"Some people will quibble that describing oneself as liberal doesn’t actually mean that voters necessarily hold left-wing views on the issues."
Well yes... And it also bothers me to use the word liberal this way. There is a Left movement that is not particularly liberal.
Our political system is quite poorly suited to the current situation where there are roughly three significant groups in play - Socialists, MAGA, and Neoliberals (for lack of better group names)
Yeah, sure, but the fact remains that people who call themselves “liberal” do have more left wing views. The idea that 2/3 of Democrats calling themselves “liberal” doesn’t mean they have more left-wing preferences doesn’t hold water.
It's a big mistake to talk about issues traditionally coded as "liberal" without disaggregating social and economic issues, though. Progressive victories that can be understood as the triumph of quasi-libertarian "live and let live" impulses, like support for gay or interracial marriage or drug legalization, can and do coexist quite nicely with centrist or, nowadays, even conservative views on economics. Leftist programs that aim to interfere with private economic or social relations with the aim of benefitting favored groups, or just achieving justice in general, are an entirely different sort of argument and don't necessarily appeal to people who favor gay marriage and pot dispensaries. Lots of self-identified liberals, especially outside the coasts, loathe the ultra-interventionist left represented by Mamdhani or AOC.
This is a really useful look at changes to society and the Democratic party over the last few decades, but it's incredibly confusing to use "liberal" to mean "leftist" or "progressive".
I'm not just nerding out about "classical liberalism". Left-leaning figures have always used "liberal" as a slur, and that's only been increasing, especially when you consider how little the average person will credit the "neo" part of "neoliberalism".
Usage has been slippery my whole lifetime, but when you're discussing opinion polling and ideological affinity, it becomes especially important to use higher-consensus terms.
Liberal is the higher consensus term here. Splitting hairs between “leftist” vs “progressive” vs “liberal” is something messenger class types do. Most people use all three terms interchangeably.
But I am talking about the makeup of the party rank and file. Among the non-messenger class voters who make up the primary electorate these terms are mostly interchangeable. My point is that the party rank and file has actually moved left and using share self-ID’ing as liberal is a good proxy for this.
I agree that using self-ID is a good proxy in that context. But using "liberal" when you mean "progressive ", "socialist", or "social justice advocate" makes your analysis harder to read.
Anyway, it was a good article, I'd just prefer more analytic clarity.
(My objections wrt to polling are more complicated and I probably should have just left that out).
As Matt Y. has pointed out, it only took one foreign-policy position to win Obama credibility from the left, the rest was earnest centrism. Health care reform was a left-wing goal in the sense that Dems have credibility here and Republicans are apathetic at best, but the ACA ended up being a masterpiece of centrism (though one vote shy of something bigger). If anyone, left or center, wants to win, they should chuck Shor's whole orientation (a granular measurement of a vague thing) and plant a few carefully-chosen issue stakes. Start with something for which the left still has broad appeal, then sandwich in a co-opted issue from the right, then end with something truly novel. Stop with the slider-bar tinkering and try to make graspable commitments you can trace back to basic values the left shares with everyone. Be sure to add an aspirational element that connects it to America's enduring exceptionalism because people will say they hate jingoism on a survey but even a DSA member is a sucker for it if they feel like they're otherwise winning.
When the party moves right, they will pick up a non-trivial number of Republican voters (see Clinton, Bill). This actually counts as two votes (in a two-party system): +1 for the Democrats and -1 for the Republicans. Even if every R pickup is offset by a left-wing departure for the Green Party or just staying home, it is still a net win.
The math works the same way when moving left -- it is a net negative if Democrats defect to the Republicans even if it picks up a disaffected and disengaged left.
Ideology may be pulling left, but a desire to win will pull back to the center.
I want this to be true, but I worry the logic works for the GOP too and yet they seem stuck in the MAGA "majority of Republicans" primary trap. Seems like the same risk for the Dems.
What doesn’t show up in these numbers is the fact that moderates have simply left the party (both parties, in fact) and so a large majority of Americans end up with candidates they don’t like.
3. which means the left wing is the majority of the party.
But does liberal mean progressive activist that does not want to moderate in order to win elections? does it even mean that liberal actually holds the same views as a progressive activist?
And what exactly happened to the median democratic voter in this analysis? they are more conservative relative to progressives. They pragmatically care about winning elections even if it means moderating. progressives don’t because ideologues never want to admit that moderation is one of the most effective ways to win elections.
