David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear | Hacker News Reader

David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear

nytimes.com

18 pointspaulpauper4 comments

Honestly, this reads as more damning of the US political system than it does the Democratic party. Don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of bones to pick there. But the overall theme from everybody mentioned in the article is that there are very few important voters under the current system, and they are not the median voter.

The disagreements seem to largely center on how the Democrats could win over those few voters, with some unfortunately hidden subtext on the potential costs of doing so.

Meanwhile, I can't help but get caught up on the sheer disparity of power on full display here. It seems a number of incidental factors used to be pushing the end results to be closer to the average - enough to be plausible - but those factors have weakened and the ugly truth has become too blatant to continue to ignore. The current disparity doesn't seem sustainable, but it also seems the only real hope of addressing that issue is too weak to pull it off, and too feckless to even try.

I don't understand what endgame any politicians in the US are aiming for anymore.

Even if these forecasts on the Democrats losing in 2022 or 2024 are true, isn’t it only a temporary outcome? The younger generations (Gen Z) skew a lot more left than previous ones (including Millennials), and their polling on policing, gender, immigration, socialism, and so on reflects this. There are also many institutions that drive that trend: Social media is skewed leftward systemically (due to moderation policies from left-leaning tech companies), colleges skew leftward (see voting patterns among professors), K-12 schools skew leftward (see injection of progressive viewpoints into curricula by the NEA), and culture skews leftward (see Hollywood). Add to that other structural changes like declining birth rates among Americans and birthright citizenship for offspring of illegal immigrants, and it feels to me like there is no way the GOP has political viability beyond the next couple cycles. So does 2022 or 2024 matter? Is it really much of a signal for Democrats to be more moderate? Or is the Democratic platform just a bit ahead of its time to shine?

As someone from outside the US it seems bizarre that Hollywood is considered "left" in the US.

Hollywood glamorizes American militarism. When military engagements is criticized, as in many Vietnam movies, the angle is that it was traumatic for the American soldiers having to kill all those people for no purpose.

Outside of the military, individualism is worshiped and any form of collectivism (from unions to government institutions) are shown as irredeemably corrupt, while the rugged individual playing by their own rules save the day any time. The world is always saved by the exceptional superhuman.

Social problems (like poverty, unemployment, expensive health issues) are always solved for single individuals through personal actions or individual acts of kindness, never by improving society. But in general social problems are non-existent, all serious problems are due to evil individuals which can be defeated, or are due to personal failings which can be overcome through "motivation".

But because Hollywood have a black superhero and a woman Ghostbuster, it is considered "left wing".

> As someone from outside the US it seems bizarre that Hollywood is considered "left" in the US.

The dominant faction of the left-most major party in the US (which the other party calls anything associated with “far left”) is a center-right neoliberal capitalist military-interventionist faction.

The other party is a far right party in which the narrative that slavery was good for those subjected to it is not considered unreasonable.

Once you understand and internalize that, Hollywood being considered left in the US political context makes perfect sense.

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