Post

People who are generally upset with how their lives are going, and also feel there are too many people around who look different, can never actually be appeased. Not by Brexit, not by eliminating FoM, not by new taxes or fees, not by ending ILR, not by denaturalizing not by anything.

Absolutely this, patronising/heartless/arrogant/[insert inaccurate metropolitan elite-type smear of your choice] as it might wrongly appear. As I implied yesterday in a longer exchange, the act of voting itself is the hit, and like all drugs, it doesn't satiate, and Labour can't match Reform's hit.

However one phrases it, this is the fundamental truth American Democrats – both moderate and progressive – have tended to fail to grok for decades. Their knee-jerk solution to every concern is a 25 page policy platform. Regardless of one's opinion of whether the proposals will actually help...

...(worth remembering here that protectionism was a staple of lefty and pro-union Dems in the pre-MAGA era) it's basically been a story of Missing the Point. The two Dems who most Got It – Clinton and Obama – are the two most popular Presidents since the end of the Cold War...

...While charisma no doubt had something to do with that, so did at least some perception by various flavours of swing voters that they were trustworthy non-radicals – contra, say, Bernie, who Gets It bit whose history of relative radicalism (socialism+Cuban honeymoon+still not a Democrat)...