Eric Swalwell is wrong and Nancy Pelosi is right

I bet you did not see this one coming.

Eric Swalwell was one of 20 candidates for Democratic presidential nomination. The only notable moment of his whole candidacy was the "pass the torch" moment during debates, where he used Joe Biden's own words to basically attack Joe Biden for being too old. I strongly believe that there should be mandatory retirement age for politicians, so he had a point there.

Anyway, Eric Swalwell's campaign was going nowhere, he gave up before even second round of debates, and after giving up he gave exit interview to 538 politics podcast, and that's what this is about.

Extremist Drift

Debates were notorious for how far left most candidates went compared with mainstream Democrats of just a few years ago, like Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Nancy Pelosi. Positions like abolition of borders, free healthcare for illegal immigrants, abolition of private health insurance, forced busing, racial reparations and other extremist positions had far more support that one would have guessed.

In a way the winner of the debates was Donald Trump. His approval rate improved after Democratic debates, and is currently at -7.5%. It's still negative, but it's far better than his the usual -10% to -20% range, and if this extremist drift continues, Democrats might manage to scare off all potential moderate voters.

Swalwell's Argument

During exit interview, Eric Swallwell was asked about that.

His response was that the most important feature of a candidate is "authenticity", and that going "far to the left" is absolutely fine, and no risk whatsoever in general election.

Democrats tiptoe around the issues that are perceived as unpopular, whereas Republicans have no problem leading with very unpopular issues [...] and they don't pay a price at the ballot box.

He believes that Trump's victory proves it.

He also openly advocates violating the Constitution in the same statement, but let's not get there.

It's bullshit

US economy is doing better than it did in living memory. Unemployment rate is as low as it last was in the 1960s.
Inflation has been low and stable. Stock market is at unprecedented heights.
Tax cuts mean most working people have a lot of extra money personally (except for rich people in high tax states). All the secondary metrics like wages growth, gas prices, healthcare access, and so on are doing just fine.

In foreign policy, no new wars were started, for the first time in it's hard to tell how many presidencies. ISIS which spread during Obama's term and overran multiple countries was swiftly crushed. There weren't any major terrorist attacks, or other foreign disasters.

Fundamentals models don't have an amazing track record at predicting elections, but it's a pretty safe prediction that with everything an average person cares about going so much better than basically ever, whoever presides over that should be super popular and crush any challenges 1984 style, right?

Well, that's what would have happened if president Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney was presiding over it.

It's Trump specifically being such a turd that makes these elections a 50:50 thing.

How Trump won

Trump was the most unpopular presidential candidate in recorded history. Fotunately for him, it just so happened that his opponent Hillary Clinton was the second most unpopular presidential candidate in recorder history. She was so unpopular she lost to a totally unknown black half-Kenyan guy with name "Barrack Hussein Obama", in spite of DNC establishment doing all they could to force her though. She was so unpopular she nearly lost to a senile openly socialist Jew who wasn't even in the party, and only managed to somehow got through thanks to DNC establishment forcing her candidacy even harder. She was so unpopular she lost to Donald Trump.

In such Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich elections Trump just so happened to have better ran campaigns, and barely squeezed the victory.

He did not become any more popular since then. As an aside, Hillary Clinton is now even more unpopular than Trump, but fortunately for Democrats she's not running for the third time.

Trump only managed to win in 2016 because his opponent was so unpopular, and the economy was still only slowly recovering.

In 2020 he has far easier job - no sitting president could ever lose with fundamentals doing so well, unless he's literally a Turd Sandwich.

Why bother with Eric Swalwell?

Eric Swalwell might be out, but other candidates for Democratic nomination seem to think the same way as him. They're trying to score points with extremists in party base, and hope that somehow it will work out.

It could work against Turd Sandwich, but not if they end up picking a Giant Douche again.

The idea that extremist will somehow increase turnout among the base is total nonsense - highly politicized people will vote anyway, and you're far more likely to increase turnout of opponent's base this way - as Trump did during 2018 midterm, with his shittiness really motivating Democrats to go vote, regardless of who was their local candidate.

It's not like this is a novel strategy. Nancy Pelosi, the most successful Democratic politician, has been successfully doing just that - marginalizing the extremists in her party while pushing hard for what's realistically achievable. Especially in country whose political system is designed for gridlock, focusing on popular parts of your party's agenda in alliance with moderates is the only way you can actually achieve anything.

The successful strategy is attacking your opponents where they're weak, not responding to Trump's Wall with abolishing ICE, abolishing borders, and free citizenship to anyone who jumps where the border used to be.

It is still 50:50

Many things can happen before the elections. The economy could crash. Trump could start WW3. One of many Trump scandals might end up discovering some real evidence of crimes resulting in impeachment, not decades old hearsay that convince only partisans. Any of those would shift elections far more than Democratic debates.

If none of that happens, and the elections is still 50:50, it will really matter if Democratic Party follows Nancy Pelosi, and picks a successful moderate, or follows Eric Swalwell and tries to outdo itself in extremist appeals and chooses a Giant Douche while handing over second term to the Turd Sandwich.

Far Left is losing everywhere

It's not US specific issue. Traditional center left parties (more or less analogous to the US Democratic Party) got weakened by the Great Recession, resulting in brief resurgence of the far left.

This resurgence is crashing now. UK Labour was lost every elections since it went extremist, and in some polls is now 4th with 18% support. In two countries worst affected by the crisis where far left actually got power it already lost it, Podemos completely crashed in Spain. Syriza more narrowly lost in Greece.

In most other Western countries, all this bickering on the left just weakened it, and let either center right or populist right take over. Many Western countries like Poland and Israel nowadays have 50 Shades of Right elections.

Seriously guys, just listen to Nancy, she knows what's best for you.