Curiosity and Conflict

I'm angry, and not at Trump voters.

For those who really thought that Harris would win, and found Tuesday night to be a shock, let me assure you that, as someone who didn’t think she would, less of a shock doesn’t make it any better. I didn’t watch Tuesday night and I couldn’t look at a screen Wednesday morning. I knew. I can’t say I have known all along — no one knew — but I have sure felt this would be the outcome for a long time, which is part of why I’ve been worried about how slowly money from CHIPS, IRA, IIJA, etc have been going out the door (17% as of May, somewhat better now).¹ For whatever reason, the thing that really got me that morning was what’s going to happen to Ukraine. It could have been a hundred other things. But the heart can only break so much at a time.

I have many friends who really thought Harris would win. They worked really, really hard to ensure she did. So much letter writing, phone banking, door knocking. I didn’t do those things, and I feel guilty about it, even though recovering from major surgery was a good excuse. It was still an excuse. I could have phone banked from bed. I love and admire them for what they did. I have a bit of self-hatred for my lack of action.

And we know now it wouldn’t have helped. It wasn’t a matter of getting out the vote. In fact, a high turnout election would help Trump because, per Wally Nowinski, “marginal voters — working-class Americans and Hispanic Americans — now lean to the right.”² The problem wasn’t the marketing. The problem is the product we are selling.

I don’t mean Kamala herself. I mean the Democratic party, though the fact that she was our nominee is a symptom of our failure. The fact that we ran a deeply unpopular 81 year old until the last minute, and then switched to a candidate picked by the party, not by the people, is a symptom of failure. The fact that the 81 year old called half the country “garbage” is a symptom of failure³. People like Ron Klain insisting that Biden would win (he’ll say we’ll never know now but that is absurd), then complaining that it was electeds and donors who pushed him out after literally years of polling and research showing the electorate didn’t want him, is a symptom of failure. Who wanted him to run was Klain and others like him whose careers are dependent on being close to power, and who are desperately out of touch with the rest of the country. (And who only showed him the good polls – that’s unforgivable.) Their instincts, their logic, and their incentives are bad. They shouldn’t have been in charge then, and they certainly shouldn’t be now.

It’s a little ugly to pick on one person, but Klain spiked my ire with his disgruntled tweet after Biden finally stepped aside (see above). I’m angry about the way the whole Democratic political class answered the threat of Trump. “We know the alternative is unthinkable, so we know you’ll vote for us, so whatever your doubts, suck it up and shut up.” Instead of asking why half the country supports Trump — despite separating families at the border, despite the pussy-grabbing, despite January 6, despite the “perfect phone call” with Zelensky, despite the boring, mean incoherence — and embarking on any level at all of self-reflection, Dems dug in and doubled down on what was clearly not working. Any chance for evolution, for the kind of shaping of the party that, say, an open convention would have provided, was shouted down. If you wanted an open convention, you were the problem.

I went a little nuts in a few group chats before the Harris switch. I felt like I was watching a slow-motion train wreck and it drove me to say things that sparked minor conflict. “Polls this early don’t mean anything, Jen. You don’t really understand politics. Biden can win if we get the vote out.” But I was listening to Astead Herndon, who gave us weekly accounts of the feelings behind the numbers from the voices of a diversity of voters: qualitative data to interpret the quantitative. And I was talking to people in my own life whose votes I simply could not change. Those voices told me these political experts were wrong.

“This kind of dissension is unhelpful, Jen. We need to come together and focus on winning.” But Ezra Klein spoke what I was feeling when he said Yes, exactly, we need to be focused on winning, and we are instead shuffling blindly towards losing. Then we switched to Harris, and joyfully skipped and danced towards losing. I didn’t feel that joy, except momentarily when I thought we might have an open convention. I wasn’t against Harris; I was against choosing our nominee the way you choose a pope. I believe in “disagree and commit,” but we never got to disagree. My lack of joy over Harris became a secret shame. I didn’t want to keep raining on the parade. I hid behind my medical problems.

