Disclaimer


The content on this blog is my personal opinion and does not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the US Navy in any way.


Sunday, July 21, 2019

Moderation and Enthusiasm

It's become quite normal to watch the Democrats agonizing over what the right path to victory in the next presidential election is - and then agonizing about whether the level of agony on the topic is appropriate, because of course we have to keep going deeper. The latest example of this was a New York Times editorial written by Thomas Friedman about why what he saw in the first presidential debate makes him think President Trump will be re-elected. Both it and some of the responses to it were interesting reads, even if I find the whole debate kind of tiresome.

So, which side of the debate do I think is right? The answer to that question is that it's complicated - there were some things Friedman said which made a lot of sense to me, and several things he said which seemed obviously wrong.

The biggest entry in the latter category is the notion that nominating a moderate candidate who spends all of their time talking about moderate ideas will actually help give the Democrats less of a reputation for extreme ideas among their opponents. I don't think that's likely; I think even if the "squad" completely vanished from public life tomorrow along with half of the presidential candidates, the Republican media will simply find something else (whether or not it's actually relevant or significant) to use as an example of extremism.

The ideas Friedman talks about in the latter half of his editorial are quite instructive. Democrats that focus on building up small businesses and the economy may be moderate by his definition, but I'm willing to bet that the sort of regulations and investment he describes will still be dismissed as socialism by most Republicans. If nothing else, such Democrats will simply be accused of laying the groundwork to pursue their true intentions later. So I don't really hold the more progressive Democrats responsible for making the party appear more extreme. It may be slightly easier for the other side to make that argument with them around, but telling them to take a hike isn't going to protect us enough to be worth it. I'd rather have the energy and new ideas they bring, even if many of those ideas are things I disagree with.

What makes it complicated is the balancing act between kicking people out for being too extreme and letting those people dominate the entire conversation. The above explains why I don't want to do the former, but it also means we can't use that particular tool to prevent the latter from happening, and most other means for doing so are not particularly effective. I would like to suggest that the moderate wing should be more vocal and enthusiastic about their ideas, but it turns out they're not quite as good at that as the progressive wing is.

Then again, the fact that articles like Friedman's are so common is its own argument that the moderate wing is having their say, even if we are spending plenty of time discussing the progressive wing's ideas (and defending them from unjustifiable attacks). Which is why I opened this by saying I find this debate tiresome... I actually don't think there's much to be worried about in either direction, even if I know that we're going to continue to go back and forth about some of the exact details.

No comments:

Post a Comment