The Utah model — a centrist, anti-Trump coalition led by a center-right candidate — is unlikely to prevail in most places. More common will probably be Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election model: a centrist coalition led by a center-left candidate, campaigning to restore political decency and democratic values.
Much about the United States’ political future depends on the answer to this question: Can liberals rally the country to the defense of democratic liberalism?
There are considerable obstacles. The unreconstructed left of the Democratic Party views Republican extremism as an opening to pursue its own maximalist agenda. But this ignores a stark reality: In much of the United States, a candidate perceived as a woke socialist will generally lose to a candidate perceived as an authoritarian nationalist. And events have conspired to tempt Democrats into political choices that can shatter a centrist coalition against Republican extremism — particularly in reaction to gun violence and the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
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