People like me got part of what we were asking for when the Dems switched candidates. We didn’t get the open convention, but were told to be happy with what we got. But the open convention stood for something much bigger, much more important: a party able to listen, respond, and adapt. A party shaped by the American public. There was something Astead said on his show back in early July that was so right on:

“According to the data and our own reporting, most Americans are pretty united on some big things about this election. They dislike both candidates, wish they had other options, and think President Biden is too old for a second term. And in fact, the debate only seemed to drive home that consensus. So is the problem with our politics really a divided electorate, or is it that the electorate haven’t been listened to?”⁴

Astead says this about both parties, but the reality is that Republicans let their voters choose the candidate, and Democrats didn’t — twice. If voters disliked both candidates, the Dems had the option of giving them one that people did like. What did people want? This is not a mystery. They wanted change – major change. Not half of them. 69% of them. That Times/Siena poll was quite clear.⁵ Who did we run when Biden finally conceded? Someone who simply could not stand for change even if that’s what was truly in her heart and soul. She was Biden’s VP. Throwing him under the bus was both impossible in a party seemingly dedicated to ensuring that Biden be remembered as one of the greatest presidents ever (over winning, yes) and would not have been credible. The party chose the one candidate who could not, no matter how good she might have been as a campaigner or a President, give the electorate what they wanted.

Ezra’s essay this week is excellent. Please read it or listen to it. It calls for “curiosity and conflict” in the Democratic party. We must be curious about why we failed instead of outraged. We must begin to listen to voices we have suppressed. We must be willing to tolerate conflict within our ranks in the service of building a party more than half the country wants to vote for. If we don’t, get ready for President Eric Trump. (That last part is me, not Ezra.)

“I just don’t understand how people can vote for him,” people around me say. What I usually don’t say is “I kinda do understand.” But I do. Look, I’m privileged. The system works great for me. But there are enough people in my life for whom it profoundly doesn’t work, and the policies Democrats are so proud of have not helped them. There, I said it.

But they will! you exclaim. When the CHIPS money finally gets out there, manufacturing will come back and non-college educated people will have jobs again! We visited a plant in New Mexico and saw people being trained for these new jobs and they were so excited! Biden got that done, and the three other bills too, and that’s why he’s the best President ever and will go down in history next to Washington and Lincoln! Wait, we were talking about why voters outside of urban areas don’t think things are working, and now we’re talking about why Biden is so amazing again and why they should think and feel things they don’t think and feel. This is how the conversations go. Those legislative wins were indeed impressive, but we are profoundly incurious about why they don’t seem to matter. We are always selling, rarely listening. This is a failure.

And this is where my professional experience comes in. I’m no expert in polling or voter sentiment or messaging or even how poor people feel, but I do know a thing about why it’s taken two years to get half the CHIPS Act money awarded, why the green energy infrastructure the IRA promised is stuck in years- or decades-long permitting processes and will probably come too late to avoid climate collapse, why so much promised Covid relief went to criminals instead of the needy, why so many kids applying for college couldn’t get financial aid last year. If you think my answer is that we need better technology, you are looking at the cover of my book without reading it. It is not technology. It is caring about outcomes instead of intentions, it is seeing things through instead of declaring victory and then bludgeoning the public with reasons they should celebrate you. It is listening --- did it help? Is this working? Don’t show me the study that says the ceiling is fixed while the leak is dripping on my head.

Do yourself a favor and laugh at Matthew Broderick for a moment. (Link above)

Here's the other thing I’m just going to say and live with the consequences of. I have no delusions that Elon Musk or anyone else in a Trump administration wants anything to do with me (though Megan McArdle helpfully suggested they should). I’m on record with my views. But it seems the sledgehammers are coming for government, and if I were asked where to aim them, I would answer. Not Schedule F, please, but yes, take our civil service system down the studs so that we can rebuild it. The guiding principles are correct, but the operational structures that've been built atop them don’t work, and they need to. Not mass layoffs and contracting the work to cronies, but, yes, right-size the stop energy and bring in the go energy so we can get stuff done. Don’t get rid of all guardrails and let government run wild, but yes, pull back on processes that no longer serve us, that turn what so much of what civil servants must do and what taxpayers foot the bill for into bullshit jobs. And stop pretending those mountains of procedures protect the vulnerable. In practice, paperwork favors the powerful⁶. If I could redirect the sledgehammers in the right direction even a bit, I’d engage. 

