The end result is of course populism. Each election cycle gets us closer to the policy positions of the Republicans being "Immigrants are bad" and Democrats being "Billionaires are bad".
We know where populism leads, and we've seen it for decades in south america. In a few decades, we will get to choose between the populist far left and the populist far right. Policy will get crazier and crazier and measurable societal outcomes will stagnate and perhaps go backwards.
This will continue as long as social media is the primary form of entertainment in the US.
Unfortunately, ignoring the public sphere and pretending that professionals are above such things is why we're now stuck with someone like Robert Kennedy Jr running HHS. This guy grew enough of a following and movement to reach a position of power and influence and he was barely challenged by experts all along the way.
RFK jr running HHS is the wave of the future. Unfortunately, we will continue to have non-experts who generate high engagement content running policy decisions more and more in the future.
I don't see why you'd assume that only non-experts will generate high engagement content.
I don't disagree but such a sweeping assumption surely needs some argumentation and elucidation. Understating the mechanics of this quite unnatural state of affairs is vastly more valuable that the mere observation of its existence.
All I've seen to date are appeals to human nature but that's a highly misleading line of reasoning that creates more confusion about both human nature and the forces driving content creation.
Experts invest time in becoming experts in their field. Youtubers invest time in generating high engagement content and attracting more viewers. Can't have both.
> The end result is of course populism. Each election cycle gets us closer to the policy positions of the Republicans being "Immigrants are bad" and Democrats being "Billionaires are bad".
Except immigrants have nothing to do with how bad things are going, while billionaires (and what they represent) are effectively the architects of this situation. "Billionaires are bad" is an oversimplified, but ultimately correct analysis of the issues of our time.
FDR basically saved the country from fascism with his "robber barons are bad" campaign. I deplore the fall into populism just as much as the next guy, but this is what the situation calls for. Social networks only play a minor part in all of this. Material conditions are degrading, and unrest will only grow until they start improving.
This country's governance has been subservient to capital, basically forever, and unchecked private power is now eating it from the inside. This is what must be fixed if this republic is to have any future, and the populist left is the only band of the political spectrum that at least acknowledges the issue.
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[1] I will never have enough money.
That would actually be a major improvement over what we have. Right now public policy decisions seem to get hashed out by nutjob activists on social media, not "average people."
Also the "research[ers and] experts" need to own up to their own responsibility for this situation. Right now we live in a populist moment because they got caught up in their own ideology and group-think, which created an opening for someone like Donald Trump. They should have seen the problems he used to build his support, and came up with effective solutions for them.
Last election cycle, the incumbent president was pushed out of the race, largely initiated by an actor that lacks a college degree.
I think this is really the core dispute, and I'd encourage the author to take it more seriously. Does the Democratic coalition work without pro-corporate liberals on board? How many people would jump ship if you excommunicated Reed Hastings and Ezra Klein, and which are the Republican voters who would be swayed to replace (and hopefully more-than-replace) them? Without good answers to these questions, there's a very real risk of creating an energized, passionate, anti-corporate Democratic party which simply does not have any path to 270 electoral votes.
"Chuck Schumer still imagines America as it was in 1980", in the author's words. But what this means is that Chuck Schumer remembers an era where California was a Republican stronghold, a poorly constructed Democratic coalition led to three consecutive Republican landslides, and they hung on in Congress only by maintaining the loyalty of legacy segregationists. He knows that it can happen again.
By people do you mean voters or donors?
I suspect that approximately zero voters would care.
> which are the Republican voters who would be swayed to replace (and hopefully more-than-replace) them?
This is a false dichotomy. At this point, Republicans cannot be swayed by anything. Trump just said that Rob Reiner was murdered because of "Trump Derangement Syndrome". It's impossible for him to lose his loyal followers, no matter what he does or anyone else does.
Both major political parties are extremely unpopular among nonpartisans. They plug their noses and vote, if they vote at all. In the 2024 Presidential election, 37% of eligible voters voted for neither, mostly for nothing, whereas only 32% of eligible voters voted for Trump. Swing voters and nonvoters are not necessarily "moderate". That's a myth. They're nonpartisan, which is not to say that they're "between" the two parties. Many of them hardly even pay attention to politics. There's a lot of room to appeal to people who are disaffected with the system.
