Big Tent

 Yglesias engages in some of his own "pundit's fallacy" which is when political prescriptions tend to conform to one's existing beliefs. For him, it's a constant stream of pro-YIMBYism. 

Still, it seems like one big takeaway from the electoral loss is that Harris passionately affirming her support for transition surgery for prisoners really hurt her. For me, it was less that people are lining up to hate trans people, as it is that her apparently ardent support for this showed she cared more about this than high prices. The fact that she ran very heavily on attacking high prices and did not run on transition surgery for prisoners seems like an important part of the story. All the ad did was put her in the box of "California Woman of Color Who Is Way to My Left On Social Issues."

It was pretty clear that Harris' people saw this, too, which is why she touted owning a Glock and spoke of a lethal military. 

The broader hobby horse of a lot of center-left journalists, including Yglesias and Chait, is that too often Democrats have prioritized intra-party harmony over occasional heterodoxy. That seems roughly true.

The idea of "cancel culture" is, of course, not unique to the left. Conservatives want to cancel all sorts of shit, yet the stigma comes from what James Carville called "Faculty Lounge Politics." 

An example of this is Senator Fetterman's vocal and militant support for Israel. That's not really in line with where the leftward parts of the party are, but as Bob Casey's recent narrow defeat proves, you have to allow Fetterman some latitude on this. It's obvious he really cares about it, and lots of people do support Israel. 

It seems to me that a lot of this dynamic comes from the dogpiles of social media. Every statement can be picked up and made an instant battleground. Famously, some kids at Oberlin complained about the banh mi in the dining room being cultural appropriation. I doubt very seriously that this is a position held by most students even at Oberlin. Every nutty position held by every attention starved college militant can become today's "main character." 

It's pretty clear that the solution to this should be in the candidates Democrats rally around. Bill Clinton's "Sista Souljah" moment only worked because he was a moderate Southern Democrat. The ideal candidate for me in 2028 is a male midwestern governor with a military record who is good on TV. That person doesn't exist, unless Pete somehow becomes governor of Michigan or Walz improves his extemporaneous speaking skills, but that's the person whose positions or communication skills matter less than what they look like on the debate stage. 

In the meantime, Democrats and left of center folks need to stop quibbling over how committed they are to certain strategies and more to broad goals. In essence:

- Climate change is very important, but we need clean energy abundance for our economic future not de-growth, and the steps we do that should be negotiable.
- Every person should be treated equally and with some compassion, and that includes everyone from trans people to Seventh Day Adventists.
- We need to make it harder for bad people to get guns, while respecting the rights of safe gun owners.
- We need to make sure someone with only a high school degree can get a job that allows them to own a home, given their own hard work and merit.