So what is the progressive theory for winning the presidency and Senate? Usually it sounds like this: adopt our whole agenda, then put a white guy in front of it so swing voters do not notice.
I’ve been a (Michael Harrington/Michael Walzer) social democrat my entire adult life, although depending on the times I’ve been uncertain in my own mind whether I identified more as a social democrat or a democratic socialist. (Last week I attended my 55th college reunion.) But when I look for candidates to support, with my vote or my modest contributions, I try to assess the temper of the electorate. So, especially outside my home state of Massachusetts I’ll often be supporting candidates whose politics are more “moderate” than my own (following Michael Harrington’s self-description as an advocate for “the left wing of the possible”).
I’m curious what the data show regarding self-described liberals and progressives generally. Anecdotes, of course, aren’t data, and yet many in my social circle who support policies that place them on the left are operationally like me. And others aren’t: the difference tends to run by age but it’s not uniform.
Also, as many have noted, it’s not just that the Democratic Party is no longer Bill Clinton’s or James Carville’s. Many take positions substantially to the left of Obama-era platforms and policies.
All of this is just to say that, while the Democratic Party’s political center of gravity has shifted left—and, indeed, the definition of what constitutes “left” may have shifted to elevate some kinds of issues over others—there may still be greater support for moderate candidates than counting liberal/progressive vs “moderate” noses might imply. At least for those of us who prioritize trying to enact changes in legislation, policy, and administration that betters peoples’ lives in the here-and-now, here’s hoping.
I think you're right on who owns the whip hand within the party. But I think this matters hardly at all given that 1) a moderate registered Democrat may vote for a moderate Republican over a progressive (I know I do that all the time). The progressives don't have a symmetrical threat. Who are the progressives going to defect towards? Let's be serious and 2). Independents! Like you said. Progressives are a firm minority so they need to moderate to win enough votes to actually hold power.
So it really doesn't matter who has the whip hand in the party. The choices are to moderate or allow America to orbanize, and that's due to structural factors outside the party.
To put it another way: while the progressives are structurally dominant within the party, centrists are still structurally dominant over the party when it comes to actually winning power. So the centrists are still calling the shots (assuming progressives actually want to win power, a big if!)
I think a centrist could win if they lean into the populism favorable of the electorate. I see remnants of this in the rhetoric of Ossoff and Beshear. Keeping my fingers crossed. I just do not have the revolutionary spirit in me to vote for a socialist.
"Some people will quibble that describing oneself as liberal doesn’t actually mean that voters necessarily hold left-wing views on the issues. Frankly, I think that’s a cope; there’s robust evidence that self-identified liberals have more left-wing policy positions."
Sure. But "more" left-wing than what? I would never self-identify as anything but Liberal -- I've been doing that since the early 1960s -- but more Democratic Socialist politics have come to be denoted as "Progressive," and, largely for practical reasons of electability, I would not identify as Progressive. (Sometimes when I talk with young progressives they are explicit in rejecting my views as "liberal," as in, "I'm so done with Liberals!"). And I think Boomer generation "Liberals," like me, would rarely be willing to self-identify as "Moderate" too: "Liberal" has been a life-long commitment.
Mr. Singh is of a very different generation, and may not appreciate how foundational the term "Liberal" is to older generations of Democratic voters. If there were polling that showed the plurality of those likely to vote in a Democratic primary identified as "progressive" on a Progressive/Liberal/Moderate scale -- or at least disaggregated "Liberal" and "Very Liberal" -- I'd be more convinced that the Bernie/AOC wing of the Party was now its largest, as opposed to its loudest.
Sometimes parties have to learn by losing. If liberals are now dominant then maybe they should get their turn to nominate one of their own. I think nominating AOC would be a mistake but if that’s what it takes to get it out of their system so be it. Parties sometimes get over their skies and go too far out ideologically. It happened with Goldwater and McGovern. You can even say it happened during the Obama years when Republicans embraced Ryanism.
Democrats may be liberal now but they will get over it because they’ll have to. It’s a minority view and has some very unpopular positions on issues like energy and immigration.
Normally I’d be patient from looking at history but given that nominating AOC probably gives us President Vance I’m a lot more concerned.
"Some people will quibble that describing oneself as liberal doesn’t actually mean that voters necessarily hold left-wing views on the issues."
