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Its possible, as some have argued, that the solution is to take on the partys left flank on social issues. This is something of a red herring, however: From Defund the Police to critical race theory, Republicans are ginning up pseudo-scandals that have little to do with the Democratic Partys actual positions or anything that the partys leaders have called for; other areas, like trans athletics, are tempests in a teapotissues that only affect a vanishingly small number of people. This is not to diminish the impact of these issues on the lives of ordinary people, but its not clear that overreacting to inflated GOP talking points by shifting to the right will help Democrats more than fighting back against those same talking pointsnot that Democrats are really doing that, either.

But the other problem is that many of the ideas that people like Gottheimer promote simply arent that popular. Gottheimer is no populist firebrand; his commitment to the repeal of the SALT cap gives away the game. While Democrats desperately need to find a way to reach out to noncollege voters, none of these representatives have found the magic touch to do so. Their donor base isnt interested in raising the fortunes of the middle and working class, and it shows: These moderates are silent on (or have actively worked against) issues like allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies on drug prices or the extension of the child tax creditan actual tax cut that is extremely popular.

The cupboard is bare in terms of a moderate theory of governance as well. The thing about moderates today is I dont think they have a worldview, political scientist Ruy Teixeira told Zengerle. Theyre just reacting to what [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and the Democratic left are doing. But whats their alternative? I dont think they have an alternative. Dont do dumb stuff is not a worldview.

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The Problem With Moderate Democrats Is Not That Theyre Vanishing. Its That They Have No Ideas. - The New Republic