST something, and that "something" is the Republican party and every single GOP candidate running for any office.
10
It’s pragmatic to claim to be a pragmatist in order to be elected.
1
Mr. Bruni, like his employers the NYTs and the NYT's Editorial Board, clearly believed Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she tried to pass off on the Bottom 90% of Americans the obvious lie that "America is already great." News Flash, Mr. Bruni: America is NOT "already great." If you got out a bit more, you'd know this. While ignorance may be bliss for you, Mr. Bruni, it's not for the rest of us. I implore you to stop calling the NYT's readers that want to see real change to a more fair, more equitable America "extremists.” This attitude, this complacency, this systemic blindness and indifference cost Hillary and the Democrats the 2016 elections, and if you keep this crap up, you'll guarantee a repeat in 2018 and 2020. Who knows? Maybe that's what you and your employers secretly want.
12
Just what Robsespierre said about building a 'Solid Foundation' with extremist actions against the ruling aristos, at the beginning of the French Revolution- And we know who met him in the middle after his extreme measures turned in on themselves (Napoleon)
1
If the Dems stick to economic issues, become more machiavellian and give identity politics a rest--i.e., policing language, seeking "representation" in Hollywood, infantilizing women with an unreflective metoo "movement" that fails to make distinctions or acknowledge that sex is power--maybe the Dems have a chance. I don't see that happening. While I am fully behind a party that pushes for universal healthcare, fair immigration policies, strong unions, women's healthcare, prison reform, and more oversight over our corporatocracy, the left's idealism and fantasy of itself as the "good guy" aint gonna speak to the average American struggling economically.
6
This idea that most voters are centrists is the longest running myth in politics.
People don't vote on issues - they vote on gut. They vote for a good story and a nice face.
Get elected and if the voters like you enough then you simply tell them what to think on a given issue.
Sounds cynical and maybe a little evil, but you can get a lot of good policy enacted this way (it's happening right now with bad policy unfortunately). We are no longer in the era of the low-information voter, this is the time of the NO-information voter.
6
Think again Frank. Could any Democrat be as reasonable and conspicuously centrist as Mr. Obama was for eight years? Why do you persist in refusing to understand that there is no such thing as a "center" to reactionaries? Please ask yourself how you came to exist politically to the right of Dwight D. Eisenhower and, more importantly, why?
The Republicans define themselves by their absolute opposition and it would be their destruction to meet you anywhere, let alone at some "center", and therefore they never, ever, will.
7
Frank Bruni tries to state an honest truth about political realities, the divisiveness of the extremes in both parties, and a path for the Democrats to recapture congress, and is predictably besieged in these comments by those on the Left who arrogantly refuse any critique whatsoever of their agenda.
7
If there is any arrogance here, it is the arrogance of an entrenched party establishment that refuses to make way for new ideas and leadership in the face of its own repeated, abysmal failures.
2
Winning is sexy.
3
Speaking of extreme--your hyperbole is not helpful to the left or the center. You said one thing I agree with: "Without true compromise, everyone loses in the end."
Please consider compromising with the faction of the Dems you consider too far-left. Help us win in November.
4
Even in my blood-red state of SC, there is a large group of centrists who try to work together in an online group to understand and address political issues. Some are Republicans or former Republicans. Some are Democrats. Some are Independent. Most of us, especially the active ones, are committed to finding Centrist solutions to political problems. We have to meet people where there are; most are in the center rather than on the fringes.
5
One reason that moderate Dems won so many races is because the corporate-funded moderate wing of the party pumps incredible amounts of money into these races.
A more accurate analysis would include how much money is raised by and how many astroturf organizations support these centrist Democrats. Compare that influx- deluge in some cases- of funding to their progressive and New Deal Democrat opponents for a truer picture of what's facing us this year.
We saw it out here with a new resident who worked on both President Obama campaigns & on Secretary Clinton's campaign- she raised (at last count) THREE TIMES her nearest competitor in spite of being the most moderate Democrat in this extremely Progressive California district (Oakland-Berkeley-Richmond).
6
Funny ( but not really), if the Democrats and their supporters didn't learn from the debacle of the 1968 and 1972 elections that if they wish to win elections against a well funded and well organized resurgent Nativists conservative movement, that the worse thing the Democrats can do is present themselves as having outrun their support from their own Centerist to Left base- Why should anyone be surprised if during the coming Mid-Terms the vital center of the Party crumbles or stays home (simply because they are too confused or frightened by the disarray and desperation tactics put out by the leadership and influence makers of their own Party)? And yes, it still holds-If you are in a crisis, it's usually better to act then react.
4
The center, as far as gay rights is concerned, is where Mr. Bruni can write about them but not strongly advocate. The left is where he can advocate. The right is where he publicly opposes them while some of his associates know, and the far right is where he is fired unless he is far enough into the closet that there are only rumors.
The existence of publicly gay celebrities undercuts the right's message that an unnatural lifestyle is doomed to failure and unhappiness. Publicly gay celebrities used to have to exist in their own subculture, like rhythm 'n' blues, and have their stuff admitted to the mainstream only after it was stolen and sanitized. Celebrities who were allowed to appear in public had to pull a Liberace.
These days the center demands a whole bunch of refusing to see or admit what is going on, or at least not talking about it honestly. Voter suppression must be discussed as though it is based on rational concerns that might be a bit overblown. Global warming must be seen as a possibility too uncertain to justify any substantial push to do anything; more research is needed, and will be funded eventually.
The center is able to see both sides even when one is bogus. It dislikes facing up to hard choices and would rather avoid them and the work of sorting them out, of making sense of areas that are intrinsically technical or boring. It would rather be scammed than figure out which are the worse scammers.
And that is what it gets.
3
Mr. Bruni, let me ask you this: Is it "extreme" of me to want to have health care?
We have to stop measuring everything by this left/right stuff and have some common sense. If something as vital as access to medical care is considered "extreme", then what's left to want?
14
No, it's not extreme of you to want healthcare... what is extreme is expecting other taxpayers to pay for it.
2
I do not expect "other taxpayers" to pay for it. I paid for my own for thirty years—until it simply got too expensive. And that was when it began to cost more than my mortgage.
If you want people to take care of themselves, you have to make it possible. You can't simply make shallow, self-righteous statements acting as if there is only one other option out there.
5
If the media didn't create the darlings of the political moment we would know about all of the people who are running and be able to celebrate their wins. The public cant read every newspaper nor spend hours when we have to work and pay bills that are going to get larger due to tariffs thanks to Trump and his swamp minions.reading every article.
With that said what seems to be lost in all of these writing is that this is a country of real people who are loosing health care, live in slums, poor education, dirty water and the list goes on. Why should anyone compromise when we know what is right. Currently three thousand children are still missing or being housed in cages why isn't that on the front page everyday.
If we cant vote and change this sick behavior than we have no right to call ourselves Americans despite how many articles are written.
3
Sen. Duckworth's remark re Ocasio Cortez's victory was trenchant, perceptive:"You don't win without the midwest!"Admire Duckworth a great deal. Would like to see her run for president. She is not prolix, does not indulge in useless verbiage!Chooses her words well.She would be a winner in the primaries and ojala, in the general election were she to throw her hat in the ring.
3
The problem with moving to the middle is that, while it might make sense for the majority of people, it is only viewed by the radical Right as a starting point in negotiations and trickery to pull everyone to the Right. It is like giving up slack in a tug of war. It might be easier on your hands but you will wind up losing, and your hands will be burned when you want to take hold again.
In addition, people's views are complex--we are all (well most of us) are multi-faceted and our views land all along the political spectrum depending on the issue. But ultimately, the more progressive the view, the more correct and truthful it is. The reason for that is that progressive views consider a more wholistic and fact-based perspective to solving problems.
Moving to the center at the polls in November and beyond will only strengthen the radical Religious Right's foothold on the throat of our once great nation. If we want to make American great again, we need to boldly take control back in November and that will only happen if we go to the Left.
7
Goal: Get rid of this horrifying administration.
Strategy: Do research.
Tactic: Vote for each Democratic candidate in my district who has the best chance of winning.
6
Trump didn’t win in 16 by espousing a right wing agenda. He did by mainly promising a chicken in every pot. More jobs for Americans, better and cheaper healthcare, a promise of rising wages, a recalibration of America's role in the world ( no more bumb wars), and rebuilding our infrastructure. The only part of the agenda he promised that sounded goofy to liberals was his Wall, but the general message of re-establishing some control over illegal immigration is neither right nor left. It is logic.
Now, the fact that he did not intend to do any of those things but was just a con man selling his wares and intending only on enriching himself and his cronies has become obvious, and with time, will become more obvious to a great majority.
Offering solutions to his unkept promises: healthcare for all, reversing his enrich-the-rich tax cuts, higher wages through, to,start with, an increased federal minimum wage,saner defense spending, and investment in infrastructure is what the Democrats must run on. Add a substantial dose of highlighting his misogyny and anti-woman agenda, and Democrats can win the left, the center left, and the center right. Democrats will never win the hard line right and shouldn’t even attempt to.
If this agenda is labeled Socialist, so be it. Embrasse it with conviction. Conviction will always trump wishy-washiness a la Clinton.
9
This is why Democrats have been losing for nearly forty years.
Just mealy-mouth milquetoast politicians that don't offer anything big and bold. Their long game of hoping that changes in societal attitudes and demographic trends will eventually work in their favor is just plain lazy. If pragmatism and incrementalism is supposed to win then what explains all the Democratic losses?
12
What is economic equality? Seriously, how has that worked in other countries.
It is just that attitude that will keep getting Republicans elected.
I do not believe in free college... really, how exactly does a BA in sociology or English make you employable.
I will however support trade schools. Now that makes sense.
Are you one of those people that thinks every kid gets a " participation trophy? " Hard work should be rewarded.
4
The single mom working two shifts works harder than the inestment banker who's dad got him the job. Stop kidding yourself that Capitalism is about fair compensation
4
More than anything, what the Democrats need to do is stop insulting and hating on dozens and dozens of millions of Americans whose support they need. They snarkily say before the election, "we don't need you," and then they lose the election and there's never a sobering review of "well, guess we needed those chumps' votes after all." They just blame the people they insult and hate, instead of seeing this as the result of something they might have done themselves, to themselves. This is not a fun group to be a part of. Who wants to identify with that? The party of snark and insults and hate? Let us know if you ever grow up and want to be taken seriously again.
8
According to the polls the "center" is a lot further left on economic issues than the Democratic leadership seems to think. That's because the collapse of 2008 and the direct action organizing the radical left has done since then has shifted the political discourse leftward on matters of bread and butter. As with Trump, Bernie didn't come out of nowhere; the ground had been prepared for him in advance. That's kinda how things work when people don't wait for Chuck Schumer's or Nancy Pelosi's permission to do things.
11
So many of the commenters who advocate for the progressive agenda of the Democratic party overlook how conservatives managed over time to reestablish themselves as a powerful constituency. In the '60s & '70s, when conservatives consisted of nothing but the very public, hardcore traditionalists, there were few rank and file conservatives. Wealthy conservatives slowly came to understand this, and worked for change from the bottom up. This is the insidious success of the Kochs and others like them: over time, they began to build a base within the populace that came to believe what they believed. From there it was just a question of finding the right politicians to embrace their conservative political positions, and to move the public towards them. This took time, money, and relentless effort. Progressives (myself included) have tended to believe that the sheer virtue of our positions would force everyone to see the light and carry the day. This approach does not bring about success. Only time, money, and effort will produce this kind of transformation toward more progressive positions. In the meantime, Democrats best chances for success lie in the middle. Don't wait for the purest progressive candidates to come along. Vote in the democratic candidates that can win today, and continue to work for tomorrow. Conservatives did it...progressives can too.
7
So once again we're forced to listen to what Republicans and 3rd Wayers (like Bill Clinton's old Democratic Leadership Council) say is best for the Democratic party. No thanks.
9
Obama fooled many when he campaigned as a centrist extolling family values back in '08.
He claimed to have evolved..some see it as a bald face lie to get elected on hind site... dictating signage on school bathroom doors ain't centrist.
Democrats are the party of open borders,sanctuary cities favoring foreign nationals over citizens for political gain.
Centrist Democrats became Republicans long ago.
Emulating Obama's deception won't work anymore.
1
Given where the Right got today in this country by being radical, Bruni’s attack on the so-called left (social democrats and democratic socialist are highly successful governments in many civilized nations) is typical of useless pundits that occupy previous media space. The GOP is a borderline fascist party today and is striving by pushing even to a more extreme position on the political spectrum. They control all three branches of government and are about to make their hold on SCOTUS even more radical. Wake up Bruni, they will come after things that are important to you as well.
10
In order to solve the problems you need a mix of Moderates, Progressives and yes, Conservatives. But first you need full agreement on what the problems really are. And therein lies the rub.
Is is Nancy Pelosi, the Supreme Court or Mitch McConnell.
Is it Immigration Reform, Tax Reform or Voter Repression.
Is it Health Care, SNAP or Social Security. And so on and so on.
Democrats, no matter which way they lean, need to have agreement on the issues first and foremost. Then have simple and clear message to put forward to the voters, convincing them that the Democratic way is the better way.
1
I felt like I was in a time warp reading this post. Are we living in 2000, when the country's politics were organized into Right/Center/Left? No...the dynamic has changed. The reason the Democratic party has been failing (along with tactical errors), is that they have failed to inspire the bulk of working Americans. Policies emanating from the progressive platform are very popular, including single payer, fair taxation, roe v wade, etc. What doesn't work is a corporatism masquerading as centrism. What nobody wants is worsening inequality, amnesty for white-collar criminals, and a corrupt revolving door of lobbying to elected office.
More on this if you read "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank or listen to any of the Crooked Media podcasts. Speak to issues that Americans universally care about, call out injustice, and stake out a strong position with a clear message.
11
To displacedyankee: I assure you, Bernie’s average $27 campaign contributions didn’t come from the “trust fund Volvo driving” folks.
2
The " blue wave" will disappear if the Democrats continue down the path of left wing socialism.
I hate Trump, but I will vote for him if Warren or Gillebrand or Sanders become the standard bearer for the democratic party.
It is those policies, and people that led this country to elect Trump.
Perez and Ellison are out of touch, and will destroy any chances for moderate democrats to be elected.
8
I don't think extreme anything should be elected because they can't be expected to work for the common good. Bernie is a hot house product of trust fund Volvo driving Vermont. He has nothing to offer except far fetched fantasy. No far left person can win the White House. It's too bad Hillary didn't win.
4
It's kind of lame and not very accurate to describe political ideas as if they reside on a straight line spectrum where those in the middle are advocating watered down versions of ideas to their "left" and "right". A lot of us in the "middle" think that both parties have very bad ideas that need to be purged. We are less about compromise and more about introducing some newer, better ideas for branches of the bush neither of the parties are capable of seeing. In essence, many of us in the so-called middle are technocratic and believe in evidence based solutions, something neither party excels at. Both parties are stuck in a time warp talking about yesterday's problems and solutions.
Ronald Reagan famously said "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.".
Well, it seems to have found him again. This isn't a virtue, Frank.
7
The Democratic Party needs to have a very big tent. While I applaud Frank's strategic concerns, and as he said: "Stopping Trump" and the ideological coup of the right is what it's all about.
So if there is a race with a Democrat in it. I will vote for the Democrat. Moderate or Socialist. Don't care.
That being said, I don't think that Frank fully recognizes that things like Medicare for All and a better approach to funding education are fast becoming moderate ideas.
But here we go, talking all so philosophical while the Religious Crazies have been taking action. They are effectively running the race to control our lives and we aren't even out of the starting gate.
We should focus on finding Democratic candidates who can win - who have charisma and know how to craft a good sales pitch.
Take a lesson from the Bible Thumpers. They helped elect the most immoral despicable incompetent dangerous president in living memory. His life is an example of opportunistic politics. They ignore his sexual abuses and his lies because they get what they want. The ends justify the means.
We need to get more organized, more practical and a lot tougher.
3
I would hesitate to vote for an extremist but if all seems equal, I'd definitely favor a female candidate.
1
Hurrah for you, Mr. Bruni! What a welcome reminder of common sense. The only kind of Democrats who have held political sway in this country over the past 75 years all have come from the middle - from Truman to Obama. To forget this is to head for political oblivion for four more years.
7
This is a recipe for the kind of voter apathy on the left that brought us Republican control of Congress in the first place in 2010. Same old strategy will give us the same old results. Most people in the US want single payer, even if most pundits and politicians do not.
4
Democratic Party unity is essential to putting an end to one-party Republican control of the entire US government. Fragmentation into center, left of center etc., is a way to give the GOP exactly what they want: principled voters who choose to stay home in protest or vote for fringe parties. The DNC must create a "big tent" where all those opposed to Trump/GOP tyranny are welcome. There is no middle ground.
4
As appealing as the progressive agenda may be to many people, the simple fact is that most “swing” districts will not elect representatives who are too far to the left. The elections that matter will be won or lost in the center. That is where the Democrats will be able to flip the seats they need to take control of the house. The key to this election is nominating the most suitable democratic candidates for their particular districts. Sometimes those candidates will be progressives, but in most cases that matter, the “right” candidate will be a centrist. All Democrats must accept this and absolutely must resist the temptation for messy internal squabbles. The ONLY thing that matters now is taking control of the House in order to check Trump and the republican agenda.
7
Stopping Trump and the Republicans depends on one thing: that the Democratic party builds a platform that concentrates on raising the poor and middle classes up from where they are, and not on just fighting Trump. We already know what Trump is.
4
Something that is ignored in this column is that a reason 'left-centrists' prevail in House races over more progressive candidates is because of the centrist leanings of large Democratic donors. More progressive candidates are going to have more trouble raising funds due to the 'left-centrist' top 1 percenters writing the checks to more centrist candidates who aren't so fired up about income equality.
10
Frank Bruni echos what I have been thinking, i.e., the Democrats cannot be a two-coast party and leave the rest of the country bright red, which, if anyone recalls, was the color of the 2016 electoral map and could well be the case if we don't have a more flexible strategy to win elections. We have to run people who can win in those purple districts and states. That means running to the center, an idea that sure does seem out of fashion in the more vocal parts of my party.
4
It's irrelevant whether or not most Americans identify themselves as progressive, centrist, conservative, tea party, Democrats or Republicans....the fact is most Americans now identify themselves as sick and tired of being sick and tired. We're fed up.
The system has worked very well for a long time for most people but a disconnect has occurred and the pace at which things were improving for most people slowed and now has stopped or reversed. We're in retrograde.
There's not much of an agreement on what the blame is or what the fixes are though, for my money, solutions proposed by Ocasio-Cortez are much more likely to improve the lots of those of us who are watching our standard of living erode.
Centrism isn't going to get us there - it got us into the mess we're in now - and I think it's fair to say that libertarianism or Conservatism isn't either.
What we need is a new breed of politicians who believe in the transformative power of government and policy. We're invaded with cynicism and a lost faith in our institutions. The problem isn't that institutions are ineffective but that we've been convinced that they don't work and that they can't work.
That's nonsense. They worked once upon a time and they can work again if people wake up to the fact that their votes matter and then accurately identify the problems and the public servants who want to actually fix those problems.
10
A right wing columnist telling the Dems that they should move to the right. What a shock!!! As a matter of pure logic, moving to the center would only move the center to the right - something that's been going on for decades. Many of today's Dems are further right than Ike or Tricky Dick.
7
A few misunderstandings about the "Progressive Democrat" movement here. While it's true that an "all hands on deck" approach is warranted - among democrats, repubs, independents, ardvarks -ALL! - to defeat Trump (an absolute necessity), it is by now means clear that Progressive Democrats can't lead the charge. First of all, we need to get rid of old, worn-out labels like "left", "center," "right"... What do they mean really at this juncture in history? Hillary claimed to occupy the reasonable, collaborative center, but she was very much "status quo"-a stance so many voters believed was important to reject when much-needed reforms to banking, to healthcare, to trade, to immigration policies etc etc. were urgently needed. Now that we're being governed by a rudderless, unethical scoundrel - it's true that the "center" or what was the "center" looks pretty good. As op-ed writer Bret Stephens pointed out, Ocasio-Cortez brands her self as a "Socialist Democrat" - which indeed - harks back to an old-left (irrelevant) vanguard. While her victory was exciting, it's probably true that her politics will not play as well on the national stage as they did in NY. Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders, made a point of saying he was NOT a Socialist. So getting into a socialist modality to fight Trump would be disastrous! And besides Progressives are NOT (generally) socialists. Our goals ARE pragmatic and principled and antagonistic only to the entrenched 1%.
3
So... "Enough about the Freedom Caucus" and "the Democratic Socialists of America." What makes you, Frank Bruni, think that the two are equivalent?
2
By pretending that our political beliefs lie on a spectrum from radical to centrist to radical on the other side, moderate Democrats are doing us a disservice.
The fact is that people don't fall along a spectrum. We believe different things about different issues. We may believe, for example, that gun control is a bad idea and at the same time that we need greater regulation to protect the environment. And we can live with leaders that don't share all of our beliefs.
But we want to know what our leaders' beliefs are. We don't want to just hear 'we're not as bad as those guys.' If you want us to line up in the middle, tell us what the middle believes.
The one overarching issue for all of us--one that centrist of both parties seem to ignore--is that we want our democracy back. We are tired of a government controlled by billionaires. We didn't elect them and they aren't qualified to lead us. They tend to be monomaniacal narcissists.
The right and the radical right have become tools, useful idiots in many cases, for the billionaire class. I have little doubt that a lot of centrist Democrats would like to reduce the influence of money, but they fear that it's beyond our ability to accomplish.
What distinguishes progressives is that we believe that, if we can't accomplish that, we don't have a democracy anyway. These are concepts that our forebearers fought and died for; we cannot in good conscience shrink from this battle.
4
A disappointing column from the usually sensible Mr. Bruni. Clinton and the Third Way gang pulled the Democrats to the center right vacated by the extinct moderate Republicans. They cajoled the party into thinking that wealth is good, after all, courted Wall Street, and abandoned labor unions and the poor. They used identity politics to maintain the appearance of being liberal while embracing conservative economic and foreign policies. But straddling both sides of the center fence has run its course, as shown by the 2016 election fiasco. "New" Democratic policies like income equality, public education, health care access, and environmental protection only look leftist from the perspective of third wayers peering from the other side of the fence. These are policies that will appeal to the majority of voters whose interests are not represented by either party.
9
Thanks for your wonderful contributions, Frank.
I'm approaching my dotage so I can clearly remember that progressivism from 1945 to 1974, say, propelled America like you wouldn't believe.
My blue-collar friends and I enjoyed an excellent free college when the country was poorer than today and we All became professors or scientists and engineers ...
Chalk it up to New York City largesse in that dim and distant past. I could list a half dozen more equally astonishing happy facts, but I'm off to meet the resistance at a planning lunch.
9
Several decades ago pundits pointed to "The Silent Majority". Perhaps it's back, and if so, it's time for politicians to take notice. What is so bothersome is that by political discourse today, there's no shades of gray. And this is exactly what Mr. Bruni's column addresses. In the final analysis, though it takes participants of all stripes and political thought to make up the whole. It's only when polarization takes over that nothing good happens. If everyone is mindful of The Silent Majority, perhaps we can decrease the acrimony and get something done to benefit everyone.
8
I'm a 67 year old female native New Yorker, born in the East Village, and I have been a liberal Dem all my life. But, I have spent the last 31 years living in VA and 9 years before that in CT and have met and associated with moderate Republicans and ring wingers as well as many Dems. The moderate Republicans in NOVA are often socially liberal but mostly fiscally conservative. They held their noses and voted for HRC and against Trump because they understood what he was. To a person, they would have voted for a more normal Republican candidate. Who do you think will win in blue Maryland? Hogan or Jealous? It will be Hogan. My representative is Barbara Comstock and who won the Democratic primary to run against her? An establishment candidate. Progressive wins in deep blue NYC do not translate well to other areas of the country or even within a voting district. Comstock's district, for example, stretches from reliably blue NOVA to very affluent, but much more conservative Loudoun County. Hopefully, the Democratic challenger's message is centrist enough to swing some votes in Loudoun. Bruni is exactly right.
9
OK, Mr. Bruni, forget about foreign policy for the moment, but elaborate a "centrist" position on gay rights, abortion rights, same-sex marriage, poverty alleviation, competition policy, and consumer protection.
Why don't you just say that you want Democrats to win and it doesn't matter what they really believe or how they will vote. There is nothing wrong with advocating for one party or another, but don't hide behind a thin veil of "policy" or "principle." Politics is about power: how to get it, how to wield it, and how to get access to it.
2
“Nancy Pelosi and those who have to keep the caucus together are very clear on what they can and can’t do,” Third Way’s Lanae Erickson Hatalsky told me.
Yeah. They can't do squat.
9
Maybe if the center weren't totally to the far right of where the Republican party was under Eisenhower and Nixon, even GHWB.
What nonsense.
Why does the NY Times continue to give us such gibberish as we fall rapidly into an authoritarian fascistic dictatorship and our national treasures are being sold off for irreversible plunder and damage.
10
"What do we want?"
"Moderate incremental!"
"When do we want it?"
"Once everyone's on-board eventually!"
Catchy call-to-action, worth fighting for.
17
There was a guy running for re-election in 2010, a D from North Carolina I think who looked a little like the actor James Cromwell. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show showed a clip of him dealing with several college age guys with a camera who were asking him if he supported President Obama’s policies. He refused to answer and angrily kept asking their names. To me he seemed willing to fight only for his right to be a coward. He still lost.
To attribute his failings as a politician to the fact that he was too far right or too centrist is to miss the important dynamic I think.
If y’all think your problem is you’ve been too nice and spent too much time talking about policy and not enough time labeling and name calling and telling it like it is about organized religion and white males you might ought to reconsider the factual basis for that opinion.
For that matter, the name calling and labeling often strikes me as philosophically untenable, the photographic negative or mirror image of what you claim to decry.
Represent all of your constituents. Tell us about the good things government does, and other good things it can do in a fair and affordable way. You might even need to ease off on the name calling and labeling rather than doubling down.
3
Our version of "radical left" has been so centrist for decades that you're effectively telling us to look towards the moderate Right for guidance. Take a seat, Bruni, ideally somewhere with a tablecloth.
5
The Party is finally moving to the left in favor of worker's rights. good jobs, decent pay and other good things instead of focusing exclusively on the rights of minorities (identity politics) which got us nowhere in terms of the basic conditions for the majority. And of course there are naysayers on this like Frank Bruni for whom this is all too progressive. In any case- Third Way or centrist politics will never beat Trump.
5
I think single payer health care IS a moderate point of view. I have never understood why Democrats don't pitch this to business groups like chambers of commerce by pointing out how expensive health care is for businesses, who in many instances pay part or all of employees' premiums, but must hire people to make sense of insurance. Also, how many people would create small businesses if they weren't afraid of losing their health care?
10
If preserving a Democratic majority risks Democrats who believe they must vote with Republicans on issues/nominees far to the right of even "centrist" Democratic positions, what's the point?
2
Frank throws a light on the political identity I adopted, and even attached a name to, years before I learned that others thought the same way and used a similar label.
That label is "radical centrist."
