Thursday, November 4, 2021

Virginia's Election and American Politics

I am deluged every day by ads asking me to demand more from Joe Biden and Congress: more money for caregivers, more money for transit, more money for preschool, more citizenship for undocumented immigrants, more attention to climate change. 

I keep seeing essays by people who obsess about Obama's first two years in office and insist that he had a chance to do something much more radical, if only he had pushed harder for it.

But the lesson of the Virginia governor's race is that America is not a progressive country, and every time progressives push too hard, the voters will rebel. We are going to see an epic wipeout of Democrats in 2022, and in all likelihood a Republican president in 2025.

The lesson of the vote in Minneapolis is that even in one of America's most liberal cities, the voters worry about crime and will not support abolishing the police no matter how many people they kill.

The only way to make this country better is one small step at a time. Loudly pushing for radical action never helps anyone but conservative politicians, especially when it is accompanied by denunciation of everyone who disagrees.

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