politics – Between Hell and High Water

The Reality of a Progressive-Populist Alliance

By Mike Koetting November 11, 2025

In my last post, I suggested that at least one way forward is some kind of populist-progressive alliance. Although more thinking about such an alliance raises some concerns, as last week’s election results illustrate, this is probably the way forward.

Obvious Convergence on Economic Issues

The primary basis for such an alliance is the concern over economic issues. We are currently in an anomalous situation where the stock market continues to boom. And while numerous other macroeconomic indicators are not plunging, the underlying realities are increasingly wobbly and the stress for many individuals and families acute.

For those with high incomes, life remains good. The below shows consumer spending by the top 20% of income earners continues to grow, but in the last two years, spending by the bottom 80% has flattened out or even started to decrease. Given the underlying inflation, this means that 80% of the population are cutting back on discretionary spending. (The actual situation is probably worse since credit card debt and defaults are both rising.)

A graph showing the growth of a number of people

AI-generated content may be incorrect.
Moreover, layoffs are rising, new jobs are being added at a slower pace, and inflation is creeping back up. The healthcare situation will become truly grim for those with coverage under the ACA or Medicaid, which together account for 22% of the population. This will also worsen the situation for the 8% of the population with no insurance. All of these will force up rates for private insurance, which will eventually be reflected in smaller salary increases, increased co-pays or both.

In short, a very substantial portion of the population has reason to be concerned about their economic situation. Consumer confidence is hovering around all-time lows. Converging around this problem should be axiomatic.

It’s Not so Simple

The problem is that people put similar facts in different contexts.

For instance, traditional populists have a more expansive idea of “elites”. It seems to them an “elite” is any group of people perceived as acting against their interests or beliefs. This is how they come to dismiss client scientists or public health officials as part of the elite. Populists often focus on elites exercising power through “corrupt” politicians, which leads to a distrust of government that runs counter to the reality that addressing their economic concerns requires an activist government. They also distrust big corporations, but they are equally, or more so, suspicious of “socialism” which seems to them like another elite that will push them around.

Progressives, on the other hand, are typically more focused on a critique of the economic structure that explicitly distrusts capitalism. Doesn’t necessarily reject it, but is deeply suspicious of its motives, means and some of its outcomes, such as the extreme inequality found in America. This leads to a much stronger embrace of government as the logical anti-force to capitalism.

A more encompassing problem is that populists tend to have a narrower concept of who is a “real American” and therefore worthy of government considerations. Conversely, a much wider definition of who belongs is a critical element of progressive thought. Critics have dismissed current incarnations of attempts to widen the circle as “identity” politics. This is a very careless shorthand. No doubt there have been excesses committed in the name of “identity” and not all prescriptions have worked. But there is also a real difference, even if the lines are ambiguous, between people who feel comfortable with expanding the idea of who is a “real American” and people who don’t.

There is also the problem that many people who are populist in their economic agenda, find the Democrats “arrogant” or “preachy”. Easy to see where this comes from. Mistakes have been made. But it is also true that part of what people describe to pollsters as “arrogance” or “preachy” is a consequence of citing experts or established facts. Or facts that people find inconvenient or unpleasant. A measurable portion of the discomfort with DEI initiatives stems from being asked to recognize that the unsavory underside to our history continues to have an impact. Calling that “preachy” sure sounds a lot better than saying “I don’t want to hear about how Blacks have been mistreated in the past because someone might think that should have some bearing on the present….and my life is difficult enough already.”

All of this funnels into a more general problem of a lingering toxicity to the “Democrat” brand. One recent study suggest attaching the label “Democrat” to someone, even someone with an explicitly economic populist agenda, could lower their support by 11 to 16 percentage points. What else could account for Sherrod Brown’s loss to Bernie Moreno, a Trump-backed businessman with several wage theft legal actions against him. This is nothing short of insane, but it’s the world we’re in.

The Path Forward Is Tricky

Erza Klein, among others, have suggested that the way forward is for candidates to distance themselves from the brand of the national party.

I get that people have specific, and sometimes legitimate, arguments with the Democratic Party. But I think it is harder for candidates to distant themselves from the national party brand than the commenters seem to think. And perhaps of dubious moral value.

Take what I believe is the core question: who should be considered worthy of government protection. This is a big deal for people who are really concerned about making the circle as large as possible. The Democratic Party as we know it—for better and worse—has come to embody that instinct. Most members of the party are not likely to say “Oh, I can put that on hold to make a better alliance on economic issues.” Roosevelt got away with that, but the world has moved too far to pull it off now. (Matt Yglesias has a very relevant discussion on the complexity of this issue.) People can be strategic and not emphasize certain issues as they work in the political world. They can even speak out against excesses in ”wokeness”. But, at the end of the day, Democrats are committed to a broader circle. And people who are worried by “the other”, know where progressives stand. We’re kidding ourselves if we think we can simply go quiet on the last 60 years of our history and people will think we are somebody else.

