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Earlier this morning, after Robert Gibbs took to The Hill to diss the “professional left” for being too whiny, I suggested that this kind of thing was inevitable. Since only 20% of the country self-IDs as liberal, Democrats have to pander to centrists and this is one way they do it. It’s not pretty, but it’s hardly surprising. I then went on to further annoy some fellow libs by tweeting, “Lefties used to talk about how WH could attack them in order to make its liberalism look more centrist. Doesn’t seem so appealing now.”

Now, this is all wildly inside baseball kind of stuff, and I’m about as far outside the ballpark as you can get and still talk about this stuff at all. So I wasn’t going to defend my points any further — especially since I think Gibbs was pretty gratuitously insulting. But then I got to emailing with Matt Yglesias about this, and I figure our exchange might advance the arguments a bit. Or not. You decide:

MY: I think you’re right about this in general, but not in particular. You don’t do an interview with The Hill to communicate with a mass public of squeamish centrists. Talking smack about your base in an inside baseball publication just seems like a straight fuck-up to me.

KD: I agree. Gibbs is a smart enough guy not to do this, though, and I wonder what he intended? Must have been something. I don’t think he just suddenly lost his temper in the middle of a sleepy interview with The Hill.

Just to be argumentative, though, maybe The Hill is a fine place to do this because Gibbs knows everyone will go berserk and it will get wider play? It’s certainly safer than doing it on CNN, where it would be completely uncontainable if it went badly awry.

MY: I think they’re genuinely pissed. There’s a real dialogue of the deaf happening inside DC between issue advocates and the Obama administration. I sympathize with a lot of the White House’s analytical view of the situation, but they really need to consider the emotional state of organizations that pulled out all the stops to get Obama elected and are now facing the reality that he’s not going to deliver cap and trade or labor law reform or immigration reform. You need to be able to tell people “if you go do this and that, then the following policy results you want will happen.” Right now they’re not offering any credible path forward.

KD: You’re more plugged into this stuff than I am, but I think I only half agree. Even activists are well aware that political realities interfere in ways that a president can’t always control. So I don’t think they demand results on every single issue (though certainly some do). My sense, though, is that Obama doesn’t even give them the rhetoric they want, even in private. If they felt like he was really on their side, but stymied by the Senate, maybe they’d cut him more slack. For some reason, though, he doesn’t seem willing to do this.

MY: I think we’re basically agreeing. I think people do generally understand the idea of objective political constraints. But activists want political leaders to articulate some kind of theory of how to get from Point A to Point B. I don’t think the White House is offering that.

So yeah: everyone agrees there are political constraints, but Obama seems unwilling — even in private — to do a little easy pandering to liberal interest groups. I don’t get it. As Joan McCarter twittered to me, “They need base in a midterm. Pro lefties are also door-knockers, phoners, donors.” This is obviously something that Team Obama is keenly aware of, and their unwillingness to do much to fire up the base is indeed puzzling.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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