The GOP’s Path to Economic Populism
“Come the 2020 Democratic National Convention, it is entirely possible that the party’s presidential nominee will be committed to ‘Medicare for all,’ at least two tuition-free years at a public college or university, a $15 minimum wage, a sharp increase in Social Security benefits, a dramatic expansion of wage subsidies, and a federal jobs guarantee. Bernie Sanders, who came very close to securing the Democratic nomination in 2016, has endorsed all of the above, and though most of the party’s younger presidential aspirants eschew the socialist label, all have been galloping in the same leftward direction. Most striking has been the evolution of Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, both of whom came of age at a time when Democrats felt obligated to present themselves as scrupulously moderate, and who earlier on flirted with various centrist and even conservative commitments, yet who have now reinvented themselves as stalwart progressives.”