Media Alt-Centrists in Disarray

 

When I first saw this Tweet (Xeet?), my eye was drawn to "Dems should pursue working-class voters of all races." It's a great example of something that is simultaneously (a) alt-center conventional wisdom and (b) utterly inane. What are the sorts of policies Dems should pursue to working-class voters of all races? Answer: the ones they're already supporting! 

The difference between talking and delivering. pic.twitter.com/mb6bp65eKV

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 31, 2023

Price negotiations for prescription drugs is a great, obvious example of a policy that's geared to the interest of working-class voters of all races. Standing with the incipient wave of labor mobilization is another. The infrastructure bill was yet another. All of these are centerpiece items of the Democratic Party's economic agenda. But the alt-center punditry acts as if they don't exist. The "advice" on offer is "do what you're already doing, but make me pay attention to it." And one cannot help but think that the price the pundits have put on "make me pay attention to it" is "stop distracting me by also supporting policies that are distinctively to the benefit of specific historically marginalized communities."

At the same time, there is a separate vapidity in the "advice" that Biden shouldn't run for reelection. Again, as advice this is just terrible: Biden has a proven electoral track record and has already beaten Trump once. There's no universe where a chaotic primary free-for-all would actually be healthy for the Democratic Party or the broader prospect of ensuring that Trump or any of his lackeys stay out of the White House. The desire for "a real primary" is just thinly-disguised thirst for the good old days of "Dems in disarray" and the chaotic intraparty knife fights that aren't happening on the GOP side because virtually all of Trump's "challengers" can't help but cozy up to him (with a not-so-subtle wink to the various factions within the Democratic Party whose definition of a "real primary" excludes any primary where their preferred candidate doesn't march to victory).

Finally, "faculty lounge" politics is also a meaningless phrase. If it's meant to refer to the notion that Democratic party politics take their cues from whatever petition is currently being passed around the Wesleyan anthropology department email list, it's delusional. If it's meant to be a general referent to so-called "culture war" politics, then it's horribly outdated -- we are long past the days where the main "culture" wedge issues favored Republicans over Democrats. Republicans are getting absolutely blitzed on reproductive rights as their radical campaigns to imprison, maim, and murder women are predictably reviled. And their anti-LGBTQ agenda doesn't fare much better. Democrats have a lot of room to punish Republicans for their extremism here, and absolutely should.

Biden should run for reelection, and in the process will no doubt trounce token primary opposition. He should promote his policies which will improve the lives of working class voters of all races, and he should absolutely torch Republicans for their unabashed extremism in desiring to take American "culture" back to the 19th century.