The Next Battle for Progressives Won’t Be Against Republicans

A Note About Supporting The Journeyman

Most of the work I publish here remains available to everyone. That is intentional. I believe serious analysis should be accessible, particularly at a moment when so much of the public conversation is shaped by institutions, platforms, and personalities with interests that are not always disclosed.

But free does not mean costless.

The Journeyman requires research, production, technology and, most importantly, time. It also requires independence. I do not have a large corporation underwriting this publication or an editorial department assigning stories. The work exists because readers believe it is worth sustaining.

My rates remain as they were six years ago, even as Substack’s current standard pricing has risen to $8 per month or $80 per year. I have also frequently offered discounts on top of that already lower price. I have elected to end this practice

A paid subscription is not simply a purchase of additional content. It is a vote for the continued existence of independent analysis—with receipts.

If you regularly read, share, or rely on this work, I hope you will consider becoming a paid subscriber at the regular price. The free readership gives The Journeyman reach. Paid subscribers allow the work to continue.

I encourage Democrats—especially progressives—to read Henry Olsen’s latest Washington Post opinion piece carefully (gift link). I have a feeling we’re going to see some version of the strategy it recommends play out over the next year.

At first glance, the column reads like an acknowledgment of political reality. Olsen readily concedes what many in the Democratic establishment have been reluctant to admit: progressives and democratic socialists are no longer confined to places like New York City. The results from Michigan, Kansas and elsewhere suggest the movement has become a genuine national force within Democratic politics.

So far, so good. But then the column takes a very different turn.

Henry Olsen isn’t just the author of a Washington Post newsletter. He’s also a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington think tank that advocates for traditional conservative public policy. That context doesn’t invalidate his analysis. If anything, it makes his prescription more revealing.

Olsen isn’t urging establishment Democrats to embrace the progressive movement; he’s advising them on how to halt it. His advice is remarkably direct:

“Instead, the savvy establishment Democrat will want to prevent this insurgency from finding its voice in a true believer, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”

Consider what Olsen is saying: Not that progressives are wrong, or that they can’t win. He’s not even saying that they would be defeated in a general election. His concern is that the movement could eventually nominate an authentic progressive who actually believes what the movement believes.

His solution? Establishment Democrats need to beat them to the punch.

Adopt enough progressive rhetoric and policy to get “out in front of the progressive parade,” deny the movement a “true believer,” then, as Olsen puts it, begin “moving slowly to the center.”

If that sounds familiar, it should.

It’s the mirror image of the strategy pursued by Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council in the 1990s. Back then, the Democratic establishment concluded it couldn’t consistently beat Republicans while defending traditional liberalism. So the Party borrowed enough Republican themes and policies to reclaim the political center.

The result helped produce a generation of Democratic politics that ushered in welfare reform, the 1994 crime bill, financial deregulation and a governing philosophy many Democrats now regret. Even the Affordable Care Act traces its origins to a Republican policy.

Olsen’s proposal reverses the ideological direction. Instead of borrowing from the right, borrow from the left. Not because the establishment has experienced an ideological epiphany, but to prevent the progressive movement from gaining enough momentum to take control of the party.

Having spent three decades around Wall Street and institutional power, I’ve learned to pay close attention to how established institutions respond when they’re challenged. They rarely surrender power voluntarily. They adapt. They reposition. They absorb the language of an insurgency while working to preserve control of the institution itself.

That’s what I see in Olsen’s column. Whether you’re a progressive or a moderate Democrat, that’s worth paying attention to. Progressives have spent years preparing to defend themselves against charges that they’re socialists, Marxists or radicals.

Those attacks will continue.

But yesterday’s primaries suggest that Progressives have crossed an important threshold. The debate is no longer whether they can win. It’s whether the Democratic establishment will attempt to absorb their energy before they can translate it into control of the party. If Henry Olsen’s column is any indication, that effort has already begun.

And if I’m right, that, not labels and talking points, is the political battle to watch over the next two years.