College commencements only occasionally break through into viral videos. But this week House Democrats gave me reason to think of Tom Brokaw’s 2005 speech:
"You have been hearing all of your life that this occasion is a big step into what is called the real world. What, you may ask, is that real world all about? What is this new life? Ladies and gentlemen ... real life is not college; real life is not high school.
Here is a secret that no one has told you: Real life is junior high.
The world that you're about to enter is filled with junior high adolescent pettiness, pubescent rivalries, the insecurities of 13-year-olds, and the false bravado of 14-year-olds."
A photo from a Politico reporter brought that harsh reality to mind on Wednesday.
Rep. Jim McGovern, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, turned his back on Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez during her testimony:
You can read about the preceding drama in this story from The New York Times.
McGovern has been in the game a long time, starting to work in politics shortly after junior high (a presidential campaign while still at boarding school in 1972). He then moved to DC for college while working in Congress. He started working for a Massachusetts congressman in 1981, a role he held until winning election to the House himself in 1996.
When Marie Gluesenkamp Perez won her 2022 longshot race in a Trump-won district with little support from national Democrats, McGovern was cruising to re-election in a district Trump lost by 32 points.
He explained his anger toward Perez by saying “In a week when we should be talking about affordability, because of their votes we have to talk about bullshit stuff like socialism and, you know, all these other nonbinding resolutions that mean nothing.”
The Biggest Winner in Massachusetts
Speaking of affordability, that buzzword was the biggest warning issued by Scott Ferson in our Substack Live conversation the morning after the primary election. The longtime political strategist and author of How the Democrats Lost America was the biggest winner in Tuesday’s Massachusetts primary.
Ferson advises candidates across the political spectrum, as evidenced by his primary wins with both moderate-to-conservative Rep. Steve Lynch beating back a David Hogg-backed progressive AND progressive darling Sen. Ed Markey, among multiple downballot candidates.
Check out our conversation here for more on the risks of “affordability” as a magical word, what Markey did right, and how David Hogg’s big-money spending backfired on the candidate he supported.
The Progressive Establishment
National media is running with the “progressives surge” narrative focused on Markey, with little mention of the other more moderate Massachusetts incumbents who beat back left-wing challenges.
Much like how they focus on Rep. Jared Golden dropping out of the election after a primary challenger, but not Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez dominating her leftwing opponent in Washington’s primary last month.
Leftists are playing a Heads-I-Win, Tails-You-Lose game to perfection. Always the outsiders, never the insiders.
Matthew Yglesias has framed part of this phenomenon as “the progressive establishment.” As the leftist faction has taken over much of the Democratic Party, it can wield more power. But it has yet to take on the corresponding baggage.
Stalemate
Spending the next eight weeks arguing over which faction is “winning” is pointless for centrists, who have been winning the argument on the merits but failing on the organizing.
Here’s what I told Politico for this story on progressives’ primary capstone, and the bigger test in November:
Progressives “have the advantage now of leveraging both institutional heft and outsider brands,” said Liam Kerr, who co-founded the centrist group WelcomePAC. Still, he said, the party’s ideological war remains “a stalemate until Nov. 4, when the progressive swing district nominees test their theory of the case.”
Gotta just focus on winning, then organizing.
Checking in on Riverdale
Following up on our primary prediction on Tuesday, the working-class bellwether precinct in the Riverdale section of Dedham, MA almost exactly predicted the outcome again.
The lesson is often the same listen to the winners - like MGP and the rest of our Win The Middle slate - and the voters in neighborhoods like Riverdale around the country.
For The Weekend
Michael Baharaeen on The Folly of Court-Packing
Lauren Harper Pope in conversation on leadership & depolarization with the dynamic Red-to-Blue candidate Cait Conley on Winner Winner.
Happy Labor Day weekend!