I did read both columns, and I think your points are well taken. One reason I read Douthat is because he's intelligent, but he comes from a different perspective. I don't always agree with Ezra Klein but I think his points in this column are quite sound. I liked his referral back to the understanding of liberalism as inherently tied to tolerance. We need more of that - all the way around. Tolerance not for hateful behavior, but for different perspectives and values.
I'd reframe the problem Ezra is trying to solve as:
How do we find as much common ground as possible, and where and how do we need to agree to disagree, in order to build a durable anti-fascist supermajority? How do we get ourselves out of the appalling situation where, despite (gestures around exasperatedly) everything, close to 40% of Americans still approve of Trump?
If the Democratic Party is the only viable vehicle for building that supermajority, as it may well be for the rest of this decade, then this reduces to Ezra's framing. If Drutman is right, then an alternative vehicle is cultivating an ecosystem of third parties who vigorously represent very different policy views but will vote together on anti-fascism. If Bednar is right, then federalism is a key enabling technology for the "agree to disagree" part.
I don't know the answer to any of these "if"s. But I do think anti-fascist efforts would be more productive if they focused on the "supermajority building by whatever means" problem. Because that's the nut of the hard work:
-- first, allying with very ideologically varied people, from socialists to Never Trump conservatives and wavering/persuadable Trump supporters, on as large a principled liberal core as we can enthusiastically support together and as *at least two-thirds* of the public can be persuaded to strongly support.
-- and second, coming up with a modus vivendi for disagreeing civilly and democratically amongst that group of allies, on all the really important and understandably emotional issues, from abortion to immigration to trans rights to climate to policing etc etc etc, where we are simply not going to get that broad a consensus in this generation.
Everything else must be downstream of that, because without that we don't have a viable path out of the present horror: at best we have a path to clawing our way to another 51% victory for two or four years' partial respite. Or so it seems to me.
At a meeting of the local ranchers recently, the women next to me were complaining about Proposition 50, not liking. having our representative chosen in faraway Sonoma County.
I told them I was a Democrat could I interrupt? "Oh, we've got nothing against Democrats," one said.
I told them at least we wouldn't have Nevada City in our district. That's the deepest-blue town in the Sierra Nevada, two hours away on the other side of the mountains Bernie-ish, which is fine with this social Democrat, but hostile to the old mountain working people. Including the ranch ladies who may be friendly to me but are generally Trumpish.
"That's true, " she answered. "More importantly, no Truckee!" (20 minutes away, threatening gentrification to our little community).
"They don't like us, so we don't like them back" is a common sentiment. Government has been seen too often as an imposition of tastes and preferences held by people far away. As far as the meeting went, I love wolves too, am glad of their return to the Plumas Sierra, but understand that the policy-driven reappearance of hungry wolves in the cattle pastures feels a bit like, you know, taxation without representation.
We were all (?) saddened by the wolfocide that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife carried out the week after the meeting. But we know that the wolves (the euthanized adults, and the surviving pups when went to a cow-free reserve to study Deer) got good due process. Following California policy, the Washoe would have been involved, and may well have balanced care for Brother Wolf with the Washoe appetite for and interest in neighborly relations with the the working communities. Including cowboys.
Our development of Forests Democracy, based on a rural alliance between the Washoe (and other indigenous people elsewhere) and the current people of the land (paysans, paisanos, peasants, land people all, settlers whose claims the Washoe have lived with these last generations), who have a shared interest in the vitality of the forests of which we are members and stewards.
This is Ezra's liberalism as pluralism in practice. Sierra County, as conservative as it seems to outsiders, acts in close collaboration, and frequent friction, with the State of California. We practice trust and trustworthiness, forgive the occasional failures in that regard from our partners in Truckee and Nevada City and Sacramento and San Francisco and Los Angeles, and hope that they, in turn, will forgive the trespasses of the mountain people, who observe different sets of boundaries.
Washoe Forests Carbon Bank. This is only possible in a functioning democracy. Capitalism in the interests of Earth and its community. Social democracy, working through markets. Not sure that's allowed in all corners of Bluesky. Don't think I care.
"Nuanced opinions are compressed into viral slogans".
This isn't new. We've long seen the GOP dominate with simplistic bumper sticker slogans that, while popular, expressed deeply flawed or inaccurate ideas. We continue to see this prevail in the MAGA cult.
