Maggie's Farm

The Wisconsin election fits well with Mead's thesis about the need for revision of the antique "Blue Model": The “People United” Go Down In Flames:

To the extent that these unions shape the Democratic agenda, Democrats aren’t just the party of government; they are the party of inefficient, expensive, unresponsive, bureaucratic government. They are the party of government workers first and foremost, and if there is a clash between the interests of the providers of government services and their consumers (between, for example, unqualified, unmotivated life-tenured public school teachers and kids), the unions come at these issues from the standpoint of protecting workers first, others second.

In terms of the blue social model, they are the party of the bitter clingers: the power of public sector unions among Democrats is a power that inhibits Democrats from putting forward innovative, future-facing ideas (about schools, health care, and so on) and keeps them focused firmly on the defense of the past.

The left’s analysis of its loss in Wisconsin resorts to some classic tropes: it is despair masked as defiance in order to avoid deep introspection...

A rational Liberal, is Prof. Mead. Slick writer too.