Back in 1983, the British Labour Party, traumatized by Margaret Thatcher, contested a general election on a distinctly anti-American platform calling for unilateral disarmament, stepped up socialism, and other crazy ideas that the British press called the longest suicide note any political party had ever proposed. (They also couldn’t help themselves by embracing a offensive slogan about Thatcher, “Ditch the bitch!”) Thatcher crushed Labour, in one of the largest landslides in British history. Of course, that was then, and nowadays Labour said, “hold my beer,” and summoned up Jeremy Corbyn.
In any case, the media is starting to get alarmed that the Democratic presidential field is lurching too far to the left, and may be assuring Trump’s re-election. Jennifer Rubin worries:
Democrats also give Trump the upper hand when they are willing accept the role he’s designated for them: Socialists. We’ve already heard his Green New Deal attack. Socialists want to take away your car and outlaw cows (or the reverse)!
Likewise, if you promise to take away private health insurance, Trump would be delighted to run on “Democrats say you can’t keep your doctor.”
It would be a particularly egregious error for Democrats to identify with proposals that are non-starters (Abolish ICE! Reparations!). It’s an unforced error with no upside. If you have to go so far out on the left-wing to attract support, chances are you’re not making the case effectively to an electoral majority.
One of the Post‘s other liberal columnists, Richard Cohen, beat her to this theme several days ago:
Democrats Are Wrapping a Gift for Trump
I don’t quite know what a handbasket is, but the Democratic Party is heading in one to electoral hell with its talk of socialism and reparations. Given a Republican incumbent who has never exceeded 50 percent in Gallup’s approval ratings poll and who won the presidency thanks to a dysfunctional electoral college, the party is nevertheless determined to give Donald Trump a fair shot at re-election by sabotaging itself. In fact, it’s veering so far to the left it could lose an election in 1950s Bulgaria.
Likewise Ed Kilgore in New York magazine:
Will 2020 Democrats Help Trump By Destroying Each Other?
. . . It would be smart for Democrats right now to make sure that on November 4, 2020, they aren’t looking down the barrel of an eight-year Trump presidency and wondering how their party blew it again.
This advice is falling on deaf ears mostly. I think the left believes that Trump is so weak and beatable that now is the moment to go for it with the most left platform possible. A lot of liberals have talked themselves into believing that the hard left is the new center. Politicooffers for example:
Democrats Must Reclaim the Center … by Moving Hard Left
. . . The Democratic Party must reclaim the political center. And the only way to do that is by boldly moving toward the so-called “radical” left.
If you look at the press clippings for AOC you can see why this appeals to the confirmation bias of a leftist, never mind that most “progressive” candidates actually fared rather poorly in the midterm election just past.
Beyond the media, there is an entire theory from the academy and coffee houses of Cambridge, Berkeley, and Madison to the effect that Democrats have been too far to the right for a long long time. Maybe my favorite example of leftists determined to brew up the Kool Aid for the 2020 campaign comes from The New Republic, a former magazine, where Alex Sheppard writes of “The Overdue Death of Democratic ‘Pragmatism.’”
Now I’d be the first to celebrate the death of capital-P “Pragmatism,” on the grounds that it doesn’t work, but what Sheppard really means is the kind of “moderation” under people like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair that is now despised on the left as “neoliberalism.” This paragraph strikes me as especially wacko:
There are some hints that Dems are going to try to keep the party alive past this election:
Democratic Party chairs in the four early presidential states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) are working to convince the 2020 presidential candidates to avoid waging social media disinformation warfare against each other.
Here’s their letter:
I guess this means any time a Dem candidate is exposed as a liar, fraud, hypocrite, thief, deviant, addict, etc., it will be claimed that a Republican did it, not a “fellow” Dem.
Fake News, Fake Hate Crimes, now Fake Campaigning.
Democrats would rather campaign to the lowest IQ adults ones they created in the failing educational system of I am entitled, not I earned it attitudes.
The no idea how government works, economic basics, history, logic or anything else , free range victims. Those are the voters of the Democrat party.
Tell them what the country can do for me, what can I get without earning it. Do not ever, never tell them how much it will actually cost each tax payer individually nor the quality or actual value of the free stuff. Of course how the free stuff is rationed out the limited choices also must be kept a secret.
I would expect the campaign of whomever the DNC decides their voters want to go exactly as Obama’s first campaign went. During the primaries, the candidates will scramble to see who can go the furthest left the fastest, each trying to out-“I hate America” the other for the support of the most bitter, socialist, anti-American dregs among them. Once the nomination is won, on goes the US flag pin and out comes the centrist, bipartisan, kumbaya campaign of strong defense, strong economy, jobs and prosperity. The only difference is they won’t have a liberal-catalyzed recession to push them over the top this time.
There are already signs that the coalition that allowed the Dems to retake the House is being torn apart by the very freshmen that it elected. Those would largely be the most socialist of the lot.
As the Dem. party successes ALWAYS depend on coalitions to win, particularly in national elections, AND as all signs point to 1. a huge number of 2020 candidates for the office of president that will necessarily dilute ALL of their messages, and 2. the entrance of numerous third party candidates that will certainly siphon off significant numbers of democratic voters, I’d say that 2020 is Trump’s to win or lose as he chooses
The Democrat Lemming running off the cliff and more and more are following
@Spurwing Plover:
Yep. Dems are famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.