Read on Twitter
1. My colleague Steven Teles isn't on Twitter, so I can say behind his back that he's kind of intimidating; he's a warm and fuzzy guy personally, but if you want to challenge him on political or theoretical grounds, you'd better come loaded for bear https://politicalscience.jhu.edu/directory/steven-teles/
2. So I was amused when I saw that pro-Sanders Yale Law prof @samuelmoyn wrote a dismissive review of Steve's new history (with Rob Saldin) on the Never Trump movement; it was like watching a bunny hop into a cannon mouth https://newrepublic.com/article/158703/never-trumpers-already-won-review-saldin-teles-book
3. Teles/Saldin stomped on the claim that Never Trumpers foiled Bernie, arguing much more persuasively that the Democratic Party just doesn't have enough supporters of democratic socialism https://newrepublic.com/article/158830/dont-blame-never-trumpers-collapse-bernie-sanders
4. Moyn didn't even try to address the Teles/Saldin argument that NT'ers have influence because they provide policy expertise & staff key posts in GOP administrations; run campaigns; and provide ideas and guard the intellectual boundaries of conservatism https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085YDTP76/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
5. Nonetheless, to Moyn's credit he invited Steve on to his podcast (which he shares with @NiskanenCenter fellow @ProfSchleich) to discuss the role of Never Trumpers in politics since 2016 https://www.diggingaholepodcast.com
6. After much Telesian theoretical bulldozing, Moyn makes the more strategically defensible argument that Never Trumpers played a key role (with some Dems) in (39:00) establishing the bounds of policy credibility in the Trump years...
7. ...partly because (40:07) many (esp. in journalism) were given promotions -- Commentary to Washington Post, Wall Street Journal to New York Times -- that gave them greater opinion-making power... https://www.nytimes.com/by/bret-stephens
8. ...and this arguably has amounted to (40:33) "a kind of rehabilitation of policy orthodoxy prior to Trump's challenge to it, as well as the left's challenge to it" https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/2016-bill-kristol-republicans-conservative-movement-donald-trump-politics-214025
9. So this is (40:55) "not just an argument about the Sanders candidacy per se" but rather about the policy credibility that determines who gets to dictate "Beltway orthodoxy" https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/were-in-an-anti-liberal-moment-liberals-need-better-answers/2019/06/21/5f276b26-91f7-11e9-b72d-d56510fa753e_story.html
10. Steve ripostes that the Democratic Party (unlike the GOP) is not designed to be an ideological party; for example, African Americans are a critical anti-GOP but socially conservative constituency https://www.niskanencenter.org/reconstructing-justice-race-generational-divides-and-the-fight-over-defund-the-police/
11. And the Dems' majority-making capture of middle-class/professional/white swing voters from the GOP means they can't go all in on economic redistribution https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/01/democrats-progressive-moderate-strategy
12. So the DSA wing will become an institutionalized but delimited minority faction of the Democratic Party; a movement majority would make the party Corbynist and incapable of wielding power https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/cori-bush-congress-socialism
13. Nonetheless, moderates can play a significant role in both parties if they can "organize as a coherent bloc, recruit attractive candidates, mobilize moderate voters in each party... and develop ideas to inspire their bases" https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-future-is-faction
14. And, further, moderates (ironically much like socialists!) should abandon the hope that they can exercise influence through a third party, since America's first-past-the-post system is uniquely hostile to such arrangements https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/duvergers-law-dead-parrot-dunleavy/
15. The GOP is somewhat different since (52:17) its "actual voting composition... has drifted from where its coalition of policy high-demanders is" -- which is why Trump was able to overcome the Koch primary & Zombie Reaganism https://lawliberty.org/podcast/ronin-without-masters-a-never-trump-assessment/
16. Moyn seems mystified by the concept that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"; but Teles hopes NT influence will go beyond abhorrence of Trump to a recognition of the problems of our political economy that created an unsatisfied coalition for Trump https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/opinion/sunday/who-turned-my-blue-state-red.html
17. Steve hopes that in the future Never Trumpers will move toward a positive program of liberalism (as distinct from the left) that is moderate yet also reformist -- a radical Keynesian alternative to both left and right populism https://www.niskanencenter.org/faster-growth-fairer-growth-policies-for-a-high-road-high-performance-economy/
