Political Normies and Weirdos
Kamala Harris’s Political Coalition
People are excited about the 2024 election. Democrats are lining up to vote for their new candidate, and Republicans have been on board the Trump Train for almost a decade.
But let me confess to my readers, especially long time ones: I’m not. I don’t find much exciting about this election cycle. And I mean this both as a political writer and as someone with a couple decades of experience in political organizing.
Why 2024 Isn’t Exciting
2024 feels like a huge step down from 2019 and 2020. Maybe even from 2016. Politics gave us plenty to talk about back then. The Bernie Sanders campaign tapped into just about every activist network — some of them the very ones his 2016 campaign inspired in the first place. The whole thing presented the left with a positive growth cycle that expanded the range of things we could say and do.
That’s just not happening now. It feels like we left Medicare for All for dead. No one’s talking about free college or a $15 (or $20!) minimum wage. The left hasn’t exactly disavowed social democracy, but it also isn’t organizing around it.
Things hardly look better on the movement front. DSA is shrinking. A radlib army got itself coconut pilled (or whatever you want to call…