Amongst many other things, such a beast is unaccepting of political correctness, religious zealotry, identity politics, scientific know-nothingism (climate denial on the right, anti-GMO on the left), and accepts the hard realities of social inequality and discrimination while preferring fiscally conservative approaches to their mitigation.
Radical centrists are not "moderates." They are (or should be) violently loud in defending the cause of reason and the powers of persuasion in a political climate overtaken by emotion and tribalism.
Whether knowingly or not, I've read that the likes of Thomas Friedman, Fareed Zakaria, Jonathan Haidt, and Sam Harris are identified with this group.
3
Mr. Bruni, I liked your article and largely agree. The wrath of the Bernie bros will soon be upon you though. Stay strong!
8
"When exactly did it become extreme to support Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, good public schools, affordable higher education, food and housing for the poor."
All things, no less, that used to be supported by moderate REPUBLICANS! Yes, Bruni is clueless.
5
Yes, those insufferable Bernie Bros who believe people shouldn't die just because they can't afford the operation that will save them. Or that young college graduates shouldn't begin their careers up to their necks in debt. Or that people who work full-time shouldn't be on food stamps. What a bunch of jerks, those Bernie Bros.
4
It is arguably "playing it safe" that has landed us in the predicament in which we find ourselves. No, not Trump: he's merely a symptom. I refer, instead to the oligarchy of plutocrat multi-millionaires and billionaires who currently are the overseers of our society. Their (our) engine is greed. Go back to New Amsterdam and the Dutch, initiating the whole-scale annihilation of Algonquins and other native tribes; followed by the British displacing the Dutch and continuing the pattern. And on and on until the corporate present: this is, Mr. Bruni, what moderation hath wrought.
5
I wholeheartedly agree that a show of quiet prudence would be a good way to convince those of us in the middle. We are tired of the high-pitched ideologues - right or left - and prefer those with a well-defined moral core who are able to make sensible compromises in practical matters.
5
I am for anything and anyone who puts the nightmare of Trump in the rear view mirror...
4
Mr. Bruni, your premise for this piece of fluff is absurd: "They’re flamboyant players in our political debate, but they’re extremes: More politicians — and most Americans — occupy the expansive territory in between." Democrats are the center RIGHT party, the party of the status quo, and identity politics (and are corporate dogs). Republicans are the FAR RIGHT extremist party, the party of segregationists, racists, enemies of public education, social security, and Medicare (and are also corporate dogs). Democrats had better change and adopt a new New Deal or they are dead. Please go back to opining on food or theater or whatever it is you used to do.
6
With all of the recent coverage of the DSA, this is the analysis I've been waiting for.
Now I do have concerns with the Democrats moving to the center. For one, I support Medicare for All. And two, I think the loss of Democratic support from the white working class was in part because they moderated their economic policies, while alienating then with hardcore social policies.
But keep in mind, Conor Lamb wasn't indecisive. He didn't just stand against Trump, he stood for something. He fought for unions and for healthcare access and against the tax bill and for a solution to the Opioid epidemic.
I do agree with the community building that the DSA is engaging in, which is essential in any political movement that seeks to provide a counter-vison to Trump and to be nationally recognized. But you won't be able to switch red to blue if you also engage in polarizing policies that seeks to blame before it seeks to unify.
Conor Lamb won in a district that voted for Trump by a landslide. He did this by seeking converts not heretics (CNN, March 2018). He said that Jesus didn't build a movement by asking them where they stood on abortion before engaging in a conversation or offering his help (Politico, February 2018)
I was wondering why people stopped talking about him, especially as November is getting closer. He is the future of Anti-Trump movement, not the DSA.
6
Well, the problem is obvious when left of center is being defended as not extreme. Center-left is moderate, further left is NOT. The same applies to the right. Socialist "Democrats" will win few elections compared to moderate Democrats. If you want to replace the incompetent-in-chief and feckless congressional Republicans, stop pretending that the winning alternative is "progressive" far left...it absolutely isn't.
Democracy that works is a center-left to center-right reality. Much of governance in the US is dysfunctional because the center isn't the majority in elected office. And moderate voters are failures when they stay home and don't vote and don't vote by mail either. Trump won because 102 million voters were failures as citizens. Thanks to them, the Supreme Court will be precisely what Democrats and independents did not want...two centuries behind the times.
Grow up Democrats. Taking back national and state governance will only be the result of moderation. Centrists rule...or should.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
5
Ya know, there was a guy who was fairly progressive around these parts not too long ago. What was his name? Teddy-uh, no, that's not it. Irish guy, I think - O'bah, or something or other:
"After months of Republican candidates offering a cascade of bad ideas about the economy, President Obama’s speech in Osawatomie, Kan., Tuesday came as a relief. He made it clear that he was finally prepared to contest the election on the issues of income inequality and the obligation of both government and the private sector to enlarge the nation’s shrinking middle class."
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/opinion/president-obama-in-osawatomie...
5
Are we really equating the Freedom Caucus to Democratic Socialists of America? If you want to make the point that candidates for Congress should run on platforms that work for their districts, wonderful, (also: duh) but please please please avoid comparing people who want to provide affordable universal healthcare to those who want to drown government (and all its efforts toward equality, fairness, and protection of the vulnerable) in the bathtub.
3
"Beyond that, she said, there might be an opportunity to pass bills that protect the so-called Dreamers, mandate more transparency in campaign donations and encourage apprenticeship programs in addition to college."
So in other words we can expect more Republican lite and mediocrity from Pelosi and the so-called center Democrats. That doesn't sound enticing at all.
7
Isn't the key for democrats to run a campaign appropriate for their district.?
I grew up in a swing district in PA. Ocasio-Cortez would have been lucky to break into triple digits there, but she ran a brilliant campaign for the district she's in and caught the old guard napping. Likewise, Conor Lamb ran a fantastic campaign for his district.
The self-righteousness on the left is always what keeps us on the sidelines. We must win back the House this fall or realistically face being a democracy in name only.
6
The "Socialist" in Democratic Socialist seems to be a bit of a misnomer, since many Americans tend to lump socialism and communism together, and think of them as Soviet-style communism, rather than Scandinavian-style safety-net. There's probably some language changes that would be beneficial to these candidates if they want to succeed on a larger scale.
Regardless of political ideology, what we need right now are politicians that are willing to engage in the search for truth, and respect for facts and good science (there's a lot of bad/biased "science" out there), regardless of political cost. In another time, this was called "political courage".
The country has not been pulled as far to the right politically in recent decades as some suggest. Remember, where "the country" stands is far different from the political power structure. While true that conservatives have effectively consolidated power and moved much farther to the right, poll after poll shows that on most issues our citizenry is slightly left of center or even progressive. Many simply do not vote. Give them a reason to vote for something.
3
many commenters here seem to claim that progressive democrats support affordable healthcare, college tuition, clean air, income equality, etc. But the message to the public is hypocritical, sanctimonious celebrities, talk show hosts and liberal politicians that celebrate abortions (see Michelle Wolf's video), call for abandoning any illegal immigration enforcement, and chasing down republican women at restaurants and movie theaters.
The Ugly Liberal does not resonate with the working poor and middle class in fly over country and unless these people are muzzled, the positive democratic platforms will be lost.
7
Please finish you sentence JC! Bruni is a conservative. Days are gone when he was a progressive pundit pushing for same-sex marriage. He now finds the “center” which is anything but that, “sexy” which is anything but that.
6
If the Democrats want to win, they must go to the center. The country overall is not made up of liberal coastal elites but moderates. If they go too far left, it is all over for them. This is why they lost the presidential race because they promoted leftist policies. Rural and mid America are just not liberal.
If the Republicans continue to have the successes they are experiencing (sound economy, creating employment, controlling borders from illegal immigrants) they are sure to keep control of both houses. The continued popularity of President Trump should also be a plus for those Republicans who are running. The people are satisfied with Mr. Trump's policies which are making their lives brighter and better overall. These just need to continue.
1
It appears that if you focus on the left alone without including the center, dems will have a base of below 40% of the voters. Not what you would want.
Appealing to the center simply means not making far left ideology part of the platform. Many oppose the immigration policy of Trump, but oppose open borders even more. Many oppose the NRA/GOP position on guns, but oppose very strict gun control even more. Many support clean air and water, but oppose strict regulations on everything even more.
The Dems can appeal to the center if they offer a bigger tent then does the GOP---and this can be achieved considering that the GOP being pulled farther to the right by the tea party advocates.
Being moderate is not being weak. I'm an independent/Liberal, so I'm far left, but even I would happily accept a Democratic party containing moderate members with conflicting views. Everyone does not need to be in lockstep on all issues. Embrace political diversity, and we can defeat the far right GOP.
9
I had someone in a comment thread claim that centrist meant having no values. They seemed to assume that being "my exact way or the highway" was the only way to have values. In that way the extreme left resembles the extreme right.
10
I'll start listening to the Sanders supporters when those women who won primaries in safe republican districts actually win the race in the midterms. And if I sound bitter it's because I am. Sanders himself with his negative campaign and his hardcore followers who refused to vote for Clinton hold a share of the fault for what we have instead.
While rehashing 2016 is pointless, I hear the same fruitless purity raising its ugly head again and fighting this urge for instant gratification is just as important in my mind as resisting this president. Republicans didn't start out as rightwing wackos. It took them decades to get there with long term planning.
8
Bruni's right. The comments here which claim that the 2016 election was lost due to Democrats' centrism are wrong. First, read the platform Clinton & Kaine ran on: its quite progressive. Second, Clinton lost the electoral college vote because a number of voters did not trust her personally (a quarter-century of GOP attacks didn't help); another center-left Democrat (e.g., Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Kaine) would have won with ease. Third, notice most comments insisting on the "Bernie woulda won it" narrative come from state where Democrats dominate (Calif., NY, Mass.).
9
Sorry: "it's quite progressive." "states"
(I was typing in a hurry:)
2
Stop dropping bombs on people all over the world, bring home the troops, and put the young lives and vast sums of money you will save to work rebuilding a cleaner, greener, more just USA where Main Street, not Wall Street, calls the shots. That is an agenda a lot of people would get behind. Too bad neither of our major political parties supports it.
10
The center is relative.
So as the Republicans sprint to the right and Democrats stay more or less where they've always been, being a "centrist" means sprinting to the right to chase that middle ground between the two.
In a moment when we're putting babies in concentration camps, centrism is morally repugnant.
5
False equivilancy: Freedom Caucus and Democratic Socialists of America. The latter language is inflammatory to many, but really I think you must present what each your label of "extreme" stands for. on both sides. AND then express what the sexy moderate candidates stand for - on both sides. The far left platform may have a few "way out" elements like health care for all and care for the environment, reversal of Citizen United - but I would ask: are these really so extreme? Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are branded by you and most of the media as extreme. Look at what they stand for. They are promoting a government that better protects "all of us". These are not extreme views, extreme issues. Your branding here may be a victim of the successful manipulation over time by the right. It is a demonizing of those values and governmental functions that used to be what set America apart, that distinguished America, and would never tolerate a Zero Tolerance policy that treated the most vulnerable among us so badly, particularly young children. I am just asking that you consider the false equivalency. One side is promoting the need for coming together and cooperation in order to win. One side is promoting division and exclusion in order to win. Democrats must come together to win. They must embrace a combining of the moderate and left, not simply the moderate. I am not thinking that this article helps that happen, if indeed that was your intention.
6
Another pathetic attempt by the Times to shoosh everyone back to the center - the center that the Dems have occupied for over two decades, during which they've lost virtually all political power at the federal level and most power at the state level.
If any of you know Bruni, remind him that Ocasio-Cortez' campaign proposals are quite popular with the public: single payer, free college tuition, breaking up the big banks, a livable minimum wage.
And there is a huge wave of anti-Wall Street sentiment. The fact that the Democratic Party and it's most recent presidential candidate are pretty much joined at the hip these days was lost on Crowely, Bruni and the rest of the centrist misleadership.
And come on Bruni, centrism is "sexy"? Sorry, the courage to take bold action in a new direction is sexy - not sticking to the same old failed policies.
10
Give the collectivist twaddle a rest. It will never take hold here. The individual is king in America.
6
This column argues the fallacy that a compromise is better than the extremes:
"You want America to be free. I want America to be slave. Let's compromise -- we'll make America half free and half slave."
The Nobel laureate economist Herbert Simon wrote an article about compromise in Science magazine.
He said that you can imagine the benefits of a policy as the height a mountain. Two peaks can each have a good solution. But the compromise -- the valley between them -- is worse than either solution.
5
"The truth is in the middle" is a logical fallacy. Please stop promoting it.
I'm all for moderation and compromise but to attain both first you have to have a measure of power. What's going on in the senate over the latest white male conservative supreme court nominee should show you the consequences of not having power. The Democratic party has long been the party of lets get along and strive for moderation and compromise, meanwhile the Republicans strive for domination, guess which side is winning. A party defined by meritocracy, disdainful of the working class and beholden to wealth is poorly positioned to regain the power to push back against someone like Trump. He stands for something even if it just smoke and mirrors to the rest of us. What do the Clinton crowd, their proxies the Third Way & D.N.C. stand for besides the meritocracy and the fantasy that a nation without affordable education, medical care, housing & a living wage can ever be truly inclusive of all its citizens. Move the center back to where it was then we can talk about centralism as a goal instead of capitulation to conservative desire that the center merely reflect what was conservatism all along.
3
I will not vote for any candidate who does not support Medicare for All. We’ve waited long enough.
9
I guess you are in Ocasio-Cortez’s district. If you live in an actual red state what choice do you really have but to pick the best candidate from those offered?
Also, compromise is the only way we will ever get to Medicare for all and to get there, we need to kick out enough of the right-right-wingers, like Paul, Cruz, Cotton, Nunes, et al. You can’t run a progressive against a right wing nut in OK or AR. You might get someone with a Conor Lamb approach in some districts that are red, but pure progressivism just not going to work away from the coasts.
Logic means having a plan to get somewhere. Not insisting we teleport because we’re angry.
5
Let's be glad we're not choosing a presidential nominee this year, and let the various candidates get to Heaven in their own ways.
What goes down well in the Bronx won't go down well everywhere; but it doesn't have to, this year. The important thing, as you understand, is to get Democrats elected and take back the House. To each district its own. The national party leadership should make its influence felt here and there for the purpose of maximizing the chance of victory, not promoting ideological conformity.
Of course, after representatives with differently-minded constituencies get together in Washington there's liable to be wrangling over the legislative agenda. But first things first. Before the Democratic Party can pass laws, it needs the votes.
As for choosing a presidential nominee and writing a national platform, that should become a little easier after voters across the country have expressed their preferences in the midterms.
4
Although I am a lifelong liberal Democrat, I will definitely not support Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or any of the other so-called progressive Democrats for the 2020 presidential nomination. It is time for the Democratic party to realize that Mr. Sanders, Ms. Warren and the other overly ambitious progressives cannot win a presidential election, and I desperately want, and the country desperately needs, a Democrat in the White House.
7
All these "lifelong liberal Democrats" who had their chance with their preferred centrist candidate in 2016, and urged Sanders/Warren supporters to get out there work for Hillary -- it's the adult thing to do! -- but now insist that they themselves will never support an actual liberal nominee.
During the centrist reign of Obama, you lost both houses of Congress and a 1000 local/state seats.
But so what? Apparently only the left (read: actual liberals) is asked to compromise, in the big tent Democratic party. And they call that "centrism" -- my way or the highway. Pretty funny, no?
3
The “Center” has been moved to the right. What this new center means to me is that I am seeking less potential progress than what I had hoped for 10 years ago. All this means to me is that this country is going backwards a little slower if centrist Democrats are elected. Normally I would say this is a disappointment but, right now I will take it if I can get it.
7
Count me as “extreme” if I want affordable health care for the sick, clean air and clean water for all Americans, a living wage to raise the standard of living for a quality life for the poor and the middle class. Most Americans enjoyed all of that once, but that was long before there was such enormous income inequality among Americans. Income inequality supported by the policies of the Republican Party.
10
Frank, you need glasses. There is nothing sexy about the center. The Democratic Party, chained to the center and asleep at the wheel, opened the door for Donald Trump. They ran a candidate whose platform and vision was little more than “it’s my turn now.” How sexy is that?
How sexy is it that the center-Democrats have allowed the Republicans to walk all over them for decades? How sexy is it that the center-Democrats long ago abandoned the working class in favor of the corporate donor class? The center means Republican-Lite.
There are more independents now than members of either political party. Many progressives, fed up with the stasis-bound Democratic Party, are looking at alternatives.
Progressives who want real change – single payer healthcare, free education etc. – are in a difficult position now. Most are willing to join with centrists to oust Trump, but that is a short-term strategy. Long-term progressives are looking to move away from the center in order to fight for real change rather than whistle past the graveyard with the middle.
As for the Democratic Socialists of America being “extremists” – I suggest you go to their website https://www.dsausa.org/about_dsa where it says:
“we support reforms that:
• decrease the influence of money in politics
• empower ordinary people in workplaces and the economy
• restructure gender and cultural relationships to be more equitable.”
That’s hardly extreme; it’s Democracy 101 – and it’s very sexy.
12
What would really be sexy is getting rid of Trump. The Democrats Socialists can't do that.
6
Your bullet points are not what the public hears. They hear shrill, lecturing celebrities and far left politicians screeching about abandoning ICE, celebrating abortions and the evils of "white privilege".
5
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the actual platform of the DSA.
From Slate:
"officially, the DSA does, in fact, define a threshold {to be considered a socialist]. Its 2016 “Resistance Rising” strategy document identifies its ultimate goal as the “radical democratization of all areas of life, not least of which is the economy.” Politically, this entails reforms like national referenda, proportional representation, and the abolition of the Senate. Economically, it entails the abolition of capitalism."
You may agree or disagree, but it's not just about universal healthcare and the minimum wage. Those are mainstream Democratic positions.
Frank Bruni was all for Hillary, who couldn't get a rattlesnake worked up if she stepped on it. People like things like universal health care, clean air, clean water, even if it makes the tired DNC and their enablers uncomfortable.
9
Countries with single payer systems pay half as much as we do for medical care and have better health than we do.
Medicare for all isn't a radical pipe dream. It's the norm throughout the advanced world. We're the exception, to our detriment.
12
Will someone please explain to Frank Bruni that the "center" of American politics moved rightward from the 1960s to the present, and that it is time for it to move in the other direction for a change...before it's too late.
9
All politics is local, as they say, and if Democrats succeed in flipping Congress it will be because they will position themselves as the adults in the room in their particular districts. It will NOT be because they’re following any particular national strategy with an eye towards 2020. The DNC now has to open its tent wide enough to accommodate every sane person in America. On a local level that means an easy win: vote to unseat the candidate enabling the Trump circus. That’s as it should be. We should be encouraging Democrats to respond to their constituencies, because that way lies the blue wave.
2020 is a different story entirely. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, because as we have seen there has never been a more unpredictable time in US politics. The country and its mood could be very different in two years. If we focus right now on trying to find the right alchemy that will take back the White House we will 1) probably be wrong and 2) not maximizing our chances to flip the House. At this moment let’s not worry about messaging or a coherent platform. Let’s take the country back one precinct at a time. Yes that means that some Democrats are going to be to the right of John McCain and others will be to the left of Bernie Sanders. That’s OK. Right now all we have to prove is that the Democratic Party represents America. We can have internal disagreements but we believe in the values and norms being violated by the GOP. That’s enough of a platform for now.
6
We must have a dose of pragmatism, yes, but not overdose like the Democrats did for the last 40 years. That overdose led to hijacking by the Rubinesque financial overlords and their centrist neoliberal DINOs (really, Rockefeller Republicans) like BIll Clinton, who gave us repeal of Glass-Steagall, nonregulation of derivatives, draconian welfare "reform," mass incarceration of black men, drones, DOMA, DADT, NAFTA, AEDPA, neoliberalism influence in eastern Europe and NATO aggression, the war on drugs, caving on social issues, abandoning Rwanda, and the money, the money, the money.
Clinton maintained the Reagan Revolution, as largely did Obama, who praises Reagan. Rockefeller Republicans.
Is that what we want from Democratic "pragmatism?" Soulless craven neoliberal centrism, that also went money-grubbing and abdicated working class America? Is that Democratic?!
Frank, we do need Democrats to be effective in the middle, but if they keep losing their democracy in the process, what is gained? Republicanism, that's what.
6
I seem to remember the same call for bipartisan cooperation and shaming of left-wing aspirational politics during the first term of the Obama Administration -- the result was a crippled ACA with no single-payer or public option, and the degradation of Congress under McConnellism. I also remember a misguided fixation with the center being one reason among many that HRC's 2016 campaign failed to inspire the Democratic base.
Triangulation is dead, Frank. Are you really so naive enough to think Republicans have any interest in or incentive to compromising across party lines?
14
Just another Republican getting in our business....
5
Sorry Frank, I don't get excited for candidates who stand up for nothing, all in the name of bipartisan compromise and empty patriotic rhetoric. If the NYT wants to become the voice of bland, tasteless neoliberal centrism, this "article" makes it about as sexy as a 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra.
9
Who is kidding who? The "center" is to what? Right wing, uber conservative, tax the poor and support the wealthy, of both parties?
This is baloney. The Democrats may not have voted for the tax cuts, but they are also not returning one penny of those benefits.
The men and women who purport to represent the people actually represent a very small portion; those who donate to the non stop election and re election campaigns, not the actual electorate. The so called Problem Solvers Caucus is certainly a cover which allows these "moderates" to stay in Congress.
All "sounds plenty enticing ...... because it's better than the present".
Such high standards.
2
What Frank Bruni calls “center” is pretty right wing in my opinion. Things have moved to the right by such a huge margin these days in this country that it is almost reactionary to defend the center. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others who call themselves democratic socialists or even social democrats seem revolutionary to the likes of Bruni. The way things are going, without the likes of Alexandria and Bernie, the hard won rights (including ones very close to Bruni’s heart) are in grave danger. In difficult times like this it is definitely preferable to be radical and firm rather than wishy washy and spineless. The congressional democratic leadership of Pelosi and Schumer is pathetically tame. Ocasio-Cortez might be a Democrat replacing a Democrat but the credentials she will bring to the table will finally will give some hope of positive change and strength to her caucus.
11
Universal Health won't sell? Democrats want to double down on Centrist health policy? Let's examine the track record of Centrism over the past two decades, since Democrats abandoned Universal Health in '94. Centrism has been the policy of blindly funneling taxpayer dollars to big insurance, pharma, and medical corps with few strings attached. The result?
- Out of control medical inflation of ~10%
- Insurance premiums, now at $25,000-$30,000 for a family, nearly HALF the median household income
- The rising costs to businesses of health insurance benefits increasingly impeding their ability to raise salaries and from making capital investments.
- Businesses passing along more of the burden of insurance premiums to individuals
- Rising out of pocket, deductibles, co-insurance, on top of insurance costs noted abov
- Medicare, which through Parts C and D, the ban on imports, negotiation, etc is increasingly a program which funnels taxpayer dollars to big insurance and pharma, now ~12 years from insolvency, with whispers from Centrists of changing this into a voucher program
- An opiod crisis killing 60K annually
- Falling life expectancy, even after already lagging behind the rest of the world
- Rising infant mortality rates
- Democrats representation in Government, counting congress and statehouses, the lowest in 100 years
- Donald Trump is president
- A conservative SC for the next 30 years
Yeah, that Centrist Health Care Policy has worked wonders...real winning ticket.
7
Rose is a candidate I’ve met and heard in person and he is impressive, with facts and numbers and actual full sentences and not simply slogans. Given Donavan’s (and the Republican) silence in the face of a year and a half of Trump lies, exaggerations, bullying, name calling and generally appallingly bad behavior and worse policies Max Rose has been a breath of fresh air — like coming out of a water filled cave!
I’ve lived on SI for over 30 years and I still can’t understand why so many people here believe that the Republicans actually support policies that are good for them even as their pay checks stagnate and their Republican representatives have proven to be truly less than admirable, not above twisting law and order and actually sort of thuggish. But whataplace! Gives great entertainment. Oh, BTW: if you travel through SI by car, drive very defensively: lots of drivers go through stop signs and red lights and will cut you off for no reason. I guess they’re all in a hurry to go nowhere so far as some of us can tell.
4
One of the most dangerous myths is that we are all born equal. Deep down, any reasonable experience in the real world demonstrates this proposition to be false. As long as there are superior folks around in one way or another there will be winners and losers. In that game it is very rare for the middle to exist. Zero sum is just not in the cards for societies it seems.
2
O.K. Frank, I'm game. Tell me which of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's policy proposals are unreasonable and why, for example Medicare for All. There are two aspects here, the political and the data.
For political, every poll I have seen shows support country wide of about 2 to 1. Here is a question from a Washington Post - ABC poll:
"Which would you prefer: the current health insurance system in the United States, in which most people get their health insurance from private employers, but some people have no insurance, OR, a universal health insurance program, in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that's run by the government and financed by taxpayers?"
62% favored Medicare for All; 33% were opposed. That's pretty decisive. A more recent NY Times poll had support at 72%. A Pew poll showed doctors supported it by 59%.
The insurance industry spends $1.4 million to get us to believe that single payer is "off the table". Why has the media helped them?
As for data, that's easy. Canada which has a form of Medicare for All has bottom line health statistics at least as good as ours in spite of a much worse climate. For example, life expectancy in Canad is 82.14 years. In the US it is 78.74 years.
The cost figures are even worse:
Here are the per capita figures for health care costs in 2016 in PPP dollars:
US - 9507.2
Canada - 4643.7
As Einstein said,
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
14
Frank Bruni calls “center” is pretty right wing in my opinion. Things have moved to the right by such a huge margin these days in this country that it is almost reactionary to defend the center. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others who call themselves democratic socialists or even social democrats seem revolutionary to the likes of Bruni. The way things are going, without the likes of Alexandria and Bernie, the hard won rights (including ones very close to Bruni’s heart) are in grave danger. In difficult times like this it is definitely preferable to be radical and firm rather than wishy washy and spineless. The congressional democratic leadership of Pelosi and Schumer is pathetically tame. Ocasio-Cortez might be a Democrat replacing a Democrat but the credentials she will bring to the table will finally will give some hope of positive change and strength to her caucus.
3
Seeing Bruni's failed neoliberal ideas get dragged in this comments section gives me life. The idea that republicans will work in 'bipartisan' fashion on any significant legislation (other than pro-corporate garbage) is almost as laughable as Frank's omission of the fact that in 2016 the ultimate centrist candidate lost on the biggest stage possible. The ideas coming from the left, especially the rejection of corporate money, are not radical, they are the only path forward for this broken party.
5
Frank, I am happy that you have such an optimistic view. The gutting of the middle class by the Democratic moderates is what got us here. Sexy ?
4
Hilarious, the NYTs and Frank Bruni, a better food critic than a serious OpEd writer, know as much about centrism as Pravda is actually Truth. Facts are much stranger than fiction!!!
4
Just what we need. Another privileged white man telling the masses what is in their best interests, and what we can't have so let's not bother trying anyway. This is why the Dems can't turn out voters. The GOP smashes and grabs, while the Dems dither and deflect. The center is a con invented by mealymouth politicians who believe in getting elected and reelected more than anything else. We are at war for the future of our nation. It's time to pick a side and own it, for better or worse.
