The Explicit Politics of Evasion

Progressives pitch a policy of dodging hard questions & denying electoral reality.

Since the election, the Democratic Party has faced two threats to future electoral success: evasion from mainstream Democrats, and delusion and denial from progressives.

Matt Yglesias recently discussed Elaine Kamarck’s¹ landmark 1989 paper, The Politics of Evasion. In it, she warns of a Democratic Party that has refused to confront how their views deviate from voters’:

Democrats have ignored their fundamental problems. Instead of facing reality they have embraced the politics of evasion. They have focused on fundraising and technology, media and momentum, personality and tactics. Worse, they have manufactured excuses for their presidential disasters -- excuses built on faulty data and false assumptions, excuses designed to avoid tough questions.

In place of reality they have offered wishful thinking; in place of analysis, myth. This systematic denial of reality -- the politics of evasion -- continues unabated today, years after the collapse of the liberal majority and the New Deal alignment. Its central purpose is the avoidance of meaningful change. It reflects the convictions of groups who believed that it is somehow immoral for a political party to pay attention to public opinion. It reflects the interests of those who would rather be the majority in a minority party than risk being the minority in a majority party.

When the Congressional Progressive Caucus announced their new leader last week, there was no refusal to confront how out of step the caucus is with mainstream voters. In fact, Congressman Greg Casar made the evasion strategy explicit in his interview with NBC’s Sahil Kapur:

He rejected the view that Democrats need to turn against immigrants or transgender people after Trump campaigned heavily on those issues in his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Instead, Casar said Democrats should change course by redirecting such attacks and accusing the GOP of fueling culture wars to distract voters from their agenda of helping the rich get richer.

“The progressive movement needs to change. We need to re-emphasize core economic issues every time some of these cultural war issues are brought up,” Casar said.

This was days after Yglesias wrote:

Until now, though, I didn’t understand why the paper centered the idea of “evasion” so heavily. But as we see similar debates about party renewal play out, I get it.

Because on the one hand, you have people who are trying to shift the Democratic Party toward a bigger tent. On the other, you have those who are firmly opposed to structural changes or who are pursuing some kind of left-accelerationist strategies, people who are not particularly amenable to persuasion on this point. And in between is a very large camp of people who, I think, basically support the idea of growing the tent, but also don’t like fighting.

From Policy Evasion to Electoral Delusion

There is another aspect to the politics of evasion: delusion and denial.

In his press conference after being elected chair of the Progressive Caucus, Casar led with a doozy:

“If the Democratic Party was a little more like Chairwoman Jayapal and a little less like Joe Manchin, I think we would have won this election”

Joe Manchin won his last Senate race in West Virginia with 50% of the vote against Patrick Morrissey, who won 46% of the vote. This year, Harris lost West Virginia with 28% of the vote while Trump took in 70%.

That means Manchin over-performed Harris in the state by a whopping 46 points (!). For context, Tester over-performed by 13 points this cycle. 

Joe Manchin is an electoral behemoth, the likes of which we would be oh so lucky to see again.

Pramila Jayapal is … not. This year, Harris won Jayapal’s district by 74.5, while Jayapal won by only 68.4, a 6 point underperformance. 

So, who do we listen to? The person who overperformed Harris by 46 points, or underperformed by 6 points?

It’s not clear that Jayapal’s brand of politics is even that exciting to Democratic voters — her sister lost a primary this year 47% to 33% against mainstream Democrat Maxine Dexter. Two squad members, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, lost primaries to mainstream Democrats. 

Progressive Senators underperformed this year: Warren ran 6 points behind Harris, and Sanders ran a point behind (the only two incumbent Senators to underperform Harris). 

It seems that being represented by a Squad member can actually make a district more conservative. Ayanna Pressley’s district in Massachusetts has swung to the right during her tenure. Ilhan Omar has consistently been one of the worst-performing Democrats in the House and this cycle ran 12 points behind Harris (Harris won by 62 points, Omar by 50).

Our view is simple: listen to the winners and the over-performers. And discount the earnest advice of those who run behind the ticket.

Jayapal and other progressives consistently run behind even weak national performers like Harris. Meanwhile, Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez outperform even winning national Democrats, like Biden in 2020. They welcome independents into the coalition by taking common sense positions on issues like domestic energy, budget deficits and student loans, while progressives drive them out with extreme views.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus can maintain a strategy of Dodge (hard questions) and Deny (electoral reality), because they all represent safe blue districts. A Democratic Party that wins a majority cannot.

1. The Politics of Evasion was co-authored by Bill Galston.