A ghost haunts the Midwest.
Photo: William B. Plowman/NBC NewsWire/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Last week, a 28-year-old socialist — who had campaigned to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — defeated the chairman of the House Democratic caucus in a primary.
Republican operatives immediately pounced: For decades, GOP candidates had leveled attacks against a fictional Nancy Pelosi, one who advocated “open borders” and “collectivism.” Now, they could attack the real Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and cast this feminist, socialist, “globalist” radical as the true face of today's Democratic Party. the one that “real Americans” at heart didn't need to leave — because the party was already gone their.
Predictably, Democratic leaders sought to distance their party's national brand from the one that had just taken hold in the Bronx. “They made a choice in a district,” Pelosi told reporters last week. “So let's not get carried away.”
On Sunday, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth he told CNN that while Ocasio-Cortez was “the future of the party in the Bronx, where she is … I think you can't win the White House without the Midwest, and I don't think you can go too far to the left and still win the Midwest.”
Ocasio-Cortez begged to differ.
And they are probably both right.
Certain aspects of Ocasio-Cortez's campaign were tailored to an electorate of working-class Bronxites and young, highly educated gentrifiers (who are, for now, one of the core constituencies of far-left politics in the US). Democratic candidates in heavily white, rural swing districts probably will not benefit by adopting the slogans of “abolish ICE” and “democratic socialism.” These phrases are radical, by design. Their purpose is to galvanize activist energy—and expand the boundaries of political possibility—by articulating a vision of transformative change. And they have proven quite effective in serving these functions.
But they are not optimal slogans for the Democratic Party in heavily white, non-urban swing districts — and they were never meant to be.
“Abolish ICE” means either an end to all domestic immigration enforcement (a very reasonable idea, but one that will sound absurd, at least at first, to many voters the Democrats need to win over this fall), or a progressive overhaul of the federal government immigration enforcement bureaucracy (an idea that will be heard very boring to many voters that Democrats need to win this fall).
Meanwhile, although socialism is coming back into fashion among young people, the word's approval rating is still lower than Donald Trump's with voters over 30.
And yet, if any of the signified Ocasio-Cortez's politics are too “left for the Midwest,” there is little reason to believe that substance of her policy is. Republicans may have the upper hand in a fight over abstractions like “socialism” or “abolishing internal immigration enforcement.” But it's not clear that Democrats would lose a debate about the virtues of Ocasio-Cortez's political platform — even before a “Midwestern” audience.
Both Medicare for All and single-payer health care enjoy majority support recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Data for Progress (DFP), a progressive think tank, used demographic information from the Kaiser poll to estimate the level of support for Medicare for All in individual states. His model suggests that, in a 2014 turnout environment—that is, one that assumes higher turnout in Republican districts—majorities of voters in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania would all support a socialist takeover of the health insurance industry (as long as you didn't give them the idea in those terms).
Now, it's true that support for Medicare for All is malleable when pollsters introduce counterarguments. But even if we assume that support for the policy is somewhat weaker than it appears, there's little doubt that any Democratic candidate on Medicare for All in a purple district will have a more dominant position on health care policy than the national Republican Party. Polls consistently find that the vast majority of the American public – the one that includes most Democratic voters — supports higher federal health care spendingand opposes cuts to Medicaid; (only 12 percent of the public supports cutting this program). Every major GOP health care plan introduced in the last decade runs counter to these preferences. those introduced last year would have cut Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion.
The most radical economic policy in Ocasio-Cortez's platform — a federal jobs guarantee — meanwhile, is actually doing pretty well in “land that goes beyond airplanes.” In a survey commissioned by the Center for American Progress, an overwhelming majority of voters agreed that “for anyone who is unemployed or underemployed, the government should guarantee them a decent-wage job doing work that local communities need, such as building roads, bridges. and in schools or as teachers, home health care aides or child care providers.”
In fact, support for this case was almost as strong among rural demographics as it was among urban ones: According to DFP's modelling, the CAP proposal boasts around 69 per cent support among urban postmen codes and 67 percent in rural.
There are many reasonable, technocratic objections to the job guarantee as a policy. But polls suggest there is majority support for a massive public jobs program some kind — and that framing the program in question as “guaranteed jobs” can be politically effective.
Other figures in Ocasio-Cortez's polling platform just as well. A bipartisan majority of voters have supported it “Dissolving the big banks” in recent years, while almost 70 percent of Americans want government to take 'aggressive action' on climate change, according to Reuters/Ipsos.
'Housing as a human right' may sound radical, but in reality, it is anything but: The Department of Housing and Urban Development believes It could end homelessness with an additional $20 billion a year in funding. other experts say this price even lower. I don't think the question, “Should the government raise taxes on the rich by $20 billion if doing so would end all homelessness in the US?” he's been polling, but I'd be surprised if he didn't poll well, even in the Midwest.
Similarly, on the issue of immigration enforcement, Ocasio-Cortez's position is probably more palatable when cast in concrete terms than in the abstract. Many white Midwesterners may balk at phrases like “abolish ICE” or “open borders.” But if one asks, “Should the government focus its immigration enforcement resources on fighting violent criminals and gang activity, rather than going after law-abiding day laborers?” I suspect you will find more support for the democratic socialist view.
The palatability of Ocasio-Cortez's policy platform reflects two important realities: Existing “democratic socialism” — that is, the brand championed by its most prominent supporters in elected office — is almost indistinguishable from left-wing liberalism. and left-liberal policies already are quite popular in the United States.
If all Americans voted for the party whose economic policy positions best matched their own stated preferences, then the Republican Party would be uncompetitive in national elections. The strength of the Republican Party derives entirely from the significant appeal of white identity politics to constituencies that happen to wield disproportionate power in our political system.
So the key for Democrats – especially in the Midwest, where many economically liberal, culturally conservative white voters live—is to increase the importance of class identity in American elections.
And a modified version of Ocasio-Cortez's policy could indeed be a good model for that venture. In her paid messages and public speaking, the 28-year-old socialite has relentlessly characterized politics as a struggle between workers and unaccountable corporate interests. In her justly famous campaign, Ocasio-Cortez never used the words “socialism” or “abolish ICE.” Instead, she found the authenticity of her connection to her area. she name-checked some of the specific material concerns and challenges faced by voters who live there (rising rents, foreclosure, gentrification); and then defined her race as one of “people vs. money — we have people, they have money.”
Moving this model from the Bronx to Macomb County would certainly require a change of details. But there's little reason to believe that a tailored version of Ocasio-Cortez's tax-centric, social-democratic politics can't thrive in the Rust Belt.
All of which is to say: Tammy Duckworth needs a hug “socialism with Midwestern characteristics.”
