Salon: There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing candidate

[Quixote1818]

Don't know if this is true or not. Just something for DUers to debate and think about.

KEITH A. SPENCER
JUNE 2, 2019 6:00PM (UTC)

Economist Thomas Piketty wrote a paper about this in 2018, though the Democrats paid no attention

The Republican Party has earned a reputation as the anti-science, anti-fact party — understandably, perhaps, given the GOP's policy of ignoring the evidence for global climate change and insisting on the efficacy of supply-side economics, despite all the research to the contrary. Yet ironically, it is now the Democratic Party that is wantonly ignoring mounds of social science data that suggests that promoting centrist candidates is a bad, losing strategy when it comes to winning elections. As the Democratic establishment and its pundit class starts to line up behind the centrist nominees for president — like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg — the party's head-in-the-sand attitude is especially troubling.

The mounds of data to which I refer come from Thomas Piketty, the French political economist who made waves with his 2013 book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." This paper, entitled "Brahmin Left vs. Merchant Right: Rising Inequality & the Changing Structure of Political Conflict," analyzes around 70 years of post-election surveys from three countries — Britain, the United States and France — to comprehend how Western politics have changed in that span. (Note: I wrote about this paper in Salon last year in a slightly different context, before the 2020 Democratic Primary really got going.)

First, the sheer amount of data analyzed in Piketty's paper is stunning. He and his researchers analyze voters in those three countries by income (broken into deciles), education, party, gender, religion and income disparity. The final 106 pages of the paper consist of graphs and charts. This is a seriously detailed data analysis that took years of work, and any intelligent political party operative should take it very seriously.

More: https://www.salon.com/2019/06/02/there-is-hard-data-that-shows-that-a-centrist-democrat-would-be-a-losing-candidate/?fbclid=IwAR1zPfH3fvdI4lOq9xjDHMEHqNeasPJ0C4DP1xLk8Amxk3s8OyuLWVpd_Yw

[Funtatlaguy]

1. Oh no. The Biden folk say he is the ONLY one that would beat Trump.

[Skittles]

2. I think that is insulting

very arrogant

[Funtatlaguy]

9. As is every post saying Warren can't win. I'm sick of it.

[TwilightZone]

12. It's typical primary stuff.

Happens every cycle to pretty much every candidate. If it gets repetitive, DU has a handy ignore function that will usually take care of it.

[Skittles]

22. no

we've never had this many non-old / non-white / non-men running - so it's a different level of people saying ONLY ______ CAN WIN

[TwilightZone]

26. Nah.

There was a rather large contingent on DU in the 2016 cycle who said that Sanders was the only one who could win. They were arguably a majority, and their rationale usually involved Clinton's approval ratings, early head-to-head polls vs. Trump, etc., and they were exceedingly vocal.

They made the present "only Joe can win" posters look pretty tame in comparison. How quickly we forget.

[Skittles]

29. oh that was just the usual anti-Hillary hysteria

repuke propaganda worked on far more people than just the asshole Fox "News" fans

[Skittles]

19. we have to vote for who the establishment wants

you know, because, well, just because

[Cha]

31. Nobody wants to "kiss your ass", I_UndergroundPanther..

You really don't know what you're talking about.. We don't have any Dems who are "republicon lite"

[Cha]

32. "Establishment" "Establishment" "Establishment"

That tired ol stale "insult".

Planned Parenthood is "establishment".. John Lewis is "establishment".

[blm]

21. After months of concern posts that electoral college won't put a woman in the WH,

and with Pete’s numbers rising, I fully expect some of these ‘insiders’ quoted in articles will be concerned that it’s too soon, too risky to have a gay nominee.

IMO, some of the Dem ‘strategist’ class is just plain fullofit.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Let’s be those Dems.

[onetexan]

16. agree, Obama was a centrist during his 2 terms wasn't he?

[Skittles]

17. no

[onetexan]

40. umm...explain yourself?

[Cha]

23. I don't think it's "arrogant and insulting".. it's what the

polls show.

So you're just insulting Biden Supporters.

[Cha]

24. Oh NO.. Funtatlaguy is calling out the Biden Supporters

for looking at the polls that says Biden beats trump and leads in the Swing States and other states.