Well yes... And it also bothers me to use the word liberal this way. There is a Left movement that is not particularly liberal.
Our political system is quite poorly suited to the current situation where there are roughly three significant groups in play - Socialists, MAGA, and Neoliberals (for lack of better group names)
Yeah, sure, but the fact remains that people who call themselves “liberal” do have more left wing views. The idea that 2/3 of Democrats calling themselves “liberal” doesn’t mean they have more left-wing preferences doesn’t hold water.
It's a big mistake to talk about issues traditionally coded as "liberal" without disaggregating social and economic issues, though. Progressive victories that can be understood as the triumph of quasi-libertarian "live and let live" impulses, like support for gay or interracial marriage or drug legalization, can and do coexist quite nicely with centrist or, nowadays, even conservative views on economics. Leftist programs that aim to interfere with private economic or social relations with the aim of benefitting favored groups, or just achieving justice in general, are an entirely different sort of argument and don't necessarily appeal to people who favor gay marriage and pot dispensaries. Lots of self-identified liberals, especially outside the coasts, loathe the ultra-interventionist left represented by Mamdhani or AOC.
This is a really useful look at changes to society and the Democratic party over the last few decades, but it's incredibly confusing to use "liberal" to mean "leftist" or "progressive".
I'm not just nerding out about "classical liberalism". Left-leaning figures have always used "liberal" as a slur, and that's only been increasing, especially when you consider how little the average person will credit the "neo" part of "neoliberalism".
Usage has been slippery my whole lifetime, but when you're discussing opinion polling and ideological affinity, it becomes especially important to use higher-consensus terms.
So why "liberal"?
Liberal is the higher consensus term here. Splitting hairs between “leftist” vs “progressive” vs “liberal” is something messenger class types do. Most people use all three terms interchangeably.
Except you're talking to the messenger class, about factional battles inside the Democratic party, which is ~95% messenger class by weight!
But I am talking about the makeup of the party rank and file. Among the non-messenger class voters who make up the primary electorate these terms are mostly interchangeable. My point is that the party rank and file has actually moved left and using share self-ID’ing as liberal is a good proxy for this.
I agree that using self-ID is a good proxy in that context. But using "liberal" when you mean "progressive ", "socialist", or "social justice advocate" makes your analysis harder to read.
Anyway, it was a good article, I'd just prefer more analytic clarity.
(My objections wrt to polling are more complicated and I probably should have just left that out).
As Matt Y. has pointed out, it only took one foreign-policy position to win Obama credibility from the left, the rest was earnest centrism. Health care reform was a left-wing goal in the sense that Dems have credibility here and Republicans are apathetic at best, but the ACA ended up being a masterpiece of centrism (though one vote shy of something bigger). If anyone, left or center, wants to win, they should chuck Shor's whole orientation (a granular measurement of a vague thing) and plant a few carefully-chosen issue stakes. Start with something for which the left still has broad appeal, then sandwich in a co-opted issue from the right, then end with something truly novel. Stop with the slider-bar tinkering and try to make graspable commitments you can trace back to basic values the left shares with everyone. Be sure to add an aspirational element that connects it to America's enduring exceptionalism because people will say they hate jingoism on a survey but even a DSA member is a sucker for it if they feel like they're otherwise winning.
When the party moves right, they will pick up a non-trivial number of Republican voters (see Clinton, Bill). This actually counts as two votes (in a two-party system): +1 for the Democrats and -1 for the Republicans. Even if every R pickup is offset by a left-wing departure for the Green Party or just staying home, it is still a net win.
The math works the same way when moving left -- it is a net negative if Democrats defect to the Republicans even if it picks up a disaffected and disengaged left.
Ideology may be pulling left, but a desire to win will pull back to the center.
I want this to be true, but I worry the logic works for the GOP too and yet they seem stuck in the MAGA "majority of Republicans" primary trap. Seems like the same risk for the Dems.
What doesn’t show up in these numbers is the fact that moderates have simply left the party (both parties, in fact) and so a large majority of Americans end up with candidates they don’t like.
So the logic goes like this:
1. more democrats identify as liberal
2. therefore democratic party is left wing
3. which means the left wing is the majority of the party.
But does liberal mean progressive activist that does not want to moderate in order to win elections? does it even mean that liberal actually holds the same views as a progressive activist?
