Political Sociology (Zzz-zzz-zzz)

In this Jacobin essay, Chris Maisano asks the right questions about our electoral conniptions. I like the point about DLC-style Clintonism as more a symptom than a cause. It's the damn electorate. We need a new one. It will take some persuasion.

We tend to drift towards things that are measured, like income and employment data, though it can be misleading. I include myself and where I worked for 18 years (epi.org). I once thought we were like radical insurance salesmen, focusing too narrowly on male-breadwinner (sic) and "pocketbook issues." Since then EPI has became dominated by women and POC, though it still focuses on empirical analysis.

Even so, as Maisano says, if the income/jobs stuff was the be-all and end-all, President Bernie Sanders would be sitting down with Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn. Well-off liberals have been known to vote against their class interests (e.g., indulging higher taxes). Why not lower-income workers? We still don’t have the key to unlocking the MAGA working class puzzle, though like Maisano I default to Bernie-style class politics with an added dose of Woke.

I'd also favor political treason (from a liberal perspective) on gun-related issues. I live in a nest of liberals, but I imagine they are all well-aware of the views of nearby rural white voters. I don’t think we are better off trading well-off suburban voters for those with a more tolerant or even an enthusiastic view of firearms.

There ought to be a way to imagine a humane immigration policy, short of open borders. It's inaccurate to accuse Democrats of that position, but I'd say it is the default position on the Left. When have you ever heard a left person advocating restrictions of any kind on immigration. On that and other issues (LGBTQI+, defund the police, abolish prisons), politically-untenable or downright nutty left positions tend to be attributed to the Democratic Party, with harmful electoral implications. Attributed by the Right, who know a good thing when they see it.

The trans thing comes up periodically. Bathrooms and girls’ athletics. A while ago, the historian Rick Perlstein pointed out that when you are stuck on a difficult issue — difficult to defend, even when it’s the right thing to do — the thing to do is talk about something else. A new relevant meme is that there are more kids with measles than there are trans athletes pushing their way into girls’ sports.

The Trump Administration is burning through its political support as we speak, which was limited even at its very beginning. The question is whether the legal system will sustain our legal, democratic opposition.