[Demsrule86]

43. I know how dare we support someone different from them and have the temerity to believe our guy can

win...anyone else see irony of posting an article basically saying Biden (centrist by their book but of course he is really progressive) can't win and then complaining about some of us saying Warren can't win...I love the smell of irony and dare I say desperation in the morning.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Upton Sinclair

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

[TwilightZone]

4. "As the Democratic establishment and its pundit class "

Except it seems that much of the Dem "pundit" class is pretty pro-Warren, as well. I guess that doesn't fit the narrative.

Salon has a history of cherry-picking what they want to see out of studies like this. This article seems to follow that pattern rather closely. They make leaps of logic that aren't supported by the data.

They also conveniently ignore the fact that nearly all of the gains Democrats made in 2018 were with moderate candidates. We have recent real-world data that would seem to undermine their premise.

"Yet the Democratic Party and their mouthpieces "

Nonsense like this is why I can't take Salon seriously. It's the same bleating, biased, anti-Democratic garbage that they perfected in 2016, while they were shamelessly plugging Jill Stein's candidacy.

[Hoyt]

5. I have my doubts whether Kansas and Oklahoma will vote for a "socialist" or Democrat in 2020,

as the author apparently wants us to believe. Biden has a chance, however.

"History speaks to Piketty's truths. In the early twentieth century, the rural Great Plains states were hotbeds of socialism; Kansas and Oklahoma particularly had vast socialist movements, parties and newspapers . . . . . "

Haven't read the entire article or paper, will try to do that.

[George II]

6. This is a 6-month old article based on "data" collected more than a year ago.

[PhoenixDem]

8. IKR? n/t

[oldsoftie]

11. Well now you've ruined everything!

[Quixote1818]

13. It's 4 months old. What in the research would be different today?

Exactly what day did the stuff in this article expire? Was it Oct 3rd? Sept 15th. LOL

[TwilightZone]

15. June 2nd was 5.5 months ago.

Because math.

It's the same faulty Salon logic that it was then. They make faulty conclusions based on preconceived notions. That's their MO.

[Cha]

25. lol@Because math.

[George II]

20. Okay, it's 5 months 17 days old. Are you telling me that the way people feel today....

...or will feel in November 2020 is exactly the same as it was in 2018?

Economist Thomas Piketty wrote a paper about this in 2018

[Demsrule86]

42. Those views fly in the face of reality and the answer is ...it expired before it was written.

[TwilightZone]

7. That article is six months old.

One of the threads from when it was initially posted:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287138364

[The Valley Below]

10. I'm supporting a great liberal Democrat who reflects and embodies the best traditions of our party.

Joe Biden.

Not a "centrist," but a progressive who will win, who will have long coat-tails, who will pass legislation including a ground-breaking expansion of the ACA with the Public Option, restore our international alliances, and boot Trump out of office.

Meanwhile I remember Salon as the home of Ha Ha Goodman. Zero credibility.

[emmaverybo]

34. +1000

[highplainsdem]

14. OMG, Democrats "ignored" a French political economist who wrote a paper on the

Brahmin Left versus the Merchant Right!!!

OMG OMG OMG how will our politicians and strategists ever overcome their amazing ignorance?

Quick! Someone tell all the campaigns and all the pollsters and all the voters that no one is allowed to think anything or say anything, let alone do anything, until we've all become enlightened by Thomas Piketty!!!

[Gothmog]

45. Everyone has ignored this French Economist

See post 44

[msongs]

18. article is from before a major candidate did some backtracking lol nt

[I_UndergroundPanther]

27. Centrists

Do not know help when your opponent is a narcissist a despot a criminal that hates democracy.

There is no common ground with republicans.

[redstateblues]

30. Salon? Really? This should go straight to the digital bit bucket

[LongtimeAZDem]

33. Salon had article after article on how Hillary would be worse than Trump

[George II]

36. Not just Salon, but surrogate Susan Sarandon said so a number of times.

[DarthDem]

35. LOL

Never change, Salon!

[oasis]

37. Nothing's as old as yesterday's hard data. Used news.

Gonna take a snooze.

[Cha]

39. lol and 6 months old "hard data"..

Forgiddaboutit!

[Demsrule86]

41. Good thing...had we listened to this we would not have won the House...

"The reason is that nominating centrist Democrats who don't speak to class issues will result in a great swathe of voters simply not voting. Conversely, right-wing candidates who speak to class issues, but who do so by harnessing a false consciousness — i.e. blaming immigrants and minorities for capitalism's ills, rather than capitalists — will win those same voters who would have voted for a more class-conscious left candidate. Piketty calls this a "bifurcated" voting situation, meaning many voters will connect either with far-right xenophobic nationalists or left-egalitarian internationalists, but perhaps nothing in-between."

