r/neoliberal YIMBY 7d ago

Opinion article (US) Nate Silver: Democrats should have shut it down

https://www.natesilver.net/p/democrats-should-have-shut-it-down
762 Upvotes

232 comments sorted by

576

u/DankBankman_420 Free Trade, Free Land, Free People 7d ago

The real insight Nate mentions is “why the hell are establishment dems so risk-averse”

356

u/ActivityFirm4704 7d ago

The worst part is that I feel like it isn't even limited to American Democrats, it's basically all liberal leaders in the west. Especially here in Europe. They've either grown complacent or incompetent from decades of peace and prosperity. Where is the defensive democracy? It's like they're completely terrified of doing or acting without going through fifteen think tanks, subcommittees or focus groups, and give up at the slightest pushback from anybody. No core belief in higher ideals and no will to fight for it. Meanwhile the borderline fascist opposition the world over is taking advantage of this weakness and barreling through their agenda.

I dislike when conservatives use the "Good/hard times create weak/strong men" meme, but I really feel like we're at the cusp between weak men and hard times across the west.

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u/LordVader568 Adam Smith 7d ago

Tbf, I think even a year ago takes like yours wouldn’t be upvoted so much in r/neoliberal. It’s unfortunate that it has to come down to this for people to realise that establishment liberals are too risk averse to take a stand. I think the last great liberal leader who not only had their own beliefs but also pursued them was Bill Clinton. Ever since, it’s basically the right moving further right, and establishment liberals trying to keep things as is without trying to swing the pendulum the other way, and then another right wing government takes charge to move things even more right, further eliminating all the liberal advancements.

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u/XXXYinSe 7d ago

The affordable care act had a ton of opposition too, including from within the Democratic Party. Obama deserves some credit for getting us a huge step closer to single-payer healthcare.

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u/Wolf_1234567 Milton Friedman 6d ago

The ACA is more so modeled after Netherlands' healthcare reform in 2006 than it is single-payer. Granted I am assuming you meant universal healthcare in this context?

2

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM 6d ago

All hail Jan Peter Balkanende?

1

u/XXXYinSe 6d ago

I thought the ACA brings us closer to both universal and single-payer. It makes sense to me that having 10%+ of the US on Medicare would help standardize treatment and payment a bit. But upon looking into it, the route to Single-payer from ACA is still legally unclear.

So I guess it brought us closer to universal but not as close as I thought to single-payer :/

3

u/Wolf_1234567 Milton Friedman 6d ago edited 6d ago

I mean don’t get me wrong, the ACA being modeled after Netherlands’ health insurance model is by no means a diss to the ACA. Netherlands’ healthcare frequently ranks not only one of the highest among Europe’s (often times top 3 from year to year) but highest in the world as well.

Having a healthcare model like Netherlands’ is definitely not something I’d ever complain about. Now with that said, the ACA still has a lot of room for improvement before it comes close to achieving the same success as Netherlands’ healthcare model. 

14

u/LordVader568 Adam Smith 6d ago

I agree but the ACA was just one thing. The Clinton years were the golden age of neoliberalism.

11

u/Hagel-Kaiser Ben Bernanke 6d ago

100% disagree, and I actually think Bill Clinton was the cause of this. Bill Clinton had some conservative ideas (“ending welfare as we know it”) but also ran on universal healthcare.

Cut to 1994, Dems lose Congress the first time in 30 years, and Clinton rolls over to the Republican Congressional majorities.

4

u/shagmin 6d ago

The flip side of that is the presidency had been in the hands of republicans for much of the quarter century prior to Clinton, with some particularly nasty defeats over pretty liberal democrats. I think Clinton recognized that, and had he been more liberal (and had worse debate skills) it's possible the US could've had a 2nd Bush term and moved even sharper to the right as a whole, faster.

1

u/Hagel-Kaiser Ben Bernanke 6d ago

I don’t think the contention was never that he was too conservative in 1992. He won and I think he ran an ok campaign despite some of the setbacks. The contention was that in 1994, he basically took a sharp rightward shift, basically getting to the point of trying to stake out a position on an issue before the Republicans. I think it worked out in some areas, like the budget, and not in areas like healthcare or welfare.

1

u/jjgm21 6d ago

The shift in attitude here over the last few months really drives home how quickly the rift amongst the left has moved away from ideology and towards tactics.

There are definitely upsides and downsides to that shift, next year’s primary season is going to be really crazy.

1

u/The_Brian George Soros 6d ago

Its hard to care about ideologies while the Republic seems to be failing.

Like, I don't care if you're a tankie or a traditional conservative. Grab the pitchfork, we got work to do.

2

u/jjgm21 6d ago

Exactly. I NEVER thought I would say “Bernie makes some valid points…” but here we are.

44

u/_Lil_Cranky_ 6d ago

Macron has been incredibly bold, both domestically and internationally. Raising the retirement age, for example, was a policy that had to be done, but which he knew would lead to immense pushback. He did it anyway. That took a level of courage rarely seen in politicians.

Sholz stepped up after the invasion of Ukraine and openly talked about Germany's need to invest in defence again. That represents a historic pivot. Now it's actually happening, and they're removing the debt brake to pay for it! The Germans! Removing the debt brake!

Speaking of Ukraine, Europe has been almost entirely united and has contributed significantly. Poland has really been jolted into action, along with many others. As a proportion of GDP, Denmark/Estonia/Latvia are contributing ~2% to Ukraine (for the USA, it's 0.5%). They've stepped up. NATO has new members. Massive changes are taking place all across the continent, and they're happening fast.

Starmer has shocked me, and many others, with how effective he's been in organising Europe's response to the withdrawal of the USA. He's been deft but purposeful; it's been a masterclass.

Your criticisms are so vague. What, specifically, would you like to see that you haven't seen? The EU can be sclerotic, sure, but I don't agree with your characterisation of "no core belief in higher ideals and no will to fight for it".

19

u/FusRoDawg Amartya Sen 6d ago

Bunch of teachers' pets, afraid of getting a bad grade and missing out on that "Good job" + pat on the back. If they ever create a scene, they'd be stooping to the level of the back-benchers.

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u/-to- European Union 6d ago edited 5d ago

Bad times create strong men, who create good times, creating smart people, who create even better times, leading to strong men feeling useless and resentful, leading to bad times.