The most popular politician in the US is Bernie Sanders. And the reason is that he's the most popular politician among political independents. He's not the most popular politician among Democrats (which is why he lost the Democratic nomination), and obviously he's not the most popular politician among Republicans, but across the whole spectrum, he's more popular than anyone else.
It's also important to note that it wasn't until after the Reagan Presidency (and arguably due to its policies) that the ultra-wealthy came to monopolize most increases in personal income, so populism itself wouldn't have been as popular in the 1980s as it is now, as economic disparity has grown unabated in the decades since.
I doubt anyone's polled this specific question, but I would encourage you to calibrate against voter support for, say, capitalism. Guess how many Americans support capitalism, look up the polled number, and see if it surprises you. Perhaps no voters would care about a personal vendetta against one or two specific people, but a lot of voters would care if Democrats took the position that capitalism is bad and we've got to fight it.
> This is a false dichotomy. At this point, Republicans cannot be swayed by anything. Trump just said that Rob Reiner was murdered because of "Trump Derangement Syndrome". It's impossible for him to lose his loyal followers, no matter what he does or anyone else does.
This is, again, an analysis that doesn't make much sense when you recognize that coalitions are not static. A number of Trump voters voted for Obama in 2008, felt for some reason or another that they had to "plug their noses and vote" for Trump, and will end up voting for whoever the next Democratic president is. One of the key reasons Sanders is relatively popular among non-Democrats is that he gets this and messages accordingly; his argument is never that some large group of voters is bad or unreachable, always that they've been tricked.
I personally think anyone who could ever vote for Trump is a terrible person, and would never be willing to solicit or rely on their support for anything, but that's why I'm not a politician.
Guess how many Americans support Medicare For All, look up the polled number, and see if it surprises you.
None of the populist Democrats that I'm aware of have run on abolishing capitalism, not even self-described socialist Bernie Sanders. Not Mamdani either. It's just a question of how much of a role we allow the government in the capitalist system, how much regulation, and how many public services. Nobody thinks that the US is a socialist or communist country because we have the US Postal Service, for example, or a public military. Socialized medicine would not make the US non-capitalist either, any more than it does it Canada or Europe.
> A number of Trump voters voted for Obama in 2008
Yes, but they're obviously not Republicans! They're swing voters. Thus, what I said in your quotation of me does not apply to them. In 2020, Biden won swing voters, whereas in 2024, Trump won swing voters. They swing from one side to the other. They're not partisan, not loyal to a party or a person. This was my point: you can't move Republicans, but you can move independents, and there are actually a lot of independents.
In one year of "governing", Trump has already lost many independents. He's much more unpopular now than he was on election day. The ones who remain supportive are the loyalists. Last I checked the polls, over 85% of self-identified Republicans still approve. (And non-approval doesn't mean they wouldn't vote for him again, or would vote for a Democrat as opposed to not voting or voting for a right-wing 3rd party candidate.)
I predict that it's a large majority, >60%, and am unsurprised to see a poll saying 65% (https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2025/11/medicare-for-al...). As with universal background checks, the challenge is not coming up with a slogan that gets lots of support but refining it into a concrete policy proposal without losing too much.
If you were following politics during the Obama presidency, you'll recall the "you can keep your plan" saga, where a number of voters expected that healthcare reform shouldn't affect which doctors they can see or what coverage they have, a standard which even the ACA couldn't meet and no Medicare For All proposal could even approach. Another big problem is that the American Medical Association opposes Medicare For All, and people generally trust doctors more than politicians about healthcare.
> Yes, but they're obviously not Republicans! They're swing voters. Thus, what I said in your quotation of me does not apply to them. In 2020, Biden won swing voters, whereas in 2024, Trump won swing voters. They swing from one side to the other. They're not partisan, not loyal to a party or a person. This was my point: you can't move Republicans, but you can move independents, and there are actually a lot of independents.
Again, this is something where I'd encourage people to put themselves in Chuck Schumer's shoes. If you applied this attitude in the 1980s, you'd have to conclude that Democrats should simply give up on trying to win the presidency; there aren't enough swing voters, the Republican candidate keeps winning in blowouts, and certainly there's no point trying to compete in solid Republican states like California. If you're behind right now and want to start winning elections, you simply can't start from the premise that anyone who identifies with the other side is unreachable. It's true that the Republican candidate will always win the vast majority of self-identified Republicans, but the size and shape of that set can be greatly influenced by political strategy.
Yes, and I don't think I'd be surprised about how many Americans support capitalism. I generally support capitalism.
