On Persuasion, Zaid Jilani comes to the same conclusion that I did concerning the Democratic left and the recent off-year election, only with far more authority:
While Americans watched Democrats ousted by Republicans all over the nation, another trend also became clear: across the country, the left wing of the Democratic party failed to displace the party establishment.
In Buffalo, New York, for instance, things initially looked pretty good for the left. Over the summer, Democratic socialist India Walton had managed to win a victory in the mayoral primary, besting a four-term incumbent mayor named Byron Brown. But Brown decided to continue through the general election even though his name wasn’t even on the ballot, asking his constituents to “write down Byron Brown.” Write-in victories are rare in American political history, and so it was easy to assume that Walton, who went on to earn the endorsement of both of the state’s U.S. Senators, had it in the bag.
But no, Brown won decisively – through emphasis on keeping traditional policing staff levels. Jilani goes on to talk about Minneapolis, just a few miles to my west:
But the bigger picture shows that the left repeatedly failed to win intraparty debates even on the fertile ground of progressive cities. I have some insight into why this might be, having reported on these intraparty debates for years.
I recall a reporting trip I made to Minneapolis in 2017, the year that Frey was first elected mayor. I embedded with a socialist named Ginger Jentzen, who was running on a third-party ticket against the Democratic Party for a city council seat. While this is electoral suicide in much of the United States, the city’s ranked-choice voting system and left-wing bent made her a viable candidate.
Jentzen was a seasoned organizer who had helped run the campaign that won a $15 minimum wage for the city. She had bold plans that included introducing rent control to Minneapolis. But as I went with her door-to-door canvassing, I noticed that she had trouble addressing some of the concerns that her potential constituents raised with issues like crime. When constituents would tell her they felt unsafe at times, she would try to steer the conversation back to some social or economic policy. She was clearly uncomfortable endorsing more policing as a response to public safety concerns. She ended up losing the race.
Leading to:
Yes, there are times when politicians compromise so much away that they barely change the status quo. But being unable to compromise on anything is just as politically sinful as being willing to compromise on everything. If the left wants to take power and influence policy, it needs to shed its ideological inflexibility in the face of elections.
I’d discard the phrase ideological inflexibility and use a phrase with a bit more sting: political immaturity, brought on by political hubris. The latter means certainty beyond justification, the mindset that you’re the group with The Truth. This is the basis of political immaturity, the lack of comprehension that American government is a team effort, and some of the members of the team may be at odds with you – but all agree that some problem needs a response, something has to change, and. as we all acknowledge, governing is hard.
Except the politically immature of all political stripes Don’t Get It. They’ve been in their epistemic bubble for too long and have forgotten certain universal truths, such as No, God Has Not Reached Down And Touched You With Perfection, or No, You’re Really Not As Bright As You Think.
It’s just how it is, but the politically immature don’t get it.
Look, there’s no doubt the Floyd murder indicates changes are called for. Did it indicate wholesale replacement in the middle of a crime wave that is killing men, women, and children? I don’t see it. The question that needs answering – and the left will claim they’ve already answered it, and so will the right – is whether the murder of Floyd is the fruit of the policing system, or the crime of an individual or a small conspiracy.
I fear the entire Defund the police effort, and its subsequent rejection, has drowned the project to reallocate responsibilities that most already recognize – including the police. I’m talking about moving police away from mental health incidents, as accomplished in Eugene, OR, via the CAHOOTS program. The We Know Best! approach to politics is both immature and damaging and needs to be discarded.
Of course, that diminishes the ego, and thus that won’t happen until a crisis that points at that bad attitude occurs. We may not survive such a crisis.