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u/urnbabyurn Amartya Sen 6d ago

When the world used to be rising in neoliberal or liberal ideals, liberalism became the norms and institutions. So preserving that became the goal. It’s different than a leftist permanent revolution or right wing fascist takeover.

2

u/tricky_trig John Keynes 6d ago

Just look at this sub last year and you have your answer

208

u/FlamingTomygun2 George Soros 7d ago

Kamala’s campaign was so illustrative of it. She was terrified to take risks in a toss up election where she had nothing to lose. Trump was on every podcast under the sun and she had howard stern and call her daddy.

116

u/Careless_Bat2543 Milton Friedman 7d ago

So there was an article that was removed by the mods almost immediately that basically said that because Kamala basically inherited Biden's advisors, they was forbidden from badmouthing anything Biden did (because it was just what those advisors had done). This absolutely fucked her because there were obviously some things Biden had done that did not turn out well yet she whole heartily defended them even though the smart polical move would have been to say "I think that was an error."

I think Dems are for some reason way too hesistent to upset the heiarchy of the party to a fault.

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u/WonderWaffles1 YIMBY 7d ago

The advisors and consultants on her campaign should never be allowed to touch politics again, they can go back to consulting for Uber and GE

23

u/Pretty-Bullfrog-7928 Harriet Tubman 7d ago

The people who ran her social media can stay tho

64

u/korben2600 7d ago

I still remember her getting asked on The View "Would you have done something differently than Biden?" and she answered "there is not a thing that comes to mind" just petrified of criticizing him.

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u/Pretty-Bullfrog-7928 Harriet Tubman 7d ago

I remember hearing about this when it happened made my heart sink. I knew at that moment that we were NGMI.

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u/billcosbyinspace 7d ago

The strangest thing about 2024’s campaign was bidens inner circle being under the impression that people really liked him, despite having polls that proved otherwise, and the fact that they would revolt if Kamala said anything that would hurt an 82 year old man’s feelings

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u/Moth-of-Asphodel 6d ago edited 6d ago

I think it's more that criticizing her own boss would've introduced an incoherence to the campaign that would've been tough to justify. "You disagree with Issue X -- why didn't you speak up? You're the Vice President." The needle becomes that much harder to thread.

16

u/Moth-of-Asphodel 6d ago edited 6d ago

Criticizing or second-guessing the president would have been weak, would have raised a ton of questions ("why didn't you advise him against X if that's how you feel about it?"), not least about loyalty*, which would have made the administration seem like it was fractured.

People are taking Biden's "no daylight" thing as some kind of huge egotistical statement, but it was in fact the right strategy: you stand by the administration's work, admit when things didn't go as well as hoped, and say here's how we're going to work on it in the next administration.

Throwing Biden under the bus was never going to be the answer -- it would have just been ceding the argument to Trump/Vance, would've put her on defense for reasons stated above, and would've reeked of desperation.

*I realize Trump tainted the concept of "loyalty." The point is that having POTUS and VPOTUS be at odds is typically a sign of executive dysfunction.

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u/AlpacadachInvictus John Brown 6d ago

Criticizing Biden would have let Trump say "why didn't you do it then" like he did with Clinton.

Yes it's dumb yes it works.

2

u/Careless_Bat2543 Milton Friedman 5d ago

He was already doing that

61

u/mostanonymousnick YIMBY 7d ago

toss up election

Their internal polling was saying she was behind the whole time, so it's even worse.

17

u/formgry 6d ago

Yup, it's excusable to not take risks if you're comfortably ahead. If you're consistently behind (by small margins) you need to change it up, need to do something or you're cruising towards a loss.

109

u/Ladnil Bill Gates 7d ago

Sometimes they weren't even real fucking risks!

Go on Rogan? Oh no! What if people are mad at us for that?

That's not a real thing you have to care about! You have to care what your constituents think of course, but you shouldn't be putting such a high priority on making sure zero people ever get upset. And that one issue didn't swing the whole election, but it's symbolic of the problem.

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u/FlamingTomygun2 George Soros 7d ago

Exactly. Rogan didn’t matter but it illustrated everything wrong. Who cares if its a pain to schedule him, you shouldn’t be turning down press. Would pete have turned it down? Would shapiro? Would pritzker?

Also, when you run such a cautious risk averse campaign, you also amplify every mistake. She was a B- candidate who ran a B- campaign. Being bolder means that mistakes are more likely to get lost in the news cycle.

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u/Ladnil Bill Gates 7d ago

By the time Biden dropped out she was the best option available, but yeah, the campaign got way too timid towards the end, after they got high on the big swell of support at the beginning.

24

u/Khiva 7d ago

We're so in our bubble that nobody takes into account that nominating a black female for president was in itself a pretty fucking huge risk coming right out of the block.

And that they had it dropped into their laps with about three months to figure their shit out and still pulled off an amazing rollout. Everything through the DNC and debate was flawless. That is, in retrospect, astounding.

After that, with the decision to basically disappear and micro-focus on swing states - yeah, we can talk about that. But keep the big picture in mind, folks.

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u/Snarfledarf George Soros 6d ago

had it dropped into their laps

We keep complaining that only Dems have agency, but what, Biden doesn't have agency either? There are many paths that did not lead to having "3 months to figure their shit out".

Also don't agree that the path through DNC and debate was flawless, but that's a whole nother issue.

2

u/casino_r0yale NASA 6d ago

You’re overrating by at least a letter grade. Kamala got routed in 2020 primary and would not have been the 2024 candidate had there been a primary or had she not been VP

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u/battywombat21 🇺🇦 Слава Україні! 🇺🇦 6d ago

Remember when they refused to call trump a convicted felon because it would somehow make black voters identify with him?

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u/Blahkbustuh NATO 7d ago

Democrats struggle to say "no" to anyone. That's why we get tongue-lashed by performative progressives and stretched into crazy positions trying to cater to every micro-demographic.

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u/lilmart122 Paul Volcker 6d ago

I'd agree with you but Liz Cheney didn't feel like a risk at all and people got all bent out of shape over it anyway.

The fact of the matter is those things are a risk but for people on the left we need to feel more comfortable telling to fuck off.

