I'm working (slowly) on a newsletter about this, but I think a big part of the problem is an inability to differentiate between various roles in the progressive politics ecosystem. Campaign strategists have different obligations than op/ed columnists, even if some aims overlap.
https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1447960745975689221
As a politics-watcher and writer, I don't think it's my job to get Democrats elected, even though in most races I clearly prefer the Democrat. It's understandable that a lot of folks who work in ideas / argument but not campaigns bristle at "don't talk about this issue."
Voters, though, can't really differentiate between a campaign's message and the broader media noise around the message. That's made all the more complicated by Twitter, where everyone is a pundit.
But it is antithetical to the job of a columnist / analyst / opinion journalist to put the strategic desires of a political party ahead of the professional obligation to write about what's important & be honest with your audience. Part of our job, too, is to shape public opinion.
And so yes maybe it makes the utmost strategic sense for Dem campaigns to avoid issues that make voters move right, whether that's immigration or abortion or sexism or racism, and instead focus on the popular policies that would help a lot of people. But...
That's a different thing than expecting the broader universe of journalists, columnists, writers, etc to avoid those issues because they may move voters right. Short-term electoral strategy has to come along with a strategy for longer-term social change or it's just conservatism.
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