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<\/p>\nDylan is a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, where she leads RDP\u2019s Economic Media Project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In case anyone<\/span> was starting to feel that American democracy is just a little too secure, distaste for the common man is now finding purchase beyond the political right, with centrist liberals test-running their own brand of distaste for mass participation.<\/p>\n Over the past two years, centrist liberal writers have been emboldened to expressly call for less public participation in government and politics, sometimes just coming right out and saying, \u201cWhat we need is fewer engaged people,\u201d as prolific pedant Matthew Yglesias recently said<\/a> over on the reanimated corpse of Twitter.<\/p>\n Nowhere is this more apparent than in the rampant hostility to small-dollar donors. In external communications, we\u2019ve heard<\/a> notions like Democrats needing to \u201cmove away from the dominance of small-dollar donors.\u201d In writing not meant for a wide audience<\/a>, the honest assessment from the Abundance Network is more extreme: Widespread grassroots fundraising \u201cmakes politics dumber.\u201d The reasoning is that such donors tend to be more liberal<\/a> than traditional big-dollar supporters and, as a result, push Democrats away from the preferences of the median voter. But in reality, the moderation bought by high-dollar contributions only serves to further cater to the interests of the wealthy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Centrists have taken to characterizing the dueling ascendance of left-economic populism and right-chauvinistic \u201cpopulism\u201d as a pincer<\/a> movement against<\/a> the righteous \u201cvital center.\u201d In recent years, centrist publications have been replete with examples, urgently calling<\/a> to safeguard liberalism<\/a>, often from the masses<\/a>.<\/p>\n The irony is that a leading contender for the ur-problem of liberalism\u2019s failures is the purposeful destruction \u2014 by centrist liberals \u2014 of the organizing capacity that powered the postwar liberal order: organized labor, civil rights organizations, and robust state-level party infrastructure.<\/p>\n Years ago, as Donald Trump was first running for the presidency, political commentator Andrew Sullivan worried in a lengthy manifesto<\/a> that too much populism would serve to \u201crepeal\u201d democracy. His conflating \u201cliberalism\u201d with a liberal technocratic elite class is a hallmark of the centrist canon. <\/p>\n This thinking has morphed into what could be called<\/a> \u201cGrownup Liberalism,\u201d the belief that there is a class of wonky centrist experts who could fix so many things if the confused masses would just get out of their way \u2014 a notion that\u2019s inherently undemocratic and increasingly discordant with the actual state of American politics.<\/p>\n As the center tries to cling to the tatters of institutional deference and justify why, even after building the hellscape we inhabit, they alone can steward our future, the right is waging an intense fight against the foundations of liberal society writ large.<\/p>\n Republicans set off a gerrymandering war that reached its acme with Missouri trying to hoodwink federal courts into signing off on an illegal congressional map<\/a>. Mail-in voting is under assault<\/a>, and the SAVE Act, which risks endangering the rights of millions of Americans<\/a> to vote, has been a conservative hobby horse for over a year. There are talks about deploying federal agents, including ICE agents<\/a>, to polling places<\/a> across the country and efforts to seize voter rolls.<\/p>\n To some, the mixed results of these efforts might show that institutionalists are the dam holding back an authoritarian flood. But these are the same institutionalists who dismantled<\/a> the Voting Rights Act<\/a>, created (nearly) carte blanche immunity<\/a> for the president out of thin air, and opted not to enforce<\/a> the law, emboldening further authoritarian power grabs.<\/p>\n As the center tries to cling to the tatters of institutional deference and justify why they alone can steward our future, the right is waging an intense fight against the foundations of liberal society writ large.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Now, however, the pontification on whether the little people have too much power is increasingly focused on American democracy as an institution. Much of the faddish \u201cAbundance\u201d movement draws heavily on the argument from Yale history professor Paul Sabin\u2019s \u201cPublic Citizens<\/a>\u201d that providing new avenues for the public in politics undermined the project of liberal democracy itself. Some proponents have long championed<\/a> a view of political dynamics centered on liberal and conservative elites dueling intellectually. Others explicitly believe<\/a> that politics can only marshal material change when titans of industry take the lead, and some (to varying degrees) support ideas like the \u201cnetwork state,\u201d which would replace democratic republicanism with techno-libertarian flavored fascism.<\/p>\n Abundance is just one strain of moderate-coded politics turning more and more of a cold shoulder to the idea of governance by the people. Not to be outdone, Third Way \u2014 a think tank that answers the question: What if we took all the preening and posturing of the Democratic Leadership Council but left out the charisma? \u2014 has been on a tear seeking to limit regular people\u2019s input in political decision-making. The organization has tried<\/a> to cast the idea of taking any economically populist position as caving to a \u201cpurity test\u201d by the left and called<\/a> for ending reliance on grassroots fundraising. <\/p>\n Never one to sit out the action, The Atlantic ran a review<\/a> on September 1 of a Howard Zinn biography with the subhead \u201cThe historian believed that empowering the people would improve society. History hasn\u2019t always proved him right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne can agree with Zinn on the power of the people to make change and still wonder whether recent history has revealed the limits of his wisdom,\u201d the author writes. But, he adds, the fact that conservatism has marshaled popular support \u201cconfounds his almost mythic sense of \u2018the people\u2019 as inevitably on the right side of history.