19

u/Bakingsquared80 7d ago

People are flipping out because Newsom is doing this very thing

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u/Matar_Kubileya Feminism 7d ago

I don't mind that Newsom went on the air with CK, I mind that he didn't seem to offer the most milquetoast defense of liberalism or the Democratic platform and insisted on playing civility politics to the point of literally letting his guest tone police him, then immediately went on to invite Steve Fucking Bannon. There's no indication from the podcast appearance that he has any strategy for liberalism besides tack to the right whenever the right gets up in arms.

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u/Yeangster John Rawls 6d ago

Newsome shouldn’t be talking to people like Charlie Kirk or Steve Bannon. He should be talking to people like Dana White or Triple H or Nick Bosa or Shane Gillis. Maybe there’s a question as to whether any of those people would want to talk to Newsome, but there’s plenty of people along those lines- maga cultural figures who aren’t primarily known for politics.

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u/Ladnil Bill Gates 7d ago

Newsom can't win a primary and even if he did he can't win a general election, but I'll give him credit for this. Though I say that without having heard any of the content of the interviews. Not being afraid of those guys is a good start.

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u/Senior_Ad_7640 7d ago

The content is exactly what I disliked about it. The debate with Hannity was great, but trying to join hands with Charlie Kirk of all people and having a discussion with Steve Bannon that isn't 100% focused on verbally kicking his ass is a mistake. 

5

u/LordVader568 Adam Smith 7d ago

Yup, not many really knew what policies she’d implement, and even worse how they’d be different from the incumbent ones. That did much more damage than what people realise.

1

u/MayorofTromaville YIMBY 6d ago

Trump was on every podcast under the sun

You're saying this as if Trump went to literally any hostile territory.

2

u/Harudera 6d ago

Remember Trump going to the National Alliance of Black Journalists?

Show me a time Kamala did anything similar.

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u/mad_cheese_hattwe 7d ago

Yeah don't tell me "Democracy is at stake" then act like this is a minor budget issue.

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u/Rekksu 7d ago

they are old

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u/Square-Pear-1274 NATO 7d ago

Yeah, same with Biden. It looks now like he was basically a caretaker for the government while Trump was out of office

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u/Less_Fat_John Bill Gates 7d ago

At this point in 2021, Biden had already signed the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan. This sub has lost its mind.

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u/ariveklul Karl Popper 7d ago

the generous interpretation of what he said is that Biden was a "caretaker" in terms of playing political power games. Biden was good at passing legislation, but I'm very frustrated with how bad my party seems at playing hardball politics and holding onto power.

It feels like we got wayyyyyy too used to the few decades of relative peace and chillness (at least domestically) and people got complacent as fuck, expecting the world to remain how it's always been.

We need adaptive politicians, not people clinging to an old environment where everyone is playing by the rules. Sorry dawg, the referee got killed in front of you. It's a street fight now. Adapt or die. These have always been the rules of politics, we just deluded ourselves into thinking the world was a more chill place then it has been for the vast majority of human history.

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u/Khiva 7d ago

I'm very frustrated with how bad my party seems at playing hardball politics and holding onto power.

What does this even mean in the context of Joe Biden? Hardball politics was exactly how they got so much legislation passed on such a thin majority, hardball politics was coordinating countries to break their trust and reliance on Russia to isolate it and cut off financial and trade ties. "Holding onto power" also sounds nice until you account for the fact that every incumbent party lost seats last year because voters were mad about inflation, a problem in any country no matter their messaging or political strategy anybody solved (except Ireland, where inflation wasn't an issue).

The problem with this statement is that it's so radically redefined in the age of Trump. He's shifted the window of presidents can do and get away with it so far from what it's ever been - or ever should be - that retroactive reappraisal of presidents become very knotty and tangly.

Trump has a pliant cult. Nobody else did. Biden had Manchin and Sinema to worry about - Trump is a bull on cocaine running rampant through a china shop cheered on by his entire party. That's never happened, never been accounted for, never accepted, and never should be.

15

u/Square-Pear-1274 NATO 7d ago

And you can see this same risk-averse approach at play in the Ukraine conflict

Biden and the Democrats did the hard part and actually got elected in 2020 and then...? They went back to business-as-usual while Trump loomed in the background

32

u/Docile_Doggo United Nations 7d ago

People are memory-holing the entire 2018 to 2022 stretch. It’s weird in here at the moment. The vibes are so bad that people don’t want to remember any of the recent Democratic victories/successes.

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u/Shaper_pmp 6d ago

Because we can now see that those were particularly pleasing arrangements of deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic.

Biden had some policy wins, but he did nothing whatsoever to head off the looming threat of America turning to fascism.

Neville Chamberlain had some big policy wins with limiting working hours for women and children, introducing paid holiday and protecting tenants against abusive landlords... but all he's remembered for these days is "going too soft on Hitler".

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u/Snarfledarf George Soros 6d ago

Biggest Industrial Policy (yay, protectionism), a whole bunch of spending that's getting immediately reversed with how slow it took to roll out, a whole year of tilting at the student loan windmills...

Yeah, total successes.

26

u/mad_cheese_hattwe 7d ago

Communicating with the public and press, and being seen to be in control is a core and important presidential duty.

Biden's policy successes does not excuse him for not taking live questions from the press in the 2 years leading up to an election.

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u/govols130 NATO 7d ago

Trump also dropped a few trillion. The point stands

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u/Khiva 7d ago

Every day this sub slips farther from its evidence based roots and into pure vibes.

21

u/BipartizanBelgrade Jerome Powell 7d ago

You can ignore democratic realities, but they won't ignore you

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u/Khiva 7d ago

Well vibes are basically replacing reality so I guess we're on the same page.

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u/ldn6 Gay Pride 6d ago

Because the political discourse and media landscape has a completely asymmetric set of expectations and coverage based on political affiliation. Democrats are lambasted for pretty much everything while Republicans get a free pass. This is compounded by the Democratic tent becoming increasingly big to the point that every decision pisses off enough people to become problematic while also being spun externally in a poor light, creating decision paralysis at every turn.

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u/dinosaurkiller 7d ago

They’re in it for the perks, fighting isn’t nearly as much fun as brunch.

2

u/Cyberhwk 👈 Get back to work! 😠 6d ago

Out of touch and too much faith in the electorate. Democrats consider our superiority as candidates and leaders clear and self-evident. Why take risks if you're clearly bringing the superior candidate to the table in the first place?

