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Matthew Yglesias
@mattyglesias
Great post here. Why have I been recommending that more people read Trace? 1. He’s smart and perceptive 2. You go from winning to losing by making the tent bigger not smarter, you need to listen to the people just outside the tent not make excuses to ignore them
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TracingWoodgrains
@tracewoodgrains
This, from the other site, is a good example of what I mean when I talk about the ways many left-liberals have hoped to systematically ignore the disillusioned center. My impression was that the thing that made me not a "weird conservative" was my support for Dems over Trump!
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Matthew Yglesias
@mattyglesias
Notwithstanding the worst people on social media, I think more and more Democrats are open to this point. The difference between losing in a weird way (2016) and losing the popular vote (2024) is you’re out of excuses — the coalition needs to get bigger. It just does.
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Dyllan
@Dyllan88
“ if I wanted to be a weird conservative, I would be one. The conservative ecosystem is starved for writing talent.” What’s an example of someone pulling this off?
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Chris Scheibenreif
@c_scheibenreif
What is “the center” though? Like 2 of the last 3 dem presidential nominees ran extremely centrist campaigns. Do they just want dems to stand on stage and procalaim “I am a centrist!” There’s a lot of stuff in the center, be specific.
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TechSignals
@TechSignalsonX
So the strategy is to ignore the center - that is actually holding the tent up - and then wonder why the “tent” keeps collapsing? Keep it up
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Pras
@PrasFrancis
Kamala pretty explicitly appealed to the Center and it's hard to argue Trump did. At best you could say he spent time with Rogan and others trying to appeal to low information voters. It seems to go against your thesis that Dems should moderate.
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Cassandra of the GOP
@AllisonHaa30391
Lots of food for thought here. I think point 2 "You go from winning to losing by making the tent bigger not smarter, you need to listen to the people just outside the tent not make excuses to ignore them" also applies to MAGA right now
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Kathy Cuming
@CumingKath19198
Unfortunately the USA is in such dire straits that I cannot back even this reasonable person. Waiting for the day when we all try to be decent Americans again.
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Joe
@htown_Joe
Ever notice how much time the Mostly Millennial Far Left spends telling everyone who will listen (1) who NOT to listen to and (2) who should be silenced/deplatformed etc.? It’s freaky how much they want to control who gets heard. Sort of like they don’t trust their audience?
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Bavid Dowman
@BavidDowman
It says a lot about the modern dem coalition that “tech furry with skull calipers” is more palatable than “UAW member who likes guns and is worried about immigrants taking his job” even though the latter is 1000x as common and way more electorally important per capita
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Orn “Nullius in verba” Two
@orntwo
It should be expected people who believe in identity politics would analyze everything, including potential allies, by their identities and associations. Therefore, for a Democrat to prioritize the from “where” and “who” over the practical “what” is philosophically consistent.
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Wolfman Jerk
@boshin_goshin
The dream of having only a center-right party and a far-right party, right? Not at all like the world we’ve been actually living in for decades.
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Karen Rylander
@KarenRylander
There seems to be no room for nuance in the Dem party. You either are with them or the enemy. I have never voted Trump, but I thankfully didn’t have to vote Harris. The superciliousness of so many in the party while taking ill-thought-out positions really irks me.
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The GOP delenda est
@elvislevel
This zero GOP agency theory has got to stop. A lot of normal apolitical people are disallusioned bc GOPers are purposefully disgusting. Apoliticals see this as politics is disgusting, and become disallusioned. I hear this ALL THE TIME. Not a damn thing Dems can do about it.
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