I see more people coming around to the view that Dems should moderate on policy — usually by loudly insisting that centrists and moderates are wrong about everything and policy doesn’t matter at all but where the upshot actually ends up being that moderating on policy is good.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 22, 2022

The annoying thing about this is that quietly moderating while insisting you’re not *really* moderating in order to avoid intra-coalition discord is probably not going to be covered by the press or produce much electoral gain.

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 22, 2022

Isn’t this a blatant concession to the “its all vibes” faction?

Or would the inverse not work — signaling moderation without actually moderating on policy to produce electoral gains?

— Sam Buck (@samlhbuck) July 22, 2022

When you can quietly do big policy change while seeming moderate that’s be great (Biden on food stamps is good here), because voters hate policy change. This is generally the opposite of what the American left wants to do.

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 22, 2022

I’m fine with vibes but this is what vibes look like https://t.co/V9yJ890B7I

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 22, 2022

https://t.co/I7HXw92KvJ

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 22, 2022

if only the concept of Left Realism could one day catch on!

— Helvering Davis (@low_tex) July 22, 2022

Democrat presidents have been significantly more fiscally responsible
https://t.co/fu6nLbl0U9

— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) July 24, 2022

Speaking of @SherrodBrown — the only Democrat who has won statewide in Ohio post-2012 — I asked him last year how he still wins there amid the state’s red turn. Here’s what he said: pic.twitter.com/J1F91it1us

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 26, 2022

One of my big pet peeves is that a lot of prominent pop political scientists were posting “Working class whites trending against us is just southern realignment” takes basically right up until November of 2016.

It had a really destructive impact on elite understanding of Trump.

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 26, 2022

The south used to be an outlier here, but by the 70’s/80’s the relationship between education and partisanship among white voters had converged across regions.

(This is from @ikuziemko, who is doing really exciting research in this space) pic.twitter.com/SlLasW0GEk

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 26, 2022

The left’s electoral base in the post-war-era was an educational category that basically no longer exists https://t.co/Q7yG4APOSS

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 26, 2022

I think the basic idea is that liberal cultural values started with extremely educated elites (like, literal aristocrats) and have gradually spread to the rest of the population via social diffusion/mass education/media https://t.co/PPl9cFBieT

— (((David Shor))) (@davidshor) July 26, 2022