[imperfectcats]

I think this sort of response to the interview misses the forest for the trees.

This is the best article on elections I have ever read. When I first read it I felt for the first time I understood how the game is scored. These two quotes stand out and are what matter:

> Persuadable voters trust the parties on different issues. And there’s a pretty basic pattern — both here and in other countries — in which voters view center-left parties as empathetic. Center-left parties care about the environment, lowering poverty, improving race relations. And then, you know, center-right parties are seen as more “serious,” or more like the stern dad figure or something. They do better on getting the economy going or lowering unemployment or taxes or crime or immigration.

> So I think Democrats need to talk about the issues they are with us on, and try really hard not to talk about the issues where we disagree. Which, in practice, means not talking about immigration.

That's the game for both sides: Talk about issues non-partisan voters trust and/or agree with your side on, and avoid the opposite.

Simple in theory. Impossibly hard in practice.

[LaundroMat]

Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant" says something similar: don't let the other side provide the frame for your narrative.

[rayiner]

I agree the advice is astute. But you don’t necessarily get to pick what to talk about. Luckily, this election became a referendum on COVID—where the general empathetic association of Democrats plays strongly. But say COVID hadn’t happened. Instead, the last major pre-election issue was what happened this summer and law-and-order issues? (As Schor notes, this issue favors Republicans.) A whole lot of progressive Democrats turned a blind eye to police stations being burned down, etc. They had to: they had backed themselves into an ideological corner where they accepted the premise that any focus on the breakdown of law and order was “racist.” This was an incredibly unpopular position not only among white voters, but Hispanic voters of all ages and many older Black voters. Luckily, Biden was positioned to be able to say he understood the need for reform while having no soft spot for rioting. But Trump would have steamrolled over any of the other Democratic candidates by throwing their 2019 primary rhetoric back at them. And just not talking about the issue would have been a total non-starter—that’s what would have been on voters’ mind.

Democrats need positions in immigration and policing that aren’t the ones we saw from progressives over the past year and a half. Biden’s are fine. But within progressives’ current orthodoxy, Biden’s views would be deemed extremely “problematic” if Trump wasn’t there to be the bad guy.

I’ll give you another concrete example. Elizabeth Warren consistently used the term “LatinX.” This term actually polls terribly among Latinos. 70% have never heard of it. Of the 30% that have, the majority think it shouldn’t be used as a label to identify Latinos. Just 2% identified with the term themselves. Why use it? Because the people who work for Elizabeth Warren think the term “Latinos” isn’t gender inclusive. Schor would say not to use this term because of a high risk of alienating voters you need. But as Schor recognizes, the ideology of the campaign staffers has a powerful effect on the campaign’s messaging.

[pjc50]

Possibly, but you could project the same argument backwards: "why is this King guy talking about race when it's incredibly unpopular with white voters?"

[rayiner]

That fails to distinguish between politics and activism.

[webmaven]

> That fails to distinguish between politics and activism.

Activism is politics. I think the distinction is between activism and running for office.