Promises To The People

 Yglesias has been hammering his "popularist" idea and he found an example of an Australian party running on a narrowly tailored list that allowed them to avoid the pitfalls of unpopular far left culture war positions. In his piece, he notes that Perry Bacon has come up with a similar idea for Democrats for the midterms. It's a ten point plan called Promises to the People. Here are the ten planks.

1. Eliminate the filibuster.

2. A national law guaranteeing a right to an abortion in the first trimester and in all cases of rape and incest.

3. A democracy reform law mandating independent commissions to draw state and congressional districts lines free of gerrymandering; vote-by-mail and two weeks of early voting; proportional representation through multi-member congressional districts; and measures to prevent election subversion.

4. A ban on the sale of military-style weapons such as AR-15 rifles and high-capacity magazines, along with universal background checks for gun sales.

5. A minimum income tax of at least 20 percent on billionaires.

6. A ban on members of Congress buying individual stocks.

7. National marijuana legalization.

8. A climate change plan that puts the United States on a path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

9. A required civics and life-skills course for high school seniors, with the same curriculum throughout the country.

10. Voluntary term limits of 12 years in Congress for all Democrats (six terms in the House, two in the Senate).

It's not a bad list. Off the bat, I'm OK with numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8. They are focused and popular. Number 2, especially, turns down some of the heat from justifiably angry women who want to use outrage to create a more sweeping right to an abortion. While their anger is understandable, expanding abortion rights beyond Roe/Casey is a bad idea because the GOP has given you a wedge issue with the Dobbs ruling and you should leverage that to protect actual abortions. Same with 4, as that's roughly the position that holds large majority support.

The ones I have quibbles with are the following.

The first half of 3 is great. But going to proportional representation would likely require a constitutional amendment. Drop that and that's a good plank,

Number 7 is potentially tricky, and Biden has largely avoided this issue, wisely, I think. If the Federal marijuana law were simply to throw the issue to the states, and remove all criminal penalties for anything except international trafficking...OK. That's a good bill. 

Number 9 is a nasty can of worms, and I don't think it would be good politics. First, Fox and the GOP would immediately decry the nationalization of civics education. They would claim that AOC is going to indoctrinate your kids with socialmalism. The fact that it's a lie is irrelevant to the current political climate, those attacks will land. I understand the impulse to create a standard civics curriculum- American civic education is clearly poor - but I don't think this is a "popular" position.

Number 10 is just a bad idea. Term limits have been proven time and again to empower the shadow state of lobbyists and think tanks. If, instead, there were an effort to create a mandatory retirement age for Senate and Congressional leadership...that might work. The fall into gerontocracy is a real burden for effective legislative action. Pat Leahy and Dianne Feinstein should not be in the Senate anymore. Nancy Pelosi should be actively preparing for her successor.

There's also the fact that 8 items are better than 10, if you're trying to narrow the agenda. I suppose you could put some anodyne language in a plank about making sure that the civil rights of all Americans are respected could be good. You're not taking a stance on LGBTQ or religious freedom overtly, but it's implied in language that won't offend anyone.

The idea of creating a national agenda that is narrowly tailored to avoid pitfalls is a good one. Yglesias is right that there were elements of the 2020 primary that were nutty, especially open borders. 

The GOP has lurched far, far to the right. There is an opening here, but there are, indeed elements of the Left wing of the Democratic Party to try and force their party even further left. I don't really understand the thinking behind that.

Campaign from the center and govern from the center-left is a really good strategy.