TRUMP TORCHES THE COUNTRY, BUT CENTRIST DEMOCRATS THINK THE REAL THREAT IS PROGRESSIVISM

Today is Memorial Day. Because federal holidays are normally slow news days, well-connected think tanks and interest groups often pitch op-eds and stories to major media outlets when holidays are approaching. For this weekend, I see that anti-progressive Democrats have successfully pitched a couple of high-profile pieces.

The first, in The Wall Street Journal, is a story about Rahm Emanuel's all-but-declared run for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. Emanuel apparently intends to run on the slogan "Rahm: Because Democrats Are Bad." (I made that up, but it's very close to the truth.)

Rahm Emanuel, never humble about his political skills, is trying to accomplish something that seems far-fetched even for him: push his Democratic Party—rooted in the identity politics of the left—to the center.

The former congressman, White House chief of staff, Chicago mayor and diplomat is direct about what he thinks Democrats need to do to win national elections again. He calls the party’s brand “toxic” and “weak and woke,” a nod to culture-war issues he thinks Democrats have become too often fixated on that President Trump has successfully used against them.

The Democratic Party's poll numbers are bad. Ever wonder why? We know that dyed-in-the-wool liberals and progressives are frustrated by the party's weak response to Trump. We know that Republicans have been told for decades that Democrats are history's greatest monsters. But what about the people in the middle? Why don't they say nice things about Democrats?

I think one big reason they don't is that they keep being told that Democrats suck by Democrats. I believe this has a real impact on how voters vote. Here are the messages swing voters hear:

Republicans say: Democrats suck!
Democrats say: Democrats suck!

Republicans say: We have all the answers and we are the only true patriots in America.
Democrats say: We need a strong Republican Party! Isn't Liz Cheney wonderful?

Under those circumstances, it's amazing that Democrats win any elections at all.

In additioon to that Journal story, there's this in The Washington Post:

Really? Again?

Here are the opening paragraphs, which could have been generated by AI or, really, by anyone familiar with America's political media:

Maybe it’s using the word “oligarchs” instead of rich people. Or referring to “people experiencing food insecurity” rather than Americans going hungry. Or “equity” in place of “equality,” or “justice-involved populations” instead of prisoners.

As Democrats wrestle with who to be in the era of President Donald Trump, a growing group of party members — especially centrists — is reviving the argument that Democrats need to rethink the words they use to talk with the voters whose trust they need to regain.

They contend that liberal candidates too often use language from elite, highly educated circles that suggests the speakers consider themselves smart and virtuous, while casting implied judgment on those who speak more plainly — hardly a formula for winning people over, they say.

The latest debate is, in part, also a proxy for the bigger battle over what the Democrats’ identity should be in the aftermath of November’s devastating losses — especially as the party searches for ways to reverse its overwhelming rejection by rural and White working-class voters.

What percentage of rural white working-class voters have ever heard a Democratic politician -- or anyone else -- say "justice-involved populations"? For that matter, how many progressives have ever heard this phrase? If you're not still in the academic hothouse, it's likely that you never hear this -- except from Democrat-bashing centrist Democrats.

The story quotes the usual gang of Democratic language cops. Ruben Gallego is here, as always, denouncing the use of "Latinx." (I'm not a huge fan myself, but I can't think of a single Democratic politician who's ever used it, except Gallego himself, pejoratively). Andy Beshear cites a couple of phrases that aren't even associated with lefties:

Saying someone has defeated “substance abuse disorder,” he said, minimizes the sheer human triumph of beating addiction; decrying “food insecurity” fails to convey the tragedy of hungry children.

"Food insecurity" is a bit wonky, but "substance abuse"? That's normie English by now -- it doesn't mark the speaker as an elitist.

And then there's Elissa Slotkin:

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) is another rising swing-state Democrat who contends that her party needs to use language that comes, as she puts it, from the factory line and not the faculty lounge.

She said the scope of her party’s challenge hit home when a voter wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap asked her, “What’s your hat?” He was hoping for a Democratic message that could fit onto a cap, she said, and she realized there was no obvious answer.

You want a slogan that fits on a hat? I've got one, and it even fits on a red hat:

And here's a slightly longer version of this slogan that would also make a nice hat:

“Tesla Takedown” protesters chant “Tax the rich! Tax the motherfucking rich” in NYC.
pic.twitter.com/zmkWVabw3w

— 💋🇺🇸 Country Over Party🇺🇸🇮🇱🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@gagirlpolitics) March 22, 2025

Elissa Slotkin should like that -- after all, she claims she used the additional word in an appeareance during the 2024 campaign:

She recalled speaking to a roomful of skeptical Teamsters before the November election. “I just said, ‘Hey, you motherf---ers, I don’t want to hear another godd--n word about all Donald Trump has done for you,’” she said, adding, “They love it. ... To me that is a different way to enter the room.”

(I need to see a clip of that before I believe it, and the same goes for "What's your hat?")

The word that apparently offends Slotkin the most is "oligarchy." As I wrote last month, when both Slotkin and David Brooks were whining about this word,

... Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are drawing massive crowds in non-coastal America with a tour called "Fighting Oligarchy." Do Brooks and Slotkin object to the word "oligarchy"? Or do they object to fighting the oligarchy? Because people want that, and I sense that Brooks and Slotkin (and most mainstream Democrats) don't.

That's why we're seeing articles like this: centrist Democrats believe the party can stage a comeback in 2026 and 2028, and they (and their donors) want to make sure that that winning party faction isn't the one that wants to impose serious taxes and regulations on wealthy people. In other words, Trump is running rampant right now, and these centrists have decided that progressives are the people America needs to worry about most.

They want to persuade America that centrists are the real edgelords who'll lead the party into the future. The Post story says:

a crop of youthful, up-and-coming Democrats is arguing that liberals need to abandon what they portray as a series of constantly evolving linguistic purity tests.

Oooh, they're youthful! (Well, maybe not Rahm.) They're up-and-coming! And fusty old progressives such as ... um, AOC are "weak and woke," a phrase that turned up in a Slotkin profile in April and turns up again in The Wall Street Journal's Rahm Emanuel story.

If we have real elections in 2028, I think Democrats will need to appeal to both progressives and moderates to win. I can't tell you the exact mix that would lead to victory. But I know that constantly denouncing the party for alleged crimes of "wokeness" will make defeat all the more likely.

Here's the formula: Democrats should feel free to criticize other Democrats. But if your criticism of fellow Democrats reinforces the GOP's messaging about Democrats, you should -- and I hope Elissa Slotkin likes the way I put this -- just shut the fuck up.