10
Three words: Money in politics. Bill Clinton sold the party's soul to Wall Street and the party's traditional base has been paying the price for it ever since. Right now, the neoliberal establishment exists only to justify its own continued existence. They have no other argument other than to support the status quo for its own sake. Even when literally the entire western world is screaming for change, they have nothing else to offer except the same tired platitudes they've been spouting for the last decade that have accomplished nothing other than facilitating the rise of right-wing populism and more than a thousand seats at the state, local, and federal level lost. Thank God for people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If anything, the fact that the establishment is so terrified of her is a good sign.
7
Bill Clinton should be revered by the democratic party. It was the last time, THE LAST-- that the economy was good for most of us. Welfare DID need to be reformed, way too many people chose welfare rather than work-- a painful fact. Bill did not take the bait and jump into needless wars, and as president, he had the same relentless MIC bearing down on him as every pres since Eisenhower has had. (Sadly, only Ike had the courage to call them out directly). It was the last time America liked itself. This century so far has been a disaster. No easy fix, but let's stop the Bill bashing.
7
For the love of all that is good and right, please stop beating us over the head with centrism. As any good negotiator knows, you start from a place of asking for everything you want and then negotiate to a place of compromise. You don't start first from the compromise and then keep moving ever rightward. The Democrats have got to stop apologizing for being the party of the working and middle classes. And I can't help but notice that 17 Democrats voted for rolling back Dodd-Frank, as if all is forgiven for the crash of 2008. Short memories, those Democrats. I imagine everyone who lost the bulk of their retirement savings as a result is really cheering their votes. In case we haven't noticed, income inequality is the biggest issue of our day. It means wages continue to stagnate while the costs of living keep ascending. If wages were keeping pace with the cost of health care, housing, and a college education, you might have a point. But until we're willing to call out corporate America for taking all the spoils of this booming economy without sharing it with their employees, then bring on universal health care. Bring on free public college. And bring on the return of unions.
9
One way the Russian online propaganda machine helped Trump was by encouraging and exacerbating the split in the Democratic Party. Their goal in 2016 was to encourage Sanders supporters to see Clinton and Trump as equally bad and to vote for fringe candidates like Jill Stein, or to not vote at all. One of Stein's most ardent supporters, Susan Sarandon famously said, “Fear of Donald Trump is not enough for me to support Clinton, with her record of corruption.” The Russians are doing the same thing today. Their army of bots and trolls are trying to push the Democratic Party as far left as possible. Their calculus being that even voters who may not love Trump will be turned off by candidates espousing Socialism or issues like abolishing ICE. You can already see this in Trump's rhetoric about "extreme" Democrats. There should only be one goal in the midterms and next presidential election and that is to get rid of Trump. The only way to do that is to agree to disagree: no negative ads against fellow Democrats in primaries, agree to support the winning candidate and agree that the greatest threat to our country is Trump. After all, if he wins again Democrats might not have anything left to fight with each other about.
10
Bruni's column this morning has clearly stirred a debate of abstracts and word-concept disagreement---the losing trap Democrats continue to fall into. How stupid! Elections this year and 2020 are about Benevolence vs. Malevolence---and which of these human banners one wishes to wave marching to vote.
5
Idaho is about as red as it gets, and interestingly Mr. Bruni, it is what you describe as the "far left" that is gaining ground here. Way back in 2016 at the Democratic caucus, the Bernie voters dramatically outnumbered the Hillary voters. And just a month or so ago, a young, female, Paulette Jordon, handily won in the primary for governor, over the older male establishment candidate. Jordon advocates Medicare for All, openly supportive of LGBT issues etc. What you describe as "far left" is really just getting back to FDR's New Deal. I'm old enough to remember those days.
15
The Bill Clinton era Third Way movement within the Democratic Party is the cause of the party's decline. It amounts to a big yawn. It screams status quo and incrementalism.
Max Rose will lose because he isn't bringing anything that inspires people to the table.
The ranks of Democrat voters will continue thin as long time party loyalists give up on the party. This is happening because the party leadership continues to embrace "the center" - which at this point is a position that looks to the right of Nixon/Eisenhower and on par with Ronald Reagan - on all matters except which bathroom one might use when one needs to urinate.
4
Frank Bruni must be getting on in years thus his slide to the right. Or was he always there? That fusty ivory tower smell emanates from his column of late.
5
Slide to the Right? Frank Bruni has not moved to the Right. On the contrary. The Left keeps sliding further Left. Just take one example: abolishing ICE. That might sound great in New York or Oregon, but not Missouri or Ohio. The Left is advocating a political agenda that may be OK for most people on the coasts, but is disaster for the states in-between. We are dealing with one of the most unpopular presidents ever, and should be looking at a landslide victory for Dems this fall. But the Left is doing everything it can to prevent that.
3
Another wealthy white man tells Democrats how to pick candidates campaigns. Silly and tedious. In House elections, candidates who "fit" their districts are successful. The Democratic Party is truly a large tent. Thank heaven!
7
I'm a lifetime Republican and I, too, now identify as a Moderate, as do many, many of my friends. I used to think I was a Conservative - I voted in my first election (at age 21 in those days) for Barry Goldwater. But I do not identify with the Christian Right (I'm an Episcopalian), nor did I identify with the Tea Party movement, or any other of the Far Right groups.
Most people are somewhere in the middle politically. Both parties have it all wrong - the majority does not want to be at either end of the spectrum of policies. Both parties need to learn that moderation in all things is what most people desire. THe Extremisims is exactly why we are so terribly polarized as a nation. Butt it's a few people, not the majority.
10
Frank Bruni is still shilling Third Way at this point? Really? The 90's called they want their ideas back. Tone deaf and out of touch, that is where Mr Bruni is today. The left are, at most centrists in most countries that aren't being led by White Nationalists.
Of course, the center can hold with Mr Bruni. The southern strategy never bothered him much anyway....
7
Once upon a time in the United States of America there was a spot on the political spectrum called the center. Bill Clinton never got close. Conor Lamb is farther away. Barack Obama got about as close as any president’s gotten these days but by traditional standards he never got there either. LBJ was extremely close; except for Vietnam he spent a lot of time in the center. In some ways so did Dick Nixon. And then, as the Democrats sat idly by, the center that used to exist got shoved way over to the left when a radical, extremist Republican Party dragged the Democrats into the right-wing hell where they wanted Americans to live. But some of us, some few, remember where the center used to be. It was a place occupied by a president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. If we define the center as the place where most people are, then FDR was the center because, after all, he was elected four times.
Forgetting where the center is supposed to be — that’s what gotten us where we are today. That’s what gotten us to the place where we call the center “the left” and where the president of the United States is a thug and his fellow gangsters are the men he puts on the United States Supreme Court. Does that sound real exciting, Mr. Bruni? How about getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Pell grants, gay rights, women’s rights? Does that sound exciting? Good. You’ll continue to be excited because there’s so much more of it yet to come.
4
Dems wanna win? Then elect Sherrill-NJ; McGrath-KY, Luria-VA and Hegar-TX. In fact, send them money. They are the "center" and they will support every citizens dream agenda. You can't make legislation from your living room after you fire up Brooklyn and San Francisco, then lose .
3
Maybe we should nominate a sexy centrist for 2020. It worked so well in 2016.
4
Everything has moved to the right, as if sucked by a great hostile force due to mass media control of the masses. Does anyone really know what "right" or "left" means? "Left" leaning Dems seem to want what right leaning Republicans once dreamed of, like the ACA. The new "now" is only repackaging for media consumption: Center Now was once Conservative Right; Left Now was once Center. Dems must represent their own districts, the wants and needs of their constituents, and nothing more. See Republican strength as a media created illusion that can be repackaged. No need to placate, just communicate, because there is no longer any "left" left. It is back to basics, the will of the people.
In the 2008 election Obama took over the presidency and about 50 progressive Democrats were elected to congress.Obama paid no attention to them and subsequently lost the House in 2010,2012 and 2014.In 2010 and beyond,Tea Party affiliated members numbered about the same.Look at the effect they have had on the Republican party.While it may take "pragmatists" to flip Republican districts,it will be up to progressives to set forth a new ideology for the future Democratic party.Maybe they won't take over the House in 2018 but the change is coming.In a way,the longer Trump disrupts American lives....the greater the Democratic victory will eventually be.The idea that this country is desirous of centrist policies is just not true.Democrats who hold this view may hold on to their power in the short run but are finished in the long run.This country needs a radical shakeup not only from the right but more importantly, from the progressive left.Remember... Hillary Clinton lost and we still have an Electoral College.
3
Corporate Democrat Leadership in two simple statements.
Nancy Pelosi was asked on Meet the press after her party has lost a dozen governorships 1000 state seats ,the congress,Senate and Whitehouse what she thinks needs to change? Her answer was "I don't think the people want change".
That was a quote people.
Chuck Schumer told us his strategy for the Corporate Democrats was for every blue collar workers vote we lose we will pick up two or three Republican moderates.
Another quote people.
Enough with this out of touch leadership. Time to get progressives running this dying Republican lite joke of a party.
13
Enough already with this false narrative!!! The idea that there is only the center, far right, and far left is a crock. For starters, I would ask Mr. Bruni who the far left is, when it comes to both voters and politicians. All I have heard from the right in regards to the far left is Antifa, Antifa, Antifa. If that is their gold standard for claiming that there are equal numbers on the fringes in both parties then they need a refresher course in basic math. What passes for the far left today was what F.D.R. was proposing decades ago. I don't doubt that old school Democrats and Republicans will throw around the socialist/commie claptrap to try and convince young people that if they elect progressives and social Democrats we will have one foot in the old Soviet Union. the only problem with that is young people don't remember it and don't care about it. Mr Bruni, your arguments are as old and tired as this red baiting, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Bill Nelson.
6
"....the Problem Solvers Caucus, a House group of 24 Republicans and 24 Democrats who meet weekly to identify areas of bipartisan agreement...."
Yeah...how's that working out????
1
Centrist bookish gay men who will soon become more and more dependent on ADA can only exist in New York City on a NYT columnist salary. Good grief.
2
When will the NY Times "liberal" columnists get enough of Bernie Bashing? Didn't you do enough harm by pushing him out of the way of Democratic Leadership Council neoliberal capitalists like Hillary Clinton, and our country into the lap of Trumpists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller? Please stop making false comparisons between the "extreme Left" and these Republican fascists.
7
Tom Reed a centrist? As an early and ardent supporter of President Trump, a supporter of repealing the Affordable Care Act, and supporter of the NRA’s whole agenda, Congressman Reed is no centrist. He wears that “Problem-solvers” caucus like a fig leaf to hide his naked and ugly partisanship.
2
Mr Bruni: Will you be embracing the sexy center when the good old days return for Gays? And will you then continue to condescend to Ocasio-Cortez?
7
I, too, would like to return to a time when life seemed normal, the future looked predictable, and the little hiccups of the political scene served for amusement and light debate. Just as long as the politicians did a reasonable job, it was ok with me. I had other, more pressing things to think about.
The so-called "centrist" candidates were ok as long as they seemed sincere and well-spoken, as long as there were a lot of these people around to support each other. But those times have passed.
We now live in a society where the richest 10% of the population owns 70%-75% of everything. The richest 20% own about 85% of the wealth. The bottom 40% owns nothing. This was not done by hard work, intelligence, or luck. The system was rigged to redistribute all this power and wealth to a few. We now live in an oligarchy that is happy with the idiocy of Trump. because it takes attention away from them and gives them someone to blame. Political debate is now about cultural tropes that raises blood pressure but does not address the fundamental imbalance to our politics, our economy, and our society.
I'm not advocating bomb-throwers, loud-mouths, or partisan wind-bags. I'm advocating speaking to the facts and calmly reminding people what's at stake. This is not what "centrists with a smile" do.
When Trump leaves the room and we all sigh in relief like a friend just walked in, we will still be in deep trouble if all we have is centrists left.
6
Please go away with the center. There is no viable center. Columnists have been blathering about the mystical center for 25 years, a yearning for which has simply produced the current mess. The Rough Beast has slouched to Betlehem. The center not only did not hold, it never formed. Consign the Center to the same place where True Conservatism lives, the fever dreams of columnists.
6
It's over Frank. Most pundits are so out of sync with what is happening in America, it leaves me amazed on a regular basis. In a Trumpian world, the norms are blown out. Hillary lost. Merrick Garland was lost. Healthcare, abortion, rule of law, diplomacy, the environment, job protections, infrastructure are all losing. Bigly. How people will respond remains to be seen. But it ain't 2015 anymore and it never will be again. Your crystal ball is still broken.
6
The other definition of democratic is that your argue your position, and accept the compromise that comes from the presence of others arguing their position. Governing IS compromise. Or is it the other way: compromise IS governing. We need both the wonderful Alexandra and the wonderful Conor and the wonderful Doug, and even the wonderful Republican (can't think of a name at the moment. Let's call him (!) John McCain), to argue their position and work out a compromise that will allow GOVERNING in this country fast heading toward oligarchy and autocracy through an unprecedented acceptance of the principals of corruption to maintain power: yes, Mitch McConnell, that means you.
3
Abolish ICE may not sit well in many districts. Abolish slavery didn’t either at one time. Healthcare for all may not play in every district but there was a time when social security didn’t either.
The left has pushed for marriage equality, women’s suffrage, civil rights, abortion rights, equal pay, etc., etc., etc., at times when these issues were not popular in every district
The left may not excite Bruni, but sometimes politics isn’t about he being the most pragmatic, sometimes it’s about pushing for whats just. Like reforming policing and prisons that prey disproportionately on minority social groups. Or providing free tertiary education so that poor children have the same advantages as their wealthy countrymen. And guaranteeing healthcare to every citizen so nobody has to suffer treatable illness in the world’s richest nation simply because they’re financially troubled.
9
Dear Mr. Bruni,
unfortunately, "the center" is what led the world into its current state.
Not sexy at all. So. It is necessary for "the center" to do (a lot) of should searching, instead of assuming that the "flamboyant left" (*) is just there to bring votes.
(*) Of course, "the center" would classify as "flamboyant left" the speech by President Roosevelt about the "economi royalists".
2
Extremists on the far right now run this country. Day by day their agenda of xenophobia, oligarchy and fear is being shoved down the throats of Americans. They have managed to roll back decades of progress
A cartoon character named Trump is doing their dirty work. They don't care how much he lies, steals or how dumb he is- they're getting what they want.
I implore Schumer, Pelosi, Feinstein, et al to step aside. Thank them for their service. Their voices are now feeble, carry no weight and sound more like whining than outrage.
Now is when we need an Obama, FDR, LBJ, JFK-a loud, powerful voice to drown out the lies.
5
When a column begins by stating that a fringe of the GOP are “the extremes,” you know the author has already missed the mark by a mile. Our government is presently jailing and abusing children, committing unspeakable cruelties against immigrants and asylum seekers, flouting the laws of this nation, and embroiled in unprecedented grift and corruption. This is being carried out by the White House, with the blessing of the GOP congressional leadership.
But Bruni instead seeks out “the fringe” so that he can make a false equivalence about the left flank of the Democratic Party - where there is finally new blood and passion on the Dem side! - because some of them dare utter the dreaded S-word. Bruni, who once moaned about the normalization of the president, here paints the current status quo as normal so that he may paint the only people fighting our descent to fascism as extreme. Centrist liberals would rather tolerate the cruelty and corruption of the present moment than be challenged by the left.
Here’s what centrism gets you: zero power in any branch of the federal government. Dismal representation in state houses. Congressional party leaders who don’t put up a smidgen of a fight on DACA, corruption, women’s rights, the environment, etc, and who only show any sign of life when scolding their base for being passionate or “uncivil.” I’ll take one Ocasio-Cortez or Maxine Waters over one thousand Chuck Schumers, Nancy Pelosis or Frank Brunis.
4
Democrats -- go far left and lose.
5
Golly, Frank - what a great, sensible idea! You’re so right, there are extremists on “both sides”! Both sides have some “very fine people” too - now where did I hear that!
Gosh maybe someone balanced and practical like John Kerry, Al Gore, or John Edwards would step up. They’d be careful not to be too extreme, or say anything that might make “midwestern blue collar voters” mad! I feel so inspired now!
2
More wishful thinking.
Crowley lost mainly due to changing demographics that, ironically, his party fostered for decades: Massive immigration that ensured Democrat majorities for years. Whoops. He was foisted by his own petard. Crowley also took a page out of Hillary’s book and phoned in his campaign and sent a female surrogate to debate the young socialist.
So, in NY, a corrupt entrenched progressive Dem was replaced by a further leftist socialist. This is the latest insanity in the Dem Party.
6
How sexy is Kidnapping Children from their parents ??? And not being able to account for their whereabouts, or reunite them on a timely basis ???
Of course, they are just brown children. No big deal.
4
You are indeed dreaming, Mr. Bruni, if you think the Freedom Caucus represents an extreme in the Republican Party. They are deeply sympatico with Trump on immigration, and that's why they are controlling the fate of immigration legislation, and preventing any good bill from having a chance. They are also very close to Trump on economic policy. You haven't heard a peep of complaint from them, have you, about Gorsuch or Kavanaugh?
How have you not noticed this?
Oh, the old dream of reasonable centrism, where the Frank Brunis of the world could opine that extremists on both sides are regrettable, but that they are also many fine people on both sides.
In July 2018 you should be ashamed of yourself for writing this lazy piece of boilerplate.
3
Just for the record, Rep. Tom Reed may talk like a gentle diplomat when being interviewed and posing as a non-partisan “Problem Solver,” but he is a political Trump lackey and divisive, insulting representative for New York’s 23rd district. He has posted public messages that attack “Extreme Ithaca Liberals” and, in fact, that intended insult has become one his campaign slogans. He has attacked all the people residing in this college town, people who happen to be his constituents. His campaign tactics are vicious.
Check out his website.
Below, a link to a newspaper article describing Tom Reed’s method —
https://www.ithaca.com/content/tncms/live/
2
Keep drinking the false equivalency Kool Aid, Frank. Tell us where the "center" is at this time when the right has moved off the charts. Tell us what a "middle position" on, say, social security and medicare would look like - half of each? Get real.
4
A whole column to just tell us that he is no Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Well I seriously doubt anyone would think that he was.
4
Sure Frank. Maybe we should pick a sexy, centrist candidate in 2020. Maybe Hillary wants to run again.
1
Frank Bruni is surely right. With the exception of a few districts, we won’t win without courting some of the people who voted for the other party last time around. Insult the gettables and they’ll double down on their stupidity, because that’s what defensive always people do. Appeal to their more noble selves, the way Obama did, and you might get them back. When liberals insult gettable voters because it make them feel good, they are proving what Trump’s base has already taught us: tribalism is a powerful drug.
4
Sound like Frank wants to reassure his good friend Laura Ingraham that he is nothing like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ben Jealous.
3
The Republican Party has gone Fascist. The Democrats must become Socialist in order to defeat them. "Socialism or Barbarism"--the choice is ours.
2
Frank, enough with the navel-gazing. If the Dems do not seize control in November we are lost as a country.
Trump's pardoning the two Hammond yahoos today is a shocker. Trump is working on forming a well regulated militia of his deplorables, and he has his buddy Putin as a teacher.
That's what the New York Times should be discussing and investigating. A polite speculation on right, center, left is meaningless.
I am not flip about the pardons. I read history and I see VERY dark times ahead. Yes, it can happen here and well-meaning Americans better pull their heads out of the sand.
7
Doug Jones just went on record as open to voting for Kavanaugh. Pretty sexy eh?
2
Frank, the NYT Opinion crew is so out of touch with the American reality out on Main Street that they regularly punish anything Progressive by damning it with faint praise and regularly push stuff from the Republican stalking horse Third Way like they are somehow reasonable. I hate to tell the Manhattan crowd, but life and reality away from Gotham is very different from the narrative spin daily here.
This is nothing new. Using the Times Machine, one can see an opinion page and political coverage savaging Franklin Roosevelt and others. The Times was less than kind to M L King, Jr when he started the Poor People's Campaign and turned on the Vietnam War. There are plenty of other examples.
The paper has grown considerably of recent, but still lacks a single Progressive voice on the opinion pages despite having added a number of Conservatives. By Progressive I do not mean anything Clinton related, real Progressives do not make private speeches to Wall Street and then try to hide them from voters and the general public. Real Progressives do not try to means test Social Security like Ms Clinton suggested.
As a subscriber, may I suggest a Progressive be added to the Op-Ed rotation? I would also like to see Democratic voices not in the Clinton orbit given a space on something like a regular basis. Also, let's not repeat 2016 where Hillary got full coverage while Sanders rallies in S Carolina with arenas full of people were never reported.
Just asking for fair coverage.
4
Part of what made Hillary unattractive to many Democrats was that her message felt a little vague, a don't-get-carried-away, just-trust-me, business as usual pitch. While Trump made increasingly idiotic, undoable promises, she clung to a measured response that was hard to get excited about. I dont know if we can win elections with a message that's basically just "we're better than him."
4
Enough about the Freedom Caucus. Enough about the Democratic Socialists of America.
Good to know an ounce of the DSA is worth 500 tons of the Freedom Caucus.
2
This article proves how far the NYT has capitulated to Wall Street, to the neoconservatives and to crony Clinto-capitalism.
The NYT and WaPo ignore what most Americans across the political spectrum agree on. That is, that the current very low federal unemployment as measured by one of the six official measurements now means zilch when you are being paid slave wages for casual shift work in a dead end job with no prospects, but plenty of debt and inadequate sickness insurance,
If you're one of the great and the good with a regular slot in the most prestigious newspaper in the English-speaking world, earning over 200 hundred thousand dollars a year for your pearls of wisdom, living in a nice apartment in New York with your partner who earns as much or more as you do, then you have no idea how most Americans have to try to survive.
4
Extremists on the right, extremists on the left. Everyone wants to say these are equally bad because there is a nice symmetry to this argument. Extremists on the right - neo-nazis, the KKK, incels to name a few. Extremists on the left - folks who want single payer healthcare or if you really want to push it universal basic income.
2
The moderation so adored by Bruni has been the bane of the Democratic Party.
Its that spirit of moderation that arrested FDR's dreams and sidelined the idea of universal healthcare, a goal he wanted to implement after the defeat of the Axis. It's that spirit of moderation that made Truman immediately back up French colonial claims in Indochina, which made communism that much more attractive to the Vietnamese. It's that spirit of moderation that prompted JFK to cut taxes for the wealthy, LBJ to escalate the Vietnam War, made Bill Clinton preside over the repeal of Glass Steagell and made Obama yield to republicans even when he did not have to.
There are tens of millions of people who would vote Democratic but who don't vote because only tepidly liberal Democrats --- The Claire Mc Classkill, Joe Manchin, Andy Cuomo bunch -- are deaf, dumb and blind to the plight of the millions who get poorer when property values go up because they don't own a speck of property, have no savings, have no union, have no job security and are just one car breakdown, injury, accident or eviction away from chaos.
Truman Capote said that writing "In Cold Blood" underscored, for him, the realization that millions of Americans have lives far different from those sunny hallucinations that comprise our Hollywood sit coms.
Millions of Americans would respond to a voice with a working class roar.
And Bernie Sanders would have defeated Donald Trump
8
Just vote for the Democrat, then change things. Forget progressive or centrist just win! Enough Nadars and Steins and wasted votes. Look at how America is now. Make America sane.
5
Bland centrism lost the Electoral College in 2016.
Medicare for All is a key plank in a Democratic platform that would attract new voters, and even some Republicans, while providing a positive reason for voting in most districts. We need a message that goes beyond "trump is a vicious and dangerous idiot."
2
It's all too little, too late for me, a former Democrat of 30 years. I will never vote for an open-borders, sanctuary-city, anti white, anti-police, anti-business, transgender bathroom Democrat as long as I live. Yes, Trump is a madman and totally unfit for the job, but the Democratic party has become even more crazy than him.
5
What on earth are you talking about? Gay thoughts? Personally sheltering a migrant family? Consumer choices about farm to table? These are not things that distinguish the left from the center. You clearly have no idea what the left actually stands for and you're mistaking your own cultural grudges and resentments for left politics.
3
Maybe the center will prevail. If they get any traction. The first declared candidate for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination is a centrist. What?? That’s right Rep. John Delaney from Maryland is running. He has a little less name recognition than Carter or Bill Clinton did at this time in their successful campaigns. But not much less. And he can self finance. Look him up.
One small point. The Democrats never technically had Senate a super majority in 2008. They won one. However, a combination of Republican obstruction and various health emergencies prevented Democrats from ever seating 60 senators in Obama's first congress. When Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, that was the end of the Democratic super majority. Instead of lamenting Obama's missed opportunity, you should be wondering why it took seven months to seat Al Franken.
I’ll vote for Max Rose because I have no choice but he’s hardly ideal. Mr. Rose, who has said he doesn’t take corporate money, has among his top donors Bain Capital. Wasn’t that Mitt Romney’s company? Most of his money comes from outside his district - Manhattan, brownstone Brooklyn. His military experience is all well and good but I’m tired of being asked to thank people for their service in wars we shouldn’t be fighting against people fleeing to places where they’re not wanted.
2
the modern Left is obsessed with identity politics. It has become infused with Critical Theory which is essentially 'cultural marxism'. The Left has doubled down on this nonsense in response to Trump, thinking it would save them, and yes they have had a few electoral victories pursuing this route which has made them feel vindicated. However it will never win on a larger scale and even if it does, it is horribly counterproductive and will only lead to a bacllash even worse than Trump. Anyone who is serious about the real, effective, intelligent center should pay attention to Eric Weinstein. He has his finger on the pulse of what is necessary to not only defeat Trump, but to regain some semblance of sanity.
2
Frank Bruni, you lost me at "Third Way," they are the right leaning Democrats who got us into all this trouble.
We need more FDR style Democrats to correct the Gilded Age 2. We don't need any more Bill and Hillary Clintons, Feinsteins, Schumers, Bidens, and Obamas ( I liked Obama, btw.)
Bernie for all he did, he got labeled as Socialist. He might have been one in his youth but after being beaten about the head over the years in Government he's moved rightward to FDR type Democrat.
Even so, I would prefer all Octogenarians, Septuagenarians and the Sexagenarian politicians to call it quits, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. These boomers and the tweeners between the "greatest generation" and the boomer class, have done incredible damage to our nation.
Look at Trump, he's laying waste to all the good we have done as a country in the past.
We need fresh young blood to take over our Government, they are smart and committed enough. Either the old guard become mentors or get thrown out.
I wish Ms. Ocasio-Cortez good luck, no more centrist-righters or the "thirdway" politicians in the Democratic Party. they should get together with the fallen centrist GOP politicians, if there are any left and form their own political party.
3
To pick an issue close to your interests, where would LGBT people be today if the many moderates naysaying marriage equality litigation as “extreme” had won out? Stop defending the status quo.
The problem with the center isn't whether it is sexy or not. I am 71, and I have seen the left move further and further to the center (that is usually what compromise is). The problem is that the "center" has moved decidedly and dangerously right. If more politicians could have just a little business acumen (no, I don't advise using Trump as a shining example), one always asks for more than one expects to get. If you go for the whole loaf, you might get half. If you ask for half, you will be lucky to get crumbs. I am looking for the candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who acknowledges that her ideals take time and effort, but puts those ideals out there. Bernie had the right idea...and he is now helping others see what real progressive action can be. It is called progress, and that is something we are going to need a lot of as the past year and a half have sent us backwards decades.
