I think this idea misses the fact that the Dems consistently fail to engage the left flanks of the country that could provide votes. In my opinion this is backed up by the fact that a fairly significant part of the voters that didn't vote in 2024 did so in part because of Harris' right ward shift on things like Militarism, Gaza and the Border.
Rather then reorienting the party more towards the center, the party needs to actually fully capture the collation that helped Biden win in 2020 that included progressive and left wing organizations/voters and actually sell a long term future vision for the country that doesn't end at preserving the status quo.
I think this idea of a "Off Left", which i struggle to call left wing in any way or shape and think that the term Centrist fits much better, just puts the party into even more of a GOP light status that further reduces its appeal to right leaning democrats and continues to undermine the appeal for its left flanks to continue to vote for them as well. We can fight fake populism with real populism but doing so shouldn't be done by backing away from actual Liberal principles now more then ever.
Your thesis would be contested by many. For example, Nate Silver recently spoke of the 'median voter' theorem: 'I’m a defender of the median voter theorem, the idea — which in my view is backed by plenty of empirical evidence — that other things being equal, you’ll win more elections by playing to the moderate center.' He also said that the Dem establishment should listen to young people, though, or they 'won't be the establishment much longer'.
The term 'off left' isn't intended as a synonym for centrist: the 'off left' distrust the establishment, and have turned away from the institutions that should be taking their needs and wants into consideration, but have not.
Continuing to reduce political identity to a right-left axis doesn't adequately capture the fracturing of the electorate. The 'off left' term is an attempt to capture one fault line: there are people who overlap with a great many policies of the nominal Democratic party but a/ do not consider themselves leftists and b/ are not in alignment with many issues deemed important to the 'on left' blob (the special interest groups), like trans rights, DEI, and others.
We should expect that many 'off left' people would vote for better childcare, higher minimum wage, better healthcare, and higher taxes on the rich. But they are less in favor of immigration, distrust the elite that seem to run the political system, and can't seem to find many leaders they want to follow in the Democratic party.
"imagine a group of younger anti-establishment dems...." - I want to meet them.
The description of "both senses of conservatism" leaves me confused, if I read it correctly. For example, desire for the spirit of The New Deal and The Great Society seems at odds with "distrust of institutions; opposition to immigration; ...." What does an anti-establishment Great Society look like? How is it governed? And does it provide the necessities of life for everyone?
You might like this by Arnold Kling -- https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-brokenism-axis -- that plots these dimensions based on Alana Newhouse's 'brokenism'. In his topology the 'off left' are equivalent to his left-wing brokenists.
The recent debacle of the Harris campaign was the case of a left-wing institutionalist watching left-leaning brokenists defecting, because 'The most vital debate in America today is between those who believe there is something fundamentally broken in America, and that it’s an emergency, and those who do not.' | Alana Newhouse, Brokenism
The New Deal/Great Society age is over: when Carter, Clinton, and Obama embraced neoliberalism and the financialization of the economy -- and turned their backs on democratic socialism -- the Democratic party lost its north star.
And today, the GOP has dropped Reaganism in favor of populist dreams of Trump's flavor of fascism. ('At least [Reaganism] is an ethos'.)
We are left in a political wasteland, and generations scarred by the politics of retrenchment.
A new political vision -- of the scale of the New Deal -- might appear on the horizon, and if it does, it will certainly be anti-establishment. Like FDR and the New Deal Dems dismantling what preceded them, any new wave will have to come in from the edges, and its rallying cry must be to pull down the old and build up the new.
I think this idea misses the fact that the Dems consistently fail to engage the left flanks of the country that could provide votes. In my opinion this is backed up by the fact that a fairly significant part of the voters that didn't vote in 2024 did so in part because of Harris' right ward shift on things like Militarism, Gaza and the Border.
Rather then reorienting the party more towards the center, the party needs to actually fully capture the collation that helped Biden win in 2020 that included progressive and left wing organizations/voters and actually sell a long term future vision for the country that doesn't end at preserving the status quo.
I think this idea of a "Off Left", which i struggle to call left wing in any way or shape and think that the term Centrist fits much better, just puts the party into even more of a GOP light status that further reduces its appeal to right leaning democrats and continues to undermine the appeal for its left flanks to continue to vote for them as well. We can fight fake populism with real populism but doing so shouldn't be done by backing away from actual Liberal principles now more then ever.
Your thesis would be contested by many. For example, Nate Silver recently spoke of the 'median voter' theorem: 'I’m a defender of the median voter theorem, the idea — which in my view is backed by plenty of empirical evidence — that other things being equal, you’ll win more elections by playing to the moderate center.' He also said that the Dem establishment should listen to young people, though, or they 'won't be the establishment much longer'.
The term 'off left' isn't intended as a synonym for centrist: the 'off left' distrust the establishment, and have turned away from the institutions that should be taking their needs and wants into consideration, but have not.
Continuing to reduce political identity to a right-left axis doesn't adequately capture the fracturing of the electorate. The 'off left' term is an attempt to capture one fault line: there are people who overlap with a great many policies of the nominal Democratic party but a/ do not consider themselves leftists and b/ are not in alignment with many issues deemed important to the 'on left' blob (the special interest groups), like trans rights, DEI, and others.
We should expect that many 'off left' people would vote for better childcare, higher minimum wage, better healthcare, and higher taxes on the rich. But they are less in favor of immigration, distrust the elite that seem to run the political system, and can't seem to find many leaders they want to follow in the Democratic party.
"imagine a group of younger anti-establishment dems...." - I want to meet them.
The description of "both senses of conservatism" leaves me confused, if I read it correctly. For example, desire for the spirit of The New Deal and The Great Society seems at odds with "distrust of institutions; opposition to immigration; ...." What does an anti-establishment Great Society look like? How is it governed? And does it provide the necessities of life for everyone?
You might like this by Arnold Kling -- https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-brokenism-axis -- that plots these dimensions based on Alana Newhouse's 'brokenism'. In his topology the 'off left' are equivalent to his left-wing brokenists.
The recent debacle of the Harris campaign was the case of a left-wing institutionalist watching left-leaning brokenists defecting, because 'The most vital debate in America today is between those who believe there is something fundamentally broken in America, and that it’s an emergency, and those who do not.' | Alana Newhouse, Brokenism
The New Deal/Great Society age is over: when Carter, Clinton, and Obama embraced neoliberalism and the financialization of the economy -- and turned their backs on democratic socialism -- the Democratic party lost its north star.
And today, the GOP has dropped Reaganism in favor of populist dreams of Trump's flavor of fascism. ('At least [Reaganism] is an ethos'.)
We are left in a political wasteland, and generations scarred by the politics of retrenchment.
A new political vision -- of the scale of the New Deal -- might appear on the horizon, and if it does, it will certainly be anti-establishment. Like FDR and the New Deal Dems dismantling what preceded them, any new wave will have to come in from the edges, and its rallying cry must be to pull down the old and build up the new.