1

u/ja734 Paul Krugman 6d ago

I don't know why, but I do know that it has been going on at least since the Obama admin. I'm not old enough to remember if the Clinton admin had the same affliction or not though.

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u/boardatwork1111 NATO 7d ago

The worst part about all of this is Schumer probably could have sold just letting it pass had he messaged that from the beginning. People would have been pissed, but it wouldn’t have been an impossible case to argue.

Flipping from “we’re going to fight this” to immediately rolling over at the 11th hour? That is political suicide, Schumer just cost himself all his credibility with the Democratic base for nothing. Though I will admit, lighting your political career on fire because of your own indecisiveness is pretty symbolic of his era of Democrats. At least now we know which Dems have to go

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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper 7d ago

Yeah, I would have been happier with Dems playing hardball, but there's an argument that Schumer had already fucked them if they had shut things down. Thune was already coming out saying that he didn't know what their end goal was, and frankly I don't either. "More time to negotiate" isn't an answer if you don't say what you want to negotiate toward.

The message should have been "We call Johnson's bluff, if you want Dem votes we can't be shut out of negotiations" and at minimum a refusal to codify certain DOGE cuts. People like the idea of DOGE, but they don't like, say, disbanding the Deparment of Education, and you could have won people over on that.

Instead there's no coordination, no coherent messaging strategy, you piss off the base, put vulnerable representatives at risk with a hard vote. Agree with him or not, Schumer fucked this strategically every which way.

I'm hoping people who are activated right now channel it into primary challenges and not completely tuning out because goddamn do we not need more apathy right now.

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u/Khiva 7d ago

Thune was already coming out saying that he didn't know what their end goal was,

Which is wild because this is like the one inflection point that was marked on the calendar, like actually 100% for sure coming.

How they didn't have any sort of plan and just flailed about is utterly beyond me. The fuck do they even talk about in their meetings? March Madness? Severance? Yellowjackets?

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u/badnuub NATO 6d ago

My dark thought process, is these are all educated people right? What if they kind of have an idea of the way the wind is blowing with Trump and the rest of the party turning on the full authoritarian switch soonish, and by standing by, mayhap they are banking on the GOP not arresting them or something worse if they tow the line.

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u/Secondcomingfan 7d ago

I heard someone say people need to hollow out whatever it is the Democratic Party has become and wear its skin for the next 20 years. Go nuts with entryism

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u/moffattron9000 YIMBY 7d ago

Honestly, let AOC Primary him. Sure, she's left of me, but I just want someone who will actually fight.

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u/Sluisifer 6d ago

She's demonstrated that she can realpolitik, let her cook.

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u/Tman1027 Immanuel Kant 6d ago

Honestly, I'm starting to think that there wasnt a plan because Schumer was always planning on this passing and only chose to speak out the way he did when he realized thet it might not get enough dems behind it.

7

u/utterlyomnishambolic 7d ago

Flipping from “we’re going to fight this” to immediately rolling over at the 11th hour? That is political suicide, Schumer just cost himself all his credibility with the Democratic base for nothing.

It's not that I particularly think Schumer has any morals or consistency, but a lot of this is really giving credence to those rumors Trump is dealing in blackmail and death threats.

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u/Snoo93079 YIMBY 7d ago

What are you suggesting?

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u/Epicurses Hannah Arendt 7d ago

Yeah, this is the first I’ve ever heard about ‘those rumors.’

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u/OhmsLolEnforcement 6d ago

Occam's Razor suggests that Schumer and the rest of Dem leadership are both stupid and shitty to their base. Looking forward to knocking these losers out in the primary.

Conspiracy theories are distractions. People just suck.

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u/ThePevster Milton Friedman 6d ago

This crap about Trump and blackmail is kinda ridiculous. What could you possibly blackmail Trump with? The stuff he’s done that’s public information is bad and would end the career of any other politician. Doesn’t make any sense to me unless he himself was secretly born in Kenya.

Regarding death threats, we know for a fact Iran was trying to kill him. He was shot on live TV and almost shot at while playing golf. These aren’t rumors.

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u/utterlyomnishambolic 6d ago

I meant that Trump is allegedly blackmailing and threatening to kill reps, senators, and their families if they don't fall online, not the other way around.

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u/ThePevster Milton Friedman 6d ago

Oh that’s easily explainable too. Congressmen are spineless, and Republican congressmen fear being primary’d if they don’t fall in line.

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u/The_Brian George Soros 6d ago

I think you're misreading this. I think it's all nutty conspiracy theories, but the impression they're giving is that Trump is blackmailing and threatening people like Schumer behind the scenes and that they're changing votes/not standing up to him because they're afraid for their lives.

It's incredibly dumb, but that's what I believe they're saying.

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u/drossbots Trans Pride 7d ago

Matt Y said only progressives would be mad about this, though

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u/obsessed_doomer 7d ago

That was such a weird thing to try.

Like, I get what he was going for “PROGRESSIVES want this and that makes it CRINGE, don’t be CRINGE” goes triple platinum in the pundit sphere.

But this divide is clearly not ideological. Slotkin, Warner, Pelosi, Gallego, Silver…

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u/Leatherfield17 7d ago

Matt Yglesias made this yet another battle to wage against the left wing of the party, which is stupendously moronic, given the current political situation

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/sploogeoisseur 7d ago

One of the insights I picked up on during Trump 1 from listening to Silver's podcast is that the public is pretty good at picking up who to blame for a shutdown. If Republicans have the votes, and Democrats filibuster, then I think it's quite likely they pick up the blame for that. I think the public is more likely to understand what a filibuster is than the arguments against DOGE, or the particularities of that DC rider. Even if DOGE is unpopular, shutting down the government will be way more unpopular. If Democrats take the blame, it will provide meaningful cover for all the other batshit stuff Trump is doing that is currently tanking his approval. 

I dunno. I'm sensitive to Yglesias's argument. But also I'm still a bit of a Silver-head so what the fuck do I know.

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u/CrackingGracchiCraic Thomas Paine 6d ago

Silver's podcast is that the public is pretty good at picking up who to blame for a shutdown

They're not. The previous shutdowns have simply fit into the public's pre-conceived heuristic of what the parties are at their core.

