I hear that they speak all the time. Trump follows Macron’s labor-market reforms and calls to congratulate him. The first state visit of his administration will be Macron’s to Washington next month, a special honor for “a great guy.” The French president is Trump’s best friend in Europe ..
.. Both understood the fact that voters were bored as well as angry, mistrustful of the liberal consensus, angry at globalization’s predations, restive for grandeur, thirsty for the outspoken rather than the dutiful warnings of experts.
.. Both men came from nowhere, mavericks hoisted to the highest offices of their lands by a wave of disgust at politics-as-usual. They are, in their way, accidents of history, thrust to power at the passing of an era. Longing for disruption produced these two disrupters.
.. Macron, who at 40 could be Trump’s son, has honed a grandiose theater of the center, thereby giving centrist politics new vigor at a time of extremist temptation. He’s tough on immigration because he knows his survival depends on it. Trump’s is the theater of the zigzagging bully, nonstop noise often drowning out meaning. For both men, movement and action are essential.
.. Gaullist pomp, shunned by Macron’s predecessor, is back. If that’s what it takes to defeat the racist National Front, bring it on. Macron celebrated his victory last year with an address to the French people at the Louvre, greeted Putin at Versailles
.. “It’s not ‘Make France Great Again’ — except that it is, sort of,” a French friend observed.
Should Democrats Embrace the Center or Abandon It?
Over the next six months, Democratic voters will be asked again and again whether their party’s candidates should hew to the center or move to the left.
How voters answer that question will help shape the strategic plans of the dozen or more Democrats jockeying to beat President Trump in 2020.
.. “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said in a statement. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”
.. Does the path to victory lie in mobilizing the liberal base — by taking explicitly left-wing stands on immigration, as well as gun rights, universal health care, the minimum wage, racial justice and so on?
.. Or is the widespread hatred of Donald Trump — at least among Democrats — sufficient to turn out progressive and minority voters, which would make undecideds the constituency that must be more actively wooed?
.. “Democrats Can Run the Conor Lamb Strategy Over and Over” read the headline of an article by Jonathan Chait in New York magazine:
There are a lot of Conor Lambs out there. Very early in the election cycle, Democrats recruited candidates with nontraditional backgrounds, especially in the military, who would appeal to voters in red districts.
.. No way, Bob Mosher argued in a Rolling Stone essay, “Why Democrats Should Worry About Conor Lamb’s Victory.”
“The real message of Lamb’s campaign basically boiled down to this: ‘Look at what a fine young normal white fellow I am!’ ” Mosher wrote. The “clamor for centrism,” according to Mosher, risks
deflating the Resistance, turning off nonwhite voters, and dampening the turnout that Democrats should be able to expect in November, given the level of Trump animus across the country.
.. The evidence suggests that the balance of power among these voters is shifting to the left.
.. In 1976, conservative Democrats were a significant force within the party, making up 27 percent of its supporters. By 1992, their share fell to 24 percent, still a factor to be reckoned with, providing a crucial source of support to Bill Clinton.
Why the Center-Left Became Immoderate
In polarized times, those without a clear guiding ideology become the most vicious partisans.
Democracy dies when one side loses respect for electoral outcomes and comes to consider the other illegitimate. Recent U.S. presidents, at least since Bill Clinton, have faced a degree of implacable opposition from the further reaches of the opposing party. But of late the problem seems to have intensified—and disrespect for democratic outcomes has become particularly acute on the center-left.
.. But although centrists are by definition skeptical of ideology, that does not make them any less prone to partisanship.
.. In polarized times, political competition comes to resemble tribal warfare. Everyone is under pressure to close ranks and boost morale.
.. Before being appointed to succeed Mrs. Clinton in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand was an upstate New York representative who belonged to the Blue Dog Coalition.
.. Many Democrats are unwilling to accept that Mrs. Clinton actually lost to Donald Trump. Those who find her standard center-left technocratic worldview congenial are disinclined to accept ideological explanations, so they look for scapegoats: Russia, James Comey, even the voters who supported Donald Trump.
.. Contrast the centrists with leftist standard-bearers like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They’re no fans of Mr. Trump, but they haven’t been at the forefront of calls for impeachment or intensifying the Russia investigation. Instead, they have focused their efforts on broadening the Democratic Party’s base with a more inclusive populism that takes seriously the systemic causes of inequality
.. Both have resisted the urge to write off Mr. Trump’s supporters, and Mr. Sanders in particular has made outreach to Republicans a major part of his postelection message. Mr. Sanders seems instinctively uncomfortable with identity politics,
.. People want something to believe in, but in the absence of a strong ideological sensibility among Democrats, partisanship and alarmism offer ready recourse. Having an enemy is a powerful motivator, and hating Mr. Trump is entertaining to boot.
.. Yesterday’s centrists have become some of today’s most intense partisans.
Centrist Project 2018: Run 3-5 Senate Seats
1). We are organizing a campaign to draft a slate of 3-5 Centrist, independent candidates for U.S. Senate (stay tuned!). Recognizing the high barrier to entry at this level, we are focusing on potential candidates who would be instantly credible and viable based on their existing name recognition and fundraising capacity.
2). For the first time, we are recruiting a slate of Centrist, independent candidates to run for state legislature in at least two potential target states, such as Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Oregon, Nevada, and Connecticut. Winning races at this level can serve as a proof of concept that can be scaled to other states and up the ballot in future elections, while simultaneously building a farm team of leaders to run for higher office in the future.
While over 40% of voters self-identify as independent voters, fewer than .01% of legislators are elected as independents. Why? Talented leaders don’t run as independents because there is zero infrastructure to support their campaigns, unlike major party candidates. That is the core problem we are determined to solve.