.
"Social media has thrown everyone involved at every level of politics in every place into the same algorithmic Thunderdome".
This is true, but incomplete. The rise of the MAGA cult parallels the rise of right wing propaganda media, such as Faux Newspeak, Newsmax, OANN, Breitbart and InfoWars. These in turn were preceded by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and other spreaders of right wing extremist propaganda.
.
"The popularist obsession with the median voter that Douthat says is quite as ideologically stifling in its own way".
As a political scientist, what I find more questionable in Douthat argument is that elections is about discovering (or creating) what is the central issue. Parties want elections to be about issues that favor them. If the Democratic Party decides to appeal to voters on issues where Republicans are strong, they will lose the election. Were this not true, then all parties (in a bipartisanship setting) would have always the same platform (the median voter plataform).
I once heard that, when the Air Force was designing the first fighter jets, they initially set the cockpit dimensions—seat size, leg room, the positioning of the controls and instrument clusters—to fit the average sized pilot. But what they discovered was that in reality there is no such thing as an average sized pilot. So they redesigned the cockpit for maximum adjustability to fit a variety of sizes.
Likewise, the myth of the average centrist voter is a fiction of statistical analysis. The idea of a Big Tent party that welcomes people of different views is hardly new, though sadly it seems to have fallen out of fashion.
This idea of moving toward an imaginary center to reclaim something? And we know that that doesn’t work. The only thing that can possibly work is a visionary, loud, appealing alternative, rather than a milder form of the same thing that the very charismatic aspiring autocrat is offering.... think that Trump’s ideas, which are for the most part very, very, very bad ideas, are rooted in a sort of articulated worldview. One of the key elements of this worldview is that he has a really horrible view of human nature. He just really thinks that people are awful. People are mean, greedy, out for themselves. I think he probably is like that himself, and I think he thinks that everybody else is like it, and that’s why he’s so transactional and that’s why he impugns that kind of motivation to his partners, his interlocutors and his voters.
I think that Democrats would do best by advancing a different theory of humanity. I think that where we have seen effective democratic and anti-autocratic leadership emerge around the world, it’s always been based in the idea that people are good, they care about one another, they like helping each other, which is actually a fact about human nature. And policies can be based on that.
I wonder if the problem isn't that we have a 2-Party, FPTP system. The UK is facing similar problems, but with 2 main parties (now becoming 7) and FPTP.
What would happen is we:
1. Had proportional representation, so that coalitions are made in Congress?
2. Used Ranked Choice Voting for candidates?
Would either or both of these systems create coalitions that would result in the needed horse trading in Congress? Could this mitigate increasing partisanship and still represent more POVs in government?
Given the US Constitution, would this require a Constitutional amendment[s] or could at least RCV be required for all states without a CA?
There are VERY high dimensional problems, indeed. Perhaps (and I think so) this stems from some very clever high-dimensional jiggery-pokery created by the West in an ever-more left-hemisphered pursuit of 'control' for the gain of wealth and power. The gained (perhaps 'gamed' is a better term) control of the internet by fewer and more powerful (perhaps 'vicious' is the better term) actors over the past decade both exacerbates the control by the few and the stifling of the many voices which make for better self governance. I think Iain McGilchrist's 2009 "The Master and His Emissary" does as good a job at examining the demise of the 'Empire' of the West since the First World War as anything; the cleverness of those willing to manipulate algorithms (and us, the users*) makes us even more left-hemisphered and more manipulate-able by the month. I pick up the internet with the same care now that I'd uncase my dad's Remington Model 11 and poke three rounds of birdshot in the magazine. Carelessness will get somebody badly hurt.
I'll be re-reading your good work here later in the day, Mr. Farrell, thanks for this.
TimLong, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15.
PS: I pick up both Klein and Douthat now, like I would a loaded Model 11 with a dodgy trigger sear. Which is to say, not at all. Thanks for assessing them on all our behalf.
* 'user' also implies someone who is lashed to something that's going to kill them...
