Jon Chait is right that Democratic candidates for the presidency need to not take demonstrably bad positions. He uses medical insurance as his example, but Castro's decision to embrace decriminalizing crossing the border is a better example. He was roundly applauded for this, but it's a terrible, terrible idea. Crossing into this country without a visa or Green Card is illegal, but it's only a misdemeanor. That's fine. The problem is that Trump and his minions treat it as more than a felony. It's an invasion. The proper response is to attack Trump for putting kids in cages, not rushing to EXACTLY the sort of position that could lose the election.
Democrats should be running on a fair immigration policy that rewards people who do the right thing, including those who came here illegally in the first place years ago, but have since been model citizens. We shouldn't demonize those who cross the border, but we shouldn't simply erase the border.
The Twitterverse seems to think this is a good idea. It's not.
The Republican Party went off the rails when it stopped listening to anyone but Fox News. The racist xenophobia of many Americans kept them competitive, but they are living on borrowed time, as the Boomer exit the stage. If the Democrats become as captive to extreme left wing positions as Republicans have become to extreme right wing positions, we are screwed, not just as a party, but as a nation.
Republican extremism has been hidden by a Democratic president. The last time it was exposed was 2005-2008. That worked out extremely well for Democrats electorally. One of the strengths of Obama was how rarely he made unforced errors. Chait notes that David Roberts says that "death panels" proves that Republicans will lie. But Obama's basic persona and temperament meant that those attacks never resonated among the public at large.
The left thinks everyone either A) agrees with them or B) would agree with them if properly educated. That has never been how politics works.
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