Hold That Champagne, Progressives

Nov. 09, 2018

On Tuesday nighttime, similar so many, I was toggling back and forth between Play a joke on News and MSNBC, a forepart row seat before our national cultural ceremonious war. Then, just moments after it had been reported that the Democrats would take dorsum command of the House of Representatives, there was Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff on the screen, who, come January, will caput the House Intelligence Committee. And he was pledging to subpoena the President's tax returns.

Here we go, I thought. I thought back to a prediction fabricated to me last summer by the late Jeremy Nowak: "The Democrats will take dorsum the Firm, then typically overreach on impeachment, Trump will brilliantly play the victim and ride the electorate's grievances to reelection in 2020."

Nowak was rarely incorrect, and, already, it feels like his vision is playing out. The House should perform its constitutionally-mandated oversight. Simply it'south politically perilous to seem to be overreaching. Schiff's legalistic, inside-the-Beltway commentary—when he could have been talking about ideas designed to help actual voters—when added to CNN'south Jim Acosta'south hounding of the president at his day-after printing conference, combined to feel similar the resistance was acting out in response to a voter verdict that was more ripple than blue wave. (Regarding Acosta, sentinel the clip : In what universe are "questions" like "why did y'all narrate the caravan as an invasion…they're hundreds of miles away, that'south not an invasion" designed to practice anything but simply shed more heat than light?)

This week's ballot results, it would seem, doubled down on polarization. The darlings of the progressive left—Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams—all appear to have lost, (though Georgia and Florida have yet to be called), and the Senate is redder than before. Nonetheless, overall, voters nationwide preferred Democrats to Republicans by 9 percentage points, more of a differential than in 2006'due south seismic midterm shift.

"This country is full of very practical people," Vague told me. He rarely heard anything about what takes upwards so much time on our airwaves. "I didn't hear well-nigh the Russia investigation or virtually the high heels Melania wore. What we heard, fourth dimension and again, was what are commonly called 'kitchen tabular array problems.' Jobs, yes, but meliorate jobs."

Merely where were those voters? Republican suburbanites and independents, turned off by Trump, may accept voted Autonomous, but not so much for progressive candidates who led with left-leaning, social democrat scarlet meat issues and whose admirable defense of the contributions of immigrants—legal and illegal—were seldom accompanied by whatever talk of reasonable border security.

If anything, since Tuesday, it's clear we're more divided than ever. Simply it needn't be that manner, especially if progressives, rather than responding to Trump like Trump, took a deep jiff and a step dorsum…and tried a new, more substantive approach. There are plenty of ideas for such a game plan out there. One has been cooked up right here in Philly, by local philanthropist, entrepreneur, and civic force Richard Vague, who, in his spare fourth dimension, creates algorithms that can predict economic calamity, writes tomes about the history of economic collapse , and underwrites the groundbreaking cancer-curing work of Dr. Carl June at the University of Pennsylvania.

Vague is immensely curious; Philly'southward football game-playing urbanist Connor Barwin in one case described him as a "modern-day Ben Franklin." Well, later on the election of 2016, Vague institute himself—again, like then many of the states—flicking betwixt those two channels, Fox and MSNBC. It felt like he was watching two dissimilar countries.

"I knew what Fox was telling me the voters wanted, and I knew what MSNBC was telling me the voters wanted," Vague said when I caught upwards with him this week. "But I didn't trust the 24 hr news cycle to tell me what voters really want. And then I decided to find out."

So Vague—a man of action—commencement picked the brains of political friends like former Governor Ed Rendell, then started traveling the country, conducting his own focus groups. Over 12 months, he conducted twenty focus groups in half dozen states—Nevada and Florida among them—and spoke to a various accomplice of hundreds of voters with household incomes betwixt $40,000 and $fourscore,000 who had voted in the final two presidential elections. Unlike other political focus groups, Vague wasn't selling annihilation. He wasn't testing policy ideas or slogans. He was but curious. He was listening. And what he heard—and didn't hear—blew him abroad.

What Vague heard in his focus groups, what Laura Kelly demonstrated in Kansas, and what the folks at thirdway.org are addressing from a policy perspective ought to wake all of the states upward. Perhaps it's time we take a cue from Richard Vague and offset listening.

"This state is total of very applied people," he told me. He rarely heard anything about what takes up and then much fourth dimension on our airwaves. "I didn't hear about the Russian federation investigation or near the loftier heels Melania wore. What we heard, time and again, was what are commonly chosen 'kitchen table issues.' Jobs, yes, merely better jobs. We'd ask where people saw themselves in five years, and there'd be no sense of building a career. In fact, some folks talked about not wanting to make too much coin for fear of getting pushed out in favor of someone who could exist paid less. Health care would ship an current through the room whenever it was brought up, but it wasn't just pre-existing weather condition or admission, which Obamacare addressed. Information technology was besides affordability. You'd hear, 'I haven't finished paying off my son's surgery and now I'thou having to postpone my ain.' There was only a deep unease out there. Politicians talk most the employment numbers, but people aren't living their 24-hour interval to mean solar day lives in abstractions."

