What’s left of the center-left?

Since at least the middle of the Obama era, all the energy and activity and creativity in the Democratic coalition has been with people pushing the party away from any kind of centrism — with the journals and zines that have resuscitated something they call socialism, with the activists trying to impose the college-campus style of cultural liberalism on the wider country (or at least the wider internet), with the feminists and intersectional types and Bernie Bros who clash and feud and sometimes absolutely hate one another, but still share a common “to the left, march” purpose.

Now that energy has transformed Democratic politics. We have a swelling Democratic 2020 field in which a capital-S Socialist is arguably the front-runner, most of the declared candidates are offering maximal ideological ambition, and the last Democratic vice president is hesitating to run in part because of all his long-gone compromises with conservatism.

With Clintonism as toxic as Bill Clinton’s post-#MeToo reputation, even the old Clintonites are throwing in the towel. In a memorable Twitter thread, the center-left economist Brad DeLong argued that the time has come for centrists to become, in effect, junior partners in the Democratic coalition, working to sharpen and smarten up the new socialism rather than seeking Republican partners and bipartisan reforms.