The Argument is my favorite new podcast! This episode is hard, but good. We kinda fucked this up, and admitting that is essential to saving liberalism.
Demsis raises the right question near the end, about whether technocratic governance can survive when it looks nothing like the people it governs. Gratton's answer, make the elite more representative, is correct but insufficiently radical about what that means.
The problem isn't just that bureaucrats graduated from Yale instead of trade schools. The problem is that the entire institutional infrastructure connecting working-class experience to policy formation has collapsed. In the old system, you had shop stewards who talked to county people who talked to state people who sent messages up. Union halls served as schools for democratic participation and as feedback mechanisms that told elites what was actually happening in places like McKeesport and Braddock.
Gratton's research on anti-elite populism shows that lack of trust in public servants is the key force behind support for populist parties. His recommendation is that a more inclusive and representative bureaucracy protects against populism.
Between 2012 and 2024, Democratic support among voters earning under $50,000 dropped 24 points. Among those earning over $100,000 it rose 16 points. The party now represents 24 of the 25 highest-income congressional districts. You cannot solve this with diversity hires in the EPA. You solve it by rebuilding the institutional pipelines that once made working-class concerns legible to power.
I'd broaden this out to include the other big institutions that have seen a huge decline in the last few decades: churches and volunteer clubs. Boomers still join the Elks and Rotary and such, but not at anything like the rates that their parents did.
Completely agree here. In fact there is an inverse relationship between community loss and educational attainment. So lower SES groups have been hit particularly hard by this trend. I suggest you look at this report by the Survey Center on American Life: https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-places-and-spaces/#_edn7
People keep coming up with elite and elaborate theories for the rise of right-wing populism. However, it is mostly a function of human beings being inherently selfish. Now that there are no greater gatekeepers on the flow of information, there will always be someone willing to supply entertainment and information for the infinite demand for people wanting to hear that they deserve more while others deserve less. This explains all the current gender, race, and class conflicts. There is no political equilibrium that can be created to contain this.
The ancient Greeks, Aristotle in particular, observed all forms of government become corrupted and increasingly dysfunctional when the ruling class (the voters in a democracy) lose their virtue and start acting primarily in their own selfish interest rather than setting their own interest aside and focusing on the common good.
Great podcast! I don’t find his thoughts controversial at all. Democrats should determine WHY so many left us and thought populism would serve them better. Some serious self reflection. He raises great questions from which we can glean solutions. This is my example on how liberals went too far left to assuage a minority that fueled the wrath of the right: I recall when Clinton signed a bill allowing very late term abortions. I recall thinking, how often is that even an issue, but I was ok with it. Pragmatically, a better solution would have been to allow the ban against third trimester abortions to remain. A few people would have been really upset, but the vast majority would have been fine with it.
Jonathan Haidt wrote an excellent article on “Why People Vote Republican”. Excellent read and one thing he points out is the Dem focus on diversity while Republicans value community. Either talk less about it while continuing to address it, or come up with less threatening verbiage for the same ideas. We have to learn to speak the same language.
And the mention of Trump’s communication style was priceless! I loved listening to Obama speak and only now recognize why and how it infuriated some.
I think it actually does leave one with some solutions, even if they are not immediately obvious.
When I think about why it's okay that the Fed is independent from the political process, there are two strong reasons. One is that both its mandate and its power is extremely narrow. The mandate is to control inflation and promote full employment. The power is the interest rate and ability to buy assets. The second is that politicians want Fed independence to protect these functions from themselves. They know that it would be basically impossible for them to raise interest rates even when they know it's the right thing to do due to political pressures. They are not protecting interest rates from the other party, they are protecting interest rates from themselves.
In general, I think this is a good model for government agencies: narrow mandate, narrow powers, and a function that politicians genuinely think is better held outside of the political process even if their own party is in charge forever.
I think you might have missed a valuable point for pushback during the discussion about majoritarian vs. technocratic tradeoffs. I think there was very much a false dichotomy set up, at least on some items.
For example, there was a reference to free trade being technocratic but perhaps not majoritarian given what it "cost" so many people. I don't think the words "China Shock" were actually said, but you could hear them anyway.
But even in the most pessimistic version of that de-industrialization that remains tied to facts, it is BOTH technocratic AND majoritarian!
Let's say that it cost 5 million jobs directly (the highest estimate from an study or academic paper I could find was ~2.8 million so I'm padding against my own argument to prove a point).
AND let's say the "local multiplier" losses were another 3x that. So 20 million total jobs lost in the US, concentrated in the midwest/Rust Belt.
Seems like a big 'ole L for technocracy vs. majority will. Except it isn't! There are nearly 20 TIMES more people in the US than lost their jobs in this nightmare over-estimate scenario.
Let's say you ran a political campaign on the following platform: I will provide jobs for whoever lost their jobs in the China Shock (who have not found better jobs since then). Also, I will raise prices on almost all durable goods by ~10-20% to pay for it"
You would be obliterated in any voting system that has ever been imagined!
I would like more content like this from The Argument! This kind of conversation feels more aligned with the in-defense-of-liberalism ethos you articulated when you started this than much of the daily content that I'm not really finding as compelling as I had hoped.
This is a fantastic podcast, very thought-provoking and interesting. Please keep having more like it, it was great.
The Argument is my favorite new podcast! This episode is hard, but good. We kinda fucked this up, and admitting that is essential to saving liberalism.
