I thought this was a really interesting piece by @ezraklein about the "popularism" debate but the thing I haven't seen anyone grapple with is that the other side gets a vote about what The Discourse is. nytimes.com/2021/10/08/opini…

The message discipline of the right-wing media machine means that it's pretty hard for Democrats to avoid talking about things the right wants to talk about. As the whole dr suess thing showed, it doesn't matter if the subject is completely stupid and trivial.

I always think back to the Ward Churchill controversy — random guy, weeks and weeks of culture war

Had Obama put Jamie Dimon on trial it would have punctured the right-wing echo chamber. Dems talk about trivial process nonsense instead of wielding power by governing.