984: Heard it where first?
Value of predictions and specifics. Especially when uncomfortable.
When a major issue smacks Democrats in the face, it’s instructive to see who predicted it years earlier.
Since the GOP flipped the Senate in November, the chattering class seems to have awakened to the structural problems outlined by
in 2021, when Ezra Klein wrote about his prediction that Democrats could hold the Senate in 2022 but would lose it in 2024:None of this is inevitable or unalterable in the face of campaigns or catastrophe. But it’s somewhat predictable, and attempting a prediction can force a confrontation with reality that would otherwise go ignored until it’s too late.
David Shor is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want To Hear was published in 2021, years before Democrats lost the Senate.
Trans issues present a similar case, something that came to mind when I was reading Jonathan Cowan’s new essay in Politico Magazine:
Cowan notes the zeitgeist around this issue in the aftermath of the They/Them campaign ads.
But the first thing I thought was that Third Way, of which Cowan is a founder, has been on this for a while. I asked ChatGPT, whose answer was pleasingly concise: Third Way's engagement with transgender issues appears to have commenced in earnest around 2021, with a focus on understanding public opinion and advising on political messaging strategies.
That is also the year that The Liberal Patriot launched, where
frequently wrote that Democrats moving to the center on cultural issues like gender is “not optional:”Many Democrats wish to believe the contrary and offer as proof the abortion issue where the party, thanks to the Supreme Court Dobbs decision, has been able to occupy center ground in opposition to significant parts of the GOP who wish to ban the procedure. But crime isn’t the abortion issue. Immigration isn’t the abortion issue. Race essentialism and gender ideology aren’t the abortion issue.
For years leading up to the 2024 election, Texeira consistently channeled a visceral outrage in documenting how progressive activists were out of step with the public, while Third Way produced public opinion research with both sympathy and objectivity that advised candidates to be more cautious and nuanced than progressive activists advocated for.
Cowan’s essay recommends three steps for Democrats:
First, Democrats should express their frustration and disgust with the ways extremists on both sides have weaponized the issue…
Second, for Democrats to regain the support of centrist voters who deliver electoral victories, they must meet Americans where they are today, not where advocates might wish them to be, or where society may be headed in the future…
Third, Democrats must be clear about their convictions and positions — and those must align with that compassionate but concerned majority. As a baseline, most voters believe there are two biological sexes: male and female, and that a person’s gender matches the sex he or she was assigned at birth…
Read the whole thing here, which includes the type of specific recommendations - including on sports and parental rights - that few Democrats have articulated.
There are 984 days until delegates are awarded in the 2028 presidential primary. For a good outcome, we need more Democrats offering specifics and more tuning into those whose prior warnings were accurate. Especially when it is “what Democrats don’t want to hear.”
Wolfy Jack,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. As a scientist I must ask two questions before evaluating each individual case. 1. Is there any physiological indication that the child is not developing normally? and 2. What is the scientific basis for any proposed intervention? The answers to these questions should not depend on differences of opinion between pediatricians. After almost three decades of disabusing orthopaedic residents of the notion that correlation equals causation, my eyes roll when a physician claims his degree makes him a scientist. I like your idea of a committee evaluating each surgical intervention. It should be based in a hospital licensed to house the committee, and include a relevant scientist (from the local medical school). You will note that I did not include a psychologist/psychiatrist on the committee. In the best of all worlds it should. But I am so frustrated by the politicalization of their professional organizations that I can't think straight about how to pick one. I'd be thankful for any constructive suggestions.
O.K. I've read the article. I agree with its sense, although I am not comfortable with leaving the transgender problem up to the parents. I have met leftist parents who are more interested in making their children political statements than in allowing the child time and resources to develop until they understand what gender is about, with guidance from their pediatrician. Pediatricians need to be trained in understanding the science behind gender determination in mammals. Given the current political activism in pediatric professional societies I'm not confident this need will be fulfilled soon.