At UnHerd today, Ruy Teixeira has a must-read entitled "Joe Biden's False Optimism." His main point it that Democrats are unequipped to build upon current political advantages, saddled as they are with identity politics militancy, climate alarmism and apparent indifference to the southern border crisis as well as the government's ever-worsening debt and deficit situation.
If all one is looking for is results, regardless of their implications, Biden's actually had a fairly successful run of late:
. . . Biden has embarked on a road trip to help voters “know about what we’re doing”. He has visited Michigan, Arizona, Kentucky, Ohio and Baltimore, Maryland, touting the job-creating wonders of three big bills his administration has passed: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; the Chips and Science Act (semiconductors) and the Inflation Reduction Act (climate). Moreover, in a play for the working-class vote, he has been at pains to emphasise the blue-collar benefits of these bills: “The vast majority of [the] jobs … that we’re going to create don’t require a college degree.”
But then there's the inability to wrest the party free from the tar pits of progressivism:
The cultural Left has managed to associate the Democratic Party with a series of views on crime, immigration, policing, free speech, race and gender that are far removed from those of the median voter. This represents a victory for the cultural Left, but has proved an electoral liability for the party as a whole.
From time to time, senior Democratic politicians attempt to dissociate themselves from unpopular ideas such as defunding the police, yet progressive voices within the party are still more deferred to than opposed. They are further amplified by Democratic-leaning media and non-profits, as well as within the party infrastructure itself. In an era when a party’s national brand increasingly defines state and even local electoral contests, Democratic candidates have a very hard time shaking these associations.
Biden clearly intends to do very little, if not “nothing”, about this problem. His administration is much happier talking about gun control than actually getting criminals off the streets and into jail. The burgeoning backlash against ideological curricula in schools, the undermining of academic achievement standards, the introduction of mandatory, politically-approved vocabulary, the absurdities of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) programmes and the excesses of “gender-affirming care” are uniformly characterised by his party as nothing more than “hateful” bigotry rather than serious concerns. The out-of-control southern border, which is experiencing historically unprecedented levels of illegal immigration, has finally provoked an administration response, but its complicated mix of looser and tighter restrictions seems likely only to muddle things further, while provoking howls of outrage from allies in the influential immigrant advocacy community.
So the economic happy talk prevails. But Teixeira detects a whistling-past-the-graveyard to it:
The idea that Democrats can just turn up the volume on economic issues and ignore their unpopular stances on sociocultural issues is absurd. Culture matters and the issues to which they are connected matter. They are a hugely important part of how voters assess who is on their side and who is not; whose philosophy they can identify with and whose they can’t.
Instead, for working-class voters to seriously consider their economic pitch, Democrats need to convince them that they are not looked down on, that their concerns are taken seriously and that their views on culturally freighted issues will not be summarily dismissed as unenlightened. With today’s party, unfortunately, this will be difficult. Resistance has been, and remains, stiff to any compromise that might involve moving to the centre on such issues, a problem that talking more about economic issues simply ignores.
And now, how are things going on the other side of the aisle?
Aaron Renn is a Manhattan Institute fellow, but he's based in Indianapolis and spends a great deal of time focused on Indiana politics.
At Politico today, he asserts that the the potential for ugliness with which that state's Senate race is fraught is a microcosm of the fate-deciding struggle for the Republican Party's soul at the national level. The two most likely candidates - actually, one has already announced - represent the two forces vying for victory in that struggle:
Party officials and insiders are girding for an increasingly nasty primary battle for an open Senate seat between Rep. Jim Banks, who has declared, and former Purdue University president and former two-term Gov. Mitch Daniels, who appears increasingly poised to join the race. Daniels is expected to announce his intentions soon, according to one GOP senator. The ensuing fight could open years-old fault lines between the establishment and Trumpist wings of the party.
So often, as is the case in this Renn piece, the merest highlights of Daniels's career are offered: his stints as Indiana governor and Purdue University president. But his resume is a rich and varied chronicle of accomplishment. He was director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration. For a while he was president of the Hudson Institute when it was headquartered in Indianapolis. He also spent some time heading up pharmaceutical giant Lilly's North American operations.
Also, a note about Renn's characterization that Daniel's represents a "genteel midwestern conservatism" is warranted. It's true enough, broadly speaking. Until the, um, unfortunate insertion of MAGA-ism into the mix, Indiana Republican politicians and party officials were reliably civil and toward. I guess "country club" makes for adequate shorthand. But Daniels has something that distinguishes him from that image. He is and always has been committed to a vision that has driven his policy formulations. Its a vision that leans more toward ideas like fiscal soundness (he's famously kept Purdue tuitions from rising for several years) than an interest in addressing cultural issues (in fact, he once suggested that America declare a "truce" on those), but he certainly hasn't given a nod to the various forms of erosion our society has experienced. (Drool-besotted MAGA columnist Kurt Schlichter did use the fact that Purdue, like virtually all higher-learning institutions has a DEI office, as a major piece of evidence that this marks Daniels as a milquetoast. I would counter that, given progressivism's entrenchment in higher ed, resisting such a move may have proved a distraction from what Daniels saw as the most valuable use of his resources as Purdue president. There were no doubt layers of board and committee votes leading up to the establishment of such an office; it's not something the school president creates or ends with a flick of the wrist.)
Jim Banks embodies my main - and deep - frustration with what MAGA has done to the conservative vision. Actual conservatives can find points of solid agreement with his positions on student debt forgiveness, health care, taxation, the environment, people who aren't born yet, and identity politics, but his support for the far-and-away-worst president in US history irreparably sullies his record. This has been especially so since the November 2020 election.
Renn has an extensive knowledge of the history of the relationship between these two men:
Banks and Daniels had a cordial phone call last week, according to four Republicans briefed on the call, during which the younger Hoosier said he respected Daniels. Banks had organized an event on a northeastern farm for the former governor ahead of his first gubernatorial run nearly two decades ago.
Daniels, who had considered initially trying to clear the field by discouraging Banks from running, did not do so on the call. The reason, according to a person familiar with the call, was that he believed he could effectively contrast himself with Banks should he choose to run.
The Club for Growth enters into the picture as well:
Further complicating matters is the Club for Growth, which has launched an ad backed by five figures that are running statewide and says Daniels is “not the right guy for Indiana anymore.” The group is willing to spend up to $10 million.
Club for Growth Action President David McIntosh and Daniels go back, as Daniels elbowed him out of the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2004. And allies of the former governor don’t hold back their pique at the spots being run.
“Club for Growth f–ked up because they basically forced Mitch to run with that ad,” this person said. “Mitch Daniels is a dude that plans out when he takes a s–t,” this person added, but the ad forces Daniels to defend his conservative record.
While Indiana Republican strategists speculated that the ad against Daniels was the result of lingering personal animosity McIntosh has for Daniels, Joe Kildea, a spokesperson for the Club, scoffed at the suggestion.
“It’s speculation, false, we won’t be dignifying it with a response, and it deserves no place in print,” said Kildea.
So both parties have deadly serious infections for which there don't seem to be any antibiotics. Dems can't shake the grip of the social-justice and climate craziness, and the Republicans are so ate up with ongoing enthrallment to the Very Stable Genius - and think it's so clever to emulate his most disgusting traits - that the American populace has understandable difficulty discerning any underlying coherent vision based on any kind of body of principles on either side.
If that needle doesn't move in the next year and a half, my voting behavior will be what it has been.
I'll stay home.
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