There’s a line from a recent essay by Ezra Klein that’s been making the rounds. Klein turns to an argument that liberal pundits often do. We need a bigger tent.
This ignores what lots of people have already pointed out. That pro-life policies aren’t actually popular. That perhaps more importantly, it’s a regressive stance at odds with the presumed ideology of the Democratic Party. That it’s harmful to women, that it’s the removal of a fundamental right. On and on.
This isn’t Klein taking a misstep though. His brain is so warped by polling, reinforced by a bubble of homogenous pundits, that he sees politics through a prism of calculations rather than adherence to any true convictions. He believes, for instance, that running a pro-life Democrat lets you grab, say 3-5% of the Republicans through some Faustian bargain without having to sacrifice the support of your own party. Or personal integrity for that matter.
Which is, of course, not true, and has never been true, and how it’s possible to have the most unpopular opposition party even in opposition to the most unpopular president in modern history.
It’s not actually hard to have an actual ideology obviously, even one that is nuanced and multi-faceted. But Ezra Klein’s beliefs are grounded in a faux optimsim cloaking it’s much more sinister cynicism. Everything is up for grabs. That’s not a winning or enduring position. Its weak links are everywhere. Let’s see how far it gets us.