\u201d That is, ordinary folks have shown that they sometimes back distasteful conservative trends, so maybe we should stop empowering them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over at The Argument \u2014 the venture capital-funded<\/a> Substack run by former Atlantic writer Jerusalem Demsas \u2014 the editor-in-chief recently attacked<\/a> Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy\u2019s book on the common good as a \u201ccult\u201d in a sophomoric essay, which went so far as to condemn \u201cthe growing obsession with the common good among the postliberal right and left.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the board, the message is that common people need to get their noses out of politics, go back to trusting the liberal technocrats, and maybe have a little democracy once in a while, as a treat.<\/p>\n It\u2019s both stunning to see the contempt for popular government coming from the self-appointed champions of liberal thought and totally predictable for the vestiges of neoliberal power to veer away from democracy. At its core, the central premise of neoliberal thought is that the market must be the benchmark, with governance subverted to its will, and crucial economic policy cordoned off from the whims of popular rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n The message is that common people need to get their noses out of politics, go back to trusting the liberal technocrats, and maybe have a little democracy once in a while.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n If the stakes weren\u2019t so profound, or these people so bafflingly influential, this would all be pretty funny. The bits about pro-corporate media figures and billionaire-funded<\/a> political operatives<\/a> throwing conferences<\/a> about how we need more elite influence<\/a> practically write themselves. Unfortunately, these are not niche figures who can be disarmed as mere old men yelling at clouds. Collectively, there are hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into organizations that are explicitly anti-small money in politics and want to make Democrats more allegiant to a wealthy donor class.<\/p>\n\n
\n
![said<\/a> over on the reanimated corpse of Twitter.<\/p>\nNowhere is this more apparent than in the rampant hostility to small-dollar donors. In external communications, we\u2019ve heard<\/a> notions like Democrats needing to \u201cmove away from the dominance of small-dollar donors.\u201d In writing not meant for a wide audience<\/a>, the honest assessment from the Abundance Network is more extreme: Widespread grassroots fundraising \u201cmakes politics dumber.\u201d The reasoning is that such donors tend to be more liberal<\/a> than traditional big-dollar supporters and, as a result, push Democrats away from the preferences of the median voter. But in reality, the moderation bought by high-dollar contributions only serves to further cater to the interests of the wealthy<\/a>.<\/p>\nCentrists have taken to characterizing the dueling ascendance of left-economic populism and right-chauvinistic \u201cpopulism\u201d as a pincer<\/a> movement against<\/a> the righteous \u201cvital center.\u201d In recent years, centrist publications have been replete with examples, urgently calling<\/a> to safeguard liberalism<\/a>, often from the masses<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe irony is that a leading contender for the ur-problem of liberalism\u2019s failures is the purposeful destruction \u2014 by centrist liberals \u2014 of the organizing capacity that powered the postwar liberal order: organized labor, civil rights organizations, and robust state-level party infrastructure.<\/p>\nYears ago, as Donald Trump was first running for the presidency, political commentator Andrew Sullivan worried in a lengthy manifesto<\/a> that too much populism would serve to \u201crepeal\u201d democracy. His conflating \u201cliberalism\u201d with a liberal technocratic elite class is a hallmark of the centrist canon. <\/p>\nThis thinking has morphed into what could be called<\/a> \u201cGrownup Liberalism,\u201d the belief that there is a class of wonky centrist experts who could fix so many things if the confused masses would just get out of their way \u2014 a notion that\u2019s inherently undemocratic and increasingly discordant with the actual state of American politics.<\/p>\nAs the center tries to cling to the tatters of institutional deference and justify why, even after building the hellscape we inhabit, they alone can steward our future, the right is waging an intense fight against the foundations of liberal society writ large.<\/p>\nRepublicans set off a gerrymandering war that reached its acme with Missouri trying to hoodwink federal courts into signing off on an illegal congressional map<\/a>. Mail-in voting is under assault<\/a>, and the SAVE Act, which risks endangering the rights of millions of Americans<\/a> to vote, has been a conservative hobby horse for over a year. There are talks about deploying federal agents, including ICE agents<\/a>, to polling places<\/a> across the country and efforts to seize voter rolls.<\/p>\nTo some, the mixed results of these efforts might show that institutionalists are the dam holding back an authoritarian flood. But these are the same institutionalists who dismantled<\/a> the Voting Rights Act<\/a>, created (nearly) carte blanche immunity<\/a> for the president out of thin air, and opted not to enforce<\/a> the law, emboldening further authoritarian power grabs.<\/p>\n\n\nAs the center tries to cling to the tatters of institutional deference and justify why they alone can steward our future, the right is waging an intense fight against the foundations of liberal society writ large.