I think it is also hard to decide certain issues can simply be put on hold indefinitely. I would put environmental concerns at the top of this list. We are talking about things that are likely to reshape the world in the most profound ways imaginable. Deciding this issue is optional is irresponsible, even if most people don’t want to think about it, and certainly don’t want to have to vote on it.

Of course, and this is the central dilemma of participating in the world through politics: if you can’t get elected, the righteousness of your policy positions goes for naught.

Last Week’s Elections

Republicans lost just about everything there was to lose. When Democrats flip Republican seats in the Mississippi Legislature, it’s clear something is up.

Democrats ran on the issue of affordability, or, more accurately, the lack thereof. It’s a unifying issue. It sidesteps the issue of who is a real American. It’s particularly good since the current President ran on exactly that issue but hasn’t delivered. In his CBS 60 minutes interview last week, he made one stunning lie about the economy after another. Turns out, you can’t fool people who actually tote up the bills at the end of each month to see if they are still solvent.

So affordability is a good issue. Nevertheless, despite a few encouraging wins in Georgia and Mississippi, it remains to be seen if this will persist and be enough to overcome the reluctance to actually vote for Democrats in many parts of the country.

I am also concerned that “affordability” is unconnected to any broader view of the economy. I understand the political attraction, but to actually make life more affordable for most Americans is going to require a major restructuring. Sure, there are low-hanging fruit—let’s roll back the huge tax breaks given to the wealthy in the Big Beautiful Bill. But actual, sustainable, affordability will require top to bottom changes. These will take time, nuance and real governance.

Still, whatever gets us started is a good thing. Holding out for winning elections with a comprehensive economic strategy makes looking for the tooth fairy seem sophisticated. If running on “affordability” creates enough populist-progressive alliance to win elections, I’m for it. It also draws in people who don’t fit neatly into the traditional populist grouping—think Black and Latino working class voters.

I am in general agreement with Eric Zorn, a Chicago blogger, who suggested that Zohran Mamdani ran on a platform that was probably unachievable. But, he continued, “The real test will be if, by next summer, New Yorkers feel that he’s working collaboratively, productively and transparently with his department heads and other elected officials to improve life in the city.”

I think that will be the most we can hope for—and indeed, the standard to which we should hold officials accountable: Are they making people feel the government is actually working competently for them. That could sustain a populist-progressive alliance that will make a real difference.

The Unnecessary Scarcity We Tolerate Is Tearing Up the Country

By Mike Koetting October 28, 2025

I’ve been thinking that Abundance, the Ezra Klein-Derek Thompson book, has the right idea but the focus is too narrow.

The Klein-Thompson book starts with the observation that scarcity is a choice. It then proceeds to assume that the way out of the scarcity trap is to make it easier to create more stuff so that all may experience the abundance of what our technology can produce. This clearly has an element of truth. They correctly identify bottlenecks in our current production of social goods and they are right that there is no political appetite for “degrowth.” So power to their suggestions.

That said, however, they miss the urgency of the situation. A large chunk of the population is furious. Trying to remove obstacles to creating greater supply of desired goods, while laudable, is simply not a solution commensurate with the degree of anger in the body politic. I think Michael Hirschorn, in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, has a better handle on where we are: “Trumpism is more than politics. It’s an emotional gas-main explosion, from people who felt unheard, patronized, left behind.”

The Problem

Start with the fact that the United States routinely does poorly on comparisons of happiness among countries. Hardly anyone pays any attention to these comparisons. In part, because Americans can’t imagine things being too much different and it’s easier to just dismiss the comparison on the grounds that other countries are too different to be relevant. (“Well…they’re so homogenous” is a common blow-off response, as if having diversity were somehow innately opposed to happiness.)

Even if the specifics of these comparisons don’t work exactly, there is something straightforward about thinking of political situations as a measure of the general happiness of the population. Does anyone really believe the extreme degree of political alienation in the United States is unrelated to the fact that the United States predictably ranks near the bottom of the happiness index?

This in turn, I believe, is related to scarcity. Probably not absolute scarcity– on many measures Americans should be happy with their economic situation. But the scarcity reflected in how many Americans feel threatened by the uncertainty of their situations. The sense they have to work too hard to get there, that the well-off get more well-off at their expense, and that they are only a step away from the precipice.

Sources: CBS News Cornell Medical School CNN Newsweek CBS News Peterson Foundation National Institute on Retirement Security

Fear of things falling apart has particularly toxic effects. It makes people fearful and fear causes people to behave badly. The degree of unhappiness with this situation is indeed the gas build-up to which Michael Hirschorn refers.