3
Once again, the NYT commenters and the Democrats are willing to implement progressive-purity tests. We've been down this road before, and it is a dead-end for winning national politics. Our country is centrist, some areas are center-left while others are center-right. But virtually all are centrist.
The current progressive idea on abolishing ICE is a clear path to political defeat. Living in a border state and being a life-long liberal, it is absolutely clear the nation MUST control its borders and at the same time, must be compassionate in treating asylum seekers.
And don't confuse asylum seekers with illegal immigrants - there is simply not enough social safety net nor the will to increase funding to adequately address the needs of millions of Central Americans who want to come to USA for a better life. For a look at how that concept plays out, see Angela Merkel's Germany after allowing only one million refugees into their country.
4
Valid points, Frank, but Progressivism pushes against the other extremes, brings in new ideas, points out unfairness, racism, bigotry. Inevitably, the middle adopts the progressive viewpoints. So don't discount the relevance.
One big reason Trump won is that, over the past 25 years, Democrats have generally been too timid to do anything that meaningfully improved their voters' lives.
What could you convincingly tell a union member in Pennsylvania that they got from voting for Bill Clinton? The one big exception, Obamacare, was so complicated it proved impossible to explain and defend until it was too late.
Third Way and its ilk deliberately conflate the forms of moderation Americans prize with the kind Third Way's D.C. funders care about: deregulating huge banks and cutting Social Security and Medicare. You don't have to be a democratic socialist to know there's precious little constituency for THAT kind of Democrat.
Even where they win in the short-term, they ultimately promote the cynical view that the whole game is fixed and the two parties are identical. Once you believe that, you might as well vote for the guy who'll destroy the people you don't like. *That's* a believable promise. And *that's* where we are.
4
Bruni wants Democrats to play it down the middle. What advice would he offer Republicans, who are riding a wave of extremist, authoritarian government? Turn it down a notch? Emphasize their great stewardship on immigration, affordable health care? The environment? Abortion?
Why does one monstrous Party get a pass, while the Party of adults is cautioned to play it safe and stick to old, stale policies?
The only goal that should be motivating Democrats is to take the House in order to put the brakes on Trump’s reckless narcissism. This will require candidates with guts, who know their districts, and who will make absolutely clear to voters that they will pursue policies that will counter the current Republican hegemony, which, left unchecked, will destroy the middle class.
2
Amen, mostly. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is telling the truth about the urgency and scale of action needed to avert catastrophic warming. Most Democratic candidates aren't because they think they can't, and centrism at the Fire Department is a euphemism for cowardice that lets the building and its occupants burn. Where I emphatically agree with Bruni is his implied rejection of the absurd premise that Hillary lost so Bernie positions would have won. When your discussion of health care starts with admitting your plan would raise the average family's taxes by thousands of dollars, the notion that most voters are still listening is too naive for words. As is the notion that the word "socialist" isn't political suicide in most election contests in this country.
1
I think Mr. Bruni has missed an important point. Many of us liberal/progressives are just sick and tired of the Democratic Party. They've let us down and shown themselves to be NOT up to the task at hand so many times over so many decades. I, for one, have begun to see the leadership as totally conflicted; they don't actually believe in or desire the liberal outcomes that the rank and file voters want.
The rest of the world is able to provide real benefits to their citizens while we've tumbled into a Soviet-style level of dysfunction. And the Democratic Party is largely to blame.
4
Increasingly, it is not about policy as it is about process. People long for the days when policy differences at least enjoyed the opportunity to be aired, debated, negotiated and compromised so things actually got done. I’ll vote for candidates who don’t believe “bipartisanship” or “compromise” are four-letter words. Good democratic process knows no party affiliation. Perhaps this is why certain candidates not aligned with their party’s extremist orthodoxies are having so much success at the polls.
The center is not sexy. They sold out to Wall St and are Rupblican lite.
Universal Health care, very affordable public university, REAL childcare support as in Europe would be sexier.
3
There is but one current prime objective- defeat Donald Trump. That cannot be done with a candidate on the far left. Historically, parties have nominated candidates near the center. When they did not, disaster resulted (Goldwater or McGovern). The Democrats must heed the lesson of history. Biden would be a great choice. They must also bring out the minority vote. Booker would be a great choice for VP. Finally, they must come up with a cogent immigration policy. They will not win if they keep denying Trump's "open border" claims. The party needs a firm but fair policy to deal with immigration and the twenty million or more immigrants here. The people who said "I just can't bring myself to vote for Hillary" will not vote for a Sanders or similarly leftist candidate. I beg the Party not to be foolish again.
3
There’s a real trend among older white male columnists these days. By dismissing or downplaying Ocasio-Cortez’ victory, Bruni is really dismissing and downplaying the women and people of color who are running in droves.
When folks like Bruni focus on Conor Lamb, they do so with obvious relief - he’s white, served in the military and went to an Ivy League college so he must be the obvious choice.
Not all women and people of color will win this November - I get it. But white men, especially those older than 50, need to pay attention: their time of assumed dominance is coming to a close.
4
You do know that Frank Bruni is gay, don't you? And therefore (as LGBTQ) at a greater legal disadvantage in a majority of states than any other "minority!" By a country mile, and yes, that includes African-Americans. How, exactly, do you think he views the rights of minorities? How, precisely, is he part of the dominant white male patriarchy?
You might want to rethink your comment.
Let's lose the identity politics and focus on what will be best for all of us together!
1
There is no middle...you are talking about people that don't exist. People love to claim to be moderate, but when you drill down you normally hit their blue or red bedrock. The problems that we face can't be solved by compromising with a the Republican Party, because the Republican Party has become a radical party. They have shifted to conversation so far to the right that what is considered moderate now would have been considered radical conservatism just a few decades ago.
1
Frank, you accurately are reading the writing on the wall. Progressive Democratic candidates might advance in certain Congressional districts in 2018. But, such candidates will not win the majority of seats in the House, nor take the Presidency in 2020. Hopefully, the Democrats will choose a "sexy" center candidate for president in 2020 - otherwise four more years of Mr. Trump.
4
Thanks for reminding me: there's a whole bunch of progressive candidates running in the upcoming primaries. Folks like Brent Welder and James Thompson in Kansas; David Benac in Mississippi; Cori Bush in Missouri; Dorothy Gasque and Sarah Smith in Washington.
Who will be the next Joe Crowley? Can't wait.
If it weren’t for “extremists” who spontaneously rose up to defend the gay community in 1969, where would you be today Mr. Bruni? When you think of the retrograde Supreme Court decisions to come, that will surely attempt to squelch the civil rights of minorities, gays and women, will you cheer on the “sexy” political center as it fashions its own legislative compromises ala the Compromise of 1850 or the Kansas-Nebraska Act that followed?
4
Frank Bruni stuns us when he reals that better funded funded corporate Democrats win more often than “extremists” who want Medicare for All and an end to a taxpayer-funded agency that’s been brutalizing immigrants and tearing apart families.
This isn’t the work of voters. This is the he work of the Democratic Party leaders and their corporate funders. Everyone knows that the big money isn’t with the Our Revolution candidates. Except possibly Bruni who confuses money with popularity.
3
The extreme left and extreme right are more than "enough", they need to be exposed for the radicals they are.
The super majority of this country is not extreme anything.
4
There is a wide spectrum of Democratic politicians across the country, especially for house seats. I don't know why Bruni has to make so much of his centrist theory while others push the leaning left democratic socialist theory. Can't we accept that there will be a range of viewpoints that will appeal differently to people in different places? I find these "political analysis" articles to be very tiring.
Most people who read the times are progressives and can be forgiven for not understanding the fight ahead for Congress. Most voters are neither alt-right nor progressive and instead have a cynical view of those on the right and left who passionately believe that God or His equivalent is on their side. Ironically, the Republicans and Democrats have widely divergent views on the center: Democrats believe they are a sinister lot who will ultimately prove to be wolves in sheep's clothing; the Republicans hope that, just like in 2016 they either stay home or weaken the Democrats by voting third party. Now is not the time for the Democratic base to sing the praises of their movement and celebrate a new birth of Progressivism; now is the time to get out the vote for all comers who will oppose this madman President if given a seat in Congress.
2
Healthcare and Families. Focus on these, Democrats. The two are linked.
1
Thanks. This says it simply.
1
OH my God, I don't know where to begin in my criticism of this article, but it is absolute rubbish. Did he not even do a simple google search of poll results of Americans on the issues that Progressive Democrats and Social Democrats have been advocating for? I mean, it is mind-boggling. The MAJORITY of ALL Americans, and a SIGNIFICANT majority of Democratic voters support the core issues that Progressives and Social Democrats have been talking about: $15 minimum wage, single payer healthcare system, legalizing marijuana and as a result ending the insane and expensive drug war on minorities, ending for-profit prisons, implementing alternative energy and phasing out dependence on fossil fuel, free college-this last is also supported by a MAJORITY of Republicans, Frank.
These are the core issues that Progress and Social Democrats are running on (and winning) and they are all supported by a majority of, not only all Americans Mr. Bruni, but a huge majority of Democrats. Just Goggle it, it's not a mystery, but apparently it is to you.
7
Frank Bruni, who spent all of 2016 supporting Hillary Clinton, is getting a head start on 2020 by informing his readers that centrism is sensible and even "sexy," while progressivism is silly. Bruni describes centrism as “pragmatic” and “mainstream,” while progressivism is “flamboyant,” “extreme,” and merely “cinematic.” I will agree that the Democratic Party must be a big, inclusive tent. I will agree that centrist Democratic candidates may be more likely to win in some Congressional districts and states. I understand that politics necessitates compromise. But Bruni seems to believe only that progressives need to move toward the center, and sees no need for centrists to consider moving a bit toward the left. The progressives that Bruni derides as “extreme” actually espouse the values that the Democratic Party supported from the 1930s to the 1970s. The party’s move to the center over the past few decades has not served neither it very well. Worse, it has not served the country very well, and it certainly did not succeed for Democrats in 2016.
4
Elections are won and lost in the middle. Donald Trump is President because former Obama voters chose him over Hillary. Never forget that.
2
I beg to differ. The center is not sexy. It's the center. Pasteurized, homogenized, and skim. It may be pragmatic and necessary in certain heavily gerrymandered congressional districts, but it is decidedly not sexy.
...
How is it that your undying support for HRC, the ultimate centrist, didn't open your eyes to the idea of leading not following. Being a centrist is following. It is about catching the wave after it is on shore. A leader sees the wave coming and positions herself to catch it for a maximum ride.
...
And Delgado? I kid you not, I must have received 20 color flyers in the mail. My recycling was full of his centrist, precompromised drivel. He believes that all people should have access to health care and likes puppies and ice cream. He's not short on money or DNC support. Not sexy. And to top it off he is a Harvard educated lawyer from New Jersey. He's not from the 19th. He beat any number of less-well-funded candidates who are actually from the area. His wife is from Woodstock-Rhinebeck. She should have run. But I'll vote for him and I'll support him. He's better than Faso.
2
What you're describing might be the $$$ Democratic elites as depicted on advertisements and (un)reality shows. I think most bread-and-butter people care about health care; environmental sustainability; living wages; affordable lives in general, including housing and education; workplace opportunities and protections; child care; and grace and acceptance of human variety and difference.
All of the rest of that which you describe sounds like a stereotype that does not apply to even one person I know. Perhaps someone or something has successfully planted an idea of everyday Democrats as being something they're not in your brain?
1
Why is it that I read you Corporate clowns cry "not the left" over and over and over?
The people taking back from corporations is the only way. They will enslave us for profit if we don't make a stand.
The Corporate Media and Corporate Democrats are scared to death of a real peoples movement. Not a fake billionaire bought tea party.
7
Democratic Socialists are the extremes? In many civilized parts of the world they are the normal. Such a statement places Mr. Bruni on far right of the spectrum. He appears to be the extreme.
2
Doug Jones is considering voting YES on Kavanaugh. That ain't centrist and that ain't sexy.
4
We heard all about THE WOMEN in 2016.
A woman ran for President. First time ever.
She lost. 52% of white women voted against this white woman. She claims it was because their husbands and fathers made them vote this way.
Note to Democrats: Women are not the answer. We all are.
3
It's all about women in these pages. It always is.
2
This philosophy is bowing from the waist, if not a full prostration, to the phantom the right wing has spooked the country with.
Once upon a time not so long ago America was enjoying the natural progression of gradually relaxing some old patterns, and liberal ideas and practices seemed to make a lot of sense. It was the result of progress, education, the widening arc of exposure. This was a trend and a natural one.
It was interrupted by the fiends who are responsible for Donald Trump, Citizens United, and a Supreme Court, which the NYT, sagely predicts, will be "pro business" as if before they were not.
Heinous ideas, racist, sexist, cruel, and homophobic, began to circulate among small circles and the press has, as gradually and persistently, as that old fashioned liberalism newly grew, reported on it constantly. Nowadays it gets more coverage than any good ideas, by a mile. Ugly, ugly, dishonest, self interested stuff.
The natural tendencies of Americans have been obliterated by the press for a long time, but lately, the press doesn't have a clue.
I'm sick of writers for important publications and their self fulfilling prophecy. I'm sick of talking heads on cable shows reporting instants after a debate, on how the country will feel, and how smug they are the next day, when the country, glued to the tube, frames it the very same way.
Every Democrat I know is sick of all of this. We're going to vote for the best person. It's not complicated.
5
In utterly shocking news, after 30 years of installing bland centrists in safe districts, the incumbents endorsed by whatever the DLC now calls itself have won a majority of their primaries. This obviously proves beyond reasonable doubt that voters prefer bland centrists. Now can I please get a life tenured job as major newspaper columnist for these profound insights?
2
Okay, just stop it. Frank, Nancy, all of you assessing the Democratic Party and creating some kneejerk either/or dichotomy out of various stripes of left-of-center politics.
The only way out of this is inclusivness, to combat Trump's exclusiveness. That means both/and. Nancy, you should be celebrating Ocasio-Castro's victory. Frank, you shouldn't be putting her victory on some contrived scale weighing her and other DSA candidates "versus" more centrists Democrats.
EVERY Congressional district has its own shade of Democratism. What should unite you is making sure there is NO voter suppression or other subterfuges to disfranchise – out of GOP-rallied fear and hatred and self-righteous senses of entitlement.
Succeed in fighting these subterfuges and the result will be a rainbow of political left-of-center stripes, each one truly representative. That's what matters. Stop making this divisive!
And if DSA candidates can continue to break through a tired old right-wing stereotyping and stigmatization of caring for the weakest among us and can redeem 'socialist' from McCarthyite anathema, Nancy, you should see that as a victory to applaud, not a threat to hegemony.
And take a cue from O-C's modeling of winning without tainted money. That's one thing every candidate would do well to stand for in unison. Wben Dems didn't model campaign finance reform, some were bamboozled into trusting Trump's snake-oil pitch. Voters of all stripes are sick of money corrupting politics.
5
It's just this kind of centrist thinking that got Hillary Clinton elected President in 2016.
4
The Third Way gave us 2008 bank meltdown.
The Third Way gave us the muti trillion dollar lost drug war and .as incarceration.
The list goes on and on.
You love the Clinton's Republican light platform so much you should have talked her into going to Wisconsin and Michigan.
4
Because republicans have pulled the political spectrum to the extreme right, today's centrist brand is also known as "Republican-lite." That is, nearly all the conservative policies of the GOP, but without the overt racism and fascism. It's proven to be a winning strategy...for republicans. They now control 70 percent of state governments and the entire federal government. And there's no better example of the strategy's failure than the orange, reality-show star in the White House.
3
So do you think that centrism is what will motivate the African Americans in Detroit and Milwaukee to come out and vote? Or the young people? How many more of these editorials are we going to see?
2
What you're describing might be the $$$ Democratic elites as depicted on advertisements and (un)reality shows. I think most bread-and-butter people care about health care; environmental sustainability; living wages; affordable lives in general, including housing and education; workplace opportunities and protections; child care; and grace and acceptance of human variety and difference.
All of the rest of that which you describe sounds like a stereotype that does not apply to even one person I know. Perhaps someone or something has successfully planted an idea of everyday Democrats as being something they're not in your brain? Sort of "fake-newsy," maybe?
3
Incorrect. The "center" is so far right in the U.S. that it cannot be defined as "center". We need extreme, left-wing policies just to try to move the needle a wee bit to the left.
2
Except for extremists, who vote their prejudices (and that includes liberals), most voters want: safe, clean cities and towns; taxes that are fair without killing the most productive geese; waterways, woods, and air that aren't compromised by pollutants; health insurance that doesn't cripple the ability to maintain homes; neighbors who understand, or who must be made to understand, that you can't stand around all night shouting, littering, urinating, and taking drugs beneath people's windows (or schools that dumb down curricula to accommodate offspring of same).
Moderates know there are bad cops out there, but they don't excoriate every police officer.
Most appreciate the strengths that immigrants bring to America. But they recognize, too, that thousands if not tens of thousands of "asylum seekers" are in fact economic migrants who can wait, as their own forebears did, to cross into the United States legally.
They want to keep Social Security and Medicare. They are not sure about welfare as it is, when those who slog off to work every day and limit the number of children they have to the ones they can rear responsibly pay taxes to subsidize those who do not.
It's hard to march with progressives when suddenly signs spouting "Zionism is Nazism" enter the crowd. It always happens.
I can think of a lot of Muslim countries that can emulate Israel and allow their citizens the same freedom to study, to create, to innovate, and to live and worship freely.
1
Jesus didn't believe in moderation when it comes to one's personal beliefs. Lukewarm water has no value.
How can anyone support a candidate lacking passion about their political beliefs? Sure we want compromise in our political decision making. That doesn't mean we want centrists who will go whichever way the political winds are blowing that day.
3
Mr. Bruni and most pundits seem to assume, perhaps correctly, that the current distribution of voter sentiment between far left and far right is pretty close to normal or "bell shaped." But has that been statistically tested with any rigor lately? Certainly there are some indications that voters are tending to cluster on the left and right tails of the distribution much more than they used to. And it may be easier to attract voters from one or both tails to the other than to the middle. It may be that winning the center or middle is not the path to winning the majority in many elections - and not just in gerrymandered districts.
3
The political right has ascended primarily as backlash to social issues.
The majority of Trump supporters approve of gay marriage. Many women who support Trump also support equal pay for equal work and other women’s rights issues. A highly visible minority of Trump supporters is explicitly racist, but the vast majority believes in racial equality and will evoke Martin Luther King, Jr. as evidence.
Trump arose because many Americans believe all of these things have gone too far. From a psychological point of view, their threshold comfort with change has been breached. They are angry because they think black activists and value Black Lives over all other lives, thereby diminishing the dignity and humanity of law enforcement officers, often their friends or relatives, who are killed in service to their communities.
They are not angry at the concept of equal opportunity for black children, but at the inequity represented by affirmative action, which they believe reduces opportunities for their children.
They are not pressing for women to lose the vote or face workplace discrimination. They are angry that #MeToo represents a picayune dismissal of normative gender roles and behavior, thereby painting women as victims and all men as predators.
Most Trump supporters are not explicitly anti-gay.
They're wrong, of course, but the unfortunate companion has been the relatively less-noted dismantling of economic justice. That's what must be addressed now.
3
Regardless of the facts on the ground that Mr. Bruno points out, Democrats are feeding Fox etc.’s ability to fashion a scary liberal strawman to run against. In addition to being questionable policy, ‘Abolish ICE and ‘Democratic Socialist’ are exactly the kinds of headlines that will scare conservative voters into showing up to preserve their culture. Dems had better hope that increased energy on their side is enough to overcome that problem.
6
The problem is what is the center. If it's the center of gravity between competing polities, then the center has moved to the right, as the conservative side of politics has moved to the right. The ground staked out now by the putative center is to the *right* of where conservative politics was a generation ago, on issues such as immigration.
Call me old-fashioned, but I equate politics with ideas. Staking out the center is about *power*. Why do that? To prevent a worse side from gaining power? That just means power gravitates towards the worst over time.
3
I for one, would be overjoyed to see the Democrats become the party of the center. This business of extremes in all aspects of life, especially politics, has become beyond tiresome.
6
One of the big mysteries of our current time.
At this point, the largest 'party' in the US is independents, who reject both the Democrats and the Republicans.
Most, specifically, because the parties are too far left and too far right.
The vibrant center should dominate our politics.
And yet it is missing.
Why?
5
Not this Independent - who ditched the Dems long ago as they were too un-vibrantly corrupt, corporate and center-right.
2
Reading all of these comments, someone should define centrist/progressive. I consider myself centrist but probably on many issues, I may actually be quite progressive but the progressives may not know it because I define myself as a centrist. Maybe Bernie can lay out his issues in order of priority as should the Democratic Party. Then, we can all decide what we really are.
Maybe I am more centrist in terms of emotionality and posturing than I am on issues (not sure--def in agreement with many so-called progressives in terms of issues commenting here). Personally, I detest being lectured to esp on social issues by the Republicans and so I don't think I will take to kindly to it from the DSA either. Also, when I don't equate melodrama with passion and so when I sniff cheap melodrama, it is a huge turn-off for me. Emotion should be used sparingly otherwise there is no effect.
3
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is speaking truth about the urgency and scale of carbon pollution cuts needed to avert extreme climate disruption, and I applaud her. Most Democratic candidates aren't because they think they can't, and centrism at the Fire Department is a euphemism for cowardice that would let the building and its occupants burn. A
What Mr. Bruni gets right is his implicit rejection of the premise that Hillary lost, so Bernie would have won. When your discussion of health care and college costs starts with admitting your plan would raise the average family's taxes by thousands of dollars, the notion that most voters are still listening after that is naive. As is the notion that describing yourself with the word "socialist" isn't political suicide in most general election contests in this country. It may not be easy to tell voters the truth without scaring them off, but since when was leadership ever easy?
4
If the center is so sexy, then how has the GOP been so successful when they've pulled so far to the right?
Elections aren't won in the center anymore, they're won by motivating your base to get out to vote.
Further, voters who respond to politicians that they see as honest and standing up for what they believe in. They voted for Bush twice because for some strange reason they saw him as a "straight shooter" while Gore and Kerry both came across as if everything they said was prior approved by committee.
Sure, running a Social Democrat in a swing district in Montana wouldn't be the best idea. But Social Democratic ideas aren't so outside the mainstream and actually have wide support among the populace.
2
The Republican party has moved so far to the right that it is too extreme for many of their conservative writers such as Rubin and Will.
Progressives are the base of the Democratic Party. Issues such as Social security, medicare, food stamps, full time kindergarten ,are mainstream issues but are still fought against by Repiublicans. So there is no question which party is moderate.
7
A core premise of at either edge of the political spectrum is that millions of voters hiding under their beds would rush to the polls if only parties ran candidates who were bolder. At least in the case of potential Democratic voters, I suspect the reasons poor Americans vote in low numbers are more complicated than this premise allows for. (Trump's success with less educated voters should be cautionary.) And that the risk of driving away middle class Americans who vote in higher numbers is real.
2
You hit the nail on the head. Time and time again, there is a consistent slate of dependable voters. We will see if those magical non-voters suddenly materialize.
I completely agree with you, Mr. Bruni. I was very happy with the winning of Ocasio-Cortez, but was certain that her winning was the exception. In San Antonio, even as a progressive city, she would never win, particularly with the wording "abolish" ICE (which I think is a mistakes choice of words). I believe the democratic party can win when they look into candidates that speak for the real constituents in their districts, not only promoting a party agenda. That is why Ocasio-Cortez won, and many more can do so by choosing real representatives of the diverse voices of each district and new proposals. The Dems just need to pay attention, not impose candidates but look into communities.
4
After reading this column I decided to visit the Democratic Socialists of America website to see for myself what that organization stands for, what it espouses. I encourage all NYT readers to do the same. There is a short (minute and a half) link to a video that essentially sounds like the New Deal. And given that we are now knee deep in our own Gilded Age I think it's time for another reset along those lines. My career entailed investment banking and management consulting, about as capitalism-centric as it gets. But over the course of my forty year career I saw the pendulum swing too far in the direction of capital, at the exclusive expense of labor. "Triangulation", aka GOP-Lite, is what gave rise to Trumpism. And, make no mistake, Trump is burying the GOP too. We are in dangerous, authoritarian, oligarchic territory, and we require strong measures to right our ship of state. The plain fact is that if the masses are now incapable of seeing through the propaganda, incapable of responding to FDR-like appeals to reason, it won't matter what labels the Democratic candidates adopt - the country will have been lost regardless. It may already be. We'll know in four months.
9
Should add, that, yes, stopping Trump, should be on the list, but, the American people are craving for legislation that helps, even in small ways the middle class. Even if these small measures are defeated, they need to be put forward to provide a framework for 2020. I am suggesting fixes to Obamacare, funding for pre-school education, infrastructure projects, even a look at background checks for guns, raise taxes on the very rich ---let Trump say no to all of these, let the Republican party say no--let the American people know what Trump and his party really stand for.
3
I think Bruni is reading the tea leaves totally wrong. The center of Democratic thinking is much more left than he admits to. Yes, it is nice to have centrists but in today's political climate we need a very left progressive thinking to win the hearts of the general public that thinks Trump is the worst thing ever to come along.
4
Left Democrats and moderates are not going to bother voting in an election between Republican and "Democratic lite"- a Democrat trying to garner Republican votes. Democrats are NOT going to gain those votes. Fighting between Democrat moderates and leftists is EXACTLY what Republicans want. It's called divide and conquer. Republicans will vote for anyone with an R on the ballot. Once the primary is over, anyone who is not a Republican needs to vote for the candidate with the D behind their name. Or we can just continue with Trump and the Freedom Caucus.
6
Exactly. Pragmatism doesn't win out over progressivism because pragmatism is the definition of the movement.
1
I'm not certain what the point is here. Conor Lamb, for example, may not be pushing for single payer health care but he's a strong advocate of unions (hardly a centrist position these days), and of strengthening Medicare and Medicaid, positions which could have been lifted from Bernie Sander's play book. He may have personal anti-abortion beliefs but he does not support criminalizing abortion. For his rural district full of aging farmers, hunters, frackers and displaced steelworkers many of whom are Catholic, he seems to have struck the right mix of FDR populism and moderation on social issues.
And why do you disparage the My Revolution candidates who've had the guts to run in deep red districts? Yes, most likely they won't win. Neither would someone who was a fine upstanding member of the "New Democrats", who by the way are no longer new and barely Democrats except on social issues. Upsets happen, Frank. Remember Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy, an approach which was disparaged by the Democratic establishment until it worked? Of course Dean and his strategy were quickly jettisoned once Obama got in office--much to the detriment of the party and the country IMHO.
I do agree that too much litmus testing is not a good thing. Taking Conor Lamb as an example I don't agree with his pro-fracking polices but given the alternative, if I lived in his district, I'd absolutely vote for the guy.