> healthcare reform shouldn't affect which doctors they can see
> no Medicare For All proposal could even approach
Of course you couldn't keep your plan but why couldn't you keep your doctor when all doctors would be under the single government plan? It's not like the public loves health insurance companies.
> the American Medical Association opposes Medicare For All, and people generally trust doctors more than politicians about healthcare.
This seems like an equivocation. People don't necessarily trust doctors about politics. Moreover, trusting your doctor is not the same as trusting the AMA.
> Again, this is something where I'd encourage people to put themselves in Chuck Schumer's shoes.
Never.
> there aren't enough swing voters
Why in the world would you conclude that in the 1980s?
You know, Jimmy Carter did win in 1976, and was pretty close in California despite losing. (Carter had already become so unpopular in 1980 that he was primaried by Ted Kennedy, before he faced Reagan.) Dukakis was also pretty close in California. It's crucial to note that Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California, and Richard Nixon was Senator from California, so they had home state advantage there. Even poor Mondale won his home state of Minnesota. And note that California had a Democratic Governor (Jerry Brown) in 1980.
> If you're behind right now and want to start winning elections, you simply can't start from the premise that anyone who identifies with the other side is unreachable.
I would submit that 2020s Republicans are not 1980s Republicans. After decades of right-wing media indoctrination, Republicans are now detached from reality and believe all kinds of crazy things. Approving of Trump after everything Trump has said and done is not even remotely the same as approving of Reagan.
Maybe not, but, then again, it might not work with them on board, either. The problem is that the Hastings-Klein branch of the Democratic party is incompatible with the populist/anti-corporate branch. Either one could form the basis of a viable electoral strategy, but not both at the same time. At bare minimum, they need to adopt the Republican strategy of picking one and not saying the quiet part out loud about the other.
We are probably overdue for a realignment of the two parties on the major issues, like the Grainger Movement, New Deal or Southern Strategy.
> How many people would jump ship if you excommunicated Reed Hastings and Ezra Klein, and which are the Republican voters who would be swayed to replace (and hopefully more-than-replace) them? Without good answers to these questions, there's a very real risk of creating an energized, passionate, anti-corporate Democratic party which simply does not have any path to 270 electoral votes.
Some large fraction (enough to tip the election) voted mainly on "are prices higher today than 4 years ago?" and "are jobs harder to find than they were 4 years ago?". The current administration's campaign largely got the diagnosis right, even if its prescription is the political equivalent of bloodletting and leeches.
Those are easy pickings for an anti-corporate Democratic party with the right message. By contrast, voters economically aligned with Hastings-Klein make up probably only 10% (the most wealthy 10%) of the population. That seems like an obvious trade. The two problems are: the money spigot turns off if you make that trade; and to really pull off this strategy probably requires a tricky (without seeming heartless) policy realignment on certain parts of immigration policy.
OTOH, they could fully align with Hasting-Klein economically. But that requires a different set of policy realignment tradeoffs to remain viable: A significant rightward shift on most social issues (like LGBTQ rights, guns, religion in schools and police) to peel off some of those voters from the Republican party. Probably also pot legalization and assistance for drug-addicted rural voters.
ploden•1mo ago
criddell•1mo ago
c-linkage•1mo ago
And if you work for a living, you don't have money.
hulitu•1mo ago
vkou•1mo ago
The former are nearly indistinguishable between eachother. The latter are something entirely different, and have purged all the non-crazy from their party.
MaxfordAndSons•1mo ago
barbazoo•1mo ago
vunderba•1mo ago
vkou•1mo ago
Will be a one-party system.
Because there is no legal pathway[1] towards solving the conditions that create the two party system, but there are many illegal offramps that will get rid of one of those parties.
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[1] There are way too many obstacles, and the bar for consensus is too high to legally have these reforms. The bar is much lower for having them illegally - all you need is a single-party trifecta - lead by the kinds of people who'd start a coup rather than relinquish power.
TulliusCicero•1mo ago
Portland's new city council setup, with four districts and three representatives each based on ranked choice voting, is a step in that direction.
vkou•1mo ago
TulliusCicero•1mo ago
nickthegreek•1mo ago
websiteapi•1mo ago
ClayShentrup•1mo ago
ClayShentrup•1mo ago
RickJWagner•1mo ago
The fences on many countries are to keep people in. For the US, it is to keep people out.