PicoBlog

I don’t mean that headline metaphorically at all, by the way. I’m being very direct and uncomplicated and, crucially, that statement works according to Chait’s on way of thinking. I’m going to set aside the substance of his recent essay discussing pro-Palestinian activists itself, because frankly Chait has set aside the substance too. Here’s what I’m really interested in today.

A New York Times story recently drew some attention to the political problem this creates for Democrats. Indeed, some of the protesters are trying to defeat Biden (ergo, to elect Trump) to teach the Democrats a lesson, and others are merely trying to force the Democrats to move left before the election.

There’s no evidence that any substantial portion of protesters is trying to defeat Biden, for any reason. The closest thing that story has to proof that these protesters are actually hurting Biden’s 2024 chances is a claim by John Fetterman, who will be a Republican by the time he runs for reelection. You can go looking for Chait’s criticism of Fetterman for having abandoned any pretense to not being a conservative, but you won’t find it - Chait wants all Democrats to simply govern like Republicans. (Go look for an uncomplicatedly left-wing piece in Chait’s corpus at New York. Get comfortable before you do so.) Chait doesn’t feel he has to provide any proof for his claims about the negative effects of left-wing protesters because he knows that his career is built on punching exclusively [edit: I thought it was pretty clear that I wasn’t suggesting that he never attacks Republicans, especially considering that I discussed him doing so literally in the following sentence, but since he’s objected, withdrawn] left. Nobody needs the occasional anti-Trump essays he writes; our media spaces are wallpapered with those essays, Trump-derived web traffic is way way down, and nobody ever convinced anyone of anything with an essay about Trump anyway. Chait’s bread is buttered by blaming everything bad that has ever happened to Democrats on the left-wing of the party, which he also paradoxically describes as powerless. It’s a real brain-teaser!

Chait has been pulling this routine since at least the Bush administration, insisting that anyone who’s to the left of Joe Lieberman (RIP in peace) is an enemy of democracy who really supports the Republicans. Criticizing Joe Biden - about anything, anywhere, at any time! - is necessarily to support Donald Trump. His entire career he’s insisted on calling any leftist Democrats useful idiots for the Republican cause. Leftist attacks on Democrats must mean support for Trump because that leftist attacks on Democrats make people less likely to vote for them… supposedly. He’s far from alone in this attitude; it’s a treasured centrist perspective that criticizing Democrats amounts to support for Republicans, no different from actively advocating for or donating to them. It’s a purely consequentialist stance on what political support means. Whatever tangible outcomes your political advocacy results in amounts to support no matter what your intentions might be.

Here’s them problem: Chait was a relentless champion of Hillary Clinton, the woman who is the individual most solely responsible for the Trump presidency. Chait’s position is that if your support and vote for a politician redounds to the benefit of a different evil politician, you support that evil politician. But Chait was one of the most aggressive pro-Hillary, left-punching pundits in 2016, and Hillary Clinton blew the election! Her witless, staggering campaign played directly to Trump’s strengths and held the door wide open for a Trump electoral college victory. Hillary 2016 was a campaign that played to celebrity glitz and glamour during a time of mounting economic tensions. Her campaign pumped out materials in bizarre social justice language that most of the country finds alienating. She visited the two states that handed Trump the Oval Office, Wisconsin and Michigan, two times combined in the entire election. She’s been a deeply unpopular figure in public polling since the early 1990s, and her campaign was always driven by hubris and “it’s her turn.” And Chait was a vocal supporter of that doomed campaign. By Chait’s own logic, that amounts to support for Trump. A vote for Hillary was a vote for Trump! Jon Chait supported Trump for president in 2016. Period, end of story, case closed.

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