This Post-Election Take Is Going Viral for the Best Possible Reason

With 7.4 million views already, this post-election take from Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy is the prescription every Democrat needs to read:

That was a cataclysm. Electoral map wipeout. Senate D practical ceiling is now 52 seats. R's is 62.

Time to rebuild the left.

We are out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA. We refuse to pick big fights. Our tent is too small.

1/ Some early thoughts:

2/ The left has never fully grappled with the wreckage of fifty years of neoliberalism, which has left legions of Americans adrift as local places are hollowed out, rapacious profit seeking cannibalizes the common good, and unchecked new technology separates and isolates us.

3/ The things that mattered are disappearing. We spend half as much time with friends as a generation ago. Hard work no longer guarantees economic mobility. Institutions (like churches) are delegitimized. Place based identity evaporates as we all become "global citizens."

4/ The left skips past the way people are feeling (alone, impotent, overwhelmed) and straight to uninspiring solutions (more roads! bulk drug purchasing!) that do little to actually upset the status quo of who has power and who doesn't.

5/ Does racism explain part of the attraction of the right's nativism? Of course. But mass deportation is a (terrible) response to Americans' real sense they are helpless in the face of global forces (like increased migration). The left largely ignores this pain.

6/ We don't listen enough; we tell people what's good for them.
And when progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base. 😬

7/ Meanwhile, men tumble into a different kind of identity crisis, as the patriarchy, society's primary organizing paradigm for centuries, rightly crashes. The right pushes an alluring dial back. The left says "get over it". Again, a refusal to listen/offer responsible solutions.

8/ We cannot be afraid of fights - especially with the economic elites who have profited off neoliberalism. The right regularly picks fights with elites - Hollywood, higher ed, etc. Democrats (e.g. the Harris campaign) are tepid in our fights with billionaires and corporations.

9/ Real economic populism should be our tentpole.

But here's the thing - then you need to let people into the tent who aren't 100% on board with us on every social and cultural issue, or issues like guns or climate.

10/ Those are hard things for the left.

A firm break with neoliberalism.

Listen to poor and rural people, men in crisis. Don't decide for them.

Pick fights. Embrace populism.

Build a big tent. Be less judgmental.

But we are beyond small fixes.

Of the 20 highest median income states, Democrats won 18 of them. Of the 20 lowest median income states, Democrats won 3. Yes, race and gender play a big role in politics. But the hard truth is this - Democrats clearly aren't listening to the people we say we fight for.