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C. Scala's avatar

Jilani's analysis is correct, but the title of this piece is misleading. It suggests that, having been apprised of these realities, progressives will acknowledge them and their implications and, if nothing else, be more strategic. The problem is that the progressives who make these claims about the electorate and their favored candidates/policy agenda almost certainly will not acknowledge that the election tested their dream and found it wanting. AOC is a perfect example. Yes, she's politically talented, though I won't call her "brilliant" as my social circles demand. How brilliant is it to undercut moderate dems in districts she could never be elected in? My long experience as a women's studies prof is relevant here. My students--and tens of thousands just like them all across the US--are learning from their English professors, their women's studies professors, their cultural anthropology professors, their ethnic studies professors, and oh so many others that no amount of data should get in the way of their "radical" belief system and that all who try to browbeat with them "facts" constitute a kind of "deep academia" of disloyalists who should be unmasked and punished. The depressing reality is that, in many disciplines, universities are steadily pumping out the kinds of young adults who, like their true compatriots on the right, would rather punish the oppressors than conform their views to data and sober analysis.

In a zoom class the day after the election, one of my students posted in the chat the claim that if Bernie had been the Dem nominee, the election would've been a landslide for the Dems. Other students clapped. I've tried before, and I'm sure I'll try again, but I know from experience that there was nothing I could have said that would have caused those students to think twice. Showing them data and analysis? You know how Fox News viewers respond to "data"? Yeah, it's like that.

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John_E's avatar

Some aspects of the progressive agenda are popular, while others are downright toxic. The Republican party, which in general is very good at hardball politics, has done an excellent job of getting voters to focus on the toxic aspects. There are a lot of blue-collar Trump voters that would love to see universal health care, for instance, but won't vote for politicians that will actually pass that legislation if they also think they will take away their guns or get them fired from their jobs for not being woke enough.

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