Associate Professor of Political Science, Colgate University.
"The Hollow Parties": https://t.co/NGYSTimHzh
Jun 1, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I think it's pretty clear that the 21st-century trajectory of party-class alignment and party *policy* on most economic matters runs in the opposite direction of materialist expectations.
The initial 70's rise of postmaterialist issues alongside pol-econ transformations really did shift Dems (& center-left parties elsewhere) in a neoliberal direction over the following two decades. That hasn't been true in the last two, even as the electorate has cont'd shifting.
Jul 13, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Two small points re. ongoing debates over "popularism" and @davidshor-style arguments for Dem message discipline and selective issue moderation, in the spirit of reducing the propensity of folks to talk past each other:
1.) The context of polarized partisan parity + Dems' growing structural disadvantages under American political institutions seems to me central to the popularist case in specific strategic disputes, though in a way that underscores the rather grim limits of the implicit vision.
May 13, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Possibly an extremely obvious observation but: Notwithstanding enduring gripes about both-sides journalism, it’s striking how firmly mainstream media has refused to adopt a he-said-she-said neutrality frame for the 2020 election even as the GOP firms up its Trump commitments.
This is in keeping w: what were clearly consciously made Trump-era choices by outlets to resist the balance-over-accuracy trap on various stories involving brazen Trump lies. It’s a good thing! But it really is different from the pre-Trump pattern re big political controversies.
Nov 3, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Election day treacle:
We’re looking at turnout rates unseen either in 60 yrs or a century. Under daunting circumstances, millions have mobilized in new and old ways. The work people have put in has been staggering. And if you zoom out to take in the whole Trump presidency…
…you see an ongoing historic civic flourishing in politics. The Women’s March & rolling demonstrations in 2017. The organizing behind the record-setting 2018 midterms. The emergence of the socialist left in electoral and Dem programmatic politics. The BLM protests this summer…
Sep 18, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
1. A typically great piece that also links to this recent deep-dive by @dylanmatt on the poli sci literature on canvassing and gotv: vox.com/21366036/canva…
2. One piece of background context to pieces like these is that a cohort of young progressive data people, of whom @davidshor is a leading example, have for a few years now been promulgating the notion that door-knocking is a lib indulgence and inefficient vote-getter.
Jul 23, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I'm just a simple country professor but it seems to me that both sides of Letter Discourse have reached consensus that "free speech" & abstract procedural principles are red herrings here--boundaries of socially (rather than legally) acceptable opinion will ALWAYS be drawn…(1/6)
…and the real debate is just the substantive one re where those boundaries should fall. But having conceded that, both sides largely stick to arguments in the abstract! It's what trips TCW up w/ Chotiner--but it frankly can also come off as a dodge on the anti-Letter side. (2/6)
Sep 1, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I’m trying to enjoy my sabbatical this semester but Dan Crenshaw keeps forcing me to relive the one set of Intro to American Politics discussions that invariably gets me genuinely and unprofessionally aggravated.
As a sidenote, part of the multidimensional aggravating-ness of these discussions is that these people aren't even mounting this (horrible) defense on behalf of the right institution.
Jan 17, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
.@daschloz and my op-ed (nytimes.com/2019/01/15/opi…) appeared in the NYT along w/ this incisive @DouthatNYT piece (nytimes.com/2019/01/16/opi…). Both concern drawing cordons sanitaires. Douthat (avoiding false equivalences) tackles both left & right, while we only discuss the latter.
That prompts me to offer a claim about a deep asymmetry in democratic politics: Though the dangers of extremism and the value of parties as temporizers are common to all political persuasions, they are not shared equally among them.
. I have a more specific point, undeniably motivated by some “presentist” concerns.
2. Does the rise-of-the-right lit really “take the extreme right as representative of conservatism,” as Kabaservice charges? This work, first motivated by dissatisfaction w/ how postwar libs like Bell & Hofstadter pathologized the right, if anything went too far the other way.
