The patented Yglesias method.
Once again Matthew Yglesias has found an example that just so happens to be evidence for all of his priors. But does it? Let’s examine this claim real quickly.
While Yglesias is correct that normal stuff is popular, it’s not popular because it is moderate as Yglesias claims. It is popular because it’s progressive. So let’s take a second to go through the chart posted by Matt, and see if the stuff he has claimed to be popular (moderation) is truly what is depicted on the chart.
First on the list is Social Security. Despite Matt’s claims that this is an issue that moderates have the strength on, some of us (despite being significantly younger than him) are able to remember just over ten years ago when moderates in the party (including President Obama) were pushing for cuts to Social Security.
Defending Social Security (the policy shown to be popular in the chart) is the progressive opinion. In fact it is progressives who have reversed the course on the issue and have begun pushing to expand it and shore up its finances by removing the contribution limit cap.
Next up we have Medicare. The Biden administration secured a massive progressive win with Medicare price negotiation in the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s wildly popular. In fact, Blueprint research, not a particularly progressive firm (and funded by Ried Hoffman, no less) found that attacks on Big Pharma price gouging played extremely well with the electorate.
This would be fine, but Yglesias has been extremely upset by “price gouging” messaging, claiming that it is fake. This is yet another example of progressive messaging being more popular than his preferred messaging.
After Medicare, there’s Minimum Wage (progressive priority) and cost of living (another progressive priority). On minimum wage Yglesias has said:
“The clearest case against a minimum wage hike has (in my view) more to do with freedom than with research. You’ve got a guy who wants to give someone $8 to do something that’ll take an hour and another guy who wants $8 and is happy to do the thing in exchange for the money. Now Barack Obama’s going to fine them for agreeing to trade $8 for the work? Seems perverse.”
Given his moral opposition to raising the minimum wage, it hardly seems fair for him to take credit for it as a “moderate” issue. Not to mention the flawed logic in his argument that could invalidate everything from workplace safety laws, to unionization rights and more.
And on the progressive case for cost of living, not only did Yglesias spend months denigrating any progressives talking about sellers’ inflation, but he did so without reading the economic research.
Unsurprisingly, talking about sellers’ inflation, corporate greed and junk fees all polls very well.
Yglesias can attempt to claim credit for moderate issues winning over voters most. But there’s very little evidence of doing so. Voters care about things that are normal, and what’s normal to them is protecting Social Security and Medicare while cracking down on corporate price gouging, junk fees and exploitation.
Our original thread on the subject can be found here.