Direction of Solution

America is the wealthiest civilization that has ever existed. There is something fundamentally wrong when, despite a reasonably good economy, a large portion of the population feels that their well-being is under constant threat.

This is the problem of American abundance. It is not being shared. And the elite pretend that the degree of social precarity is somehow virtuous.

Restoring a sense of protection in America will be a Herculean effort. The tolerance of scarcity is woven into every part of the American political economy. No wonder Klein and Thompson want to approach this by simply building over the existing structure, like a homeowner adding a room to avoid facing problems in the core structure.

The difficulty of achieving a less precarious society will not, however, keep voters from demanding it. It is why people are supporting Zohran Mamdani in New York City and is why so many supported Donald Trump. The latter of course represents a badly mistaken idea of what would improve personal situations. But the fact that so many voters misread Trump’s intention does not diminish the popularity of what he was selling. Make America Great Again is nothing more than a promise to recreate the comfort of a time that is deeply missed, even if it never fully existed.

Leadership of the Democratic Party—which is extremely lukewarm around Mamdani– is making a different mistake. It seems to think that somehow moderating aspirations will win over voters. This is on balance wrong. It will preserve some of their voters, but at the cost of a larger portion of the electorate.

I am acutely sympathetic to the problem of leaders who look down the road and ask how various proposals could actually be carried out. It makes sense to be leery of promises you don’t know how you would keep. But the most necessary change is achievable. That is a sense that we are really going to tackle these fundamental issues in a communal way, even if—perhaps especially if—it means offending corporate elites. This is necessary not just for electoral reasons, but because our society is fundamentally out of line. Societies can only withstand so many gas explosions.

What’s perhaps encouraging about the current situation is that there may be opportunities for a Progressive-Populist coalition. Looking back over American history, some of the most favorable and lasting changes in American society were made with this alliance–at the beginning of the 20^th Century and then again in the New Deal programs.

The protections from these programs have worn away over time. People are again becoming desperate to feel a greater degree of economic security. And a sense that their lives have as much value as the richest. I don’t think taking the slow road of supply abundance is quick enough. It should be done. But society also needs to put in place a broad set of limits on corporations and big finance and a greatly enhanced safety net that softens people’s fears and resentment. To do this will require broad, populist support. I don’t know how to exactly shape this package, but I am pretty confident it won’t be by being either too careful about core proposals or by trying to solve problems a large portion of the electorate doesn’t care about.

Maybe it is easier than it seems. Trump himself ran on cartoon versions of these goals. There is now an increasing disruption in the Republican Party between those who hold the old Republican orthodoxy of making all government the enemy and those who take a more sanguine view of the role of government. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, surprised many people with her full-throated support of the Democrats’ willingness to shut down government over the Obamacare subsidies. Other Republicans, particularly those more recently elected, are also voicing more support for government programs designed to bolster lower, working and middle class Americans. While there is a core MAGA base committed to anti-progressive ideas, some of Trump’s populist supporters are beginning to wonder where their true interests lie.

It is becoming daily clearer that trying to see the world through the lens of Democrat vs Republican is really clouding our view. We don’t yet have a good alternative for systematizing our understandings, but we need to be realistic that a large portion of the electorate is rejecting both political parties because, it seems, neither party can give them the security they are looking for. It is true that Democrats would have come a lot closer if they had not been systematically obstructed by Republicans. But that’s insider-baseball to most voters. They aren’t getting what they need and they want it. They will vote not by party line, but in favor of which candidate seems to best understand what they need and commit to getting the country there. In fairness, that’s not a bad strategy—although it’s better if they have a realistic assessment of the intent of various promises.

At the end of the day, it comes back to what makes people happy. An interview with a Finnish man about why their country was rated first for happiness, summarized it well.

Really. These are not beyond the reach of the richest country on the planet.

The Moment of Truth

By Mike Koetting October 14, 2025

I believe we are approaching a “make-or-break” point for Trump’s authoritarian impulses.

It’s not a question of what he wants to do. That’s clear. In the last several weeks, he has replaced Federal Attorneys until he found one who would pursue an embarrassingly flimsy indictment against one of his enemies, he signed an executive order that raised the possibility almost any kind of dissent could be treated as “treason,” he posted on Truth Social that Democrats are “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN,” and he lectured the leaders of the Armed Services that their mission included fighting the “enemies within”.

His approach to controlling immigration is increasingly inhumane. His masked marauders have grabbed people off the streets with little regard for their situations or actual legal status. Here in Chicago, along with the wanton cruelty and indifference to legality, there has been a major performance element designed to intimidate: armed border guards patrolling the Chicago River, military marches down Michigan Avenue on a Sunday afternoon and ICE agents rappelling from Blackhawk helicopters into apartments filled with sleeping families—separating children from parents and causing total pandemonium. Now Trump is calling for Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson to be jailed.