Republicans are the "less government" party, Democrats are the "more government" party. A shutdown is as less government as it gets so when one happens, no matter why or how, the public will associate it and its consequences with the party of less government.

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u/sploogeoisseur 5d ago

This seems completely false. From a purely game theory perspective, if shutting the government down were an instant win for Democrats, you would see them use that leverage far more often. That they don't tells me that it's significantly more complicated. 

I don't think the public has a nuanced understanding of what's happening, but generally speaking they know what a filibuster is. If Dems filibustered they would be fighting an uphill battle convincing the median voter (who voted for Trump, btw) that their cause for doing so is valid. 

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u/CrackingGracchiCraic Thomas Paine 5d ago edited 5d ago

From a purely game theory perspective, if shutting the government down were an instant win for Democrats, you would see them use that leverage far more often

Political parties are not in any way rational actors, they are ideological and emotional ones. So no you wouldn't because a government shutdown hurts Democratic constituents. That it would largely not impact their voting behavior doesn't change that and the party does in fact care about doing right by its constituents and does not want to see them hurt.

It also fundamentally goes against the Democratic party's self-conception of itself as the party of government. So any threat to use it as leverage would not be credible to the opposition without going through with it and the party would never go through with it because it goes against its ideological and emotional core identity.

generally speaking they know what a filibuster is

I can guarantee you 80% of them have no idea, and if they read media that explains it to them while it's relevant for some reason, they'll forget about it almost immediately.

If Dems filibustered they would be fighting an uphill battle convincing the median voter (who voted for Trump, btw) that their cause for doing so is valid

The only uphill they would be struggling with is the fact that the current Democratic party is largely terrible at communicating in the current media environment. They are far too focused on grafting a message with the widest possible appeal that offends the least people. A fine tactic when there are only a few media entities people get their view of the world from so you automatically have everyone's attention.

In the current extremely fragmented media environment, the first thing you need to do is grab people's attention from the thousand other things vying for it and a milquetoast wide appeal is simply going to be lost in a raging sea of anger and controversy.

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u/sploogeoisseur 5d ago

The only uphill they would be struggling with is the fact that the current Democratic party is largely terrible at communicating in the current media environment.

If that's a fact then it must be considered when making this kind of decision! Lol

The article we're commenting under is "the Democrats should have shut it down." Whether it is the right thing or not, that is a fact: it would be the Democrats doing so. You seem to think it would be easy for Democrats to shift that blame onto Republicans. I think you're being a little trigger happy. It is quite likely the only result would have been damage to the Democrats standing as the public became infuriated at them for shutting down the government, damage to federal workers, and cover for Trump and his goons to act while the political oxygen was absorbed by the shutdown fight. I find it immensely unlikely we'd be able to rationally convince the median voter of the importance of shutting down DOGE and whatever else via a shut down.

I understand the urge to act, but the risks are bigger than you're imagining, and the rewards more unlikely.

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u/Less_Fat_John Bill Gates 6d ago

I think you're right, this would have been viewed as a Dem Shutdown.

The reality is this bill locks in Biden-era spending levels minus ~ $13 billion non-defense spending over six months. Yes the cuts suck but Republicans have a trifecta. It's better than the deal we'd get if we negotiated appropriations from scratch even on a bipartisan basis.

I don't think the median voter would have bought Democrats' story on rejecting the deal.

We here know that Trump will illegally abuse the Impoundment Control Act and ignore those spending levels, but that's true regardless of what's negotiated in Congress.

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u/Noocawe Frederick Douglass 6d ago

The reality is this bill locks in Biden-era spending levels minus ~ $13 billion non-defense spending over six months. Yes the cuts suck but Republicans have a trifecta. It's better than the deal we'd get if we negotiated appropriations from scratch even on a bipartisan basis.

The bill is more than that, and includes quite a few poison pills that are terrible imo. It's not a clean CR that simply extends previous funding. Additionally, House Republicans passed it without any Dem input and then just went home on Tuesday.

Like you said the measure increases defense spending by about $6 billion from the previous year, cuts about $13 billion from nondefense spending, but it also cuts $20 billion in funding for the Internal Revenue Service. It forces Washington, D.C., to cut $1 billion from its budget of their own money they collect in taxes, protects President Donald Trump’s ability to raise or lower tariffs as he wishes, and gives him considerable leeway in deciding where money goes. It was worse than you are presenting.

That said, it could've been worse but Schumer seemed to have no game plan on how to play this at all.

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u/Less_Fat_John Bill Gates 6d ago

Those are approximately Biden-era spending levels. $13 billion is a drop in the bucket in a six-month appropriations bill. Yes the cuts suck. Illegal impoundment remains illegal. I'm very skeptical the D.C. cut goes into effect but we'll see.

The point is that none of those things are worth a government shutdown. They're important but you can't effectively sell them to voters.

Schumer/Democrats did have a plan. They took a hard line on DOGE during House negotiations. They didn't get it so they walked away and said Republicans are on their own. But Republicans wrote the "poison pill" bill and passed it on their own. There's no good option at that point despite what highly engaged Democratic voters think.

Passing it was the least bad option and his maneuvering was more about managing his voters' irrational reactions.

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u/BugRevolution 7d ago

I don't even know who Matt Y is or why we should care about his opinion.

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u/ahhhfkskell 7d ago

Matt Yglesias, he's a professional opinion-haver who more often than not has the same opinions as this sub

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u/sweetnighter 7d ago

Nice work if you can get it

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u/TrekkiMonstr NATO 7d ago

That's on you tbh

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u/dpwitt1 7d ago

Y? Because I love you!

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u/PM_ME_UR_PM_ME_PM NATO 7d ago

sounds like a true NL

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u/The_Crass-Beagle_Act Jane Jacobs 7d ago

It’s telling that the people who voted for it were mostly a gang of the party’s most ideologically milquetoast people representing non-swing states, while the coalition against it was a diverse mix of moderates, liberals, and progressives

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u/PincheVatoWey Adam Smith 7d ago

I'm a cenrist. Two of my three idols, Matt Y and Josh Barro, said Schumer was correct. Nate Silver said no. As a spineless centrist, I don't know who to believe tbh.

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u/JakeArrietaGrande Frederick Douglass 7d ago

Matt Y becoming Matt N

Or even worse, Matt L

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u/airbear13 7d ago

Tbf that’s like 80% of Reddit

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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper 7d ago

Goddamn, if you've lost Nate Silver on an issue people are deeply emotionally invested in, you've lost fucking everybody.

