Subject: Re: Bill Maher on why the left loses
Klein is from the "deliverist" wing of the party - the portion of the party that thinks the key to electoral success is identifying popular things that people want to see from government and then doing those things. There's considerable overlap with these guys and the centrist wing of the party. One of their constant critiques has been that the Democrats aren't great at prioritizing popular stuff at the expense of unpopular stuff.

While often discussed at the federal level, this sometimes comes out as criticism of municipal administration - that while Democratic policies poll well in the abstract, people get frustrated with the actual outcomes.

I generally agree with the deliverists, as well as Klein's critique of the "everything bagel" of the blue model.

However, I do think that this particular criticism is a bit unfair for folks like Klein to make. Crime and immigration happen to be two areas where the Democrats were doing things that were popular, but then public opinion changed on them.

Around 2020, public sentiment was very much in favor of police reform. In that year, 56% of people felt that the police were either just right or too tough, while only 41% felt the police weren't tough enough - and that 15 point margin against tougher police was the biggest in the history of that question. That's why, you may remember, criminal justice reform was briefly a bi-partisan issue in early- and mid-2020, and Trump was proud to have signed the First Step Act.

Yet by 2023, that had completely reversed - then 58% of the people wanted tougher police, while only 40% were happy or wanted them to be less tough, so now 18 points in the other direction. That's a 33 point net move in public opinion.

The same thing happened on immigration. In 2020, 34% of Americans wanted immigration increased, while only 28% wanted it decreased. Literally the most pro-immigrant polling since the 1960's. And by 2024, that had swung to 55% of Americans wanting a decrease to only 16% wanting an increase. The worst polling for immigration in two decades, and nearly a 60 point net swing.

It's just brutal when public opinion moves against you that much on two high-salience issues. Because Democrats were really out front in 2020 on these things, believing (correctly) that they were doing what the voters wanted them to do. And when the voters turned against their prior positions, Democrats were saddled with so much recent support for what voters now did not want, there was little they could do to recover.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/5...
https://news.gallup.com/poll/6...