Attacking Medical Science

By Mike Koetting September 15, 2025

Every once and a while, you’ll run across an article about a bunch of teens absolutely trashing a local school. You’ll shake your head and wonder, “What the hell is this about? Okay, they don’t like school. But this doesn’t make any sense.”

What Trump and his Republican enablers are doing to the American scientific enterprise is remarkably similar, except with results that are going to be a lot worse. It’s a bit hard to tell exactly how great the damage will be given the uncertainty of what actions will withstand court challenges, what administrative actions will be taken to circumvent courts or where the juvenile in charge will change his mind. But working on this essay made it clear to me it is even worse than you probably imagined. Media covers it one event at a time, without stepping back to see the whole catalogue of damage. Likewise, the more you look at it, not only do you realize it’s more dangerous, but you also realize it is even more senseless than appears.

Old Political Order Fading; Future Is Scary

By Mike Koetting September 3, 2025

David Brooks, taking anguished stock of the depredations of Trump and the Republicans, on PBS NewsHour, wondered why there aren’t more people in the streets. This is a question I have often asked myself. And am not the only one. What Trump and the Republicans are doing is so destructive of the spirit of democracy as to demand vigorous response.

But if the attack on the ideals of America is so fundamental, why aren’t there more people in the streets?

Why Do We Tolerate the Crypto Scam?

By Mike Koetting

Republicans in Congress declared the week of July 14 as “Crypto Week” with the intent of passing three bills on crypto currencies as part of a push to boost and legitimize the U.S. cryptocurrency industry by giving it a regulatory framework that’s lighter than what traditional financial assets and institutions face but at the same time creates an aurora of legitimacy. All three of these bills passed. One, the so-called GENIUS Act, had already been passed by the Senate—with 18 Democratic votes– and Trump has signed it into law. The other two also passed, but face an uncertain future in the Senate. Not surprisingly, the value of existing cryptocurrency soared with the attention. Bitcoin, the best known cryptocurrency, hit an all-time high.

The details of these bills aren’t anywhere near as important as the fact that crypto is being treated seriously. There is no compelling reason for cryptocurrencies and profound reasons why they should simply be ignored. Or banned if ignoring them turns out to leave too many risky possibilities in play.

Are Our Responses Matching the Risks?

By Mike Koetting June 24, 2025

Our country is drifting toward an authoritarian state. This is a fact, not a matter of opinion. One might argue about the speed of the drift or, in theory, even whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But one can’t really argue in good faith about the direction.

I am guessing most of the readers of this blog are troubled by this. The question that I can’t get out of my head is how should I feelabout it. And, then, what should I do about it. Asking these questions raises a lot of philosophical questions about what does the abstraction of democracy or, even, of country, mean, none of which have simple answers.

But it seems to me that there are fundamental reasons to believe that democracy is superior to authoritarianism, so much so, I would submit that standing up for it is a moral imperative.

Republican Organization Is (Mostly) an Illusion

By Mike Koetting June 10, 2025

How many times have you heard someone say: “Democrats need to get organized like Republicans.” I don’t have any problem with the idea of getting organized. What I find problematic is the idea that the Republicans have some magic template. For the most part, they are as disorganized as Democrats. They have simply hitched their wagons to one of the world’s most accomplished grifters and let him drag them wherever he wants to go. This simplifies organization enormously. To be sure, Trump has accommodated them by making various nods in the directions of long-time Republican goals. But it is erratic, inconsistent, and can be seen as part of an organized plan only through a peculiar lens. See below about Project 2025.

Democrats Real Problem Is a Lack of Options

By Mike Koetting May 27, 2025

I am increasingly skeptical that characterizations of the Democrats as chronically disorganized are useful. Democrats probably are disorganized. But all political parties are…and the more democratic they are, the more that is the case.

No doubt, mistakes were made in the last election. The biggest one was when Biden insisted on running. Maybe you could blame that on the Party. But just ask the (former) Republican establishment how easy is it is control someone who had structural momentum. And, although a year or so later one can spin all kinds of counter-historical scenarios, at the time there were compelling reasons not to pursue various alternatives.

Post-election, options are even more limited. The other party controls the national government and Democrats have no leverage. Republicans would prefer to toss over all reason (not to mention the Constitution) rather than strike any kind of compromise.

How Many Deaths for Congressional Republicans?

By Mike Koetting May 13, 2025

In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare writes: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”

Republicans in Congress are today playing out their own version. By failing to take on any of the winnable small battles, they are slipping toward a situation where the entire foundation of the country could be up for grabs. Most Congressional Republicans understand that Donald Trump is playing fast and loose with the separation of powers—and in the process taking away Congressional power.