Demsis raises the right question near the end, about whether technocratic governance can survive when it looks nothing like the people it governs. Gratton's answer, make the elite more representative, is correct but insufficiently radical about what that means.
The problem isn't just that bureaucrats graduated from Yale instead of trade schools. The problem is that the entire institutional infrastructure connecting working-class experience to policy formation has collapsed. In the old system, you had shop stewards who talked to county people who talked to state people who sent messages up. Union halls served as schools for democratic participation and as feedback mechanisms that told elites what was actually happening in places like McKeesport and Braddock.
Gratton's research on anti-elite populism shows that lack of trust in public servants is the key force behind support for populist parties. His recommendation is that a more inclusive and representative bureaucracy protects against populism.
Between 2012 and 2024, Democratic support among voters earning under $50,000 dropped 24 points. Among those earning over $100,000 it rose 16 points. The party now represents 24 of the 25 highest-income congressional districts. You cannot solve this with diversity hires in the EPA. You solve it by rebuilding the institutional pipelines that once made working-class concerns legible to power.
I'd broaden this out to include the other big institutions that have seen a huge decline in the last few decades: churches and volunteer clubs. Boomers still join the Elks and Rotary and such, but not at anything like the rates that their parents did.
Completely agree here. In fact there is an inverse relationship between community loss and educational attainment. So lower SES groups have been hit particularly hard by this trend. I suggest you look at this report by the Survey Center on American Life: https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-places-and-spaces/#_edn7
People keep coming up with elite and elaborate theories for the rise of right-wing populism. However, it is mostly a function of human beings being inherently selfish. Now that there are no greater gatekeepers on the flow of information, there will always be someone willing to supply entertainment and information for the infinite demand for people wanting to hear that they deserve more while others deserve less. This explains all the current gender, race, and class conflicts. There is no political equilibrium that can be created to contain this.
The ancient Greeks, Aristotle in particular, observed all forms of government become corrupted and increasingly dysfunctional when the ruling class (the voters in a democracy) lose their virtue and start acting primarily in their own selfish interest rather than setting their own interest aside and focusing on the common good.
Great podcast! I don’t find his thoughts controversial at all. Democrats should determine WHY so many left us and thought populism would serve them better. Some serious self reflection. He raises great questions from which we can glean solutions. This is my example on how liberals went too far left to assuage a minority that fueled the wrath of the right: I recall when Clinton signed a bill allowing very late term abortions. I recall thinking, how often is that even an issue, but I was ok with it. Pragmatically, a better solution would have been to allow the ban against third trimester abortions to remain. A few people would have been really upset, but the vast majority would have been fine with it.
Jonathan Haidt wrote an excellent article on “Why People Vote Republican”. Excellent read and one thing he points out is the Dem focus on diversity while Republicans value community. Either talk less about it while continuing to address it, or come up with less threatening verbiage for the same ideas. We have to learn to speak the same language.
And the mention of Trump’s communication style was priceless! I loved listening to Obama speak and only now recognize why and how it infuriated some.
Interesting discussion that doesn't really leave someone with liberal policy preferences with many warm and fuzzy solutions.
Popularism? Incrementalism? banish-the-progressives-ism? wait-for-a-politician-so-charismatic-they-can-sell-liberal-policies-ism?
I think it actually does leave one with some solutions, even if they are not immediately obvious.
When I think about why it's okay that the Fed is independent from the political process, there are two strong reasons. One is that both its mandate and its power is extremely narrow. The mandate is to control inflation and promote full employment. The power is the interest rate and ability to buy assets. The second is that politicians want Fed independence to protect these functions from themselves. They know that it would be basically impossible for them to raise interest rates even when they know it's the right thing to do due to political pressures. They are not protecting interest rates from the other party, they are protecting interest rates from themselves.
In general, I think this is a good model for government agencies: narrow mandate, narrow powers, and a function that politicians genuinely think is better held outside of the political process even if their own party is in charge forever.
I think you might have missed a valuable point for pushback during the discussion about majoritarian vs. technocratic tradeoffs. I think there was very much a false dichotomy set up, at least on some items.
For example, there was a reference to free trade being technocratic but perhaps not majoritarian given what it "cost" so many people. I don't think the words "China Shock" were actually said, but you could hear them anyway.
But even in the most pessimistic version of that de-industrialization that remains tied to facts, it is BOTH technocratic AND majoritarian!
Let's say that it cost 5 million jobs directly (the highest estimate from an study or academic paper I could find was ~2.8 million so I'm padding against my own argument to prove a point).
AND let's say the "local multiplier" losses were another 3x that. So 20 million total jobs lost in the US, concentrated in the midwest/Rust Belt.
Seems like a big 'ole L for technocracy vs. majority will. Except it isn't! There are nearly 20 TIMES more people in the US than lost their jobs in this nightmare over-estimate scenario.
Let's say you ran a political campaign on the following platform: I will provide jobs for whoever lost their jobs in the China Shock (who have not found better jobs since then). Also, I will raise prices on almost all durable goods by ~10-20% to pay for it"
You would be obliterated in any voting system that has ever been imagined!
I would like more content like this from The Argument! This kind of conversation feels more aligned with the in-defense-of-liberalism ethos you articulated when you started this than much of the daily content that I'm not really finding as compelling as I had hoped.
Music during the intro is distracting