Am I aware how dangerous engaging with this administration would be? Am I aware that these changes at this moment could enable an autocrat? Yes, painfully. And it’s a moot point since I won’t be asked. But I am also aware of the dangers of the trajectory we’ve been on, of a government so hobbled it can do little under any flavor of administration, and a party that doesn’t seem to care. That situation helped open the door to the sledgehammers. And many Democrats who’ve worked in government have dreamed about having a sledgehammer of their own.

When I say I understand why people vote for Trump, my experience with our maddening kludgeocracy is part of it. Most people don’t see the guts of government. They just experience it in ways that have evidently pushed many of them to be willing to sledgehammer it, or at least let Trump’s people do that for them. Working in and around government, that instinct makes sense to me the same way it makes sense that I want to bludgeon my computer when it’s not working right and I’m on a deadline. In the moment, it would feel so good to destroy it. Fortunately, it occurs to me that I should probably get a new computer, transfer my data and settings, and then commence bludgeoning. By the time I have the new computer in hand, my rage has calmed enough that I trade it in or pawn it off on my kid instead. But in that moment of frustration, when all I want is to see it smashed to bits, would it help to tell me that it actually works pretty well if I knew how to use it right, or had maintained it better? No, that would pretty much ensure I would throw it out a three story high window and gleefully watch it explode on impact.

Please don’t lecture me that the glee would be immediately followed by regret, and that is what we are headed for. That Trump voters are too dumb to see all the good that government does, that they take it for granted, and they deserve the hell they’re about to get as an army of incompetent buffoons takes charge of a delicate, valuable, precious institution we should revere and support. I agree that we will regret this choice. I agree our institutions matter in ways most people don’t appreciate. (I hope you’re wrong about the incompetent buffoons.) But you’ve wanted the sledgehammer too, haven’t you? If you haven’t, things must be pretty good for you. This would be a good moment to pivot from judgment to empathy. Or as Ezra says, towards curiosity.

Ezra says we need conflict in the Democratic party. We also need more conflict in the polite world of the technocracy. Last week, someone I respect with a high-level position in government wrote to ask me to take my post on Schedule F down because it was demoralizing public servants scared for their jobs. I felt a little sick to my stomach when I read her email. I don’t want to demoralize anyone. Maybe I’m being an ass here? But I kept it up. I’m practicing saying what I think and being okay with the anger or resentment it will engender. It’s uncomfortable, and I’ll be full of self-doubt. But what we’re doing now isn’t working. Losing the election is a lot more than uncomfortable.

I don’t know what happens next with Democrats. The Republicans are split between MAGA and anti-MAGA. Do Dems split? Along what lines? Do we learn and evolve while holding it together? Can we, as many have pointed out, start making room instead of kicking everyone out? (As one Dem organizer said recently, “We are not really in solidarity with the people we claim to represent. They don’t pass our purity tests, and we don’t seem to like them.”) Can we rethink identity politics?  All I know is that while I want to be proud to be a Democrat again, I’m in a very “country over party” moment. Our country is in peril, and we bear some of the responsibility. We need to be curious about why we failed. That will bring conflict. Bring it.

Some writing I think is worth reading to push progressive thinking: 

Jerusalem Demsas: Blue State Gave Trump and Vance an Opening

Noah Smith: Identity politics is not working

Matt Yglesias: Ta-Nehisi Coates's prophetic vision – this is long but it’s the end bit that I thought was very well said

David Brooks: Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now? 

Kathleen Parker: The Dem’s Big Lie 

Josh Barro: It’s Biden’s Fault and Trump Didn't Deserve to Win, But We Deserved to Lose

1. https://www.politico.com/interactives/2024/biden-trillion-dollar-spending-tracker/

2. Identity politics isn't working

3. There seems to be some difference of opinion about what Biden actually said. The line was “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” Megan McArdle reports that the Biden administration inserted an apostrophe into the call’s transcript, “on the pretext that Biden had merely been referring to “his supporters’ demonization of Latinos.”” You can decide what he meant, or what people heard, and whether the difference, if there was one, matters.

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/podcasts/us-politics-braver-angels.html

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/us/politics/biden-trump-battleground-poll.html

6. That’s a line from my book, Recoding America. Available in your audible app and at bookstores everywhere.