Centrists, Progressives and Europhobia

Who’s out of touch with reality, again?

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times, 11/07/19

Opinion Columnist

Joe Biden at a campaign event in Iowa in October.Credit...Jordan Gale for The New York Times

Will the Democratic presidential nomination go to a centrist or a progressive? Which choice would give the party the best chance in next year’s election? Honestly, I have no idea.

One thing I can say, however, is that neither centrism nor progressivism is what it used to be.

There was a time when arguments between centrists and progressives were framed as debates between realism and idealism. These days, however, it often seems as if the centrists, not the progressives, are out of touch with reality. Indeed, sometimes it feels as if centrists are Rip Van Winkles who spent the last 20 years in a cave and missed everything that has happened to America and the world since the 1990s.

You can see this in politics, where Joe Biden has repeatedly declared that Republicans will have an “epiphany” once Donald Trump is gone, and once again become reasonable people Democrats can deal with. Given the G.O.P.’s scorched-earth politics during the Obama years, that’s a bizarre claim.

Click here to see the entire article by Paul Krugman in The New York Times

From The New York Times