Having read both writers you referenced I say they are both right. Klein for understanding the complexity and the need to tolerate differences but Ross for pointing out that the left wing intersectional Maoists issues didn’t play well at the ballot box
I did read both columns, and I think your points are well taken. One reason I read Douthat is because he's intelligent, but he comes from a different perspective. I don't always agree with Ezra Klein but I think his points in this column are quite sound. I liked his referral back to the understanding of liberalism as inherently tied to tolerance. We need more of that - all the way around. Tolerance not for hateful behavior, but for different perspectives and values.
I'd reframe the problem Ezra is trying to solve as:
How do we find as much common ground as possible, and where and how do we need to agree to disagree, in order to build a durable anti-fascist supermajority? How do we get ourselves out of the appalling situation where, despite (gestures around exasperatedly) everything, close to 40% of Americans still approve of Trump?
If the Democratic Party is the only viable vehicle for building that supermajority, as it may well be for the rest of this decade, then this reduces to Ezra's framing. If Drutman is right, then an alternative vehicle is cultivating an ecosystem of third parties who vigorously represent very different policy views but will vote together on anti-fascism. If Bednar is right, then federalism is a key enabling technology for the "agree to disagree" part.
I don't know the answer to any of these "if"s. But I do think anti-fascist efforts would be more productive if they focused on the "supermajority building by whatever means" problem. Because that's the nut of the hard work:
-- first, allying with very ideologically varied people, from socialists to Never Trump conservatives and wavering/persuadable Trump supporters, on as large a principled liberal core as we can enthusiastically support together and as *at least two-thirds* of the public can be persuaded to strongly support.
-- and second, coming up with a modus vivendi for disagreeing civilly and democratically amongst that group of allies, on all the really important and understandably emotional issues, from abortion to immigration to trans rights to climate to policing etc etc etc, where we are simply not going to get that broad a consensus in this generation.
Everything else must be downstream of that, because without that we don't have a viable path out of the present horror: at best we have a path to clawing our way to another 51% victory for two or four years' partial respite. Or so it seems to me.
At a meeting of the local ranchers recently, the women next to me were complaining about Proposition 50, not liking. having our representative chosen in faraway Sonoma County.
I told them I was a Democrat could I interrupt? "Oh, we've got nothing against Democrats," one said.
I told them at least we wouldn't have Nevada City in our district. That's the deepest-blue town in the Sierra Nevada, two hours away on the other side of the mountains Bernie-ish, which is fine with this social Democrat, but hostile to the old mountain working people. Including the ranch ladies who may be friendly to me but are generally Trumpish.
"That's true, " she answered. "More importantly, no Truckee!" (20 minutes away, threatening gentrification to our little community).
"They don't like us, so we don't like them back" is a common sentiment. Government has been seen too often as an imposition of tastes and preferences held by people far away. As far as the meeting went, I love wolves too, am glad of their return to the Plumas Sierra, but understand that the policy-driven reappearance of hungry wolves in the cattle pastures feels a bit like, you know, taxation without representation.
We were all (?) saddened by the wolfocide that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife carried out the week after the meeting. But we know that the wolves (the euthanized adults, and the surviving pups when went to a cow-free reserve to study Deer) got good due process. Following California policy, the Washoe would have been involved, and may well have balanced care for Brother Wolf with the Washoe appetite for and interest in neighborly relations with the the working communities. Including cowboys.
Our development of Forests Democracy, based on a rural alliance between the Washoe (and other indigenous people elsewhere) and the current people of the land (paysans, paisanos, peasants, land people all, settlers whose claims the Washoe have lived with these last generations), who have a shared interest in the vitality of the forests of which we are members and stewards.
This is Ezra's liberalism as pluralism in practice. Sierra County, as conservative as it seems to outsiders, acts in close collaboration, and frequent friction, with the State of California. We practice trust and trustworthiness, forgive the occasional failures in that regard from our partners in Truckee and Nevada City and Sacramento and San Francisco and Los Angeles, and hope that they, in turn, will forgive the trespasses of the mountain people, who observe different sets of boundaries.
Washoe Forests Carbon Bank. This is only possible in a functioning democracy. Capitalism in the interests of Earth and its community. Social democracy, working through markets. Not sure that's allowed in all corners of Bluesky. Don't think I care.
"Nuanced opinions are compressed into viral slogans".
This isn't new. We've long seen the GOP dominate with simplistic bumper sticker slogans that, while popular, expressed deeply flawed or inaccurate ideas. We continue to see this prevail in the MAGA cult.
