I’ve been seeing this argument recently: the prog caucus should let the bipartisan bill through. “Something is better than nothing”, “It’s their job to help people as best they can” you’ve probably seen a few reasons.
These people are idiots, obviously. if you’ve been following politics at all...or have day to day experience...or think this out a little bit..or any other reason, you’ll know giving moderates what they want/not punishing them after they demanded extra conditions (a compromised, reduced bill, a separate bipartisan bill etc.) break the agreement anyway, all to oppose some highly important programs, just encourages them to do this sort of thing over and over.
Why would anyone make this argument? There’s a bigger problem here.
The 1950's sitcom of politics
Look through a typical collection of Daily Kos Diaries. See the range of issues they cover. Immigration enforcement. Police and crime. Various things happening in specific groups of people, racial/demographic groups, particular cities or other locations, types of workers. Maybe financial issues come up, problems in baking, or paying for heal care. One that shows up over and over again, and is particularly important in this infrastructure bill, is global warming. Lots and lots of articles about this subject.
In most of these cases, if there’s a problem to solve or an improvement to be made, said solutions or improvements are either stereotypically progressive or leftist, or are things any part of the political spectrum could do.
But when the time comes to elect said progressives, or when a conflict occurs with moderates, it’s a different story. If you read comments here, or twitter, or possibly news reports, you get a different story. Raise your hand if any of these are familiar:
-”Progressives need to compromise, no one gets everything they want”
-”People don’t care about issue, they care about (something else, usually smaller scale/not longer term)”
-”They are in blue areas, they need to understand what moderates in redder areas are dealing with”
-”Progressives need moderates so shouldn’t criticize them”
-”Stop fighting democrats”
(I’m writing this mostly in one go with maybe some editing, so have forgotten a lot along these lines. You readers can probably think of more.)
These criticisms rarely apply to moderates. I have no memory, for example, of seeing “Stop criticizing Ocasio Cortez! we need to be unified and need to stay unified” or “moderates need to stop complaining and compromise! the prog proposals are solid and highly useful!” or anything similar. The second is often unlikely because moderates rarely ask for things anyway when left/right issues come up, instead just attacking whatever the leftier people are proposing. (See this infrastructure bill’s “we have to spend less money...somehow on something”, but also the 2020 primary and before’s “Medicare for all is bad, we need…..some increased eligibility maybe? something or others? Whatever, doesn’t matter. Look, medicare for all is just bad.”).
If all this seems weird to you, also think of the very similar dem vs. rep situation. As just about all of you have seen, democrats get asked/told:
-”You’re being too demanding in (some specific area, racial stuff, or taxes, or spending money are popular) you need to compromise to attract (some demographic, or rural/”real america” in general)”
-”Listen to Trump supporters, you need to stop being arrogant and understand their anger.”
-”How will democrats fix (debt ceiling, COVID, quite a lot of other things.” with no mention of republicans helping out.
-”Is this bipartisan” Which republicans are not expected to be. Or the related “Republicans won, they have a mandate. Democrats won, will they still think of Republicans?”
I’m sure you can think of others.
So what is going on?
A lot of you on this site, plus political commenters, politicians, people in general (and any other p’s you can think of.) have a mental model I call the Stereotypical Housewife Model. In this mental model, the leftier side (Democrats in general, leftier democrats vs. moderates, moderate republicans vs. the totally nuts.) and the more competent people (think public health vs. antivax) are expected to look out for others, take care of and fix problems, put others first, be kind and caring, accommodate others feeling’s (do you see where the name comes from?). Meanwhile, the rightier side (moderate democrats within party, Republicans in generate, totally nuts within Republicans)gets to be in charge, and is expected to be aggressive, fight for things, be a general pain in the ass if needed, receive deference, etc.
You than get a closely related belief, that leftish/progressive people must not have power or score a win (Or democrats as a whole, for many people.).
We can’t do that nice thing! It’s just...wrong.
These don’t seem like conscious thoughts most of the time, I almost never see someone say “The leftier side should be kept out of power no matter what”. But they shoes up over and over again in people’ behavior, these thoughts operate on a very subconscious, gut feeling/emotional, Limbo from Inception level. Voting for, say, minimum wage increases and electing Republicans(“democratic policies passed by Republicans” as another blog calls it.): this is people wanting the benefits of leftish policy without giving the supporters power. Commenting on how bad global warming, police stuff, etc. is but than electing moderates is the within democrats version: seeming to see a problem but not actually electing people most willing to solve it. I’ve noticed the almost “does not compute”, goes silent sort of reaction to an argument that a leftier person should be elected during some in person arguments.
All the political commentary above screams an aversion/loathing/does not compute response to progressives having power. Instead of a powerful faction that passes laws and programs we know will be useful, they imagine dems, and leftier dem within party, as a faction that must always defer to their rightier equivalents, looking for way to compromise, giving up and playing a supporting role. In this model, the leftier side cannot just simply get what it wants, as that would be scoring a win, they must instead give the rightier side their desires of…..
Oh yes, you know how Republicans and moderates resist everything? Without having desires of their own? Fits this model like a correctly sized glove. Republicans opposing everything democrats do (vaccines, money to their states, debt ceiling), moderate democrats demanding watering down of leftier programs, or just flat out opposing them with no substitute, these are not governing philosophies. But they serve the purpose of creating conflict and drama and stopping the leftier side from winning, moderate democrats stop leftier democrats from just passing a program, Republicans either stop democrats cold or create conflict within party, arguing that democrats are incompetent; moderate democrats get to claim that progressive/leftish proposals are “impractical” “can’t get passed in the real world”, and other things along these lines.
Oh, even more: also lack of accountability. Both sides do it, Republicans attacked the capitol but Dems said some mean thing once. Can’t punish Reps, that;s just what staying power takes. And also...
O.k., so what do I do with all this?
Want a better life in a better run country? Want the most effective solutions to problems, and biggest improvement in how something is done? You support the people who want these things, and give them power. this means supporting progressives + general competence. If you aren’t supporting something close to the most effective programs you can, put into practice as quickly and smoothly as they can, than what the f*ck are you doing?
(I’ll write about the competence part in another article, I have a several weeks late post on the Afghanistan withdrawal to write which will include this. The opposition/dislike of basic competence and opposition the leftish politics feels similar, acts similar, overlaps a lot in some areas, and seem to come from similar sources.)
If you catch yourself thinking “the progressive ideas are good, but” stop there. the progressive ideas are good, that means either support them, or support something that’s similarly as good, with the progressive thing as a good backup option. Arguing about what progressives, or democrats in general, need to do to handle opponents? It’s useful to a point if you are doing it honestly, but often the rightier people have put leftier people in a situation with no good solution, best thing to do is attack them and reduce their power. Hedging in discussions is bad, when you support progressive anything, support them full on.
Moderates have been going nuts over the past few months (it has a similar feel to Republicans after 2016, a lot of angry “We can do what we want, suck it”. Or a substitute if that breaks some rule.), but the infrastructure bill is a chance to punsh back. “Leftists are out of touch with Black Voters”, “We';re the base of the party”, “Leftists aren’t popular, stop complaining”, or anything else along those lines? Congratulations, anyone who said this, they have themselves a stalled infrastructure bill. Lots of primaries are coming up, it’s time to replace some folks.