7
I have tired of hearing about the virtues of "centrism." The center of the American political spectrum has moved rightward over the past few decades, and it is time for it to begin moving the other direction. The Republican Party of Reagan, Bush 43, and Trump is to the right of the GOP of Eisenhower and even Nixon. The Democratic Party of the Clintons is to the right of the party of FDR and LBJ. When Frank Bruni advocates centrism, he is advocating what used to be called conservatism. The Democrats move to the "center" has only emboldened the Republicans to continue their lurch to the right. So, as I say, it's time to nudge American politics in a different direction.
14
If Democrats just made "service to the People" their unified message, they would do themselves a big favor and could cover a lot of ground, left to center.
Seth Moulton's PAC is a good example. "Put service first and find common ground."
https://www.serveamericapac.com/
The number one priority for every Democrat running for office should be to make a very public commitment to first and foremost put Service to the People above political opportunism and drive home that message again, and again, and again.
This is after all the simple truth of what Democrats have always stood for and represents the antithesis of what the GOP has become.
Service to the People is the chord of unity that can run through every Democratic campaign for office across the land, regardless of whether it's a highly progressive district, a centrist district, or something in-between.
Let the individual candidates fine-tune their campaigns within their districts to suit their constituencies and stop nitpicking and stereotyping those constituencies.
Service to the People responds to the genuine disgust by nearly every American with the current Congress, and it will work because it is honest, and whether they know it or not, the People are dying for honesty and for someone who actually cares about them, not someone who pretends to.
6
That's rich. A lot of Moulton's constituency seems to feel unrepresented.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/news/20160324/sanders-loyalists-lobby-moulton...
To all those who diss Hillary's "centrism," I remind you that her and Bernie Sanders' voting records were very similar. If it weren't for the constant drum beat from the media about the emails, plus Comey's inexplicable sabotage at the end, she would be in office now. It wasn't "too much moderation" that lost the election for her.
The absolute goal for the Democrats has to be getting Trump out of office. Pie in the sky leftism is taking a great risk. Ocasio-Cortez is a great representative for Queens, but her type of thinking nationwide will be eviscerated by Republicans in swing districts, purple states, and the vast central area out there which will decide elections. Thanks for a dose of realism, Frank Bruni.
13
I'm never certain of the needs or the purpose of such analysis of the electorate. This is 435 house seats and some 33 senate seats that will be voted on in November. Voters (in each district) despite gerrymandering will select the best candidate to work on their issues. Same with the senators on state wide basis. Only journalist dwell on the parsing of this left, right, center stuff. The party with the best operation and usually the most money will pull off the wins. When that doesn't occur, it's termed an upset. To my mind, voters get duped year in and year out. It's just the process. Hopefully one of these years the stars will align and which ever party wins will actually accomplish the majority of the peoples wills. Maybe this will be the year.
1
Tom Reed (R-NY23) may be part of the "Problem Solvers" (upper-case), but he is not a "problem solver" (lower-case). He marches in lock step with Trump, no matter what his constituents say or want. Likely he feels that he's safe as his funding comes primarily from out of state lobbyists. This fall, though, he's in a fight as the Democrats are running a strong candidate against him. And he seems to be feeling a bit of heat - he has resorted to putting signs next to his opponent's signs to try to paint her as extreme. #ReedsLastTerm
2
The "center" is actually a whole lot of nothing. Yes it's better than Republicans, especially today's Republicans, but like other commenters have said, since Clinton, Democrats have gone right. I saw the enthusiasm for Sanders, even among a lot of conservatives. It was straight talk, a simple economic message, a populism that cared unlike Trumps me only message.
15
The problem is the Centrists aren't attacking the Progressives; they are not calling the left "wolves in sheep's clothing" a term which I have seen applied to moderates many, many times in comments from Progressives. I don't know where your comments about the Clintons came from or even what it is supposed to mean, but the fact is they were not the enemies of the enemies of the alt-right and they did support all of the "new deal" checkpoints you listed. I also preferred Bernie over Hillary, but I voted for Hillary for what I think were two good reasons: she won the nomination and she wasn't Trump and had the protest voters who wrote in Bernie and voted Green done the same it would be a different world right now.
7
How about looking at the left/central duality with nuance? Here's one way: (a) while they won't admit it, no one really can say for sure which is a better political strategy overall, as each side can marshal familiar, incomplete arguments; (b) perhaps things work best when they're in creative tension; (c) each has its pros and cons, but each can miss out-of-the-mainstream, creative ideas with potential. The left can be extreme and polarizing (or easily made to seem that way); the center can be bland, too safe, and afraid to call a spade a spade when the country seems headed for self- (or mostly self) destruction; and (d), I believe on most of the big issues, at the end of the day, after the speeches, they'll be together.
As an observer of my first term central Democratic Congressman, whom I both voted and worked for, I support the strategy. It was necessary. But whether I ever work for him depends on whether he evolves to find the nuances. They are there to be discovered, studied, communicated, and fought for.
They are what the country needs and if done with skill, could even be politically smart. But even if not, a statesperson, something we don't even seem to talk about anymore, is not a bad thing to aim for either. The country is at stake. Someone has to be willing to tell us what we don't want to hear and challenge us. If they can do it with savvy, judiciously picking more from the left or more from the center, or even elsewhere, on given issues, so much the better.
2
This is a piece that shows why the Democrats will turn the "blue wave" into a ripple and why their chances in 2020 are dim. When you stand in the middle, you stand for nothing. Compromise and bi-partisanship have been relegated to political obsolescence, primarily by the Republicans. Quoting the "Third Way" is the neo-liberal way of appealing to Republican voters who won't vote for a D no matter what. Trying to marginalize Ocaasio-Cortez is reminiscent of many in the media trying to minimize Bernie Sanders as too "radical," even though his views and policy proposals represent what a vast majority of Americans yearn for. I grudgingly voted for HRC because I knew the alternative would be a total disaster, which it has proven to be. However, it's time for a party realignment. Forget R's and D's. We need a Conservative Party and a Progressive or Liberal Party. Mr. Bruni: neo-liberalism will not win you the presidency or Congress. You can't outdo Republicans at their own game.
21
Center left to center right is still win territory it seems, and that is likely a good thing for Democrats running this year. Sensitivity to the progressive wing's understanding of needs out here is probably also a good thing. Putting these elements together is a job for leadership of the highest caliber. We are staying tuned.
2
Yes, let's try more Republican Lite Incrementalism, because it has done wonders. For those on top.
And the Democrat Establishment has moved so far right since 1992, the mythical "Center" is no longer the 50-year line; it's more like the 30-yard line now.
So, if you want half of all eligible voters to stay home again, keep offering them the lesser of two evils; keep giving them something to vote against, instead of something to vote for.
12
Its as if 2016 never happened. These editorials never address the low turnout among African Americans. Please, Bruni, make an argument how centrism will win the hearts and minds of blacks in Detroit and Milwaukee.
2
My Freedom Caucus congressman is utterly low-key about being a member; in fact, he's low-key about everything but constituent services and plumping for funds for the space complex at Cape Canaveral, which is in the district. He did manage to get a seat on the House Science Committee, likely as not for not knowing anything about it.
My best guess is that Republican Rick Scott will replace Democratic senator Bill Nelson, and that only one or two Florida congressional districts will go from Republican to Democratic. The state's becoming southeast Oklahoma.
5
The Third Way is not Left- it is a stalking horse for Republicanism masquerading as centrist.
For the uninitiated, a quote from Wikipedia:
"A stalking horse is a figure that tests a concept with someone or mounts a challenge against someone on behalf of an anonymous third party. If the idea proves viable or popular, the anonymous figure can then declare its interest and advance the concept with little risk of failure. If the concept fails, the anonymous party will not be tainted by association with the failed concept and can either drop the idea completely or bide its time and wait until a better moment for launching an attack."
6
Maybe the real lesson we should be taking away from these races isn't that the Democrats need some overarching strategy which necessarily forces one subset to choke down unpalatable or irrelevant candidates in the name of the national Party's perceived strategic interests. Instead, they should continue to choose candidates that match their districts.
Ocasio-Cortez's upset demonstrates one thing, I'd say, fairly clearly: diverse, urban districts are far more responsive to a social democratic platform which emphasises social justice than the political mean. Conor Lamb's victory just as clearly shows the appeal of a centrist Democrat in hard-up suburban/exurban strongholds. I'm fairly certain however that Lamb would have lost to Ocasio-Cortez in her district, and vice versa.
Which, in the long run, isn't too much of an issue, because their stances on actual policy are fairly similar, and their differences are 1) primarily rhetorical, 2) inflated by pundits, and 3) certainly reconcilable. The Democrats, despite their critics, seem to be playing a smart game and winning races. They're picking a diverse set of young, motivated candidates who are good fits for their own districts. And at the end of the day, if the candidates can stir up enough passion to get Democrats to turn out and vote, that's all that matters. Speaking as a Democrat, literally any Democrat is better than any Republican, so I don't particularly care how the Party goes about winning races as long as it does.
9
I couldn’t disagree more. In order to understand how we have become so politically polarized and radicalized, we first must face up to the driving force behind it all — the economic destruction of working families over the past 45 years.
In 1972 a family with a single worker could have reasonable expectation to have adequate shelter, food, healthcare, education, a job with room for advancement and a respectable retirement. Today’s family, even with two workers, is seeing these aspirations slip away.
As the economic vise has tightened, working families have become more radicalized, insecure and fearful until today many are willing to follow a demagogue. They are not receptive to calls for a continuation of business as usual as demonstrated by Hillary Clinton in the last election.
The Democratic Party will remain weak as long as they attempt to straddle the middle with one foot in with big business and the other with working families. To become effective, the Party must eschew monopoly and promote the restoration of competition and federal regulation to ensure the safety and health of the public.
We should avoid a radicalization of the left which attacks Capitalism, which by definition includes competition, and should instead oppose crony corporatism. We should always remember that monopolies, cartels and trade associations are the source of our misery.
We are a nation of working families. Failure to serve the base will result in the failure of democracy.
16
We are overall not ideological, but impure pragmatists, when all is said and done.
We generally vote for personalities, not ideologies.
This is both madding and comforting, because we are and can be, I suppose, contradictory as human beings seem to me to be.
We can favor mixed ideas, because rigidity can be mal-adaptive.
In Emerson's phrase, consistency is for hobgoblins aka obsessiveness.
I may well cuss but eventually accept the craziness of inconsistency, realizing I am actually just another
darn moderate and tend toward win-win compromise.
Please let us try to understand our illogical contradictions.
No human nor political idea is perfect.
4
The Third Way is not Left- it is a stalking horse for Republicanism masquerading as centrist.
For the uninitiated, a quote from Wikipedia:
"A stalking horse is a figure that tests a concept with someone or mounts a challenge against someone on behalf of an anonymous third party. If the idea proves viable or popular, the anonymous figure can then declare its interest and advance the concept with little risk of failure. If the concept fails, the anonymous party will not be tainted by association with the failed concept and can either drop the idea completely or bide its time and wait until a better moment for launching an attack."
3
Et tu, Bruni? We will get nowhere as a country if we simply continue to do politics as usual. What centrist Democrats lack is vision. Vision excites people; it galvanizes them. To do what? Well among other things to march, protest, critique and YES to VOTE. We forget that almost half of the country does not vote. Imagine if we could turn that apathy into votes. I firmly believe that one way to do this is to promise more social welfare: better healthcare, more benign immigration policies, smarter pension plans AND tuition free education. Let's guarantee Americans what they deserve: a true safety net that will catch them when times get hard. Otherwise, this incessant political ping pong between center and right will continue to define American politics-- as usual.
20
Well, yes. Of course. Those who know, e.g., New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and, last but not least, California, are hardly surprised. I think what we all fear, even in a mid-term, is an October Surprise, whereby Trump does anything from declaring a National Emergency to proposing a $10,000 check for every voter. Meanwhile i hope that the local races will indeed focus on health care, taxes, wages, COLAs, and not on abortion!
5
There are some good points in here. Thanks, Mr. Bruni, for the clear thinking.
Ocasio-Cortez is the right candidate for her district. Conor Lamb is the right one for his.
If the DEMs want to take back the House in 2018 they can only do it by winning over people in "centrist" districts who voted GOP last time. That is the ONLY way. It doesn't matter if DEMs hugely galvanize their base and achieve 100% turnout in "left" leaning districts. That won't make a difference where it matters. Of course, in currently DEM districts they need to keep the seats they've got as well.
One other point. We really need to stop grossly over-simplifying our electorate and our politicians with "Left", "Right" and "Center" labels. They really don't apply very well in most cases.
Ex.: Bernie Sanders, the "Socialist", polled better among swing voters in swing states in 2016 than Hillary Clinton. He polled better among fence sitters, so called "Centrists", even though he is often characterized in the media as "Left" and even calls himself a "democratic socialist". The reason is because he spoke believably to the people of those areas about the issues that matter to them. That's what DEMs need to do everywhere. In 2018, more than ever, politics is LOCAL.
9
Democrats need to show a real vision for the country, not just be anti-Trump. As important as it is to regain majority control, i.e., win Republican districts, it's equally important to wrest the party away from corporate/financial domination. A party that's identified with rich elites as opposed to the middle class will continue to lose. That means true progressives need to knock off as many establishment Democrats as possible. Then a congressional majority will mean something, and real legislation can be accomplished. A strong majority of Americans want universal health care, want meaningful gun control, want to stop the unspeakable cruelty of ICE. Let's get representatives that will carry out the popular will.
13
Stop calling us extremists. We are the core democrats; the reliable voters who always show up to vote. And just as we have loyally voted, we have held fast in out values. We have always believed healthcare is a basic human right. We have always believed the in a livable wage. We have always believed in pro-choice. We have always believed in free and accessible education. We have always believed in human and civil rights for all. What's changed is our party left us behind as it shifted toward the conservative agenda in hopes of winning votes. And they lost the votes because they focused on the social issues while deliberately steering clear of the economic issues. Big democrat donors are no different than big GOP donors; the 1% owns more wealth than the 90% owns collectively. And our politicians keep it that way. But if you think we are too extreme, thats fine--I can change my political registration because I don't need the democrat party. I've been thinking about breaking up with the democrat party for some time, and you just pushed me over that line.
30
Come on we need you so please stay. Your voice and beliefs are welcome.
The Democrats on the right wing of the party will, in many cases (depending on the district), need to accept some compromises with people who would be really excited to have an Ocasio-Cortez running in their district. The “alpha” on the expected turnout may even be enough to overcome some of the obscene gerrymandering in some cases. As for the New Deal wing of the party (of which I’m a part) we have to also accept that we aren’t going to get everything we want out of the Democratic leadership this election cycle, and that we need to hold our fractious coalition together (however, this might change once the size of our bloc actually shows up in election results).
On a more general note, I’d like to talk about Trump for a second. Many political commentators and interested citizens (mostly not in the Republican Party) have been perplexed by Donald Trump’s continued political success. I was fairly early in warning against underestimating his political savviness (to toot my own horn a little). We’re all tired of hearing about Trump every day (and all have feelings about how he’s doing, whether doing the incomprehensible, or repeating Bush Jr’s mistakes) but I think there are a few(two main) things he does that serve him well politically. First, he isn’t afraid to badmouth corporations or other politicians doing things he doesn’t like, and I think the Democrats should try doing this more often. Second, he uses his national prominence to do local campaigning frequently.
3
it appears the Dems will win the House in 2018, if they don't it would indicate that the Dems have lost a lot of support around the
country.
If the Dems don't win the Senate, the Supreme Court will be very conservative for many years to come. Huge risk for Dems.
There are 3 possible replacements in the next 2 years.
1
I will always vote for a Democratic candidate, but the thought of the Democratic Party occupying the safe center as it did in the ‘90’s is utterly depressing and uninspiring. We will never achieve the changes we so desperately need by being timid and triangulating. It just leaves us spinning our wheels. People are afraid of change but at the same time they know that there needs to be change. It is up to the Dems to be bold, educate the public and excite them with new ideas.
7
Roosevelt was called a "Socialist." It was a Republican smear. Unfortunately, some on the left have embraced the term, which is a very bad idea. However: analysts among the Democrats don't even seem to know why they won in 2008 and 2012, or why they lost so heavily in 2010. Obama won twice because when he ran, he sounded a populist note. In 2008, he made two key points: 1) the USA should not be nation-building elsewhere; (2) greed and mismanagement had brought down the economy and a new approach was called for. Then what happened? (1) There was essentially no prosecution of the truly bad actors of the economic crisis. This created a moral hazard (and probably paved the way for Trump). (2) Obamacare involved an extremely unpopular, top-down, imposed "fine." Many saw this as a high-handed imposition of a new financial burden. Result: the 2010 mid-terms. In 2012, Obama won again. How? First, he is a good speaker and then he said that "Mitt Romney is part of the problem" (that is, Obama appealed to people's irritation about wealthy elites). And people thought, give Obama a chance to really fix some problems. But the Democrats' diagnosis of these events emphasized such things as ethnicity and gender and the Democrats were so sure of this analysis that they prematurely assumed victory in 2016 on the basis of the woman vote and the ethnicity vote. Wrong analysis. But -- the Democrats are still laboring under these delusions. I'm in despair.
10
The Dems should focus on a few key issues. Health care is a sure winner. Labor is another. The GOP debt is another. Can the Tower of Babel routine. If the LGBTQ crowd insists on a loyalty oath then they are not really interested in winning, just emoting.
7
Many progressives are very unhappy with Frank's suggestion. One of their arguments goes as follows: "Look at the last election. Clinton lost. So the center is bad." I don't agree with that reasoning. An explanation for the loss must take into account a number of things many of which have no direct relationship to whether or not she ran a centrist campaign. In other words, the last election was not a referendum on centrism. For one thing, the Progressives themselves played an active part in that loss. They stayed home. They voted for Trump. They voted for Stein. In short, they did not do what democracy requires. They were not practical. They were not willing to compromise or negotiate.
11
Bernie supporters don’t get it. He never would have won. I love his rhetoric but it never would’ve happened. College for everyone, Medicare for all....great talking points but Most actual voters aren’t for socialism, their for a good economy, better and affordable healthcare, staying out of stupid wars, opportunities.
How come we don’t hear about all of Bernie’s legislative successes...he’s been there forever. How come he’s not a Democrat????? How many (tens of) thousands of his (and Stein’s) voters stayed home in ‘16? Thanks guys for doing your part to elect Trump. I don’t suspect a huge wave of republicans stayed home because (fill in the blank Cruz, Bush, etc) their candidate wasn’t the nominee. We are sorely missing a gravitational leader for the party right now so folks litigate how left we should be.....which is missing the point. And the answer is NOT Bernie, Warren, or Gillibrand. In fact, Gillibrand internal strategy for her home turf is to stay away from too much talk of “far left” progressive issues because of big swaths of red voters in NY.
4
Robert,
Still with this blame? Scapegoating? Still?
Over 88% of Sandernistas voted for HRC.
Stein got less than 0,05% of the vote. 1 million total.
Yet you don't mention the 12 million Dino's that flipped to Trump. How come?
Why do you blame the 1%, yet leave out the 18.5%?
Always punching down and Left.
Never Up and to the Right.
Typical.
And yes, it was a referendum. She failed to get out the vote. Multi million stayed home. Again. She excited few. She lost. Nobody else. Her.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/upshot/how-did-trump-win-over-so-many...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/obama-trump-voters-dem...
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/05/18/census-shows-pervas...
2
Thank you for your reply, "Rails." About 10% of the Sanders primary voters voted for Trump. Roughly another 10% of the Sanders primary voters did not vote at all. Those are big numbers given the small margins in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Why is it that Democrats must occupy the "pragmatic center" while it's OK for Republicans to be radicalized at the far right of the spectrum?
Republicans in the House actually passed the AHCA, which CBO estimated would take healthcare away from up to 23 million people. It nearly passed the Senate.
Trump's tax and spending plans have added as much as $4.3 trillion in debt to the Obama baseline over 10 years, nearly $34,000 more debt per family or almost 50%. About 20% of the benefit goes to the bottom 60%.
Progressives want to raise taxes on the rich to pay for healthcare and education for middle class. This makes total sense with record inequality. Just how bad is it? At 1979 inequality, the bottom 99% families would be getting $7,000 more per year in annual income today. Progressives have a plan to fix this problem; centrist Democrats do not.
That's what "progressive income taxes" are all about, giving everyone the same opportunity to excel by getting a top-notch education and having access to quality, affordable care.
16
Mr Bruni - what you call extremism on the left only looks that extreme because of how far right the GOP has dragged the country. Access to healthcare, a living wage, a healthy environment, a social safety net - that’s the real center.
Enough with the false equivalence. When you’re in a power dive and running out of altitude, you don’t have the luxury of pulling up gradually.
24
Good article by Bruni but he left out New Jersey as one of the states listed where candidates are going to the center to flip districts . There are several red districts , mine being one of them in the seventh with Leonard Lance , that have a chance to go from red to blue and of course are running on very basic issues ; healthcare, tax bill and gun control.
I’m glad to read an article ferreting out the good true politics that could be a winning ticket in 2018.
4
In the recent SF mayor election the most moderate candidate won. If the far left can't win San Francisco's top office I suspect that left leaning but pragmatic voters everywhere aren't far behind.
11
This commentary sounds like the very stale and very wrong argument two years ago supporting Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. How did that work out, Mr. Bruni? Bernie was the only one running who would have beaten Donald Trump - yes, a democratic socialist of all things. And now we would be on the cusp of having our second liberal Supreme Court Justice on the bench. Democrats, we don't even need to learn from history - just what happened a very short two years ago.
17
The Democrats need to come up with a better message than "We aren't Trump."
8
Mr. Bruni, this is one time I disagree with you.
I hated Hillary in the 2016 primaries. I had no doubt that Bernie had the winning hand. But the DNC had the primaries rigged, from Super Delegates to registrars of voters controlled by these useless DNC officials Donna Brazelle and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Hillary is wealthy. She has maids and drivers. She wears designer clothes that most people could never afford. Hillary never worried about making the house payment, paying for insurance, or shopping the specials at Target. Mr. Bruni, the Hillary crowd is your crowd.
Hillary is not a criminal. She is a patrician. She has her heart in the right place, except she will never take a stand against her corporate donors and other rich friends.
Go slow, be bland, get along with everyone, believe that what most Americans want is not possible. Her motto is to settle for less.
I held my nose & closed my eyes and voted for her with no enthusiasm. Trump was simply too insane a candidate to win. I was wrong. The DNC was wrong. And Hillary was wrong.
The Hillary Democrats would be the conservative party in any European election.
The Republicans know they are in a real shooting war. The do not have a majority of the citizens with them. They will lie, cheat, and steal to keep themselves in power.
The Democrats need to forget about winning over centrist Republicans.
Instead concentrate of the biggest majority; the eligible citizens who have lost hope & stayed home on election day.
30
^^^THIS~!^^^
Thank you for saying it soo much better than I.
Well done Norm.
3
The House seats are all local. The big question will be if the 2020 presidential candidate will be centrist or leftist, and whether there will be support by the entire party, or will the losers sit it out, or will there be a 3rd party to siphon off votes..
6
Straight out, I'm a centrist. That said, I'm for better healthcare for all Americans and so in that regard, single payer probably does make sense although I think it will be the battle of our lives to get it.
Also, another issue that I'm having is that right now, so many seem to be tripping over each other to get to the left as if it's a popularity contest which leaves me dubious as opposed to inspired. There's also always one bad showboat that overreaches and ruins a good thing with every issue e.g. Gillibrand riding on #metoo to oust Al Franken; California politicians pushing for health coverage for undocumented while so many Americans are still struggling to afford it; going from outrage over separations at the border to calls to #abolishice. Does anyone think about the optics?
Even though I'm a Dem, I have many Rep friends (it happens esp bc it's inappropriate to talk politics in the beginning and so sometimes you're friends before you know). Some of these friends have even switched to Independent after Trump's election. Most of my Dem friends are pretty centrist like me. We, in the middle, are also searching for those to vote for. Slogans like #Abolishice is not going to get us. Lastly, if we're not wanted then so be it.
Lastly, O-Cortez does not excite me at all. Patel lost in my Brooklyn district with largely her platform. Lastly, people who call her the next Obama. Gimme a break. I loved Obama and they are nothing alike. Obama had heft.
9
rtj, you're correct about jobs, wages and healthcare missing from my long list. I also should have included gun control. Below are my additions:
- Democratic presidential administrations since World War II have had measurably more productive economies than Republican administrations since World War II.
- Every Democratic candidate needs to quote the CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, who said that Trump's horrendous tariff policy will cost our country 2.6 million jobs (and do we need a primer on 1930's tariffs and the Great Depression?)
- The worst presidents for job creation in the last last several decades were Republicans George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Obama inherited an economy after 2 recessions under George W. Bush, and even with McConnell et al's brick wall, he stopped the bloodflow and created 11.6 million jobs. The next logical stage of recovery is rebuilding the middle class - NOT Trump's tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
- We need a president/presidential family that's not in the business of marketing weapons for the NRA, not lobbying for gun silencers so that mass murders like Las Vegas are even more deadly, and not shooting elephants, for gods sakes.
- We need to expand Medicare enrollment, and we also need to expand CDC funding, because even if you don't care if other people are sick and hurting, you should care that superbugs and climate change related diseases are on the rise. Literally, the life you save may be your own or your family member.
7
@common sense
And i forgot housing. This is such huge problem and nobody seems to have any real answers. And NIMBYs aren't just Republicans in blue state land, by a long shot.
@Funky
Our heavily taxed, high wage blue states are hemmorraging population to those red states. Primarily the middle classes who can't afford the cost of living. So much so that some states have already lost a house seat or are in imminent danger of it. What remains or replaces them is the very poorest and wealthiest. Inequality is highest in these states as well, not coincidentally. So the market may actually be correcting itself to some degree.
My (relatively wealthy) blue state just signed a $15 minimum wage into law, but it won't top out to that until 2023. Yes, i most definitely want to see wages raised. But there's a smart way to do it, and a stupid one. The states that are doing it seem to be doing it the smart way, but it's still an inadequate wage in expensive markets and there are still many business casualties.
Keep in mind that the majority of jobs created are low wage service jobs, and in food service. Those businesses are labor intensive. There's only so much people will pay for a McBurger. Requiring both Walmart and your corner pizza place to pay that $22, especially in Arkansas, is not going to end well.
And btw, the meme of California as a big donor state needs to end. It gets back 99 cents in federal spending for every dollar paid in.
Frank, I mostly agree with you, but you probably couldn't find a source with less credibility than the Republican leader of a bipartisan "Problem Solvers Caucus."
1
"if you can't talk to the constituents in each Congressional District then you won't win"
True. But the "centrists" were talking to their donors and to corporate lobbyists, not to their voters in their districts. They did not even try. That is why Hillary was off collecting money instead of campaigning in the states she took for granted but then lost.
12
They are all running with an ear to listen to their voters. They then support the causes voters want, including health care and economic justice (taxes).
That is left wing.
It is what the so-called centrist Democrats did not do. They were listening to donors and corporate interests, following money instead of voter concerns.
Bruni can label it whatever he wants, but it is not corporate Democrats, it is new Democrats. It is not Hillary, it is Bernie.
Many Democrats actually hate that. There is real tension inside the Democratic Party. The corporate Democrats hate the voters, and hate their cause. And the voters last time did not turn out to vote in favor of hating them and what was important to them. I mean that many of those who voted for Obama then voted for Bernie, then did not vote for Hillary.