.
"Social media has thrown everyone involved at every level of politics in every place into the same algorithmic Thunderdome".
This is true, but incomplete. The rise of the MAGA cult parallels the rise of right wing propaganda media, such as Faux Newspeak, Newsmax, OANN, Breitbart and InfoWars. These in turn were preceded by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and other spreaders of right wing extremist propaganda.
.
"The popularist obsession with the median voter that Douthat says is quite as ideologically stifling in its own way".
Which isn't surprising considering the source.
As a political scientist, what I find more questionable in Douthat argument is that elections is about discovering (or creating) what is the central issue. Parties want elections to be about issues that favor them. If the Democratic Party decides to appeal to voters on issues where Republicans are strong, they will lose the election. Were this not true, then all parties (in a bipartisanship setting) would have always the same platform (the median voter plataform).
I once heard that, when the Air Force was designing the first fighter jets, they initially set the cockpit dimensions—seat size, leg room, the positioning of the controls and instrument clusters—to fit the average sized pilot. But what they discovered was that in reality there is no such thing as an average sized pilot. So they redesigned the cockpit for maximum adjustability to fit a variety of sizes.
Likewise, the myth of the average centrist voter is a fiction of statistical analysis. The idea of a Big Tent party that welcomes people of different views is hardly new, though sadly it seems to have fallen out of fashion.
I think all you all need to read Masha Gessen https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/opinion/trump-shock-exhaustion.html.
This idea of moving toward an imaginary center to reclaim something? And we know that that doesn’t work. The only thing that can possibly work is a visionary, loud, appealing alternative, rather than a milder form of the same thing that the very charismatic aspiring autocrat is offering.... think that Trump’s ideas, which are for the most part very, very, very bad ideas, are rooted in a sort of articulated worldview. One of the key elements of this worldview is that he has a really horrible view of human nature. He just really thinks that people are awful. People are mean, greedy, out for themselves. I think he probably is like that himself, and I think he thinks that everybody else is like it, and that’s why he’s so transactional and that’s why he impugns that kind of motivation to his partners, his interlocutors and his voters.
I think that Democrats would do best by advancing a different theory of humanity. I think that where we have seen effective democratic and anti-autocratic leadership emerge around the world, it’s always been based in the idea that people are good, they care about one another, they like helping each other, which is actually a fact about human nature. And policies can be based on that.
I wonder if the problem isn't that we have a 2-Party, FPTP system. The UK is facing similar problems, but with 2 main parties (now becoming 7) and FPTP.
What would happen is we:
1. Had proportional representation, so that coalitions are made in Congress?
2. Used Ranked Choice Voting for candidates?
Would either or both of these systems create coalitions that would result in the needed horse trading in Congress? Could this mitigate increasing partisanship and still represent more POVs in government?
Given the US Constitution, would this require a Constitutional amendment[s] or could at least RCV be required for all states without a CA?
There are VERY high dimensional problems, indeed. Perhaps (and I think so) this stems from some very clever high-dimensional jiggery-pokery created by the West in an ever-more left-hemisphered pursuit of 'control' for the gain of wealth and power. The gained (perhaps 'gamed' is a better term) control of the internet by fewer and more powerful (perhaps 'vicious' is the better term) actors over the past decade both exacerbates the control by the few and the stifling of the many voices which make for better self governance. I think Iain McGilchrist's 2009 "The Master and His Emissary" does as good a job at examining the demise of the 'Empire' of the West since the First World War as anything; the cleverness of those willing to manipulate algorithms (and us, the users*) makes us even more left-hemisphered and more manipulate-able by the month. I pick up the internet with the same care now that I'd uncase my dad's Remington Model 11 and poke three rounds of birdshot in the magazine. Carelessness will get somebody badly hurt.
I'll be re-reading your good work here later in the day, Mr. Farrell, thanks for this.
TimLong, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15.
PS: I pick up both Klein and Douthat now, like I would a loaded Model 11 with a dodgy trigger sear. Which is to say, not at all. Thanks for assessing them on all our behalf.
* 'user' also implies someone who is lashed to something that's going to kill them...
Having read both writers you referenced I say they are both right. Klein for understanding the complexity and the need to tolerate differences but Ross for pointing out that the left wing intersectional Maoists issues didn’t play well at the ballot box