No Democrats Are Talking About Their Next Governing Agenda, If You Ignore All the Democrats Who Are

Elizabeth Bruenig — the opponent of reproductive freedom who has nevertheless appointed herself the guardian of lefty purity — has a second column attacking Beto O’Rourke while also implicitly arguing that all non-Bernie candidates and their supporters want nothing more than was able to pass Congress under the Obama administration. The latest one brings is that classic leftier-than-thou Golden Oldie: Democrats have no governing agenda other than being anti-Trump. What is her evidence for this assertion?

When not absorbed in hopes of re-creating the Obama era, Democrats mainly seem intent on beating Trump, with little comment or insight, at least so far, on what they will do with power once they have it. (After I questioned in my last column whether O’Rourke has demonstrated serious commitment to progressive values, some readers responded by arguing they’re glad he hasn’t — that Democrats need to run an Obama-style centrist to win back conservatives who might otherwise favor Trump. “A too-progressive Democratic nominee in 2020,” one reader wrote, “would be a gift to President Trump.”) Likewise, at a recent event in New York, former FBI director James B. Comey implored Democrats to put aside their political projects in favor of an all-consuming focus on simply beating Trump . “I understand the Democrats have important debates now over who their candidate should be,” Comey said, “but they have to win. They have to win.”

So, the evidence that Democrats aren’t talking about anything but beating Trump are 1)some unnamed random people on the internet who responded to an op-ed and 2)the Republican FBI director who threw the last election to Donald Trump. I dunno, personally, I would think that, say, Kamala Harris — who has been taking about (inter alia) Medicare For All and criminal justice reform or Elizabeth Warren or Kirsten Gillibrand might be more representative figures than James Comey or cherry-picked online randos. But then I hardly have my finger on the pulse of the Democratic Party like someone who hates liberals and believes the Democratic Party is not worth supporting (no matter how much it moves to the left) unless it becomes a Bernie Sanders personality cult.

…Paul in comments:

This is a perfect example of how high concept opinion journalism works: State a thesis that reflects conventional wisdom, without bothering to provide any actual evidence for it, and that in fact flies in the face of all the available evidence.

Then pontificate for 800 words about the fantasy world you just created. Cha-ching!

This does indeed describe a staggering amount of major league punditry.