The Democrat Who Wants to Make Politics Boring
During an October swing through South Carolina, Auchincloss told a group of military veterans, “I think we have to make politics boring again,” drawing more nods and chuckles than whoops of approval.
Key points
- He wants prospective candidates to speak to a party base that he defined as “a morally serious, market-oriented, exhausted majority of Americans who feel increasingly orphaned by both parties.” After Democrats did better than just about anyone—not least Auchincloss—expected, I asked him whether he wished to revise his assessment.
- To that end, he and the group he chairs, Majority Democrats, have summoned the many party leaders who are eyeing White House bids to Denver on Thursday for a postelection conference appropriately titled What’s Next.
- Politicians who believe they have that vision should be on that stage.” A significant number of high-profile Democrats answered his call, among them Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, Raphael Warnock, and Cory Booker.
He’s a frequent guest on Fox News and a regular visitor to American Legion halls in his district, where he enjoys arguing over politics with older and mostly conservative war veterans who believe that the Democratic Party is full of criminal-coddling Communists.
Additional details
- I f you’re a Democrat looking for razzle-dazzle in your politicians, Representative Jake Auchincloss might disappoint you.
- Auchincloss has found plenty to criticize in a party that lost two elections to Donald Trump, and even as it became clear that Democrats would do well last week, he did not view the elections as evidence that the party had repaired a damaged brand.
- Auchincloss has his own vision for “a new American dream,” one that weaves together plans to help young people, families, and retirees, and is concise enough to fit in a 30-second ad, if not on a bumper sticker.
- Democrats, he said, should ensure that people have “an excellent education by 18 years old, a home of your own by 30, and a dignified retirement by 65.” He’s trying to find a path for liberals between the ascendant populist left on one side and the sclerotic party establishment on the other.
- Spend enough time with him, as I did over the past several months, and you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about the evils of “cost disease” (and why inflation is worst in industries such as health care and education), the travails of family-owned pharmacies, and the importance of tutoring in public schools.
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