Ruy Teixeira is a lonely voice preaching cultural sanity to Democrats. As such, he appears to be gaining listeners mostly among Republicans.
Today he writes that Ds are too extreme on cultural issues, handing Rs a fat target upon which to attack them. See his six “common sense propositions” which lay out a cultural policy platform upon which he believes Ds can reliably win.
#1: Police misconduct and brutality against people of any race is wrong and we need to reform police conduct and recruitment. However, more and better policing is needed to get criminals off the streets and secure public safety. That cannot be provided by “defunding the police”.
#2: America benefits from the presence of immigrants and no immigrant, even if illegal, should be mistreated. But border security is hugely important, as is an enforceable system that fairly decides who can enter the country.
#3: Equality of opportunity is a fundamental American principle; equality of outcome is not.
#4: Racial achievement gaps are bad and we should seek to close them. However, they are not due just to racism and standards of high achievement should be maintained for people of all races.
#5: No one is completely without bias but calling all white people racists who benefit from white privilege and American society a white supremacist society is not right or fair.
#6: People who want to live as a gender different from their biological sex should have that right. However, biological sex is real and spaces limited to biological women in areas like sports and prisons should be preserved. Medical treatments like drugs and surgery are serious interventions that should not be available on demand, especially for children.
Teixeira understands he has next to no chance of convincing his party to adopt anything like these positions. He concludes:
It’s odd because you’d think Democrats would be eager to take advantage of [my] approach, given its obvious potential for electoral payoff. But that payoff would primarily be among working-class voters and the Democrats’ college-educated left wing just isn’t very interested in making the kind of compromises that would appeal to these voters.
The last time a Democrat ran on a platform containing this much common sense was Bill Clinton’s first presidential race. He won Republican votes by doing so.
In fact these wouldn’t be bad cultural positions for Republican candidates to espouse. I would, however, add to #1 “or refusing to prosecute and imprison criminals.”