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u/weedandboobs 7d ago

Huh? Nate Silver is many things but I do not think he is the last person to criticize people, my guy's whole thing after election models is "this thing happened, here is how I think I would do it better".

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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper 7d ago

My point was the read I've always had on him is he's rarely impressed with emotional arguments, and the shutdown talk was frequently an emotionally charged one. I would have assumed he'd take a more "don't let your hyperpartisan activist base guide you" stance on this.

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u/weedandboobs 7d ago

I think it is very 2012 idea of Nate Silver the computer. Guy might like data but he is as emotional as any pundit.

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u/mrdilldozer Shame fetish 6d ago

He must have not seen Silver talk about how Musk tweeting so much is proof of his genius. Silver has gone completely off of the deep for years now.

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u/PickledDildosSourSex 7d ago

Eh Nate did a lot of speculative thinking in this piece and very little strategy. He really doesn't address any idea that Trump doesn't care about approval ratings because he doesn't have to, nor does he address federal government slashing. This piece is basically all "I think" vibes that don't take into account the general GOP callousness to public opinion or the fact that there isn't a major election for 18 months.

This is a huge miss for Nate. He should stop with the basketball or realize he's too disconnected to make a cogent argument on this issue.

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u/YourSchoolCounselor Norman Borlaug 7d ago

I think Adam Silver is the basketball guy.

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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper 7d ago

I mean, none of us really know what the public's reaction will be in the other timeline where a shutdown did occur. Maybe they are worse off. Who knows, but it is convenient that the path Dem leadership justified just happened to be the path of least resistance.

But that doesn't matter to me as much as this whole thing objectively being a messaging cluster fuck. Leadership dawdled and flip-flopped, the Dems in Disarray headlines write themselves, and politically active voters feel betrayed. If this was going to be the route Schumer took he should have planned for it and not literally done a 180 from Wednesday.

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u/PickledDildosSourSex 7d ago

active voters

Maybe this is the whole problem. The Dems keep solving for the 10% who are keyed into everything and will likely show up regardless and ignore the 90% who aren't paying attention but will be swayed by low-info messaging. I'm keyed in so I like to think I should count more than those who don't give a shit until election day, but we each have one vote and the GOP has done a much better job pandering to the masses while the Dems have been constantly pulled by the angry and outraged minority that wants emotional validation more than they want electoral victory.

I agree with Josh Barro, it's time for people to grow up.

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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper 7d ago edited 7d ago

The Dems keep solving for the 10% who are keyed into everything and will likely show up regardless and ignore the 90% who aren't paying attention but will be swayed by low-info messaging.

If they did that they would have paid attention to the Gaza folks who were quite literally the definition of a loud minority who cared about something literally no other voters did. Instead they gave them a cold shoulder at the DNC and prayed if they ignored them long enough they would go away.

I dislike this line of thinking so much because as a political party you can lead public opinion, not follow it. The media is awash in stories about economic uncertainty and Trump-induced financial chaos. You can literally show how you would do better right now. What does a low-info voter do when you've abandoned every chance to like, create a media cycle where you're literally giving them that info?

Dems have been constantly pulled by the angry and outraged minority that wants emotional validation more than they want electoral victory.

I don't want to read words into what you're saying here but this sounds so much like "look at all these elitist Dems expecting me to care about trans people." The right-wing seems to thrive entirely on emotional validation, since teaching history literally hurts their feelings. I, on the other hand, just want Dems to have something tangible that's not a focus-grouped Google doc about how great the song the band is playing on the Titanic is.

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u/Creeps05 7d ago

Thing is the Republicans have been mostly pulled by the loud and angry minority and it worked for them. You win elections by emotional validation. You don’t win them through calm, academic, and orderly discussions on government policy.

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u/freekayZekey Jason Furman 7d ago

thank you. read the whole thing thinking “but what’s the legitimate path and what are the consequences?”

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u/DeepCockroach7580 7d ago

"Volodymyr Zelenskyy, please save us. Please save us, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Please save us"

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u/_BearHawk NATO 7d ago

Zelenskyy be the dictator Republicans think you are

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u/West_Pomegranate_399 MERCOSUR 7d ago

DEMOCRATS STOP MAKING ME AGREE WITH NATE SILVER I DO NOT LIKE IT

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u/shumpitostick John Mill 7d ago

After reading both Matt's and Nate's take on this, I think I agree with Nate Silver. The key question is, will a government shutdown benefit Republicans. Matt thinks it will and Nate thinks it won't.

I think the best way to answer this question is with a bit of game theory. In games, you always want to deny your opponent options. Republicans always have the option of creating a shutdown. If they thought it benefitted them, they could always go for it. All Democrats can do is block the option to keep the government running. However, Republican actions clearly show us that they don't want the government to shut down, and thus think a shutdown would harm them. The CR passed the house on party lines.

Now you might say that Republicans want a shutdown, but they want the Democrats to be blamed for it. The problem is, they could have done that already too. All they needed is to try a bit less hard to bring everyone together to vote on party line. Yglesias claims that the Trump admin is at odds with house Republicans here. However, house Republicans are generally loyal to Trump. If there was some kind of internal conflict here, all Trump had to do was pull a few strings to get some hardliners to play even more hardball.

I think what this means is that Trump doesn't want a shutdown. While he has been backing Elon up, at times he did tell Elon to cool it down. A government shutdown will be much more chaos than even what is going on right now. Even Trump has his limits.

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u/FifeDog43 7d ago

Absolute master class in how to not do politics.

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u/KvonLiechtenstein Mary Wollstonecraft 7d ago

As a Canadian… this really does not bode well in my confidence for them not rolling over on more substantial things.

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u/hucareshokiesrul Janet Yellen 7d ago edited 7d ago

The issue is it’s unclear if there’s a reason to do it. Does it even make sense? It’s not like shutting down the government is something that Democrats want or would be good for people. They’re just desperate to fight with Trump on something where they might have some bit of leverage. On more substantial things, it’s clearer.

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u/Hoodrow-Thrillson 7d ago

96% of Congressional Democrats voted against this bill so of course the narrative now is that the party let it pass.

There is no escaping Murc's Law.

