Lovett is right and this is a critique that the center-left is going to eventually have an answer to. It doesn't at the moment.
https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/i...adequacy-of-the-democratic-party-b2b6be6c2891
I strongly disagree with this assessment but I don't have the time to give this a proper response. Let me just say that I question, for instance, that moderation in immigration reform rhetoric has hurt the Democratic coalition instead of helping it. I question that there was more pressure for a "complete socialist takeover of medicine" [sic] than broad tax incentives and a public-private partnership. In fact I question that the Democratic party is anything less than exactly at its centroid given its broad coalition across the United States. The people voted these politicians in to begin with, and they chose them over other candidates. It was natural selection. And I certainly thumb my nose at the suggestion that measured policy proposals are worse than ideological marching themes scant of real details. If the question the left is asking is "why aren't you over here with us" then the answer from the center should be "because we gave it some thought".
This is also in contrast to what was posted here yesterday about immigration. Someone said "the democratic party clearly wants open borders but can't come out and say it". Well which is it: is the democratic establishment full of open border anarchists, or immigrant betraying centrists?
Again, re: "just as bad": I talked to some white pro-union Democrats recently (yes, my Nazi father, but also other people) and they all agreed that both parties were just as bad. When I asked why, it was because both parties will "whore" themselves out to the corporations, and also because both parties won't really do anything about immigration. All of them considered themselves left-leaning (but some preferred the term "common-sense", which I thought was an amusing framing).
The Democratic party is much, much more unified than the Republican party. Talk to actual Republicans about the election last year and nearly all of them will frame it as an option between horrible and bad. Many more Republicans I've spoken to were dissatisfied with both choices than left-leaners I've spoken to. Most people are fine with Hillary Clinton (and the numbers prove me right - she won by 3 million plus votes. That's a huge majority.) Most right-leaners find Donald Trump detestable but are among a coalition of fiscal conservatives and social conservatives and so the choice for them was obvious. I think that's a clear refutation of the Republicans being unified and awful.
Also, the Democratic vision was pretty clear this year. Don't condone hatred and white nationalism. Commit to global stability. Raise taxes on the rich. Make college more affordable for the middle class. Improve on Obamacare. Invest in crumbling infrastructure. Just because Berners didn't like this doesn't mean it's confused, it just means it isn't far enough for them, which is completely different.