Don't do it again. Whatever label you put on it, don't fool yourself into thinking you can get away with doing that again.
6
While the political spectrum has changed, and there really are fewer people in the center, what doesn't change is that we are a country of states and we elect presidents through the Electoral College.
Republicans believe in importance of states and have spent the last two decades paying attention to state politics. They have been winning at the local and state level and have controlled the State legislatures that determine Congressional districts. Democrats have focused on winning the presidency and winning social issues in the courts. The result is that Republicans control the Congress and Trump won in the Electoral College and Republicans get to nominate Supreme Court justices.
What Frank Bruni is saying is that if you can't win in a Congressional District then you have no power to enact your legislation. You can take whatever position you like on health care, immigration, economic redistribution but if you can't talk to the constituents in each Congressional District then you won't win at the state level and ultimately you won't win at the national level. Many of the criticisms here have highlighted the failed strategy of the Democratic centrists starting and ending with the Clinton's but in the end it is the strategy of ignoring state issues that has been the losing strategy for the Democratic party.
4
Absolutely right. Center left policies are generally the right path for our country—conservative populism and democratic socialism are extreme movements and belief systems that won’t. I’m for moderate Democrats because I believe they have the right solutions for our nation. A perk: they’re also the way we might win back Congress and the presidency from the clutches of the GOP. Left wing Bernie Bros aren’t the path to a majority, no matter how much extremists on the coasts might wish it so.
6
I acknowledge that not every Congressional district will be won by a message focused on democratic socialism. But I also can’t help but remember that it was a moderate, “boring” and yes—uninspiring — message that cost Hillary Clinton and the Democrats dearly last time. I STILL don’t know what Democrats really stand for. “We’re not Trump” isn’t good enough. People need something to vote FOR. The progressive left brings that message loud and clear. The establishment “Third Way” centrists do not.
7
It's not extreme to want real solutions for middle and working class citizens. It's not extreme to begin to address some of the banana-republic inequality in the U.S. or the increasing poverty. It's not extreme to seek remedies to campaign finance and corruption, to restore democratic foundations of the republic. Cannot get there with the same old same old and Democrats cannot mobilize a new generation with tired political platforms.
16
It's the policies.
If HRC's positions on womens rights, the environment, the economy, gay rights, immigrants, and her decades-long work on improving access to health care are "centrist" then count me in.
If Sanders' long record of pro-gun votes, anti-trade position, dissing PoC, and "womens rights are negotiable" statements are examples of the far left, not to mention his refusal to release his tax returns or finalise his FEC filings, then count me out.
6
Yes you are out. And two new Trump appointed Supreme Court Justices will be in thanks to the bifurcation of the Dem message. You just said it all
The time for the left and the center to have dialogue and disagreements and battles is when the right is not a threat to both. We need to marginalize the folks who believe in voodoo economics and not in global warming before we can discuss how to solve our economic problems and deal with whether to turn back or only slow current climate trends.
1
When did the rule of law and recognition of the Tenth Amendment become extreme? Staunch liberals look for and 'find' things in the Constitution that simply are figments of their imagination. Staunch conservatives insist that we only follow the written rule of law and on a limited basis. One of these is indeed extreme - but it is not conservatism.
2
We don't need Democrats in Congress giving any credibility to the likes of Tom Reed. Name one instance when Reed has vocally objected to anything that the Trump Administration has proposed. Reed, on the Health Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, helped write a tax law by which the Administration is trying to undo the ACA's mandate that insurance covers pre-existing conditions. So much for seeking "improvements" to the ACA.
5
Democrats can be a big tent party, with liberals representing urban districts, and moderates representing suburban ones. There's no harm in that approach, and that's the best way to take back the House in November.
10
The Democrats' cluelessness about flyover country is exemplified in their demands for further restrictions on firearms, which reliably lose the votes of 100 million gun owners. Urban progressives refuse to accept the cultural importance of this single issue to rural and working class people, who do not appreciate being vilified for the high murder rates in a few neighborhoods of a few big cities. Shifting their focus to violence prevention programs would regain millions of votes, and would be more effective in reducing gang killings than blaming the hardware that is dear to so many Americans.
5
As a member of a family of actual hunters, let me assure you that we do not feel threatened by commonsense gun control and gun safety legislation, such as background checks, registries, licensure, and even training. Also don't feel threatened by "hardware safety" innovations and even requirements.
I'd go so far as to say that every hunter I know is anti-NRA because the NRA is cuckoo crazypants.
2
Oh, well said. Stop second-guessing yourselves, Democrats. You know what the right thing to do is... and you know it's not cozying up to the entities that keep cleaving our nation into (fewer) haves and (more-r) have-nots.
It’s one thing to advocate for incrementalism. That’s a political strategy.
It’s another to abandon what you think the country ought to be because you’re afraid.
The left needs people who are clever and clear minded to convince the nation of its view of the next frontiers in democracy, and develop a position that’s more powerful and effective than its adversaries. The left doesn’t need to revisit the confounded Third Way or argue against itself.
Do what’s right.
24
@Alix - Hear, Hear !
As Harry Truman famously said if you give the voters a choice between a real Republican and someone who acts as a Republican they will choose the real one every time.
13
The contrast between Democrats and Republicans is not just their policies and platforms, but depth of ideology. Right or wrong, the Republicans convey to voters their commitment to certain ideas and principles. For decades, the Democrats have conveyed no such thing. I remember in 1988, Michael Dukakis ducked policy differences with George H. W. Bush and merely pitched “competence”. His poll numbers languished but recovered – not enough – when he belatedly reclaimed the word “liberal”.
Now Democrats play defense against the GOP instead of pushing distinctive polices. Even the Affordable Care Act was riddled with compromise and surrendered its most progressive feature, the public option, before even starting on its legislative path. The left of the Democratic Party went along with the centrism that ran the party because it had nowhere else to go. Now it is reawakening because the grass roots are getting impatient - only to be patronizingly told by pundits like Bruni not to rock the boat. You don’t combat a far-right GOP by being Republican-lite but by rediscovering the progressive side of the Democratic Party that once very successfully promoted its vision for America. The Democratic Party has always been a coalition, but pendulums swing, and now the Democrats’ is swinging leftward. What's now the left is where the center used to be, and it's where the Democratic Party's values reside - they have been muted for far too long.
20
Sure, Dems can win in New York, Massachusetts, California and Washington State. But they will remain out in the cold nationally until they finally figure out that illegal immigration elected Trump, and will continue to elect Republicans as long as the Dems continue to demand open borders. They have yet to convince low wage citizens that uncontrolled illegal immigration is in their interest; deplorables see no benefit today in the Dems' hope for more votes tomorrow.
12
I think the last few elections have demonstrated that the american people have rejected the Liberal/Progressive/Socialist alternatives.
I find it interesting that the Left needs to change their "label" periodically. Seems that your behaviour "soils" it, and you need to come up with something different so as not to be tainted by your past record. Your foundation is built on sand.
1
"I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted.
The garlands fled,
The music dead
And all but he departed."
Thomas Moore. (Two hundred years ago.) And also. . .
. . . .ME!
A moderate. A moderate Republican. Hey, Mr. Bruni?
WHERE IS EVERYBODY?
What happened to moderate Republicans? Moderate Democrats? Moderate ANYTHING?
I cannot--I WILL not believe there are simply no moderates left in the United States.
I cannot--I WILL not believe we're all crazies. Bug-eyed. Screaming angry epithets at people of another. . . .
. . .not PERSUASION. Too weak!
People of another FAITH.
That's what politics has become nowadays.
More's the pity! But at the same time, Mr. Bruni. . . .
. . .oh how I LOVE Elizabeth Warren. Sorry! Can't help it.
To WATCH this woman SKEWER certain persons on TV.
To watch her deftly--quietly--implacably hold up to the light (as they sit there, stony-faced) the egregious WICKEDNESS of their own actions and policies. . . ..
. . . .oh Mr. Brunii, that spectacle adds YEARS to my life. (I am pushing sixty nine, by the way. If anyone cares.)
But I know--I know.
She probably IS--a little too left-wing.
At a time when Democrats need MODERATES. Why? That's easy.
'Cause they need VICTORIES, that' s why. So do we!
We need these guys to win. The NATION needs these guys to win.
So start WINNING, Democrats.
(And pick some moderates. For a change. Please.)
3
I am here !!! A moderate democrat who would love other like-minded democrats and moderate republicans (who are in favor of affordable healthcare). Is that too much to ask!!
The extremism is everywhere - you can't even exercise in peace, extreme skiing, extreme cycling. Running a 5k - no good. It has to be a marathon or triathalon.
Give it a rest.
Let's get down to real business. We have work to do!
2
A very nice skewering of the Third Way brigade from The Atlantic as well.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/on-safari-in-trumps...
1
Did nobody invite you to the Tea Party, Mr. Bruni? An impolite, intolerant right-wing movement rises up, causes havoc in the universe of centrist Republicans, and pulls the entire country over to the right over a 10 year period. Leaving us with our current gigantic mess of an administration.
The "center" is an idealized stasis- but it's really the result of an entire interconnected network of ideas, press, peer-pressure and events. You can't aim for the center because the right is hard at work pulling us to the right. If we aim for the center, fail to balance that force, we lose.
We'll know it's going well when mainstream media like the NYTimes start referring to the US as a "center-left" country instead of a "center-right" country. Until then we should be cheering and supporting the bold, outrageous, populist moves of the progressive Left. Politeness gets us strategically nowhere.
15
@Steve
Too many people and pundit alike deal in the abstract and do not have a clue as to what is happening on the ground. People are losing their rights, having their freedoms taken away, as well as their way of life.
The response cannot be : '' please be gentle ''
The response needs to be: '' Stop what you are you doing, or I am going to make you stop '' (vote you out)
8
Before the 2016 election, the novelist Kevin Baker wrote that "centrists inspire no one." He was right. Columns like this, where Frank Bruni is simply serving as a mouthpiece for a corporate think tank, are revealing. With all that is going on in the world. Mr. Bruni's main concern is keeping people within the corporate consensus.
18
That's a bit unfair. Argue with his politics as much as you please but don't assume that every centrist has ulterior motives or corporate affiliations.
Max Rose won his Brooklyn district primary because he was obviously the candidate favored by the establishment. I live in that district and was submerged with mailings and telephone calls on his behalf. There were about a half dozen other candidates in the running and I received absolutely no promotional material on any of them. I'll certainly vote for Mr. Rose come November but deliberately chose someone else on primary day. Moderate, left-wing or socialist: get the money the hell out of politics.
14
Mr. Bruni extolls the virtues of moderation. His fellow Democrats run in the streets, horn-blowing and pot-banging, demanding revolution. Republicans quietly signal to one another by winks and nods, 'no one is to sit home on election day'. Republicans are imbued with conviction, catched, as it were, by contagion. On the day after the election the Canadian army will deploy at the border to repel waves of unwanted Democrat asylum seekers. The Mexican government will demand immediate construction of a wall to keep its citizens out. Pinkos and potheads will converge on San Francisco as the final redoubt. The Mall in Washington will overflow with angry, weeping Dems, their former leadership exhibited before them flayed and stuffed with straw. Mr. Bruni will be there to call for calm. I can't wait.
2
The Democratic party should put up the most left leaning electable candidates they can in every district
15
Democrats have moved to the right for the past thirty years. And where has it gotten us? To a nation where the President can order brown-skinned babies put into cages, and suffer no consequences. A nation where abortion will soon be outlawed and the woman charged with murder, even in the case of rape or incest. A nation where the President says that the KKK and neo-Nazis are some very fine people. A nation where a retiring Supreme Court justice negotiates with a sitting President about his replacement, in secret. A nation where hate crimes against brown-skinned citizens have skyrocketed. A nation in which a commercial establishment may refuse service to a gay couple because of the owner's "religious beliefs" as a cover for homophobia. A nation where Mr. Mueller's investigation has already shown a surfeit of criminal conduct within the White House. And these are just a few of the highlights since November 2016.
Sorry, Mr. Bruni, but moving to the right is no longer compromising - it is appeasement. We cannot continue to kowtow to the far right in this country. We've seen what has happened when the Left has done so this past decade. President Obama tried mightily to follow your prescription, and where did it get him, or the party, or us - the citizens of this nation who are disgusted by the toad sitting in the White House, and his Congressional flunkies? We are way past the time for compromise, and way past the time when we should have started fighting back.
44
I like Frank Bruni but he is dead wrong about this. What is the middle? We have moved so far to the right Ronald Reagan would be considered a center-right Democrat. What does it mean, to ok the 700 billion dollar defense budget? Keep pushing for ObamaCare which is just basically Medicaid expansion, & the middle class hates it. OK a border wall? Stand by while the right steals supreme court seats? Stand by Israel no matter what they do? Stand with the Saudi's and not even give Iran a place at the table. Keep the drug war going & stalling the legalization of pot? Basically except for abortion, & issues like gay rights, which the mainstream isn't that concerned with. there's no difference. I am telling you, & I have been saying it, the issue of out time is Medicare for all, health care access. No more for profit insurance. Any one who isn't for that will not get my vote, period. There's other issues that are very important, cutting the defense budget, making school affordable, responsible budget & trying to cut the deficit, slowing down the energy companies (oil & gas) and not letting them drill & frack everywhere, .. I mean just some common sense. Alot of running for office is just personally now, how a person appears, how they speak. If the Democrats fought for national health care the way the Republicans fought to start the war, or steal a supreme seat, or whatever they want, we'd be halfway there. There is no middle, there's the ultra right. That is who the fight is against.
27
The argument for moderate politics is important, and this article delivers it well. Trump needs the hard left; they are his unwitting ally. Just listen to any of his campaign rallies. He mentions fringe left figures and policies to whip his base into a frothy ball of rage. I'd bet my bottom buck he was delighted to hear about Ocasio-Cortez's victory. I hope the Democrats don't indulge their more radical elements. Apart from my own gripes with them--I'm no Republican but I fancy myself adequately taxed and don't relish the idea of increasing that burden--I'm convinced that a hard swing to the left will assure a Trump victory in 2020.
9
Using the the opposition's most extreme elements to paint the entire party is old hat to the right, they've been doing it since Nixon at least, Reagan upped the ante thanks to Lee Atwater's clever propaganda. The right uses it because their base responds to hyperbole and scares easily.
1
That's right, but, as he's done with so many things, Trump has taken it to an extreme. Plus, in the days of old, those fringe elements remained just that: fringe. Now, they are beginning to guide policy and party trajectory. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I do not want the Democrats become the Democratic Socialists. Trump, however, surely does.
Yeah, the Democratic center is where it's at. That's why Hillary did so well.
Get a clue, Frank.
32
No, I don't want more STEM education. I want schools that expose students to a wide variety of viewpoints, instead of telling them what Bill Gates wants them to think.
Colonize Mars, or learn how to clean up after ourselves? Which makes more sense?
8
Frank there can be no center when we are confronted by radicals like Trump, who offer us no quarter. He doesn't make deals. That would require good faith on his part. Do you still think Trump has one drop of good faith left in him? He makes demands and he poses and pouts. He's a despot who is trying to be the last elected president of the United States. When he aligns us with Russia later this month I suspect you will want to revisit this opinion piece and apologize to your readers for letting us down. When it comes to socialism the democrats are just packaging their candidates that way, but a true left does not exist in America. It never has . . . unless you count the handful of folks who insist they're leftists. Most are marketeers who have the time to be chic. Even Earth First was a liberal crew . . . I was one of them.
4
Baloney, that's what got us into this situation. Against single payer? We got ours and let's keep it and let's be choosy about who we let up the ladder (you know - them). In other words, like the Clintons. And, sadly, Obama. Enough already! Go join the Republicans. Maybe you can moderate them.
14
Is the State of Queensland a far-left Socialist Utopia? Funny, having lived here for a quarter of a century, it's always seemed to me to be right-leaning to far right on most issues.
Yet, we have Medicare and the PBS for all Australian citizens and permanent residents – admittedly and appallingly, dental care is not included.
For 2017, we had an adult minimum casual wage of $22.86 an hour, which increased by 3.5% ten days ago on 1 July.
An Education Queensland classroom teacher at Experienced Senior Teacher level will earn almost $100,000 a year. Up here in the Wet Tropics of Far North Queensland, a four-bedroom pole-home on 950 square metres with an 8-metre inground pool, double car porch and separate garage, seven minutes walk and 400 metres from a tropical beach, costs about 450 K. Two teachers would find such a place eminently affordable.
There's a modern hospital and and international airport twenty minutes away, so those who feel oppressed by provincial life can escape quite easily for a break.
It's not perfect here by any means. Most to almost all Aboriginal Australians live terrible lives in squalid circumstances. The second worst domestic murders in the history of the country are now almost forgotten because each of the eight little victims was a black Torres Straits Islander, one of whom my wife had taught.
But the state is a pleasant laid-back place for relatively privileged white folks like me.
And, no, its not even remotely Socialist.
8
I’m hoping against hope that NYT commenters don’t reflect the attitudes of most Democratic voters. If they do, well, we’re sunk.
12
@MDB: You're sunk.
Before you believe the Third Way, you should read this article in The Nation:
https://www.thenation.com/article/gop-donors-and-k-street-fuel-third-way...
GOP Donors and K Street Fuel Third Way’s Advice for the Democratic Party
The Democratic think tank Third Way relies on money from corporate interests, lobbyists and Republican donors.
By Lee Fang
The Nation
December 3, 2013
and check out the Wikipedia page on Third Way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_(United_States)
6
We need an opposition Party. Trump-lite? Never . . .
7
IKE said that he liked to drive near the center of the road because the extreme right and left are in the gutters.
7
Stop it, Frank, just stop it. You want the Democratic party to be the old Rockefeller Republican party, so everything gets moved to the right. Why don't you join the Republicans and move them back to the center. The American people deserve a progressive alternative to this sham.
27
l've noticed a whole lot of articles lately calling for us to meet in the middle. What I hope people understand is that the middle is actually way to the right of where most Americans actually stand. What they are asking for is the status quo. The staus quo is why Democrats lost to the most incompetent and unfit candidate in the history of our Country. I say NO! Don't let the powers that be scare you with their tales of Socialist Boogeymen. We have the real criminals in office right now, unchecked Corporatists taking every last drop.
20
Or like the song says: “Oh baby, why don’t you just meet me in the middle?”
Give me smart, thoughtful, slightly boring moderate, and he/she will get my vote over extremists on either the left or the right.
5
I have had much respect for a writer misapplying words out of context. For some reason they think it is "sexy" to undertake those annoying ploys to gain readers attention. Well, it's not "sexy", it's tacky.
3
My comment should have read: I have not had much respect ...
This is truly ridiculous. When is the Times going to hire at least one columnist who truly represents progressives? I'm sick of "centrist" Democrats (aka Rockefeller Republicans) and the Rosses and Brets of the world who don't really like Trump, but . . . And oh the fine people of the "heartland" who are so misunderstood. The real heartland is the urban areas where people of all colors and creeds and orientations dwell. This is who this paper should be representing not some white-bread fantasy of "the center."
24
Michelle Goldberg
3
Mr Bruni your column is brilliant and exactly what we Democrats need to do to remove Trump. The left will never create a sufficient coalition to remove Trump and he knows that very well! Electing people like Connor Lamb is the ONLY successful route to Trumps’ departure.
The left think they speak for America and the people who really speak for America are people like Joe Donnelly in Indiana. The left’s failure to realize this is of course why Trump won in the first place. I hope all the self-righteous liberal fools who wouldn’t fully support Clinton after their love affair with Sandlers or who were actually stupid enough to vote for Jill Stein appreciate what they’ve done to America for the next 25 years after Kavanagh is appointed to the Supreme Court as he will be without question. If we lose Rowe IT IS ON YOU!
And we Democrats are running out of time. If we don’t get our act together soon Trump will get a second term–again without question. You can’t defeat a movement without original thoughts of your own. “Resistance” never elected anybody to anything!
11
"As somebody who has voted for Republicans and Democrats in the past, I am now prepared to abandon the Trump-led Republican party. But I won't do it to vote for a Democratic Socialist. "
Anybody seriously think this guy has actually voted for Democrats in the past?
2
This - after decades of the Democratic Party moving so far towards the centre it's moved from left to right; and the Republican Party has moved so far right it's beyond the bounds of respectable democratic politics in the rest of the free world? You want to play footsie under the table with ideologues and extremists? Sexy is it?
Just another American establishment commentator who forgets the majority of registered American voters that have tended not to vote in recent decades, because they've felt they haven't been presented with a true alternative - just a choice between Republican and Republican-Lite. Not your best work Frank.
The Democratic Party needs to grow a spine and begin to make Republicans fret about whether they are "centrist" enough. The US is a lost sheep that needs to be returned to the modern, enlightened, secular, egalitarian and democratic flock. It's not a job for those without strong convictions. Regards, the rest of the free world.
21
The center between sanity and insanity is not that sexy to me
Frank. Besides, the right is so far off the scale to the extremist right that they have skewed the scale and the "apparent center" point is now so far right that Reagan looks like a compassionate liberal today.
There's no center between flat Earth and a spherical Earth, between persuasive scientific reasoning and manufactured belief by con artists. No center between true family values and abducting children to destroy families. No center between balancing the budget with tax cuts for the rich and balancing a budget with everyone paying their fair share.
There is, however, a center between progressivism and regressivisim - i.e. standing still, or status quo.
Pragmatism is obvious but seems radical after trump and the Republican wrecking party having their way on the majority of Americans.
At least we can distract the trump-FOX News-Republican base apparatchiks' focus on Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and even Hillary, while cultivating and shielding the under cover pragmatist movement to a surprise win. Otherwise the trump machine will only focus and character assassinate everything the pragmatic center and center left (the old center) as they always do.
9
Recent history shows that energising their extremists has worked wonders for Republicans. No matter how batty or counterfactual their attitudes and ideas are, it’s a winner with the public.
But somehow the winning strategy for Democrats is supposed to be to pour cold water on the enthusiasm of their base?
Good luck with that.
17
The NY Times recently ran a story about a woman who was so severely bitten by brown recluse spiders in her apartment that she was hospitalized. She had written to the property management company but no action. Now she can't go back to her apartment and the property management company is demanding she buy out her lease. And if she doesn't pay, they will sue her, win, and dun her wages.
Is it centrist to be outraged? Is it centrist to want a government where you can at least get a fair hearing for your point of view? Is it centrist to say you want a government that protects the interests of the people - or at least makes it a fair game? There is nothing fair about the US anymore. The courts are stacked against us. Congress doesn't listen or even bother to pay laws. Our environment is under attack and our national parks for sale. I want a party who will FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT AND DECENT! It is in INDECENT to charge a woman rent for an apartment she cannot live in because the property manager company would not address a pest control problem. It is INDECENT to demand sick, infirm people work to get Medicaid. It is INDECENT to separate babies from their parents. It is INDECENT that minimum wage is so slow a person cannot even support themselves on it. (Just do a minimum wage budget - you'll see. How about having the DECENCY party? I want FIGHTERS for decency.
28
Don't care about ideological purity. Run candidates in every possible race, making the GOP spend resources everywhere. Focused on turnout.
And where is Tom Perez and the DNC on voter registration and assuring voters have proper ID, vote early, etc???? We're almost two years later on establishing a sustained voter registration drive. Inexcusable.
10
Why is it that only liberals seem to concern themselves with centrism? I look at the Republicans, and I find that they win precisely because they never settle for the boring compromise. Their insurgents go all out to win by whatever means necessary. Was the Tea Party wave of 2010 a "moderate" movement? Is Donald Trump a civilized centrist? Did Republicans care at all about norms and precedence when they blocked Merrick Garland's nomination? Liberals are their own worst enemy. Their "oh no, perhaps I shouldn't" attitude towards campaigning and policy-making is quite frankly doing Republicans the immense favor of defeating themselves.
By the way, why exactly is Medicare for All an "extreme" position? Every other member of the OECD has some form of universal coverage. And yet, we're supposed to commend those tepid Democrats who say sternly to their constituents "No, no, no we mustn't have universal health care. That would be irresponsible." Enough with this Clintonian, Third-Way, center-right Democratic party. Can we have a proper Labor/Workers' Party in this country?
27
I think it's natural that different Democrats, with different political opinions & different styles, would win in different parts of the country. To a degree it reflects the fact that many Democrats still actually live in the real world instead of in the national media , The Republicans, on the other hand, are always engaged in a single nationwide race to be the most extreme, pandering to a public that lives entirely in the fantasy world of Fox news & am radio.
8
American politics and even more American politicians are more and more difficult to understand by an European. It is clear to everybody that the US will never be a Socialist country. But why not apply a Social Democratic touch a la Europe to the Democrats' program.
The present lurch to the Right, that isn't Conservative by the way, won't help the American people in the long run. And the current "deal making" President is a failure per se.
Sometimes history needs a push to bring a nation on the right rails. So try!
5
Frank Bruni needs a new compass. Today's "left" used to be the center. The ideas that progressives espouse could be found in the policies and ideas of Democrats like FDR, LBJ, and even Jimmy Carter.
6
"All of that sounds plenty enticing to me, because it’s better than the present."
This is the problem with the centrist/incrementalist mindset in a nutshell. I might prefer a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to the Trump Presidency, but that doesn't make it "enticing." If the center is "politically promising turf," as the sub-headline for this piece states, you can start by telling us what the actual promise is, in terms of outcomes beyond winning elections and generally opposing Trump.
"And stopping Trump? That sounds positively dreamy."
If it sounds like a dream, that's because it's not real. Let's be very clear about what "stopping Trump" means to this corporate-friendly, hawkish, business-as-usual excuse for a resistance: the Senate Dems couldn't even muster unanimous opposition to a known torturer running the CIA.
What Frank is selling here is something we've seen for years. It has gotten us precisely nowhere, even when Democrats win massive electoral victories. It's an endless game of managing expectations before ultimately betraying whatever slender hopes still remain, of procedural impossibilities, of pre-emptive concessions so as to continue to appear reasonable to somebody somewhere, of a rotating cast of red state villains that ensure that just enough Democrats vote for cloture, or against a filibuster, or to pass the Republican bill.
If any of this was ever morally defensible or politically viable, it isn't anymore. We don't have time for it right now.
14
Well, the really correct answer is a little different. What wins is: really good thinking about what is needed and what is understood to be needed, and what a large majority really wants both in the near-term, but also in their imaginations of a decent, effective society, long-term.
That's what will always win, but it is very difficult. Anything else is but an approximation. And a bad approximation will result periodically in a person like Trump, or Bush.
7
This article greatly misconceives what makes a "moderate" in the Democratic Party. "Moderates" don't support making changes to Dodd-Frank, or oppose importing drugs from Canada, or support the Trump defense budget, because these issues are more popular.
They support them because they are supported by the big money interests that dominate the Democratic Party.
19
Labels, shmabels!
Let's stick to policies. Do you favor single-payer healthcare, and allowing Medicare/Medicaid to negotiate drug prices? Raising the minimum wage? A realistic plan to fix our broken infrastructure? Improving our public schools, funding more STEM education and offering more free or low-cost tech trade courses to everyone? Eliminating the Electoral College? Reducing our prison population and eliminating private prisons?
So many important things to debate and discuss, so little time. Why let all the focus be on the divisive, intractable Second Amendment and Roe v. Wade debates.