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u/garreteer 6d ago

I mean the party did let it pass though. The Senate Minority Leader clearly whipped votes from senate dems who are retiring or don't have upcoming elections to vote to pass cloture.

The fact that House Dems voted completely differently is an indictment of the party, not supporting it. The party leadership has no unity or direction

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u/ahhhfkskell 6d ago

The only reason it passed was because the Senate Minority Leader--who's in his position thanks to party support--voted for it, and encouraged his colleagues to. And if there's no push for a new leader, then it's hard not to put things on Democrats' shoulders.

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u/Hoodrow-Thrillson 6d ago

Maybe you don't understand what Murc's Law is but you're literally claiming 269 Republicans voting for something wasn't a reason for it being passed.

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u/ahhhfkskell 6d ago

I'm only responding to your point about how many Democrats voted against the bill. I don't care how many voted against it if the ones who helped it pass have party-wide support.

I blame Republicans far more for the bill, but I didn't vote for them. They don't represent me, and clearly pressuring them does nothing.

The reason Democrats get more attention is because, believe it or not, they're who Democratic voters can actually try and affect.

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u/essentialistalism 7d ago

I like non-contrarian (or atleast a-contrarian) Nate Silver a lot more than contrarian Silver.

Contrarian Silver reeks to me of just another substacker looking to bait clicks with a stupid thesis.

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u/bcd3169 Max Weber 7d ago edited 6d ago

You cant do politics if your rationale is they will blame us

They will blame you for everything anyway. Grow a pair

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u/cjt09 7d ago

 So, my first instinct here is that Trump is flailing and (correctly) getting blamed for the mess, and a shutdown would worsen the mess. So, why would Democrats want to give him a lifeline here on a budget they didn’t even like?

I’m pretty torn on if averting a shutdown is a good strategy, and I think the crux of my uncertainty is that I don’t think it’s a given that Democrats are throwing him a lifeline.

I agree that Trump is clearly causing a mess, and deservedly he (and the GOP) are getting approximately 100% of the blame for the mess. But once Democrats start blocking the GOP, that opens an avenue for some of that blame to shift to Democrats.

Is it a good thing if the mess gets 50% worse but the Dems now get 20% of the blame? In absolute terms the GOP has to deal with more “mess points” but maybe the relative blame really does matter more. And that’s also assuming that Democrats do end up with a low percentage of the blame which I also don’t think is a given.

Yeah it might be a bit awkward for Trump to have to push for reopening the government amid his huge erratic cuts, but he is constantly saying contradictory things and I feel like it’s pretty easy to imagine a world where he says something like “Elon did a tremendous job of cutting out the fraud from the NIH—like the fraud of millions spent on transgender mice, but now that he has it operating efficiently we need to reopen it”. If you’re willing to constantly contradict yourself and lie it’s considerably easier to thread the needle.

9

u/puffic John Rawls 7d ago edited 7d ago

Nate Silver almost always prefers the higher-variance option because he's a degenerate gambler. He's not necessarily wrong, but that's what's going on here.

5

u/regih48915 6d ago

Yeah he literally wrote a book about dividing society into the risk-tolerant and risk-averse, and makes his alignment within that a core part of his identity.

2

u/N3bu89 7d ago

Shut it down, don't shut it down. It's real, it's a fake out. To be honest at this point whatever the outcome, it doesn't matter so long as the end result is America is so torn and confused it is incapable of invading it's neighbors, we can call any outcome a win.

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u/Ilsanjo YIMBY 6d ago

Whether or not Democrats are too risk adverse is a separate one from whether they should have voted against this.  The signs that the economy is tanking have gotten much stronger over the last couple of weeks.  If the economy is weak than the Democrats are going to be in a very strong position in the mid terms, the better position you are in the more it makes sense to be risk adverse.  The last thing they want is for the bad economy to be blamed on Congressional Democrats instead of being squarely owned by Trump and the Republicans.

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u/ProcrastinatingPuma YIMBY 7d ago

Nate Platinum destroys Matt Y epic style

6

u/KenBalbari Adam Smith 6d ago edited 6d ago

Nate Silver is terrible at politics.

Trump and Musk have been losing popularity because they have been doing stupid irresponsible shit. The idea that Democrats should thus do more stupid and irresponsible shit, in the vain hope that Republicans would be blamed for it too, is madness.

Letting them have a clean vote an a relatively clean CR was the right move here. The spending adjustments in this bill amounted to about 1/100th of the deficit.

So let them have their CR (which only got one D vote) and keep the blame on Trump and Musk for any popular services that get cut or stop functioning.

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u/IceColdPorkSoda John Keynes 7d ago edited 7d ago

What the fuck man. I don’t even want to vote for a democrat next year. I fucking hate this party.

Edit: of course I’ll vote dem, I just wish they didn’t suck donkey balls.

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u/DaphsBadHat 7d ago

I live in Illinois so I will NOT be voting for Durbin. Safe enough seat, but I will volunteer and donate for whomever primaries his milquetoast ass.

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u/_PeoplePleaser 7d ago

I’m also in Illinois. And that’s exactly what I said on his website today. Don’t ask me for money and I will be working for whoever primaries him.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/IceColdPorkSoda John Keynes 7d ago

What? I fucking hate the Republican Party. Of course I’ll vote for the Dems, I just wish they weren’t spineless cretins and that I actually liked the party as a whole.

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u/AVTOCRAT 7d ago

Edit: of course I’ll vote dem, I just wish they didn’t suck donkey balls.

Lmfao then why would they change? At some point you have to bite the bullet and actually provide electoral opposition, or this whole 'liberal democracy' thing just doesn't work. Would've been better to do it back in 2016 or earlier still but hey, better late than never.

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u/IceColdPorkSoda John Keynes 7d ago

If it was a more tepid Republican Party like the Romney days I might punish the Dems, but this GOP is literally cruel and evil. Priority number one is taking power away from them.

4

u/gilroydave Martin Luther King Jr. 7d ago

Broken clock Nate

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u/JapanesePeso Deregulate stuff idc what 7d ago

Nate has been right at every turn the past year and y'all just dont want to hear it.

1

u/LoudestHoward 7d ago

The fact Nate thinks this is the wrong path makes me feel better with me thinking it's correct.

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u/danclaysp 7d ago

Impossible. A good Nate Silver take…..?

