Chapotraphouse

Its so hard to tell with this guy. He's so cynical. We can't assume he is speaking the language of leftists, because he isn't one. We also know he isn't talking to leftists, he is talking to mainstream liberals. So I feel like he might be saying something to them, the DC liberal elite, in a language they understand.

What is "instrumental" to a DC democrat? Its basically like winning elections via existing power power structures, so like pragmatism. The tendency to cynically play 5D chess with every situation. He might be saying, stop talking about politics as the levers and machinery of power.

Being "materialistic" is a little funkier, because if we think about what he means compared to the second half of his statement, about a "moral and ethical story" to us it seems like a contradiction, like he's telling mainstream liberals to be more idealistic. I don't quite think that's what he means. We know he's been having conversations with Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed and seeing the power of their populist mesaage. But liberal democrats believe they are more materialist, and that the left is idealist. So in order to prevent the Dems from continually losing to Democratic Socialists and social democrats, I think he's saying they have to adopt the populist messaging.

We've seen this before, in 2020, Democratic presidential candidates shifted far to the left in their messaging, due to Sanders. Every candidate was advocating for Medicare for All, except for Biden. The Medicare for All messaging was instrumental (there's that word again) in the rug pull which defeated Sanders.

This is also the guy who won with "The Audacity to Hope" messaging, and then was the most cynical president since Nixon. So given the deep cynicism we know to expect from Obama, the upcoming elections, and the actual nature of the Democratic Party, I think Obama is saying that Democrats are probably leading too much with the political machinery messaging, the "lesser evilism" message isn't working anymore. Lots of liberal voters have been using this calculus to justify voting blue, but now there are viable (seeming) alternatives. People are willing to vote for an alt candidate, or even withhold their vote entirely. Cynical calculus is going to lose, is what Obama is saying.

So expect democrats to shift left on their messaging for virtually every issue. The party is structurally incapable of following through with deep structural change, but they can feed us a line of bullshit to kick the can down the road another 2 years. The democrats have been saying, "you may not like it but you're going to have to marry this pig" and Obama is saying to put some lipstick on it and dress it up real nice and call it a lovely person, so maybe people won't notice the pig until after the election.