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For what it’s worth I’ve been really impressed with Ezra Klein, Pod Save America, Matthew Yglesias, and others in the wake of the election. Lots of pretty brutal criticism of stupid things that the Democratic Party has been doing, and quite sophisticated analysis of voting patterns etc.. I get the feeling that a lot of these people wanted to speak up more loudly sooner, but it was only once progressives were properly on the back foot that they felt empowered to do so. I hope this is a general trend for the left going forward, and that they’re able to become a big-tent intellectual hothouse of a movement again.
I'm pretty sure they've been saying the same things forever, especially Matt. I also find his analysis a little hard to take seriously because like almost everybody his analysis of why the Democrats lost seems suspiciously to align with the direction he would want to take the party in anyway. Isn't just a bit too easy that all of the ways he thinks the Democrats can start winning again involve them hewing more closely to his preferred policy positions and modes of governing? It's not much of a criticism since literally everybody does this on all flanks of the party (Freddie de Boer is especially egregious about this), but it does make it a little hollow.
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