The Election Will Not Involve Public Policy

If the current President were a generic Republican like Mike Pence or Marco Rubio, the forthcoming election would be a very interesting one for Democrats. Until Obama’s election, wealth-focused centrism had been dominant in the party for well over a decade. Clinton capitulated to the idea that “big government” was bad, and he gutted welfare and shifted to a pro-business focus. Labor unions were on the decline, and money won elections, so Dems decided rather than beating the wealthy and their business interests, they’d steal them from the GOP. 

Obama pushed the party as far left as the most conservative GOP senator would allow, and created the opportunity for party activists to challenge the Clinton orthodoxy. That orthodoxy was effectively shattered with Bernie’s run in 2016. He lost the election but, after decades of fighting for progressive policies common in other countries, won the larger war. Hillary moved well to the left in 2016—and that wasn’t what did her in—and candidates in 2020 have been further to the left still. We always talk about moderates and liberals (or conservatives) as if they are fixed, unchanging properties. But the median moderate in 2020 is left of Obama in 2008. (Obama was, at least publicly, against gay marriage, and wouldn’t even discuss cannabis legalization, just to illustrate what’s changed.)

So in a normal year, we’d be having a fascinating policy debate about where the party should be headed. I personally don’t think Medicare for All is the best way to get to a public health care system. But it’s a great debate. People have interesting and nuanced arguments about which elements of the Green New Deal should be pursued. Even without Trump, the question of what liberal foreign policy should look like has been urgent since Obama’s tenure. Big, fascinating proposals like wealth taxes and universal basic income are on the table for the first time in a presidential election. There are a lot of amazing new ideas floating around.

Instead, though, every proposal is instantly filtered through one lens: is this position so extreme it will cause Dems to lose to Trump again? Among the candidates and activists these issues are getting discussed, of course. But the second they get anywhere near the mainstream media or a discussion about the general election, all consideration of policy is dropped, the position is collapsed into a single summary (extreme, outside the mainstream, unpopular) and discussed as a millstone around the candidate’s neck.

This is how politics works. Narratives form, and good politicians are adept at shaping them. But as a Dem who’s focused on policy, it’s frustrating that I’m not getting to hear substantive debates about these issues beyond, “Senator, do you think your position on _________ makes you too extreme to beat President Trump?”