Vague is the most practical of problem solvers, something our politics could badly use. I don't know if he's considering running for anything—he scoffs at the notion—simply he does come live talking about a new manner to talk about policy. In a sense, he's advocating for a populism that doesn't prey on people's fears so much equally listen to their aspirations—and then addresses them.

"We've got to focus on the issues that matter in people's day to day lives," he says. Example in point: When it comes to health care, one thing that could be done right away is "taking Medicare to 55. That would have the pressure off companies policies and let for stabilization of premiums and deductibles."

Vague points out that the "Large four diseases"—cancer, heart disease, Alzheimers and diabetes—comprise lxxx percentage of all wellness intendance spending. "It doesn't matter what your health care plan is—single payer, Obamacare, something in between," he says. "Until nosotros solve those four, health care costs are going to go up. And, past the style, all the terrorism in the world kills a few chiliad people a year? Well, these iv terrorists kill millions a year. A researcher like Carl June has to spend half of his time fundraising instead of in the lab. If we triple funding of the National Institutes of Health, human being oh man, it would solve the health care crunch and create an It and jobs revolution in the United States."

What Vague hears in his focus groups apparently falls on deaf ears when elected leaders consider governmental priorities. When it comes to science and wellness care, we're disinvesting . "We're falling behind China in scientific investments and scientific papers published," Vague says. "China will laissez passer us in the next few years in international patents."

What he hears in his focus groups—the pleas for help on the health intendance front—obviously falls on deaf ears when elected leaders consider governmental priorities. When it comes to science and health care, we're disinvesting . "We're falling backside People's republic of china in scientific investments and scientific papers published," Vague says. "China will pass us in the next few years in international patents."

Vague's phone call for policy prescriptions that speak to voters' kitchen table bug ways that progressives might have to lay down their arms, which is non the same as betraying one's own principles. If the takeaway from Tuesday's election is that red got redder and blue got bluer, the ultimate winner of this collision volition be the one who speaks to the needs of those between the already dug-in. And there was evidence in Tuesday's returns that it'south doable.

In the Kansas Governor race, the slogan of Republican nominee Kris Kobach was "Make Kansas Great Over again"; Kobach, you'll think, was the Trump mini-me who fueled the fiction that three to 5 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Lo and behold, Kobach was upset by erstwhile State Senator Laura Kelly, whose " winning formula ," co-ordinate to Jane Meyer in the New Yorker, "was to ignore provocative bait and focus on proverbial 'kitchen table' issues that had nothing to exercise with Trump. Instead of engaging with Trumpist tropes about immigration and voter fraud, or on the issue of Trump himself, she studiously focused on education, Medicaid expansion, and the woeful fiscal status that the state had been left in by its unpopular former governor, the Republican Sam Brownback."

Tertiary Style, the national call back tank that champions center-left ideas, has created a new political archetype: The Opportunity Democrat. Third Style'southward opportunity agenda is designed to address the very feet Vague came face to face up with. It offers "a new social contract for the Digital Age: bold new ideas that volition provide every American everywhere a existent opportunity to earn a skilful life," writes the grouping. "Since the 2022 election, the Democratic Political party has engaged in a debate over the best ideas to move the country forrard and defeat Donald Trump. In the echo-bedroom of social media, a conventional wisdom has developed that Bernie Sanders-style ideas are dominant—particularly with the voters that brand up a winning Democratic coalition. But new data shows that a narrative and calendar focused on expanding opportunity is both more popular with Democratic voters than a Sanders-style arroyo and significantly more likely to help Democrats beat Trump in 2020."

Who says centrism can't be passionate? The Opportunity Agenda policy prescriptions, if ever adopted, would re-energize our tired public narrative. Some of my favorites: "Boomer Corps"—think the Peace Corps for boomers, here at domicile, enabling seniors to earn tax free in retirement; a regional minimum wage; an American Investment Bank that "backs small and medium business loans and investments so that chance capital is available to millions more entrepreneurs"; a $200 billion federal innovation trust fund to finance both public and individual R&D; a "small business concern bill of rights" that turns authorities from impediment into ally.

Well-nigh critically, the calendar calls for doing abroad with unemployment insurance and replacing it with "Reemployment Insurance" that provides temporary income, yeah, just also grants for grooming and vouchers for moving. Had the Clintons adopted such a programme dorsum in 1993 to help ease the transition of those adversely affected by NAFTA, perchance Hillary would be president today.

Also many of us trapped in our progressive coastal repeat chamber shake our heads in wonder when we consider red state voting. We default to the usual tropes. Only, when xiii percent of 2022 Trump voters had voted for Obama twice, it's too intellectually dishonest to write them off equally racist. What Vague heard in his focus groups, what Laura Kelly demonstrated in Kansas, and what the folks at thirdway.org are addressing from a policy perspective ought to wake all of united states of america upward. Maybe information technology's time we take a cue from Richard Vague and kickoff listening.

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/hold-that-champagne-progressives/

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