Salon...home of H.A. Goodman. This is an old article also. Picketty said nothing about our elections directly This is an article cherry picking parts of Picketty's books and articles; He is a Nobel prize winner I believe. His work on income inequality is well known. He has written multiple books and articles on this subject. He is also French and demonstrates little understanding of our electoral process in terms of the presidency...IE the Electoral College. His views do not resonate when looking at our political situation. We have three states in the Mid West that gave Trump an EC win (MI,WI PA)...I can assure you that running to the left on income inequality will cost you votes in this part of the country and not help you win particularly when dealing with the EC. I would also say this very smart man has drawn the wrong conclusions in the UK and in France as well IMHO.

I do not believe that running a leftist candidate who championed inequality would have prevented Brexit. And a leftist candidate could not win an election in Britain-not even today. Now a moderate candidate might have had a chance. Also, consider the French yellow jackets and their discontent, this too would seem to contradict Picketty's views as described in multiple books and articles concerning the left. Europe has been on a far right trajectory for a while now as we have been...finally I see a break in this but it won't come from nominating a left leaning candidate who will attempt and fail to drag us to the left. I believe this is not possible today as such a candidate will be defeated in a landslide. Only a perceived moderate like Biden can expand our Democratic coalition and increase the pool of voters in 20 in the states we need to win for the presidency and for the Senate. A left leaning candidate will not win in MI, WI or PA. Thus Trump wins the EC. And we lose the senate as well IMHO.

I will not vote for any candidate in the primary that I think may lose to Trump...ridding ourselves of Trump and Republicans in general is our mission now and in the future in order to save our Republic, our Party and the Progressive movement which will not survive four more years of Trump. Remember in the General, vote blue no matter who, but in the primary, vote for the strongest candidate to beat Trump in the Electoral College.

I will also add that the coalition of intellectual elites and wealthy elites as described by Picketty leaves out the common man...and is undemocratic in my opinion-it almost has a dictatorial feel.

[Gothmog]

44. Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder?

Most economists are ignoring the work that this article is based on http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-why-are-economists-giving-piketty-cold-shoulder

But despite Piketty’s resonance with public experience and apparent applicability to the economic environment of global finance, his book was mostly greeted with hostility by the academic economics profession. There was a sense among academic economists that the book was a hostile action from within, and aside from Nobel Prize–winners Robert Solow and Paul Krugman, who both published reasonably favorable reviews in the highbrow popular press, the reaction was, in general, quite harsh.

In the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson wrote, “If the history of grand pronouncements of the general laws of capitalism repeats itself—perhaps first as tragedy and then as farce as Marx colorfully put it—then we may expect the same sort of frustration with Piketty’s sweeping predictions as they fail to come true, in the same way that those of Ricardo and Marx similarly failed in the past.” In the Journal of Political Economy, after praising Piketty’s lifelong research agenda assembling inequality statistics for income and wealth (as do all the reviewers named here), Lawrence Blume and Steven Durlauf wrote, “Capital is, nonetheless, unpersuasive when it turns from description to analysis. . . . Both of us are very liberal (in the contemporary as opposed to classical sense), and we regard ourselves as egalitarians. We are therefore disturbed that Piketty has undermined the egalitarian case with weak empirical, analytical, and ethical arguments.”....

But perhaps the greatest rebuke of Piketty to be found among academic economics is not contained in any of these overt or veiled attacks on his scholarship and interpretation, but rather in the deafening silence that greets it, as well as inequality in general, in broad swathes of the field—even to this day. You can search through the websites of several leading economics departments or the official lists of working papers curated by federal agencies and not come across a single publication that has any obvious or even secondary bearing on the themes raised by Capital in the Twenty-First Century, even in order to oppose them. It is as though the central facts, controversies, and policy proposals that have consumed our public debate about the economy for three years are of little-to-no importance to the people who are paid and tenured to conduct a lifetime’s research into how the economy works.

This dearth of reaction to such a critical work is not healthy. It is as if the rapturous reception by the public increased the resentment among Piketty’s academic economist colleagues. As an appeal to the public to resolve, or at least have a say in, what the experts consider their own domain, Piketty appears to have questioned the very value of having a credentialed economics elite empowered to make policy in the name of the public interest but not answerable to public opinion. The economics elite, it seems, answered by stonewalling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, so it would not have the impact on economics research agendas that it merits.

No one in academia is taking this book seriously and so it is hard to base election results on this book