And what exactly happened to the median democratic voter in this analysis? they are more conservative relative to progressives. They pragmatically care about winning elections even if it means moderating. progressives don’t because ideologues never want to admit that moderation is one of the most effective ways to win elections.
So what is the progressive theory for winning the presidency and Senate? Usually it sounds like this: adopt our whole agenda, then put a white guy in front of it so swing voters do not notice.
I’ve been a (Michael Harrington/Michael Walzer) social democrat my entire adult life, although depending on the times I’ve been uncertain in my own mind whether I identified more as a social democrat or a democratic socialist. (Last week I attended my 55th college reunion.) But when I look for candidates to support, with my vote or my modest contributions, I try to assess the temper of the electorate. So, especially outside my home state of Massachusetts I’ll often be supporting candidates whose politics are more “moderate” than my own (following Michael Harrington’s self-description as an advocate for “the left wing of the possible”).
I’m curious what the data show regarding self-described liberals and progressives generally. Anecdotes, of course, aren’t data, and yet many in my social circle who support policies that place them on the left are operationally like me. And others aren’t: the difference tends to run by age but it’s not uniform.
Also, as many have noted, it’s not just that the Democratic Party is no longer Bill Clinton’s or James Carville’s. Many take positions substantially to the left of Obama-era platforms and policies.
All of this is just to say that, while the Democratic Party’s political center of gravity has shifted left—and, indeed, the definition of what constitutes “left” may have shifted to elevate some kinds of issues over others—there may still be greater support for moderate candidates than counting liberal/progressive vs “moderate” noses might imply. At least for those of us who prioritize trying to enact changes in legislation, policy, and administration that betters peoples’ lives in the here-and-now, here’s hoping.
I think you're right on who owns the whip hand within the party. But I think this matters hardly at all given that 1) a moderate registered Democrat may vote for a moderate Republican over a progressive (I know I do that all the time). The progressives don't have a symmetrical threat. Who are the progressives going to defect towards? Let's be serious and 2). Independents! Like you said. Progressives are a firm minority so they need to moderate to win enough votes to actually hold power.
So it really doesn't matter who has the whip hand in the party. The choices are to moderate or allow America to orbanize, and that's due to structural factors outside the party.
To put it another way: while the progressives are structurally dominant within the party, centrists are still structurally dominant over the party when it comes to actually winning power. So the centrists are still calling the shots (assuming progressives actually want to win power, a big if!)
I think a centrist could win if they lean into the populism favorable of the electorate. I see remnants of this in the rhetoric of Ossoff and Beshear. Keeping my fingers crossed. I just do not have the revolutionary spirit in me to vote for a socialist.
"Some people will quibble that describing oneself as liberal doesn’t actually mean that voters necessarily hold left-wing views on the issues. Frankly, I think that’s a cope; there’s robust evidence that self-identified liberals have more left-wing policy positions."
Sure. But "more" left-wing than what? I would never self-identify as anything but Liberal -- I've been doing that since the early 1960s -- but more Democratic Socialist politics have come to be denoted as "Progressive," and, largely for practical reasons of electability, I would not identify as Progressive. (Sometimes when I talk with young progressives they are explicit in rejecting my views as "liberal," as in, "I'm so done with Liberals!"). And I think Boomer generation "Liberals," like me, would rarely be willing to self-identify as "Moderate" too: "Liberal" has been a life-long commitment.
Mr. Singh is of a very different generation, and may not appreciate how foundational the term "Liberal" is to older generations of Democratic voters. If there were polling that showed the plurality of those likely to vote in a Democratic primary identified as "progressive" on a Progressive/Liberal/Moderate scale -- or at least disaggregated "Liberal" and "Very Liberal" -- I'd be more convinced that the Bernie/AOC wing of the Party was now its largest, as opposed to its loudest.
Sometimes parties have to learn by losing. If liberals are now dominant then maybe they should get their turn to nominate one of their own. I think nominating AOC would be a mistake but if that’s what it takes to get it out of their system so be it. Parties sometimes get over their skies and go too far out ideologically. It happened with Goldwater and McGovern. You can even say it happened during the Obama years when Republicans embraced Ryanism.
Democrats may be liberal now but they will get over it because they’ll have to. It’s a minority view and has some very unpopular positions on issues like energy and immigration.
Normally I’d be patient from looking at history but given that nominating AOC probably gives us President Vance I’m a lot more concerned.