"Moderate" Is A Valued Political Term-- But What Does It Mean And Who Gets To Define It?

America's most popular political leader is pushing positions popular with voters but not with billionaires

The word "moderate" is more popular with voters than words like "liberal" or "conservative," and politicians always try to claim the word for their own agenda (which is rarely much more than careerist). The Republicans-- and their media allies-- relentlessly define their reactionary agenda as "moderate." Repeating a lie often and passionately enough, especially with lots of money behind that lie, will make it so. Even Democrats, who have issues on their side, start too believe the GOP definition of "moderate." And the members of Congress referred to as "moderates" always seem to be the Wall Street-owned New Dems and right-of-center Blue Dogs who make up the foot-dragging Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Their policy agenda is set by their corporate donors and they ruin the progressive agenda and the Democratic Party brand. Remember, it was the New Dems and Blue Dogs who ruined Obamacare by killing the public option. Republicans had no seat at that table. And that decision brought on the 2010 debacle that gave us close to 2 decades of reactionary rule and, ultimately, Donal Trump. “Beware the latest call,” waned Matt Taibbi, “to ‘move to the center’— which is just the same old tune, re-packaged.” Taibbi:

The New York Times meanwhile said the results were a “vindication of the party’s more moderate wing,” and that Democratic winners “largely hailed from the political center.”

NBC said the results were a “gut punch for progressives,” although at the bottom of the piece it noted that high-profile incumbents who “tacked aggressively to the center” also lost-- like Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin concluded, “It’s a good idea to go with a moderate,” and avoid a “fire-breathing progressive.”

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s basically the same post-mortem we get all the time: Democrats must move to the center, capture the suburbs, and embrace a less policy-specific, more personal-profile-based approach to politics, often pushing candidates with military records.

Meanwhile, after every loss, Republicans insist that moving to the center hurt them (“Conservatives join Trump in blaming moderates for House loss,” was a typical red-audience headline this week).

This results in an entire electorate that appears to continually move right, which in turn accelerates the cycle. Because the electorate is increasingly crazy and conservative, the thinking goes, Democrats need to be even more careful not to stand for anything that might scare “moderates.”

What is a “moderate,” exactly? Nearly every election cycle, the press comes up with a neat catch-phrase that purports to describe this person. The moderate is said to live in the suburbs and can be captured without offering much on the policy front. Implicitly, this voter is white.

…The point is, conventional wisdom is pretty much always wrong, and often spectacularly so. Invented media storylines too often dominate elections. The worst was probably the infamous “beer standard,” i.e. America always picking the candidate it most wants to have a beer with (Slate last time, in a headline it would probably like to forget, declared “There has never been a better candidate to have a beer with than Trump”).

Voters are not skittish, brainless creatures afraid of strong policy proposals. That more accurately describes the politicians and corporate donors who are invested in things staying as they are. Most actual people are living on the edge financially, are angry, and will take policy help from anywhere they can get it.

Polls today show Americans in large majorities now support expanded Social Security, drug re-importation, single-payer health care, free college, and they want Medicare to be able to negotiate lower drug prices. These positions would do well if any party threw its support behind them.

But conventional wisdom, once again, will likely insist heading into 2020 that something other than policy will matter, when it comes to picking candidates. CNN earlier this year, quoting pols and consultants, actually said that “in the era of Trump, where uniqueness is prized,” Democrats should search for “candidates with distinct backgrounds.”

Two days earlier, Taibbi had published his interview with Bernie in which he warned against the Democratic establishment’s core: “complacency and insisted it would be a ‘very, very serious mistake’ if Democrats did not at least try to pass progressive legislation, so as to call Trump’s populist bluff. Failure to do so, he implied, would mean ceding vital territory to Trump, a man with ‘no core beliefs.’ By now Bernie should know that plenty of careerists in his own party have the same allegiance to core beliefs that Trump does. He told Taibbi that Tuesday “night was a significant rejection of Trumpism. Not only did the Democrats regain control of the House, which was the most important development, Democrats won seven governors’ races. Democrats won 300 races at the state legislative and in the four states that Trump won in order to get his Electoral College majority— Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan— all four of those Senate Democratic candidates won. And three out of the four [Democratic] candidates for governor won…

Bernie told him that all the ‘moving to the center bullshit’ “was the line that they had which enabled Republicans to gain control of the Senate and the House and the White House and for Democrats to lose almost 1,000 seats in the previous nine years. Of course, that’s what the establishment will say, and that’s what the establishment Democrats will say. But the truth is that what has happened in this election is a significant step forward in terms of the revitalization of American democracy. It wasn’t moderate Democrats or conservative Democrats who got young people into the political process. It wasn’t moderate Democrats who increased voter turnout in this election compared to four years ago, I think by almost 50 percent. It wasn’t just moderate Democrats who won incredibly great victories for the House. There were some moderates, to be sure. But I think the Washington Post is going to be very surprised at who shows up on the first day of Congress and gets sworn in, because that is going to be the most progressive freshman class in the modern history of the United States. Many of these folks are not just women, not just people of color, who campaigned on Medicare-for-all, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks, campaigned on making public colleges and universities tuition-free, of undoing Trump’s tax breaks for billionaires. The political establishment notwithstanding, the future belongs to progressives.”

He chose not to comment on the battle over House leadership but did say that “the Democrats in the House have got to come out with a progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working people. And that leads to— as you know, the Medicare-for-all bill I introduced, which is to be implemented over four years, lowers the eligibility age from 65 to 55, covers all of the children, and lowers the cost of prescription drugs. My guess is that about 80-percent of the American people would support a proposal like that. It’s wildly popular. And that’s what the Democrats have got to do. They’ve got to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, they’ve got to make public colleges tuition-free and they’ve got to lower student debt. All of these proposals are enormously popular. And they’re good public policy. And here’s what I think, Matt, that maybe nobody else in the world believes. As you know, Trump is a 100-percent political opportunist, who has no political views other than how he can win elections… He has no core values. I would not be shocked that if the Democrats passed popular, good legislation, that Trump would look around him and say, ‘Hey, why not? What do I give a damn?’ And he may come on board, because ultimately he doesn’t believe in anything except winning. So I believe it’s terribly important that the Democrats come out of the gate full-steam ahead and start passing really good legislation that puts Trump and the Republicans on the defensive.”

He continued, “[P]eople can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. Democrats can do that. And if all they’re going to do is investigate Trump, that would be, in my view a very, very serious mistake. I think finally we are going to have oversight over Trump’s behavior. And I think investigations are absolutely appropriate. But simultaneously, people who are making $11 an hour are not worrying about investigations. People who have no health care, or can’t afford prescription drugs, are not worried about subpoenas. People who can’t afford to send their kids to college are not worried about another investigation. So it would be a tragic mistake in my view if all the Democrats did is focus on investigations. They must, must, must go forward with a progressive agenda to win the support of the American people. Is Pelosi listening or just running around and sweet talking freshmen about her ultra-conservative plan to re-institute PAYGO and kill all hopes of a progressive agenda?

For progressives to cede the word "moderate" to the New Dems and Blue Dogs, let alone Republicans, what does that make forward thinking Democrats like Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Judy Chu, Jamie Raskin, Ted Lieu, Barbara Lee, Katherine Clark and Jan Schakowsky? Radicals? Extremists? How is that possible, since these are the people who are pushing the ideas that are most popular with the most voters?