Democrats Are Moving Left. Don’t Panic.

If you want to beat Trump, centrism is not the answer.

political insiders across the land are asking: Has the Democratic Party become too extreme?

Everywhere you look lately, centrists are panicking about the emboldened left. Moderates, reported Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News, “are warning that ignoring them will lead the party to disaster in the midterm elections and the 2020 presidential contest.” Former Senator Joe Lieberman wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, over Representative Joe Crowley “seems likely to hurt Congress, America and the Democratic Party.” James Comey, former director of the F.B.I., tweeted, “Democrats, please, please don’t lose your minds and rush to the socialist left,” arguing that “America’s great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership.”

After all, the economic demands that animate the left are generally quite popular. Though “Medicare For All” means different things to different people, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from last year found that 62 percent of Americans view it positively. A recent Rasmussen poll found 46 percent of likely voters support a federal jobs guarantee, a more radical proposal that was barely present in American politics a couple of years ago.

Centrists might not think these are good ideas, but they are not wild fantasies; they represent efforts to grapple with the chronic economic insecurity that is the enemy of political stability.

Democrats will not defeat Trump and his increasingly fanatical, revanchist party by promising the restoration of what came before him; the country is desperate for a vision of something better. Whether or not you share that vision, if you truly believe that Trump is a threat to democracy, you should welcome politics that inspire people to come to democracy’s rescue.

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