Where to now, Chris Hayes?

When I think of this refusal to practice introspection, I think of MSNBC host Chris Hayes. I see two great impediments to the American liberal project, and Hayes embodies both: a fixation on Trump that nears the pathological, trapping liberalism perpetually in yesterday’s war, and a studious refusal to speak plainly and critically about the way that the Democratic party has become captured by donors and staffers whose politics are not just wildly out of step with the median American but with the median Democrat. Whether for ratings or to satisfy the contemporary lie that Trump is the worst president ever – you can read Hayes’s own writing from the Bush era to understand why it’s a lie – Hayes cannot quit Donald Trump, and thus like his party cannot settle on a remotely coherent political vision. He’s trapped.

I see Hayes as a synecdoche for a broader tendency – a set of left-liberal Democrats who are relentlessly focused on Trump and Trumpism, January 6th, and their (incorrect) belief that this is an unprecedented threat to the United States. Their politics is resolutely retrospective, seeing in Trump the epitome of all that is wrong with American politics, to the exclusion of the deeper rot which afflicts the Republican party, yes, but also our politics, our institutions, and our people. They tend to be approaching middle age, white, and dudes. They hold some moderate instincts regarding culture war issues but have learned to keep them to themselves, for fear of getting dunked on. They would like very much to not get dragged into any particularly complex conversations about immigration, racism, or trans rights, thank you, preferring to know always where the good guys stand and to stand there. They think you must vote Democrat – you must, must vote Democrat – but allow some vague sense that the party is an impediment to progress. And while they may not go so far as to forbid criticism of social justice politics, or distaste for the toxicity of contemporary progressive culture, they want you to know that the problem is Trump. Always Trump.