Slow Boring · Economics & Policy
TIER 4 Sat, 27 Sep 2025 10:02:46 +0000
They're too focused on donors and not focused enough on working-class voters ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ | | ---|---|--- | | | Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more --- _Slow Boring works because of the support of readers like you. Upgrade to a paid subscription today! Discounts are available forgovernment employees, as well as students and teachers._ Upgrade to paid * * * # The left is right about the Democrats ### They're too focused on donors and not focused enough on working-class voters | | Matthew Yglesias --- | Sep 27| | | ∙| | Preview ---|---|--- | --- --- | | | --- | | --- | | --- | | --- | | READ IN APP --- | | ---|---|--- Bernie Sanders in 2016. His campaign made room for cultural heterodoxy inside a bigger tent. (Photo by Jewel Samad) If I had to summarize the insurgent left's critique of the Democratic Party and its leadership, it would go something like this: _Democrats are in trouble because they are excessively influenced by big donors in a way that has left them out of touch with working-class voters ' economic interests_. I have a lot of disagreements with the left, but to say two things on their behalf: 1. This is completely correct. 2. They also correctly identify the problem as residing not with the furthest-right members of the party, but with the party's leadership and the mainstream members who support it. I think that aspiring moderate factional organizers fail quite badly on point two. Almost every time I talk to self-described moderates -- people who think Democrats need to adopt a big tent strategy, move to the center, shift the brand -- they sooner or later (usually sooner) start complaining about Bernie Sanders or A.O.C. or Ilhan Omar. But whatever you make of those particular politicians, in a two-party political system, the left-of-center party inevitably has a left-wing faction, and that faction will be too left-wing for the median voter. That's just life. There is literally no other way for the Democratic Party to be organized. Democrats' problem isn't that leftists are too left-wing; it's that _mainstream Democrats_ are too left-wing. Because moderates were in the driver's seat for so long, many of them still have fundamentally establishmentarian habits of thought. A lot of my current internet feuds date back to the Obama era, when I would defend the administration against leftists who insisted that he was covering up massive financial crimes or demanding that he move to shut down the domestic fossil-fuel industry. And by the same token, people with establishmentarian habits of thought don't like to uncork stem-winders about donor influence. But what the leftists are saying about this issue is true: The primary barrier to Democrats centering their agenda around working-class prosperity is that they are paying too much attention to things wealthy donors care about. What the leftists get wrong, though, are the micro-dynamics of how this comes together. ... ## Keep reading with a 7-day free trial Subscribe to Slow Boring to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. Start trial ### A subscription gets you: | Daily posts and full archive ---|--- | Post comments and join the community | Invites to events --- | | | Like --- | | Comment --- | | Restack --- (C) 2025 Matthew Yglesias 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 Unsubscribe