26
Because pro-choice and gun control are important issues for many Democrats, not the only important issues but issues we aren't going to sideline.
@Steven Blader
"Only true progressives will change the course of the future for real reform."
That sounds amazingly like "Only I can fix it."
dlb - Yes, these are important issues, but they are used by the right to divide, dominate the messaging, and prevent progress on so many other issues.
In terms of winning back Congress, it doesn't really matter what you think or how you define "extreme." What matters is what voters in Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia and North Dakota think, unless of course, you'd also like to lose Democratic seats in those states, too. The country is much more than the west and east coasts. They hear you talk about a $22 minimum wage and think you're on another planet. The only alternative that the Left seems to be able to come up with to Trump's draconian immigration practices is to abolish ICE altogether, which would an immigration nightmare of its own. You think that the only thing that matters is that something be right or wrong. The people in flyover country want to know how much it's going to cost them in new taxes and lost jobs to implement your morality-based economy.
23
As somebody who has voted for Republicans and Democrats in the past, I am now prepared to abandon the Trump-led Republican party. But I won't do it to vote for a Democratic Socialist. In 2016, I voted for Clinton to avoid Trump, but I voted for the Republican in my House district because the Democratic candidate was an unemployed Bernie Sanders supporter who hadn't even the semblance of a sensible platform. That way lies defeat.
16
Actually progressive policies are pragmatic. Obtaining living wages, good healthcare for all, protection of what is left of the planet, dignity and a decent quality of life used to be Democratic aspirations. In the 21st Century tired compromises don't cut it. "Think Big" as Bernie says and perhaps we can improve on the legacy we are leaving our children.
39
This is a fugue state of major denial. Beyond ignoring the hugh organizing and financial differences in the campaign mechanics of the progressive left--differences which have made the difference in every single election in which grass roots were employed, Frank buries the lead by missing the most unprecedented action in national politics since Strom Thurmond ran as a SC write-in and won: Alexandra Ocasion-Cortez's renouncement of corporate money--winning after being outspend by a boss10 to 1! If you take no corporate money and knock on doors, your values and message are clear.
Pramila Jayapal, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez; London Breed, Keisha Lance Buttoms, Lovely Warren, Annise Parker are not extreme but mainstream—as are thousands at more than 800 rallies and demonstrations. They are the middle! What others ridicule as “free,” they see as shared.
Every American can find pain in Trump's stupidity.
35
Articles like these demonstrate that the Democrats still don’t get it. Democrats don’t need to move further left. They just need to stop moving right, stop representing big corporate interests, and instead get back to representing the middle class, working poor, retirees, and small business. And to be clear, Universal Healthcare is the where you were originally, before you willing adopted the conservative Heritage foundation model; ie Vouchers giveaways to big insurance, Medicare Part D giveaways to big pharma, etc.
The great irony is: over the past 20-30 years, the Democrats have tried to play both sides. They've tried to claim to be fighting for the middle class and poor, while at the same time buddying up to and catering to large corporations/lobbyists, e.g. big pharma, big health insurance, banks etc. The result? Fareed Zarkaria recently pointed out that Democrats, even with special elections, are at their lowest representation in 100 years, congress plus statehouses. They've controlled congress only 4 out of the past 24 years, only winning in 06 - 08 because of black swan events such as the financial crisis and war in Iraq. The latest is the courts will continue to be pro-cronyist, anti-middle class etc for the next 30 years. The swamp deeper than ever. And Trump is president.
Hows that move to the right the last few decades working out for you? If there are no black swan events, will the democrats ever control the government again?
90
What you have ask yourself is if it has not succeeded trying to work both sides how will there be enough votes from those who only favor more extreme left leaning views? The assumption has to be that they are already getting all the votes they can get from the left so giving up votes in the middle only means fewer votes going forward. The issue is not playing both sides but rather being better at swinging the moderates. As one of those moderates I can tell you that Trump scares me but the Democrats have yet to convince me they are any better. The dangers ultimately are equal but different. That is what the liberals fail to acknowledge and address.
10
DC, your pro-cronyist approach has been tried over the past few decades as noted above, and the results also noted: Fareed Zarkaria recently pointed out that Democrats, even with special elections, are at their lowest representation in 100 years, congress plus statehouses. They've controlled congress only 4 out of the past 24 years, only winning in 06 - 08 because of black swan events such as the financial crisis and war in Iraq. The latest is the courts will continue to be pro-cronyist, anti-middle class etc for the next 30 years. The swamp deeper than ever. And Trump is president.
The problem with centrists is that they don't stand for anything. When they get in office healthcare, Dreamers, transparency are only important (take no prisoners) if the leadership approves. The leadership as it now stands is solely responsive to money. Only true progressives will change the course of the future for real reform.
23
Wrong. As a moderate/centrist, I’d say I stand for sanity and stability, compromise, the art of the possible, passing policies that are best for local people, even if they differ from what’s being done 10 states away. I am in favor of slow, steady change that makes sense to people and is more readily accepted and will therefore last. I’m not in favor of violent revolution or violence or fanaticism. I like centrists. We need more of them.
26
Bookworm8571*** You did not list one issue. What would you change? Where's the difference between you and the Republican's. Your ok with the heath care system? The military budget? Unaffordable education? Not moving toward renewable energy? I'm sorry, but from where I sit, you stand for nothing.
How badly we need to get beyond the binary simplicity of liberal vs. conservative.
Democratic socialism has provided a viable "third way" for Western Europe ever since the end of WWIi and in doing so has made Finland and Copenhagen into bywords for education and happiness.
The Republicans are no longer committed to democratic institutioms (little d democratic) and for their part the Democrats all too often have put advancing the interests of their donors --corporate as well as union -- ahead of advancing the greatest good for the greatest number (i.e., socialism).
As such, a false dichotomy of conservative vs. liberal means we'll get more of the same old "centrist" rhetoric as opposed to the democratic socialism.
Pitting pragmatism against progressivism is a similar linguistic ploy. The early proponents of pragmatism, writers such as William James and John Dewey, also were progressives. They understood that sticking with things that work and setting aside things that are broken is both pragmatic and progressive.
32
Not in full agreement with Frank Bruni's argument here- but- he makes strong points about the... what plays well in Queens may not fly in Staten Island thinking. But this isn't about a national campaign template, a contest for what's most sexy. Simply put, democrats are bound together by the belief that government can and should do good things for the people. And hopefully, the creamiest issues and solid reforms will rise to the top because of that fundamental committment.
4
If the two areas of “bipartisan agreement” the Problem Solvers Caucus has identified are infrastructure investment and improvements to Obamacare, when, exactly, are they going to begin addressing them?
7
I think one thing that has been ''left'' out of the conversation is that consistently, at least 40% of the possible electorate (over 100,000,000 people) sit on the sidelines in any given election.
What exactly are they waiting for ?
There have been (for a few generations now) consecutive centrist (republican lite) and republican extreme governments. yet still, those voters sit on the sideline.
Perhaps they are waiting for an ''extreme left'' (normal) candidates and policies to decisively emerge, or maybe they have just given up hope altogether and are completely disillusioned with the status quo that has been ?
We will never know until we try, so lets put forth those policies and those candidates that are ''extreme left'' (normal) and see what happens.
I think everyone will be delightfully surprised.
14
Been writing the same thing for years. Of course, what Frank regards as the “center” and what I do probably are pretty different animals; but he flogs an excellent theme by extolling the virtues of more moderate Democratic candidates. If he’s right that this is where this year’s fights are taking place, then he advances a wholesome cause. And if Republicans don’t start learning the same lesson, their congressional firebrand legacies will prove to be as evanescent as Barack Obama’s was.
I like the work of the “Problem Solvers Caucus”. Each side has legitimate interests and convictions, and it’s only in the crucible of compromises that nobody likes but with which most can just barely live that we find productive governance. So, if I were a resident of Staten Island I probably wouldn’t vote for Max Rose, but I’d be a lot less concerned if he were to win. That could draw a lot of marginal Republican votes in Staten Island and Brooklyn.
I have to smile, though, at Frank’s acknowledgment that the Senate almost certainly remains lost to Democrats for now, and that the House looks like it could be led by a thin majority on EITHER side. A few months ago the left was dancing jigs at the irrational confidence they held of a “wave” election”, unseating Republican majorities in BOTH houses, as well as Trump’s resignation or impeachment. Now it’s “well, let’s shoot for a marginally dominant position in the House that is MODERATE”.
Whatever will you guys “believe” a few months hence?
6
Richard,
What people "believe" these days is not based on any reality on the ground, but on what is said and written about that reality.
The noise is the news, the loudest and latest noise the basis for their assumptions which flip and spin like a weather vane. What is really happening is dull dishwater in comparison.
Only when 'what is really happening' becomes the real news due to its unquestionable urgency, will we see compromise and a working together. Maybe this time it won't even have to be a war.
2
Affordable college, economic fairness, and universal healthcare. Sounds like the machinations of an extremist cabal to me.
Were the principles of third way centrism not just tested a mere nineteen months ago in a rather consequential presidential election?
Why does basically every purportedly liberal columnist at the Times reflexively balk at anything left of tepid, tired Clintonism, despite pretty obvious (and recent) evidence of its failure?
58
I like it.
Let Democrats run candidates that are “Republican Lite.”
That way, when Republican beliefs win - they win big; and win Democrats win, Republican beliefs still win, just not as much.
16
Happy Republican is exactly right. Democrats have been playing Republican Lite since Reagan and it's only made the Republicans stronger and the Democrats weaker.
Democrats need to stop being embarrassed about being liberal and instead embrace liberalism proudly. They might find that ideas like universal healthcare, affordable education, and fair wages can win. But only if you stand behind them and don't get cold feet when some Republican calls you a socialist.
50
While the Republican Establishment has gone all Trump, the Democratic Schumer-Pelosi-Democratic Congressional Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Bruni prays for clings by its fingernails to power, using its sole base, Big Donors and the disintegrating Democratic Party machine. They will be exposed if their candidates fail to win a Senate majority while progressives win in the House and State Legislatures. Voters have been polarizing for decades, but only the Koch sponsored Tea Party and right-wing Evangelicals were organized. Progressives and socialists are organizing at the grassroots, mobilizing demonstrations, and have the political program and momentum to win over minorities, women, LGBTQ, and working class, rural whites who place their economic interests above racial fear.
11
'Can't we all just get along?' Famous plea of someone who senses that his side isn't winning. It's all very well for Mr. Bruni to float that idea but it's probably too late. Democrats today remind me of Goldwater Republicans in 1964. They knew they were too extreme to win, but their need for ideological purity was so strong, it felt so satisfying to them, that they couldn't change course to avert disaster. People on the right are united in the conviction that there's been a much needed political sea change, they'll be out in droves to vote.
9
More than centrist, I think, is a candidate that fits the locality.
In places that are safely Democrat, a more progressive candidate might make sense. In places where a Democrat is challenging a Republican incumbent, a more moderate approach might be in order.
Or maybe not--if a region voted twice for Obama and then went for Trump, a progressive Democrat might be the one to win.
And then there are the incumbent Democrats in places that are overall Reoublican. That's when you get people struggling to decide whether to support Kavsnaugh, so as not to alienate local voters, or risk losing by rejecting Kavanaugh, and thereby risking losing a Democratic seat.
The best thing the Democrats can do is to make a bigger tent and refrain from litmus tests.
17
"More than centrist, I think, is a candidate that fits the locality."
That's exactly why in the Nov 2017 Virginia state elections, so many previously entrenched Republican state districts were won by Democrats. The candidate fit the respective locality and focused on issues of concern to the constituents of that locality.
Whether the Democrat was centrist / progressive / etc. was not even part of the conversation.
And it is for this very same reason that a good number of Virginia congressional districts that have long been held by Republicans are now listed as "Toss up" for the Nov 2018 election. The Democratic candidates in these districts well-reflect the values, concerns, and priorities of the specific district. A Democratic socialist would not stand a chance. Nothing against Democratic socialists, it's just that that platform is not a good fit for these districts.
8
The composition of the Senate will determine who is or is not placed on the Supreme Court - and Kennedy's seat is not the only one which will be vacated.
The majorities in Congress will determine whether there is the check to Donald Trump.
This is the time for pragmatism, not for purity tests. Let Democratic candidates speak to constituents in a way that will resonate with them. There's no national Democratic platform at all to implement if the majorities don't change.
9
I am frankly perplexed that Mr. Bruni opines that that the future of the Democratic Party in the US lies with what he characterizes as "less progressive" candidates. We could not have had a more qualified and better positioned, well-organized centrist neoliberal candidate in the last election than Hillary Clinton.
People in the US are angry and scared and they want change. 'Stay the course' is not the order of the day. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has ridden on the back of the bus for 50 years as the party machine built undemocratic walls to insure that another progressive, anti-war candidate like McGovern would never be nominated.
Part of the political calculus here is that with what many on the left saw as the betrayal of and disrespect to Bernie Sanders and his supporters, the progressive wing of the party will no longer settle for the lesser of the evils, from their perspective, over the evil of the lessers.
Without the automatic allegiance of the left, the Clintonite strategy of triangulation, by which the Democratic candidate tacks to the right during the general election, must fail. We must not keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result.
We cannot be certain that a democratic socialist or progressive candidate will triumph over Mr. Trump. But we can be fairly certain that an establishment, neoliberal, centrist candidate like Hillary Clinton will not. Tried that, didn't work, time for a new plan.
68
Great post and exactly right. The Democrats keep falling for the lure of safe centrism—and keep getting tanked by the Republicans who become ever more extreme.
The fact is the Democrats need a brand as strong and compelling to their voters as the Republican's brand is to Republican voters. Safe centrism isn't going to get them that brand. They can lean toward the center in centrist and right-leaning districts, but just as all Republicans proudly embrace being conservative, all Democrats need to get comfortable being proudly liberal.
11
Clinton and her campaign seemed oblivious to the larger currents dominating the national mood. She partied with Hollywood people, she pulled out her 500-point policy plan at every opportunity. Whatever her considerable strengths were as Secretary of State, she made for a weak Presidential candidate. I believe a leftist candidate will alienate wide swaths of the voting population that the democrats need in order to win. We need someone compelling that can unify the country. I don’t believe that is Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, though they both present appealing alternatives. Remember, Trump could be re-elected.
8
I don't want to see either Hillary or Bernie run in 2020, but remember that Bernie won primaries in some supposedly "conservative" Rust Belt and Great Plains states and came close to winning in several others.
Hillary won in places the Democrats weren't going to win anyway, such as the Deep South.
Personalities aside, I didn't agree with all of Bernie's ideas, but he spoke in a forthright manner about real problems that ordinary people face.
That's what is missing in the current Democratic strategy. After 35 years of "let's not offend the Republicans" and "We're basically in favor of Republican economic and foreign policies, although not quite so much" and "We can win by taking the opposite stance from the Republicans on hot button issues" and "We're not as bad as the Republicans," and "We lose because we don't raise as much money as the Republicans," you'd think the centrist Democrats (some of whom are to the right of Nixon) would have learned their lesson.
Nope, the yuppie Democrats, the ones who are all for equal rights for everyone but have no gut-level knowledge of the economic struggles of ordinary people, and their spokespersons at the New York Times and elsewhere, insist on helping the Party shoot itself in the foot by urging it not to take a firm stand on anything in the areas of economics or foreign policy.
No, no, no.
How do you think we ended up in this mess?
Let's set our desires to demonize the terms "liberal" and/or "socialist" aside for a moment and consider that Ocasio-Cortez's policy positions are actually in line with the views of the majority of Americans. I.e. the "center".
It's this tendency of the punditocracy towards false equivalences, towards the normalization of pride in ignorance ("american exceptionalism") and towards pandering to soft racists that is in now small way responsible for the current desperate state of affairs. They have allowed voters to lose focus on the core facts that money now equals speech, and the wealthy are effectively and efficiently using their power and the US political system to steal from the poor and middle class, and continue to rape the planet's resources.
Take a close look at these so-called "centrists" and you'll find that they're quite pleased with tax cuts for the wealthy, thank you, and believe that their wealth and resources will allow them and their children to ride out the worst effects of the changing climate while the rest of us suffer.
32
It would help me judge if centrism is indeed "sexy" if you told me what the centrist legislative agenda is. I'm thinking Hillary when you say centrist. She had a "shopping list" of tweaks a mile long, a little something for everyone and not much for anyone. At least that was my perception, and perception is all that matters, really. So tell us what Delgado and Rose are offering up that makes them winners? Tweaking Obamacare? Tweaking student debt? Tweaking climate change policy?
21
Aaron, don't be so defensive about other people's lifestyle choices man.
1
College education at the University of California was free in 1964. (Correction: there was an “incidental fee” of $38.) Harry Truman, that wild eyed leftist, favored a national health care program in 1945. Most “progressives” today aren’t much more than New Deal Democrats. These policies became “socialist taboos” when people like Governor Reagan declared war on the University of California and started cutting its budget arbitrarily. The tuition spiral followed. Bruni doesn’t like the discomfort of fighting for fair treatment for his fellow human beings. He would rather “get along” with people who have swung so far to the right they wouldn’t have gotten elected in Eisenhower’s time. And where would Frank Bruni have been during the suffragette movement? “Well, ladies, you can influence your husbands and even hold office, why do you need to vote? You’re just making a lot of trouble.” I am sorry, Frank, you’re kind of a likable guy, and you make lot of trips to North Korea which I guess establishes your creds in some circles, but you have no clue about what it takes to make a decent society.
98
Correction: I believe it is Nicholas Kristof who has taken an interest in North Korea. I don’t know what Bruni has done other than stand on the shoulders of his gay colleagues who fought for causes when they weren’t so popular.
4
“NPR found that pragmatism is winning out over progressivism in the key races that will decide control of Congress.”
Bruni is doing what a lot of mainstream pundits do, confusing ideology with a philosophy. Centrism is advertised as pragmatism, when it is really just a centrist political ideology, which in this country means pro-corporate.
Pragmatism is a philosophy regarding problem solving. One can be a progressive and be pragmatic, the two are not mutually exclusive.
107
It is not about sexiness, Frank. It is about whether working class and middle class families have a say in the politics of this country anymore.
It is about whether Democrats are the party of the majority of Americans, or whether the Democrats are Republican-lite. Whether we prioritize people or corporate profit.
121
I agree whole heartedly. Middle class families are suffering. Democrats need to address them. They need healthcare and education at a bare minimum. A vision of providing this for all is not extremism. It’s humanism.
7
How did centrism work out for the Dems in 2016?
It is laughable that this article does not even mention Hillary Clinton, Exhibit A in the case that centrism is a failed approach. Centrists their best chance of proving their case in 2016 against a bigoted orange reality star, and STILL could not prevail.
It's over. Embrace the left. Give people a message. They are craving one.
171
She was a horrible candidate. She lost because of her character and personality not because she was a centrist. And don't forget she won a majority of the vote. Go ahead, bet on progressives and enjoy Trump 2.
9
That explains 2016 maybe. But you got slaughtered in the 3 previous elections as well, 2016 was just the cherry on top.
Lynn-
Time to stop beating that old dead nag. It should have been shipped off to the dog food factory long ago.
Mr Bruni,
re: "The Center is Sexier Than Think". I don't think so. You seem to forget that there are a vast number of disgruntled citizens out there who do not vote because so many Democratic candidates are wishy washy centrists, unwilling to take a stand on anything that will change the prospects of the middle and low-income wage earners. So many of us are ready for real change.
I'll vote first for a candidate who supports universal health care, funding our educational system and repealing Citizens United, to begin with. If no such candidate exists, I will have to decide if I will continue to be a disgruntled citizen who votes for centrist Democrats.
77
- A dozen young alt-right federal judges and two Supreme Court Justices who will eradicate civil rights for generations
- Thousands of babies and children ripped from their parents' arms
- Thousands of same sex people who will be denied the right to marry
- Thousands of girls, teenagers and women forced to carry fertilized eggs to term and face lives of destitution
- Thousands sickened by cancer-causing poisons dumped in our waterways, land and air
- Mainstream media undermined and replaced as information sources by alt-right propaganda and reality tv
- Catastrophic 500-year storms occurring annually while new EPA and Interior policies accelerate climate change
- GOP gerrymandering to stay in power to continue inflicting all of the above.
Fight for your candidates up until the primaries - left, left of center, center - but vote for Democrats in the general elections in 2018 and 2020. No more pickiness. No more calls for revolution.
We have to take the power and the reins back from Trump to restore our democracy and our civilization.
VOTE DEMOCRATIC or bust.
301
Maybe those running could include your list. It’s so obvious the deregulation of environmental rules, and the courts of lifetime appointments for generations is the tip of what’s going on without discussion.
3
Don't see anything in your long laundry list there about jobs, wages, or healthcare. Bet you can't figure out why you keep losing elections either.
3
- 2.6 MILLION jobs are predicted to be lost from Trump's tariff war (according to the Republican CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce)
- while the president makes it a top priority to seize immigrants from their jobs and deport them, the president's private club, Mar-a-Lago, is currently seeking special allowance to hire 78 foreign workers to work at Mar-a-Lago (where, even though they doubled the membership fee to $200,000 because he is spending tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money conducting White House business there-making it a tourist attraction -he is actually paying line cooks $13.31/hour; less this year than a year ago!)
- and like his foreign cook wages at Mar-a-Lago, wages overall have dropped under Trump. For the fourth quarter of 2017, median weekly wages were $345. That’s slightly below the $349 mark in the fourth quarter of 2016 under Obama, BEFORE Trump entered office. And to-date, median wage growth for his presidency stands at 2.4% — slower than the 3-plus percent gains during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
5
Spot on. We are, more of less, a nation of moderates, despite efforts to paint us as completely polarized. Even many of Trump's supporters, if they knew the facts of many issues, would probably lean toward the middle. The people I work with every day have similar needs, worries and joys -- they are not outrageous characters, epitomized by the current President. They are just folks, trying to put food on the table, hold onto their jobs and help their kids.
I found it telling that coverage of the Brett Kavanaugh nomination suggested that the debate would be "between liberals and conservatives." No mention of Democrats or Republicans. But we are still out there. And we vote.
20
So you talked to a lot of centrist Democrats who are really bullish on centrist Democrats. I’m sure there’s a kernel of truth in this column, but as my college professor used to say, “Sources, sources!“.
14
" All politics is Local ". Catchy slogan, but can you dance to it ? Why, yes. I completely understand what you're saying, Frank. BUT, I really don't want we Democrats to become even more GOP lite. Just like lite Beer, you can drink it, but why would you want to ? We must return to our roots, FDR and JFK style, but for THIS Century. It will take a lot of work to cleanup after the Trump Regime. " Ask what you can do for your Country ". Here is exactly what to do : Vote in November. Get your friends and neighbors registered, and actually take them to vote. Control Trump by voting OUT his Collaborators. Each and every one. In every single election. A round of two of losing, and even the stupid will get with the program. Seriously.
30
The greatest challenge our nation and world is faced with today in my opinion is climate change. It is affecting everything : our health, our ability to grow food, increased political instability and wars fought over decreasing resources, increased refugees. If we don’t address this issue now and with great effort, we are doomed as a species. Can moderate Democrats achieve what is necessary to see us through this gigantic challenge? Not likely. I get so depressed when I read yet another person of influence (Bruni) cheerleading moderate (and corporate) Democrats.
38
I agree. But the the basis of global warming is the massive consumption of stuff we really do not need. Will people be willing to live with less? I am not sure.
5
Can extreme left Democrats achieve what is necessary to see us through the gigantic challenge of climate change? I sometimes get the feeling that white, cis, hetero-, middle class people are not even welcome to sit at their table, much less discuss a secondary (to their definition of social justice) issue like climate change.
3
The Center has always been the sexiest. Its the indecisive waffling, unsure, changeable 5% that decides our elections every time. Its the people who take 5 minutes to decide on election day based on the latest headline they read. That's why the media likes to create drama, fake the news and mislead the public with emotional stories and half-truths. Its basically the people who read the tabloids at the grocery store. And they also like PRO WRESTLING because they think it is real.
10
What does the center/moderates stand for? Here is the center/moderate/bipartisan policy platform:
Endless wars, mass incarceration, tax cuts for the rich, massive inequality, expansive rights for corporations but not for actual people, political campaign where money is more important than people, a war on drugs that justifies SWAT raids of innocent people and extrajudicial murder of African-Americans, a worldview surveillance state, a massive defense budget, world where education and healthcare keep people in lifelong debt, where Pharma can price gouge even though it leads to death, mass poverty, crumbling infrastructure, financial crises where banks were bailed out—this list goes on and on.
But Ocasio-Cortez and Jealous that say we should have single-payer like other modern countries and universal higher education and trade school, and not punish people for marijuana use—that’s the extreme?
I think this is why a lot of people hear “fake news” in some ways they are correct. Just over the last week, the NYT has six Alan Dershowitz stories so it gives you a good idea of how connected they are to the lives of most Americans. How many times does the NYT quote someone from the corporate funded Third Way. This is not only lazy journalism; it is an embarrassment. Next time maybe explain what the moderates stand for, which are all the worst policies that inevitably gave the country Trump. What a joke.
226
@Joe
Excellent comment and cup worthy . (((clapping)))
5
"Here is the center/moderate/bipartisan policy platform::
That's in your imagination. It wads Republicans, enabled by stay-at-home voters blocking a Democratic push to support working families and broaden access to health care for many decades.
Actually, here is the Democratic Party platform, which the Jill Stein voters rejected, giving us Trump in spite of the fact that millions more Americans voted for Clinton than for Trump
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=democratic+...
But I do agree with you re the appalling waste of column inches on Dershowitz.
4
Thank you, Mr Smith. Clear, concise, and so accurate!
1
Thanks, Frank! I've been looking for a discussion on the political center for a long time. I don't identify with socialists, progressives, conservatives or far-right groups, Marxists or Trumpers. As such, I could never blindly tow the party line of any of today's political entities. I consider myself a centrist and vote as a independent. I found your op ed refreshing and encouraging.
13
Mr. Bruni is correct. (I don’t call him “Frank” like some of you do. It’s a matter of respect.). One of my oldest and dearest friends has been a conservative for the 36 years I have known him. I have been a devout liberal. We have managed not only to get along, but to forge, through life’s calamities, through the deaths of those we have loved, through near fatal diseases that almost claimed each of us, through national panics, a residing faith in one another, a friendship deeper than political passion or opinion. Happily, in these troubled days, we both revere president Reagan and Dr. King, for different reasons, and we both loathe Trump, for the same reasons—and that is enough for us.
23
This dangerously misguided understanding of the modern American political landscape is precisely the reason I will spend the rest of my life with the most conservative and pro-corporate Supreme Court in U.S. history.
I’m sure it’s exactly what everyone inside the Clinton bubble was convinced of throughout 2016.
Even when this approach has worked, it’s failed. We used the “blue dog” strategy to win control of Congress in 2006 ... which made it impossible to do healthcare the right way in 2008 ... which lost us EVERYTHING again in 2010.
122
A crazy Democrat is just as bad as a crazy Republican. No party can be all things to all people, but the extremism on both sides has got to stop. Civil political discourse, from local offices on up through states' legislatures, the Congress and especially the White House, has already all but disappeared in these United States. I fear greatly for our future if this trend cannot be turned around.