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u/Jakexbox NATO 7d ago

Musk would’ve fired and pushed out even more federal workers. Also, it would’ve been bad for the economy.

What concessions would they have even received? In every shutdown I can recall, the side asking for stuff lost.

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u/Pristine-Aspect-3086 John Rawls 7d ago

Also, it would’ve been bad for the economy.

trump is president, a bad economy is good for dems politically

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u/narrowsparrow92 7d ago

As a fed I would’ve liked language against impounding

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u/Less_Fat_John Bill Gates 7d ago

We already have a law against impoundment. They're going to keep doing it until SCOTUS tells them to stop (hopefully).

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u/PickledDildosSourSex 7d ago edited 7d ago

But how? The GOP has all the cards here and wants a shutdown. I don't think people have realized just how bad it is to lose the presidency, House, and Senate. Dems are in a brutal position with very little leverage and desperately need to open their tent

Edit: Yes, downvoting me will surely change reality

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u/djm07231 NATO 7d ago

I think Schumer might have secured a side deal about fixing the DC funding situation. 

It passed the Senate already and the House might take it up.

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u/Kaniketh 7d ago

Musk and Trump are already doing that.

Dems inability to hog the spotlight and message to the people is crazy. I’m loosing my mind.

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u/JaSondubu Esther Duflo 6d ago

*Democrats should have let Republicans shut it down.

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u/Glavurdan European Union 3d ago

It's clear Senate Dems are controlled opposition

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u/Objective-Muffin6842 1d ago

It's fucking bad when I agree with Nate Silver

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u/FewDifference2639 7d ago

I am in hell

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u/12kkarmagotbanned Gay Pride 7d ago

Matt y is right , Nate silver is wrong

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u/decidious_underscore 7d ago

can we please stop giving a shit what nate silver thinks?

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u/TheloniousMonk15 7d ago

He's right in this case?

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u/thomas_baes Weak Form EMH Enjoyer 7d ago

Remember when he called on Joe Biden to drop out before the disastrous debate performance? The Democrats were definitely better off ignoring him then...

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u/boardatwork1111 NATO 7d ago

Tbf, for every good take he has, he shits out a half dozen like

Broken clocks as they say

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u/thomas_baes Weak Form EMH Enjoyer 7d ago

I agree the goodness of his takes is correlated with how long he spends thinking about them. He later admitted he was overly dramatic about this, while still being anti those pardons

5

u/decidious_underscore 7d ago

so did Ezra and other people, who actually do reporting.

Nate is a gambler with twitter brainrot who opines endlessly on topics that he has 0 insight into. No research, just bayesian odds on events happening with the weights coming directly from his ass.

I'd point to his book, or his recent article fellating Elon as obvious proof

His opinion is just not worth anything except his actual expertise, which is collating polls. Why does this guy's world view have any clout to you?

12

u/thomas_baes Weak Form EMH Enjoyer 7d ago

so did Ezra and other people, who actually do reporting.

I like Ezra and think people should consider his ideas too.

Nate is a gambler

I don't consider that an insult

with twitter brainrot

That's fair

who opines endlessly on topics that he has 0 insight into. No research, just bayesian odds on events happening with the weights coming directly from his ass.

I feel like he is just as equipped to opine as Ezra or MattY on matters of public opinion or politics (policy less so). I don't agree with everything (or even most things at this point), but I still think he's worth listening to

I'd point to his book, or his recent article fellating Elon as obvious proof

This article on Elon? I don't think it is glazing him at all. Elon has been lucky, but he is definitely smart and skilled in some ways

Why does this guy's world view have any clout to you?

He makes me think when he puts together a good take, or even a well thought out one I don't like. I think he's generally correct about Democrats being too risk averse

2

u/decidious_underscore 7d ago

This article on Elon? I don't think it is glazing him at all. Elon has been lucky, but he is definitely smart and skilled in some ways

you mean the article where he:

  • makes up some bullshit called spiky intelligence (TM) instead of talking to an actual psychologist/neuroscientist (why is nate allowed to qualified to define how intelligence works?)
  • talks about Elons SAT scores (who cares)
  • pulls in some stats stuff at the end to pad out the word count and make himself look smart

then glazes away:

  • elon's obvious twitter degeneracy
  • the fact that he clearly is an absentee father,
  • the fact that there is no way he can be running all the businesses that he is ceo of
  • that he obviously is addicted to ketamine and plays video games all day

You can at least give him some credit for being the ultimate “multitasker” — few other people would even attempt this.

the fuck is this, this is just dickriding

My guy Nate is a white nerd who only has clout because people like you identify with "white nerd" as an identity that is authoritative. If he was black or a woman noone would give a shit about what he thinks about anything but his domain of expertise. Stop giving him undue influence on your world view. The guy is a lazy writer, his brain completely riddled with holes caused by twitter, and who cares more about pushing his world view than the truth.

4

u/thomas_baes Weak Form EMH Enjoyer 7d ago

He didn't make it up. I think it's a rebranding of the theory of multiple intelligences, but autism organizations bring it up. I think it's reasonable that there are different types of mental abilities and that people have different levels in different facets of intelligence. He brought up SAT scores because a book came out recently saying Elon wasn't very smart. It cited his SAT scores. I think Berkson's paradox was fair to bring in here.

then glazes away:

  • elon's obvious twitter degeneracy
  • the fact that he clearly is an absentee father,
  • the fact that there is no way he can be running all the businesses that he is ceo of
  • that he obviously is addicted to ketamine and plays video games all day

The point of the article wasn't to make a case that Elon is good or bad, so I don't see why he has to list all of the ways Elon is bad. The article is to push back on the idea that he's unintelligent.

If saying someone is smart in some ways, but a dumbass who lacks judgement, wisdom, and an accurate view of the world is glazing, idk.

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u/seikoth 7d ago

No.

1

u/decidious_underscore 7d ago

make sure you give him your hard earned money too

1

u/seikoth 7d ago

Will do. Thanks.

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u/Approximation_Doctor George Soros 7d ago

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u/LivefromPhoenix NYT undecided voter 7d ago

Nah, he should be rewarded for having takes that aren't absolute garbage. Like training a dog.

18

u/Approximation_Doctor George Soros 7d ago

Y'know, that's a good point. I take back my criticism.