Yglesias 101
The quick, exciting rise of Slow Boring - join us on October 18 with Matthew Yglesias
Matthew Yglesias has noted that certain skills meet a time and place. His ability to churn out provocative, engaging perspectives on policy and politics has gained a certain ubiquity in our current media environment.
Yglesiasisms have found purchase in the discourse of not only Center Left politics, but those — to their undying annoyance — of the Far Left as well. His newsletter style has gained attention from the White House on down.
And gained a significant following: Slow Boring has more than 100,000 subscribers - and 15,000 pay $5/month or more. A scan of FEC filings shows this translates into more small-dollar supporters than every moderate Democratic group combined.
Statistics tell a story: Matt Yglesias is the most effective political entrepreneur on the Center Left.
Join us next Wednesday October 18 at 12pm ET for a conversation with him via Zoom - Register Here
There is plenty to learn from Matt Yglesias, but our first Centrist School Office Hours conversation will focus on three topics for ~30 minutes before opening up to questions:
Polarization is a Choice
Popularism needs Organizing, Not Debating
Slow Boring as center-left community (and Matt as entrepreneur)
Register Here to join us via Zoom at 12pm ET next Wednesday October 18 (previously scheduled for today, but postponed due to Speaker vote).
1. Polarization is a Choice
One of the defining features of Yglesias’s work is the view that polarization is a choice that elites in both parties have made, not an authentic representation of voter sentiment (a key divergence from the work of his Vox co-founder Ezra Klein). But Yglesias has amassed a trove of evidence for this claim - the success of Republican Governors in blue states, the victories of Democrats like Joe Manchin and Jared Golden who buck their parties and the fact that according to surveys, voters actually viewed Trump as *more* moderate than the average Republican. Yglesias has pointed out that underneath the big ideological fights, Congress passes quite a bit of legislation through the “Secret Congress”, the bipartisan appropriations process and NDAA’s each year as well as the quiet, big pieces of legislation that rarely get discussed. Polarization is not an inevitable force — it’s a choice elites have made to prioritize ideological purity over broad coalitions. The good news is that if polarization is an elite phenomenon, elites can change the incentives: donors could prioritize candidates who win rather than those who incite fury, politicians could appeal to the median voters instead of obsessing about a primary challenge that won’t come and the media can focus on policy issues that matter to voters, rather than activists.
Background Reading from Slow Boring:
The rise and importance of Secret Congress (Shh, don't talk about it)
Polarization is a choice Political elites justify polarizing decisions with self-fulfilling prophesies
Some thoughts on “faculty lounge politics” The problem of the BA bubble
2. Popularism Needs Organizing, Not Debating
Yglesias is known as the leading proponent of “Popularism”, the concept that politicians should prioritize policies and rhetoric that resonates with the majority of voters. That may sound banal, but it’s not. Competing theories focus on “mobilizing” a core base of supporters with ideas that target them and still others propagate the idea that expensive social programs will “deliver” benefits that lead to electoral success. Popularism finds voters where they are.
Our Substack has been featured with links in outlets such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe. But our biggest traffic day, by far, was when Yglesias tweeted our post on the need for Popularists to do more organizing:
But it wasn’t just traffic. Fellow travelers signed up to get these weekly posts, DM’d us on Twitter, and set up calls. It instigated community. Our post had called for more focus on organizing pragmatic Democrats, and more than any single day we felt that.
Background Reading from Slow Boring:
Democrats Have Changed a Lot Since 2012 Moving left on economics — but also on climate, race, and a bunch of other things
Joe Manchin to the rescue The Inflation Reduction Act and how we got here
Should Democrats talk more about their values? It depends on the values...
Most Americans are moderates In order to win, Democrats need to meet voters where they are
The two types of progressives Moralists vs. pragmatists
3. Yglesias the centrist entrepreneur
Our “Centrist School” series has covered how partisan moderates lack the natural organizing structures of the Far Left’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Slow Boring, the newsletter from Matthew Yglesias, has continued the journalist’s outsized influence in Democratic policy and politics. The Welcome team is an example of that – his writing has been foundational to our work, and you’ve seen it peppered throughout our Substacks. But his transition from Vox co-founder and Twitter personality to Substack pioneer has emerged into another level: he is a centrist entrepreneur driving the strongest online community on the political Center Left.
The Slow Boring business model is distinct from a collection of 501(c)4 nonprofits and PACs, whose yield from large donors far exceeds that of chasing thousands of small-dollar donors. But the Yglesias-to-Substack model has led to a quirky aspect of the entrepreneurial ecosystem on the Center Left: there are more identified, recurring customers for Matt Yglesias’ newsletter than for supporting the campaigns of explicitly moderate Democrats.
We have learned a lot about policy and politics from Yglesias’ writing. We should learn from his organizing approach as well.
Join us next Wednesday at 12pm, for learning and community. Register Here