Popularism

 A lot of debate over David Shor's idea of popularism.

I'll offer two caveats.

First, there is almost no evidence that people make decisions at the margins based on policy. The people who DO make electoral decisions based on policy have made up their mind which party they support and will vote for that party. Tweaking policy is largely irrelevant.

Second. there is a case that bad rhetoric hurts you. I've been critical of "defund the police" for a while now. I think "open borders" is suicidal. However, I'm fully on board with major changes in how we train, fund and hold police accountable. I'm fully on board with a more humane and open immigration policy. I think that one page we could steal from Republicans is that they never advertise their unpopular positions. They scream about rapists coming from Mexico to excite their base, but then all they really do is cut taxes for the rich, which is unpopular. 

Running on a message of opposing plutocracy and supporting the middle class is good. Run on that. You don't run on transgender rights. You win, and then you write transgender rights into law, because you won.