As I understand it, this debate is fundamentally about how well El-Sayed needs to do, in order to undermine the conventional wisdom that moderation is electorally expedient, all else equal. Hasan suggests that El-Sayed could achieve this, even if he performs worse than moderate swing-state Senate candidates or Democrats nationally. This is because El-Sayed 1) is a relative newcomer to statewide politics, 2) pays an electoral penalty for being Muslim, and 3) is having an unusually large amount of money spent against him. A few thoughts on that argument/the broader debate: • El-Sayed does have some real, non-ideological disadvantages. But I also think he has some non-ideological assets. For example, he seems more charismatic than the average Democratic Senate candidate. And I feel like Hasan would probably second that assessment. But if so, then that needs to be entered into the equation: If Abdul is an unusually gifted messenger, then he might make public buy-in for his ideology look *more widespread* than it actually is. In theory, charisma might buy him a percentage point or two that might not be available to a more generic progressive, all else equal. (Many leftists made precisely this case with Obama, arguing that his personal gifts inflated the apparent appeal of his center-left politics). In other words: The more Islamophobic you think America is, the more you need to grade Abdul on a curve, when assessing the appeal of his ideology. And yet, by the same token, the more charismatic you deem him to be, the more you need to adjust expectations in the other direction. • The amount of opposition spending that El-Sayed has attracted is not exogenous to his ideological positioning. When Yglesias raised this point, Hasan channeled it into a moral debate: Should Democrats be willing to stand for what's right, even if deep-pocketed interests oppose them? I think they should, as a general matter. But it's also important to separate questions of fact from questions of principle. If we are trying to evaluate the empirical proposition, "Progressives are as electable (if not more) than moderates," then the fact that prof attract more opposition spending would cut against the premise; at least, if we think that campaign spending is somewhat effective (which is implicit in the belief that money in politics is a significant problem). • This said, progressives seem very good at raising money in the modern era. And I think there are diminishing returns on campaign spending. Further, the pro-Israel/reactionary business lobbies probably won't ever be willing to spend against all Dems the way they have against Abdul. • It's true that Cooper and Peltola are longtime, popular politicians in their states while El-Sayed is not. But in principle, this could itself reflect the center-left's broader political appeal. Presumably, Cooper and Peltola's ideological positioning isn't irrelevant to their success at becoming popular politicians in solidly red states. • Ultimately, we can't draw strong conclusions about the political appeal of any ideological program by looking at a single Senate race. There are too many uncontrolled variables. • But there is a substantial body of empirical evidence that moderate candidates outperform progressive ones. vox.com/politics/462912/trum… • There is also a strong logical basis for believing this would be true. The progressive movement (like all ideological traditions) did not pick the majority of its issue positions by gauging their electoral appeal. Rather, the positions flow from the movement's ideological principles and the interests of its allied organizations. It would be an extraordinary coincidence if those positions happened to also be the most electorally expedient for Democrats to adopt, even though they were not selected on that basis. • Given this, if you define every candidate who breaks with progressive orthodoxy on several issues as a "moderate," then the Democrats who cater the most to majoritarian opinion are going to end up concentrated in the "moderate" bin. In the aggregate, that group is probably going to win elections more reliably. • This does not mean that all moderates are more electable than all progressives. The point is just that ideological flexibility is advantageous. And every ideological tradition accrues unpopular commitments. A Democrat who faithfully upheld the principles of pro-tech, neoliberal globalism -- championing data center development, mass immigration, and Social Security cuts -- would probably do pretty bad. In practice though, there are more moderate political opportunists than militant left-neoliberals in politics. • All this said, progressives can and do engage in strategic moderation. For instance, El-Sayed has endorsed freezing property taxes for seniors. That's a bad policy imo -- and one with little progressive support. But it's probably electorally sound. Whether he's therefore justified in taking the stance is a separate question. • Reasonable people can disagree about how to balance political expediency against substantive virtue. It's an incredibly thorny question. But when answering it for ourselves, we should do our best to ascertain what the relevant tradeoffs actually are.

A few months ago, I wrote about a similar issue to the one that Joe flags here. When prompted in languages spoken primarily in an authoritarian state, LLMs tend to give more pro-regime answers, partly because state media produces so much paywall-free text vox.com/politics/489191/chat…

Good ad

It's over

I don't think Zohran Mamdani is in a position to block US arms transfers to Israel

Credit cards are good. They help people weather unexpected expenses and irregular incomes. And they cost money to provide. But America's swipe fees are higher than they need to be. Other rich countries maintain credit card systems with much lower rates. vox.com/politics/506417/cred…

Your credit card rewards are funded by a de-facto tax on the poor. Rewards are financed by "swipe fees" -- the fee stores pay to banks when you use credit. To offset these costs, stores typically raise prices -- even for low-income customers who tend to pay in cash (and get no rewards). Thus, the system channels money from low-income Americans to the affluent. We can mitigate this injustice by following the EU's lead and capping swipe fees. vox.com/politics/506417/cred…

I wrote about this concern last year. One answer is that many elites today advocate for progressive redistribution, out of a desire for meaning and/or social esteem. But yeah, I share Cassie's unease (paywall free link: vox.com/the-highlight/466025…)

Gonna do fiction and nonfiction separately

For a solid 5 seconds, I thought Mike Ditka had made a cameo in Noah Baumbach's first film and I'd somehow forgotten about it