Nate Cohn

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

And yet that's how the electorate as a whole behaves. A crucial segment of voters is not sufficiently attached to/demanding of an ideological policy objectives for an ambitious legislative agenda to do a president much good, and those same voters react to the national environment — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

This is a hard implication for people to internalize or take seriously, since it's really not how most people think about politics! Most people do want their president to do their agenda. They don't flip between parties based on the economy, or something — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The obvious implication: a popular, ambitious policy agenda doesn't do you much good if there isn't normalcy/peace/prosperity, especially if that agenda is not seen as attempting to respond to immediate challenges at hand — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

TLDR... I think it is worth fully internalizing the century-long pattern of voters a) rewarding parties for presiding over peace/prosperity; b) punishing presidents for enacting ambitious agenda. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

A few thoughts on the disconnect between Biden's popular policies and his personal unpopularity https://t.co/JlodHacQhw — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @jasonfurman: New personal income data. Disposable personal income has mostly continued to rise as we see a handoff from income support… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@tbonier @danpfeiffer it's roughly the difference on dem share of new registrants btwn 20 and 21 on the chart! anyway, if you don't think organizing covers the shift then... that's why i think it calls for a different response! not an argument against organizing but... it's clearly not the core issue — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@tbonier @danpfeiffer yeah i mean, i absolutely do not assume that there's anything like 10 percentage points worth effect to be had across the state of florida from any realistic organizing effort in an off-year — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@danpfeiffer @tbonier there's no argument against investing more/early organizing, etc. why not. but if the trend isn't due to shifts in organizing, then there's really no reason to think this trend will be reversed by any realistic investment — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@tbonier well it's hard to argue against doing more organizing--but if this trend is not due to some change in GOP/dem organizing, i see no reason to assume that any realistic investment would change these numbers — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@tbonier Not trying to sound like a 5 yo, but why would you assume that? There’s plenty of polling data on some attenuation in dem and more recently Biden support among black voters. Isn’t that the easier explanation? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@tbonier why do you think of that as an organization problem — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Well, they did have to do something about it! In fact, they did a little bit of it in the very week after the tweet. Biden went to Kenosha, they aired some ads, etc. This is part of politics. If your message isn't getting through, it is ultimately on you to change that — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

And at least in this thread, media criticism mainly serves as an argument for liberals not doing anything differently. This isn't new: I recall getting more-or-less ratioed for a thread about whether Biden would have to *do* anything about defund post-RNC https://t.co/e4xhs1pED9 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

A lot of these questions are fair and interesting, but Democrats either have to deal with the media landscape as it is or change it. For Democrats, media criticism is an utterly unproductive exercise if it doesn't include a political response to the problem — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

On that latter point, there's then a subsequent question about Fox News/conservative media, which is argued to outright promote the falsehood (biden supports defund) as opposed to the mainstream media just not giving enough attention to liberal attempts to combat a falsehood — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

To take the defund example, was the *real* issue that the Democratic mainstream didn't say they support funding the police forcefully enough, or was the real issue that the media didn't say that make that the story and let it come through? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Other parts of the critique feel somewhat less about structural biases in news coverage, and veer closer to the question of whether the mainstream liberals are doing a good enough job of promoting their message v. whether the media should do that work for them — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Some parts of this critique seem fair: there are months of coverage about the haggling over infrastructure, but maybe a couple days of its actual enactment. It's not a great trade for capitalizing on seemingly popular legislation — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

One interesting theme in the replies to this thread from yesterday is... the media. The argument, more or less, is that the mainstream liberals in the Democratic Party do everything right, but the media either doesn't cover it or cover it fairly. https://t.co/bSs4PDdfcP — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @nbcsnl: Republican or Not? https://t.co/d4x9yGf8p8 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@mattyglesias not an economics person, but don't you want change in deficit on the x axis — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@JakeMGrumbach @jonathanchait @BrendanNyhan @mattyglesias stipulating your view of the effect of the wealth tax on donors and their view of the donors on electoral politics, the plan here is for democrats to win by such a large margin that they can pass a wealth tax to destroy the donors who prevent them from winning by a large margin — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@SpecialPuppy1 if at the end of eight years of reformist liberalism, the left was newly invigorated by calls for 'revolutionary, fundamental systematic change,' the right wanted flight 93, then status quo reformist liberalism--obama--had basically failed in its fundamental political project — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@SpecialPuppy1 that optimism is pretty essential to the case for reformist liberalism; pessimism naturally breeds more radical solutions on both the left and the right, and that's all the more true after 8 years of liberals in power — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@SpecialPuppy1 i think the approval rating belies more fundamental failings, at least for this issue. at the end of his term, mainstream liberals didn't/couldn't advance a fundamentally optimistic case for america on race, inequality, growth, bipartisanship, etc. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

And while I think the 'vibes' v 'popularism' thing on this website is fundamentally silly from what I've seen, I think it's hard to dispute that the liberals have gone a solid ten years without producing many vibes — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

But I do think it's telling that so little of the liberal focus on this website is focused on building a stronger, vigorous mainstream liberal Democratic center, as opposed to wishing activists would disappear or something — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

And leaving personal stuff aside, the Democrats are a real left-liberal coalition at the moment and the liberals intend to run it. They do need to be accommodating enough to keep everyone happy, and they've certainly done plenty of accommodating — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

And leaving personal stuff aside, the Democrats are a real left-liberal coalition at the moment and the liberals intend to run it. They do need to be accomodating — PolitiTweet.org