Apparently context is scarce. Here’s some:

A variety of activists and special interests — collectively known as “The Groups” — can basically persuade Democratic staffers and politicians of their ideas in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms, well out of the public eye. Democrats’ focus on identitarianism allows the Groups to falsely present themselves as representatives of various “communities” — the Latino “community”, or the trans “community”, etc. And Democrats’ legacy of urban machine politics causes them to think that these “communities” can basically be bought off with targeted benefits, much as they would be in urban politics. Incidentally, this is probably a big part of why progressive cities are governed so badly. Anyway, when all of this finally has to make contact with the actual voting public on election day, it turns out that The Groups weren’t really representative of easily buy-able “communities”, and voters reject the Dems at the polls. That’s a very simplified model, of course. But it looks like in the aftermath of the 2024 election, a lot of people are zeroing in on a model like this to explain Democrats’ weakness. 

When I say the work of politics has become diminished, part of how that happened is that talking about this creates this counterargument: Well, even to discuss it is to abandon.

In 2008, as you and I both know, Barack Obama ran as a public opponent of gay marriage.

He ran opposed to it. At a time when not only — I won’t speak for you — was I not opposed to it, but most of us did not think he was opposed to it. Like, at his heart, we did not think he was opposed to it.

But he was playing politics. That playing of politics allowed him to name Supreme Court justices, and that led to the decision that created a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

And I am saying that kind of playing politics is needed.

For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying. The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace. The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness. To please the few, we have alienated the many—especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant.

Public safety must be a priority—in Memphis, DC, and the rest of the country—but sending militarized police to serve as additional local law enforcement is not the answer. As five mayors wrote in the Hill earlier this month, instead of weaponizing the National Guard, the federal government could help by bolstering the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate firearms trafficking, support ballistics testing, and work in coordination with local law enforcement—not supplant them. “Real progress happens when Washington partners with local leaders,” they wrote, “not when it sidelines them.”