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\nNow, however, the pontification on whether the little people have too much power is increasingly focused on American democracy as an institution. Much of the faddish \u201cAbundance\u201d movement draws heavily on the argument from Yale history professor Paul Sabin\u2019s \u201cPublic Citizens<\/a>\u201d that providing new avenues for the public in politics undermined the project of liberal democracy itself. Some proponents have long championed<\/a> a view of political dynamics centered on liberal and conservative elites dueling intellectually. Others explicitly believe<\/a> that politics can only marshal material change when titans of industry take the lead, and some (to varying degrees) support ideas like the \u201cnetwork state,\u201d which would replace democratic republicanism with techno-libertarian flavored fascism.<\/p>\nAbundance is just one strain of moderate-coded politics turning more and more of a cold shoulder to the idea of governance by the people. Not to be outdone, Third Way \u2014 a think tank that answers the question: What if we took all the preening and posturing of the Democratic Leadership Council but left out the charisma? \u2014 has been on a tear seeking to limit regular people\u2019s input in political decision-making. The organization has tried<\/a> to cast the idea of taking any economically populist position as caving to a \u201cpurity test\u201d by the left and called<\/a> for ending reliance on grassroots fundraising. <\/p>\nNever one to sit out the action, The Atlantic ran a review<\/a> on September 1 of a Howard Zinn biography with the subhead \u201cThe historian believed that empowering the people would improve society. History hasn\u2019t always proved him right.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cOne can agree with Zinn on the power of the people to make change and still wonder whether recent history has revealed the limits of his wisdom,\u201d the author writes. But, he adds, the fact that conservatism has marshaled popular support \u201cconfounds his almost mythic sense of \u2018the people\u2019 as inevitably on the right side of history.\u201d That is, ordinary folks have shown that they sometimes back distasteful conservative trends, so maybe we should stop empowering them.\u00a0<\/p>\nOver at The Argument \u2014 the venture capital-funded<\/a> Substack run by former Atlantic writer Jerusalem Demsas \u2014 the editor-in-chief recently attacked<\/a> Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy\u2019s book on the common good as a \u201ccult\u201d in a sophomoric essay, which went so far as to condemn \u201cthe growing obsession with the common good among the postliberal right and left.\u201d<\/p>\nAcross the board, the message is that common people need to get their noses out of politics, go back to trusting the liberal technocrats, and maybe have a little democracy once in a while, as a treat.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s both stunning to see the contempt for popular government coming from the self-appointed champions of liberal thought and totally predictable for the vestiges of neoliberal power to veer away from democracy. At its core, the central premise of neoliberal thought is that the market must be the benchmark, with governance subverted to its will, and crucial economic policy cordoned off from the whims of popular rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\nThe message is that common people need to get their noses out of politics, go back to trusting the liberal technocrats, and maybe have a little democracy once in a while.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\nIf the stakes weren\u2019t so profound, or these people so bafflingly influential, this would all be pretty funny. The bits about pro-corporate media figures and billionaire-funded<\/a> political operatives<\/a> throwing conferences<\/a> about how we need more elite influence<\/a> practically write themselves. Unfortunately, these are not niche figures who can be disarmed as mere old men yelling at clouds. Collectively, there are hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into organizations that are explicitly anti-small money in politics and want to make Democrats more allegiant to a wealthy donor class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/h2>\n \n Become a member \n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n\n \n Join Our Newsletter <\/span>\n \n Thank You For Joining! <\/span>\n <\/h2>\n\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/span>\n \n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept? <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n Become a member \n <\/a><\/p>\n\nBy signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\nEven more unfortunate is that in a moment where our country is as close as it has ever gotten to full-blown authoritarianism, centrist thought leaders are flirting with the very ideas that justify the evisceration of popular democracy: that people cannot be trusted to take an active role in their own government, that there is a class of elites better positioned to lead, and that we ought to get out of the way of our betters.<\/p>\nThis is a powerful illustration of how neoliberal politics warped postwar liberalism into a grotesque version of itself. The postwar consensus centered around the idea that in the duality of American liberalism, democracy is the senior partner and free markets the junior. Neoliberalism reversed this. For a while, the danger lurked in the background. But people will only allow their will and well-being to be subverted in the name of efficiency and growth for so long. <\/p>\nAcross the democratic world, everyday people are calling the neoliberal bluff and revolting at the ballot box. The center for now still has resources and cache. Their choice is which pillar of liberalism they want to save: the free market-driven power of capital, or democracy itself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n#Centrists #SoftLaunching #Distaste #Democracy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Images of Sen. Elizabeth Warre… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/therevolvingdoorproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Fewer-engaged-people.png\"){kind=link}