Thread by @Yascha_Mounk

Many top Democratic strategists and pundits now believe in the "progressive mobilization theory." The key to winning in 2020 is to move left, mobilize the base, and ignore non-existent swing voters.

This is dangerously wrong for three reasons.

[Thread.]

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

1)

Swing voters do exist. And they do sway elections.

* 11% of Trump's 2016 voters had supported Obama in 2012; if Clinton had won a fifth of them, she'd be President.

* Dems won big in 2018 because tons of swing voters in suburban (and even rural!) districsts abandoned Trump.

Now, it's true that most of these swing voters aren't committed centrists who are less progressive than Democrats and less conservative than Republicans.

They aren't waiting for Howard Schultz to be on the ballot.

But these voters do matter, few of them are consistently left-wing, and their behavior in past elections show that many of them are allergic to anything they perceive as ideological overreach by the ruling party.

How to reach them is not straightforward; the need to do so is.

2) Moving left ≠ mobilizing the base

To win in 2020, Dems do need to mobilize the base. And, yes, that includes lots of black voters in, say, OH and PA as well as lots of Latinos in, say, FL and NV.

But... these voters tend to be more moderate than most Dem politicians!

Dems who voted for Obama in '12 but stayed home in '16 are less progressive than those who voted for Obama in '12 and Clinton in '16.

It's just not clear why moving to the left - or embracing unpopular policies like abolishing private healthcare - should mobilize them.

One reason why is, simply, that black and Latino Democrats are much less progressive on many issues of public policy than white Democrats.

Mobilizing them is key; doing so requires a very different politics from what affluent white pundits with postgrad degrees tend to assume.

3) To cure America of Trumpism, Dems need a resounding victory

Dems gain too little from a narrow victory that makes it hard to enact real reforms, keeps Trumpism in charge of the Republican Party, and could allow Tom Cotton - or Donald Trump Jr. - to become President in 2024.

The problem is not Trump, it's Trumpism.

To vanquish the serious danger posed by Trumpism, we need to impose a crushing defeat on Trump - one that not only removes him from office, but discredits his entire political movement.

That is not possible by just mobilizing the base.

How can Dems have a chance at inflicting a crushing defeat on Trump while winning a mandate for real change?

Avoid false binaries:

* Mobilize the base *and* make a play for swing voters.

* Offer an ambitious vision built around those progressive politics that *are* popular.

I know many of you will disagree on this. But I do fear that the "theory of progressive mobilization" is in danger of hardening into orthodoxy - and might seriously damage our chances of beating Trump.

So please do share my article @TheAtlantic.

[End.]

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

@TheAtlantic Further reading:

My article @TheAtlantic on how Democrats can put together an ambitious progressive agenda by focusing on policies that are widely popular - but why they also do need to eschew those policies that are deeply unpopular.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

@TheAtlantic My article @slate on the rhetoric and policies Democrats need in order to both mobilize the base and appeal to swing voters.

slate.com/news-and-polit…

@TheAtlantic @Slate This excellent case by @mattyglesias on why swing voters do matter.

vox.com/2019/9/11/2085…

@TheAtlantic @Slate @mattyglesias .@leedrutman on the identity of "moderates" and "independents."

fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-m…

@TheAtlantic @Slate @mattyglesias @leedrutman .@A_agadjanian on the electoral cost of radical polices.

nytimes.com/2019/09/30/ups…