28
No surprise that such detailed coverage was available within minutes of President Trump's announcement of his Supreme Court nominee. All the media have had these stories and editorials ready to go for days. There were 4 "top picks", and a week is more than enough time to prepare detailed pieces on 4 people. It's like having canned obituaries for celebrities; the boiler-plate text and images are already done, all that is needed is a bit of updating before the final product is ready to print, post or broadcast.
Here's my own prediction, written (I swear) hours before the President's announcement: The choice doesn't matter.
Whoever Trump picked, the mainstream media would launch a salvo of articles and opinion (scare) pieces explaining why the pick is terrible for women, LGBTQs, migrants, poor people, abortion supporters, in fact pretty much everyone else except the notorious 1% and big business. The media would also say the Supreme Court will now be biased or even irrelevant.
The purposes of the barrage, of course, are to draw all but negative attention away from the nominee and to agitate the Democrat-liberal-socialist-radical base.
In fact, there is little the roused rabble can do about this; Trump pretty much has the votes to confirm. However, stay tuned for the mass breast-beating, hand-wringing, wailing, virtue-signaling, "spontaneous" protests, and accosting Republicans in restaurants.
What are Democrats to do? Get out the vote in November!
10
Ok, so it's the return of the Blue Dog Democrats.
14
Maybe not. A lot of New Yorkers and New Englanders look like they'll prize purity over winning, so maybe the Losing Left can stay dominant!
6
Can extreme left Democrats achieve what is necessary to see us through the gigantic challenge of climate change? I sometimes get the feeling that white, cis, hetero-, middle class people are not even welcome to sit at their table, much less discuss a secondary (to their definition of social justice) issue like climate change.
It's only the loud New Yorkers you are hearing. The rest of us are still here, planning to vote, not interested in extremes, remembering how and why Hilary lost.
As a center left voter by today's standards who appreciates the passion of the progressive wing of the democratic party and the ability of the conservative wing to attract voters in otherwise Republican districts, intra-party policy differences are secondary to me. I have strong preferences, but they are moot as long as the Democrats remain a minority party.
Lamb to Ocasio-Cortez in the House and Manchin to Warren in the Senate covers a lot of political distance. I can live with that. What I can't live with is an unconstrained ignorant, raciest, authoritarian president with a cabinet of 3rd rate grifters.
Any Democrat who can win, has my vote.
No doubt I will be complaining (loudly) about Democratic policy differences when they have enough seats to actually implement a policy or two. I can't wait.
405
@Lt
A comment I can can get behind as well. You can have the revolution from the outside looking in (much more destructive and punitive) or you can change the system from within. (with votes)
I choose the latter, but can understand the former.
19
I wholeheartedly endorse LT's comments.
4
If only I could agree 100 times...internecine warfare should only be privilege of the already victorious majority. Focus on an electoral rebuke before Jesuitical parsing.
6
Warren is running around getting liberals' hopes up about the USSC nomination, which she must know can't be stopped, and Gillibrand should not get a pass for leading the charge on purging Al Franken from the senate, a move that looks dumber with every passing day. Sen. Schumer and the rest of the Brooklyn Brain Trust told Hillary to blow off western Pennsylvania . . . enough. Please, just stop. The Starbucks Bubble crowd needs to go away. After all, what have they done for us lately?
105
Sexy?? Grow up. This election is important. Stop treating your readers like children.
183
just win, baby! we have seen what not winning does for the country. or do you want to be right (i mean, left) and lose [again]? then you can go back to "like" or "dislike" as if that were [ever] going to change anything. you saw how much social media did for you in the last one, right?
13
Well, here's another Times columnist waiting for the Militant Moderates to revolt and seize power. Mr Brooks, meet Mr Bruni. Your party now has two members.
But seriously, this is not going to happen. Those who are most interested in politics on both sides are the activists, who put pressure on both parties all the time. They supply the money, candidates, and volunteers. The actual officeholders may know what the majority of the voters want, but are unable to deliver it without upsetting their base.
Once a moderate like Conor Lamb gets into office, he will be pulled along by his party to support all kinds of things that his constituents are not too keen on. "Are you are Democrat or not? Do you want the support of the DNC? You'd better get with the program!" And his votes will gradually fall into line with the national Dem agenda, making him vulnerable to attack from the other side. That's the main reason all the Blue Dog Dems vanished in 2010.
38
Anyone remembers the Glass Seagal act?
3
The question is not what party they belong to. The question is how rational will their voting actually be. As it stands now hyper partisanship has dictated they vote along party lines rather than what is good for the county and it's citizens.
7
How would Bruni know anything about the center.
He's never been there.
8
This is evidently the first time you've ever read one of Frank's columns. The man LIVES in the 'center'.
21
How true.
2
Right, center, or left, I will vote for the Democrat.
334
Kind of a thoughtless way to approach the most important civic responsibility, no?
4
"Enough about the Democratic Socialists of America. They’re flamboyant players in our political debate, but they’re extremes..."
There's nothing extreme about wanting universal healthcare and affordable higher education. Both of these things are in every citizen's best interests.
And the 'center' has been pulled so far right that it's well skewed away from anything remotely appealing or sexy.
528
Amen! Might I suggest Mr. Bruni read Alissa Quart's new book "Squeezed?"
2
Yes! Exactly. Bruni is a self-satisfied elitist social liberal. Who cares if poor and middle class folks get healthcare! Too extreme! It might hurt my checking account balance.
43
The problem is who you raise taxes on to pay for it.
4
A wise column. Socialism might be a nice theory, but it will never take root in a country whose citizens distrust each other and the government as much as Americans do.
Also, this country's advocates of socialism tend to welcome any comers from developing countries. Pick socialism or pick wide open immigration. You can't get both.
75
@LBC
Poll any single progressive policy and every single one has high popularity (some wildly so) across all segments of the population. (even republicans)
The trick is that republicans (even having lost the popular vote in 7 or the last 8 elections) have promised two things as a constant - that lower taxes will solve all problems, and that social wedge issues are to be continuously fought - that's it )
There are no more taxes to lower (otherwise the crumbling infrastructure collapses completely and then no one can get rich) and there are no more social wedge issues. (although republicans and this President are trying really hard to resurrect them)
The United States is a definitively ''Socialist'' country (Social Security has the word right in the name), and it is just a matter of aligning the policies with a national strategy and candidates.
It is looking good for the future for Socialists and America.
7
I think we disagree on what socialism is. Historically, the definition of "socialism" is government control of the means of production. (Or the "commanding heights," in the British formulation.) Today that might include the tech sector.
Public control might take the form of outright ownership or heavy regulation that typically chokes entrepreneurship. Marxist countries, e.g., Venezuela, typically just nationalize major industries.
Socialism is much more expansive, comprehensive and intrusive than free college or having a particular social service provided at public expense.
The Scandinavian governments are not genuinely socialist. They don't try to own the commanding heights. They give broad latitude to free enterprise.
It's more accurate to describe them as having a "high tax/high welfare" model. That may well be an eventual possibility for the United States.
But as I suggested above, you can't achieve even that model while welcoming a large and continuous influx of low-skilled immigrants, especially those who might be drawn here specifically for expensive public services.
High spending works fairly well in Scandinavian countries precisely because they have a ferocious work ethic and tend to view their compatriots as one big Nordic family with similar values.
But even they are seeing a major political backlash to Middle Eastern refugees who remain dependent on government.
1
The polls never mention the cost:
"Would you like free health care?"
"Why, sure!"
No wonder they poll so well.
However, if the question was, would you like to pay an additional 35% of your salary in tax, and then receive healthcare at no additional charge, most people would say no.
Sigh, here we go again.
Mr. Bruni, I am sure I do not need to point out that the political spectrum has been pulled so far right over a few generations, that people and pundit alike do not have a clue anymore as to what the center is. (let alone looks like)
When someone is putting you down, or taking away your rights, then it is not ''extreme'' to try and get back up or stand up for yourself. The word ''extreme'' has to be the most commonly used word in the English language now, even more so than the word ''and'',
It is not extreme to want clean air, water and earth, nor is it extreme to want to a living wage ($22hr min) for a fair day's work.
It is not extreme to want everyone to pay their fair share of taxes progressively (you make more and you pay more - not less), nor is it extreme to not want babies or children of refugee claimants to be taken away (and lost) from their parents.
It is not extreme to want human rights for all to not be usurped by religious views, nor is it extreme to expect health care as a human right.
It is not extreme to want Democracy to be protected with voting rights upheld for all that are applicable, nor is it extreme to want the government to offer protections against abuse for all of its citizens.
I could go on, but then I might be called an ''extremist.'' However if that means demanding all of the above, and more, NOW - instead of somewhere down the road, then I will wear the moniker as a badge of honor.
I'm sure others would too.
847
To expect a “living wage” for labor that does not rise to the value of the $22/hr you propose IS an extremely left position.
11
@FWIS
Ok, so if we go by your opinion, then you are stating you are comfortable with corporations/businesses (headed by the richest person and the richest family on earth with over a HUNDRED BILLION dollars for each) being subsidized by (YOU) the taxpayer for all of their workers. (for social programs like SNAP as an example)
The real question is you do not find that extreme ? ( let alone obscene ? )
1
From Where I sit: Places like Walmart can easily pay that much. And it'd save taxpayers money since we wouldn't be subsidizing the working poor who work for Walmart.
1
Sadly, in today's climate if you call yourself a "Democrat," center is no longer a qualifier. It's not enough to support gay rights, you have to show proof of having a gay thought, it's not enough to want to feed the homeless, you have to insist their food be farm2table, it's not enough to believe in climate change, you have to bike to work, it's not enough eat healthy, you have to grow your own food, it's not enough to support immigration reform- you have to shelter a migrant family.. The ridiculous list goes on forever. The far left alienates and irritates their own party and it has destroyed the DNC as a whole. I am left of center and I refuse to vote for far left candidates. Their dogma and arrogance is comparable to the far right fringe- Without true compromise, everyone loses in the end.
229
@Aaron
I concur. However that is not the problem - the problem is painting with a very large brush all those are Progressive or Liberal and espouse some of those things (not belligerently ) and being labeled ''extreme'' anyways.
It is why we are losing elections, Imho.
1
Right on.
4
Aaron, please do not be so sensitive about other people's lifestyle choices. Just check whether we have a common goal or not, and then let be. Most folks you are mentioning probably don't judge you for your lifestyle choices, so please do pretend they. Please also do not judge them for being principled.
4
The DNC has been pushing this 'stick to the center' (which these days is basically more conservative than Nixon, the center having been pulled so far to the right) discourse for years. And look how well it's worked! The fear is not losing elections (a majority of voters, after all, want universal healthcare, higher taxes on the rich, less corporate $ in government, etc) but losing control of the party's neo-liberal corporatist agenda. Harder to get that Wall Street cash if your party *actually* acts on behalf of the non-rich/elite. About 60% of eligible voters do NOT vote in midterms elections in the US. Harder to motivate voters (especially the young & disillusioned to turn out with more of the same wishy-washy don't-rock-the-boat lesser-of-2-evils DNC-approved shtick...
249
Reading Mr. Bruni's column makes me wonder whether November 2016 ever happened. It should be perfectly obvious to any reasonable person that "Democratic centrism" is an abject failure and "bipartisanship" a siren song luring Democrats to their political demise. Seriously, if Third Way's "way" was so successful, how did Trump ever manage to get elected? Why did Bill & Hillary never get more than 48% of the national vote? Why are Democrats the minority party?
Conor Lamb's district is not some bastion of affluent, Tory Republican voters. My family is from Apollo, Pa. If you ever travel through it, what you'll find are a restive people living in dilapidated towns who've been left behind by overly rapid economic change. Democratic centrism - Clintonism - has no message for these people. It's all about Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Big Entertainment while fetishizing every conceivable identity group except those who happen to be declasse or have-nots with no 'excuse.'
If my remarks sound petulant, they are intended to be. Dems will win this year, but the victory will only be a reactionary one. In the short-term, fine. But unless the liberal movement can come up with something more compelling than tired Clinton/Obama centrism and its current geriatric leadership, we'll have Trump again in 2020.
504
"It should be perfectly obvious to any reasonable person that "Democratic centrism" is an abject failure ... Seriously, if Third Way's "way" was so successful, how did Trump ever manage to get elected? Why did Bill & Hillary never get more than 48% of the national vote? Why are Democrats the minority party?"
Wrong! Dems lost in 2016 precisely because they embraced "identity politics" which is emphatically not the center and which, however well-intentioned, doesn't play well in middle America.
5
Oh, I am so with you. Third Way is a colossal farce. This 'centrist' thing is nothing but Republican Lite. It's gutless and inane.
Just before Super Tuesday, I watched an old geezer New Hampshire resident explain to a reporter how he was trying to decide between Trump and Sanders. I can tell you, it gave me pause. Plenty of people, young and old, were responding to populist messages--from a grifter who figured out what people wanted to hear (that's what con men do--listen, tell people what they want to hear, then play them for fools,) and from a man who spent over twenty years working as a US Congressman and Senator, a man who remembered a time before the Clintons, before Reagan, when we didn't have extreme income inequality. A time when the government would have at least seen the people left behind in your home town. No one really sees them now, including the grifter who just gave his billionaire pals a tax cut.
Personally, I feel little hope. Americans would readily embrace the idea of democratic socialism, but they've been taught that government is a boot on their necks rather than the optimal agency for creating a robust society in which our abundance of wealth is shared through well-funded public education, universal health care, and a living wage instead of a poverty wage. These ideas should 'sit well' with everybody. But, between the right-wing media brainwashing and the tepid approach of Third Way and centrist Democrats, I just shudder with disgust.
15
You said it!
1
The problem as I see it is that the country has been pulled so far to the right since the 1980s that the supposed "center" is now where the far right used to be.
Certain political positions that used to be fairly centrist are now regarded as far left, such as support for organized labor. The Democrats used to support labor unions, but then became "GOP Lite" and turned their collective backs on them.
Democrats need first of all to stop "playing" politics. The Republicans have built their own media empires in talk radio and television; they have massively funded think tanks; they have played the long game and are now seizing their prize.
What have the Democrats done? Conceded graciously when two presidential elections were stolen; supported the illegal invasion of Iraq; and worst of all, they wasted the best possible opportunity in 2008 to bury the Republican Party until the mid-21st Century.
Time to fight. Even if you lose. Time for the Democrats to stand for something in a way that every single American can see.
I will leave the "center" to Mr. Bruni.
363
Gardening was Michelle Obama's initiative anyway. The Obama family is not far-left. Second, the program was intended to get children to eat healthier. No one cares whether you garden or not. The local farmers market has great raspberries and walking to the park is more fun than a grocery store. By all means, shop at Walmart if you want. I don't care. Some people enjoy commuting by bike. It's a personal choice. As for immigrants, I live with an immigrant now. It's not a political issue. He's just my roommate.
So what far-left are you talking about? This sounds more like the affluent Clinton center to me. The people who make six figure salaries and shop at Whole Foods. Consumerism as political engagement. "I donated to our local food shelter and can you believe it? I even volunteered once." These are the same people who would come out in force if the city council suggested locating a food shelter in their neighborhood. "We like poor people but we to need to think about real estate values first."
The far-left more closely resembles the Occupy Wall Street movement. More accurately, the far-left echos Occupy Wall Street by way of Bernie Sanders. An emphasis on large government social programs underwritten by small scale community activism. There's the obvious desire to restructure the tax code more progressively as well. Gender and social considerations mostly revolve around economic equality. Women deserve the same opportunities and pay as anyone else. How is that irritating?
What exactly COULD Obama and the Democrats have done differently after their 2008 victory that would not have led to a civil war? Do you really think single payer would not have offended Republicans enough to bring out their large turnout in 2010?
4
What exactly COULD Obama and the Democrats have done differently after their 2008 victory that would not have led to a civil war?
1
The Democrats just tried this stupid strategy and lost. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Add no leadership changes to this equation and now the Democratic Party is officially insane.
The party has been following this “centrist” strategy since 1992 and the country has efficiently marched rightward. It’s time to attract voters who don’t usually vote, and more of them are sympathetic with a left agenda than a centrist one.
391
Do you really believe that Hillary Clinton lost in Nov. 16 because her policies were too centrist? You think that’s what the election came down to: a disagreement over policy? Please.
Revisit Democratic policy pre-1992 and tell us how the Clinton platform differed from, say, Jimmy Carter’s in ‘80, Walter Mondale’s in ‘84, or Michael Dukakis’s in ‘88.
In 2016, “progressives” opted to vote their consciences and in the process handed the election to the worst candidate in US history. Talk about insane.
11
These so called "moderate" Democrats are the Blue Dogs who prevented the ACA from including the public option which would have at least given the majority of Americans, a chance at affordable insurance. Instead we got the AEI framed unworkable Romney Care.
What do we get other than an illusion when these DINOs vote Republican every time?
1
You don't understand.
You thought Hilary Clinton was a centralist.
There are many who have a different opinion.
They thought she was too liberal.
That's why they voted for Trump.
People who were liberal did vote for her and they would vote for a centralist again just to defeat Trump.
The Democrats will therefore not pick up a lot of seats but thy will lose me and many like me who voted for Hilary Clinton.
2
Frank is discussing House races here and he is spot on.
You can't win without the far left but you can't win with only the far left. Would you rather have 180 far-left, ideological pure Dems in the House with no power or a coalition of 230 total Dems, left and center and the majority? I'd rather have the 230 to set the agenda. Would you rather have Connor Lamb supporting the Dems some or most of the time, or a right-wing Republican obstructing the Dems? You actually have to win something to wield power. Win the House, win the Senate, win the White House, otherwise the policy differences (which are actually quite small) are meaningless.
256
Your view are what Democrats has adhered to and practiced since the 80’s.
How s that working out for the Dems again?
2
There is no "far left" in the Democratic Party. There is a modern New Deal faction who wants to bring the party back to its successful roots as a crusading social democratic party in the FDR mold, updated to the 21st century.
It is absurd to equate the fighting social democracy of a candidate like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with the proto-fascism dished up by today's GOP.
1
Far left – in the USA? Thats just absurd. What you call 'far left' is nothing of the sort.
Only in today's America could progressives wanting what the entire civilised world has – with the exception of the USA – be described as 'far left'.
Get a passport. Travel. Educate yourself.
2
I'm not looking for sexy. I still remember Doug Jones' acceptance speech. Not sexy. Almost all of it was about what he was going to do for Alabama. Didn't waste an ounce of airtime or breath disparaging Trump, or antagonizing Roy Moore or his supporters. He seemed genuinely interested in governing the state and everyone in it instead of burnishing his moral superiority. Yes, I know Roy Moore was a bit beyond the pale. But Jones -- like Obama -- won by, among other things, bringing out the African American vote. He did not do it with his charisma. Rather, his life proved his courage and complete commitment to justice for all Americans (e.g., convicting the KKK bombers).
It's great that so many different Americans are getting involved, voting, and running for office. We need new faces, all genders, new blood.
But I don't think the center or the left has cornered the market on achievement or integrity. That's what I'm looking for.
221
Oh, for heavens sake. What passes for the extreme left these days are old time, garden variety New Dealers. When exactly did it become extreme to support Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, good public schools, affordable higher education, food and housing for the poor. Oh, I know when - when the Clintons and their followers ended welfare as we knew it and built a privatized gotta be fed street to prison pipeline. No, Bernie Sanders isn’t extreme. Labeling him that way would be as wrong as calling Mr. Bruni a conservative. Then again...
546
It became "extreme" when it was determined (by logical thinking people) that the promises of "free everything" could not possibly be paid for by the productive members of society even if you taxed them at 100%
8
That's a national versus local election issue that you would do well to learn the difference between
Exactly right. Conservatives keep telling us what are practical solutions are impractical. Conservatives only attack against the New Deal has been to convince people that really want these things to be against them is to argue that these benefits will go to people who don't look like them.
Most of the things Sanders promotes are very popular and practical as most other developed countries have them.
1
Excuse me Frank, but Progressivism IS 'Pragmatic'. I fully understand the need to compromise with other views on policy, but we've had an extremist right wing agenda forced on us for the past 40 years, and look where it's gotten us. Progressivism is all about resolving society's problems by;
1. Agreeing on the problem.
2. Study the problem, gather empirical data by scientific and mathmatically sound methods.
3. Implement changes with regard to that data and beneficial aspects to the widest swaths of society, and without regard to unfounded political and economic ideology, religious mythology, bigotry and prejudice.
4. Make changes as needed to assure the goals are met.
The right has systematically through nefarious, if somewhat legal means worked to blunt Democratic ideals. They have a propaganda machine that aims to overtake our supposedly free society at all levels (Fox, SInclair, Clearchannel, et al). They have several hundred exremely rich donors who now control every aspect of government, from city, county, state and federal as well as judicial, law enforcement, and military. Many of us are tired of dancing only to 'Their' music. The mushy Third Way Left just lets the bullies roll over them, and takes money from rich moderates who are all for LGBT rights, but against economic equality. Yes, most people are moderates, but we won't get back to a moderate society by continuing to get pushed to the right.
266
Those are steps that should be followed. Abolishing (vs. modifying) border protection follows none of them.
To be equally blunt, "progressives" have been all wrapped up in shrieking about identity politics, shaming and scolding white males and the "patriarchy" before all else; and more recently styling themselves "the resistance" to Donald Trump and shrieking even louder about that;
RATHER THAN
addressing health care, security in old age, education, and the environment, all traditional Democratic concerns, speaking in terms that include the benefits of their policies for ALL citizens, delivered to ALL citizens, not preferentially by ethnic category or by means-testing, and without large, self-serving bureaucracies so that most citizens can see those policies as fair to all; and, re: Trump, letting the legal process play itself out with regard to what laws our boorish president may have broken.
The shrieking about both identity politics and Trump seems to be cathartic for progressives, but it is alienating to citizens in the political center, who are the voters who will actually make the decisions about our political future. They are the swing voters who could change Congress.
Said Otto von Bismarck, "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best."
Conor Lamb got it right. By contrast, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thrills those in love with their own moral posturing, but will bring the Democratic party down outside of her own district.
So no JP, progressives are in no way pragmatic if their rhetoric pushes swing voters farther away to the right.
3
I wish there had been a moderate society here. A careful reading of American History shows it to have never existed.
Give me a break. The right is in control of everything, because they dared to build a solid footing for their “extreme” views. A middle road will put everyone to sleep, and depress voter turnout. The left needs to build a solud foundation for their “extreme” views, energize their base, and wrest back some power. Only then, will we be able to meet in the middle.
101
I agree with you completely. Bruni is clueless about the reality we are facing in this country as liberals let alone social democrats. The GOP controls everything and their grasp is getting tighter. The spineless views articulated by Bruni need to be exposed for what they are: spineless!
3
Centrist Dems don't seem to wanna face that the fact that they have been in charge of the party for over 25 years and during that time they have managed to lose all three branches of the federal government and most of their state power as well.
At a time when they should be falling on their swords, they're demanding instead that we think like them and continue the same old failed strategy.
2
You know how they got that wall?
By starting in the middle, and elected ANYBODY they could with an R, next to their name.
Conservative voters fall in line, Liberal fall in love.
Conservative voters play the long game, knowing that every GOP they have in a seat, that much closer to their Conservative agenda.
Conservatives vote Supreme Court, Guns, Bible... etc.
They know that most of the GOP candidates will protect those things for the voters.
The Liberals still don't understand that the vote is more than about one person/ candidate.
Progress comes from the SCOTUS, most of the progress since the 60's has been the S. Court.
I wish Liberals would remember that, next time we have an election.
3
I think Ocasio-Cortez won because she actually walked around her district and listened to people and treated them like human beings. I don't think an ideology is going to carry the day, and frankly, I think many voters have become wary of people who try to fit the world to their ideology. If Democrats want to win, they will need to meet people where they are with no preconceived notions. They will need to walk around and listen to people. Otherwise, they will just be leaping from pre-vetted and approved talking point to pre-vetted and approved talking point. If you look out across the country there is crumbling infrastructure, badly written law, huge data breaches, and many other problems that require well-thought-out solutions that balance the interests of all concerned. This is the middle, and it is that it is about as sexy as plumbing repair.
54
I think what you describe has been a significant reason so many Democrats are doing well in primaries and special elections -- they are in fact speaking directly to the concerns of people in their districts. That's the way it's supposed to work. It's certainly was key to AOC's win in the NY14 (and her write-in win the in district next door). Columnists like Bruni and others make a fuss about "left" - "centrist" divides because it's a handy narrative, long in play and very familiar. But it doesn't always reflect what's happening out here where the voters are.
5
Just so. Enlightened self-government. Seems to work best for us when it involves well-regulated capitalism and balancing a healthy competent public sector (nonpartisan except for elected officials and their appointees) with a healthy private sector.
With our history we should of course take care we’re not unjustly building our economy on the backs of disfavored groups.
1
We live in Ocasio-Cortez's district and she won basically because the group that choose her to
be a candidate knew of the laziness in the district because Joe Crowley was on auto-pilot with elections. She won in the same ambush kind of way that Trump won, in my opinion. And I think its great that someone like her is entering politics. But to say that all of the these people believe in her ideology would be very far off the mark here. She is also being groomed for the seat in a parallel way to how Joe Crowley was chosen in his first run. A strategic move but not quite accurate in the media hype she has received so far.
By her own admission, she likes Crowley but the chess move of this neighborhood being lazy at voting worked in her favor this time which the algorithms knew from a consistent low voter turnout.
So far we have lost having Hillary Clinton, Al Franken and Joe Crowley as Dems all of whom have their pluses and minuses. Is this called winning? Trump thinks so.
3
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million votes.
That should not count as a loss.
She lost the election because she did not get the conservative vote in some key states.
There is no way a person to the left of her would have won those states.
You are not advocating for a leftist candidate because you are looking for a winning candidate.
You are a left wing individual who advocates their own position.
That should be expected.
What isn't acceptable is pretending to be objective and advocating as if the only thing you care about is winning.
20
Who says Bernie Sanders would not have won a couple of million more than Clinton did and beat Trump in the national election?Transitivity doesn’t necessarily work in elections, Hillary (center right) beats Bernie (center left) in primaries, therefore Hillary isbeen the right person to beat Trump. Well that did not work out. We have an archaic electoral college system so let’s not keep saying Hillary won the election because she won the national vote. The country need radical change. A centrist won’t win against the GOP, we need a radical to do that.
5
I have no idea of what Frank, or any of the think tanks described in this column, believe that "center" or "left" or "progressive" or "pragmatic" is. I believe in equality for all, free from discrimination, and the dignity of every person. I believe that healthcare is a right, and that voting is a right. I believe that the main cause of death by firearms is the proliferation of uncontrolled firearms. I believe that forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will is morally equivalent to forcing her to have an abortion against her will. I believe that corporations do not have rights under the constitution, and that money is not speech. I believe that war and capitalism are often necessary evils. I believe in science. I have no expectation that my ideals will ever be completely embraced, but I will oppose any politician who actively works against them. Where does this put me on your sexiness scale?
127
I don’t know about you but Bernie would have fared quite high on the scale based on what you correctly depict as what we need in this country now.
6
@syfredrick
You are looking very sexy to me. I might even switch teams. Excellent comment.
2