a problem now widely discussed and thinly addressed!

One thing to say though is that contemporary center-left parties are not actually trying to address it. On the contrary. Obama built an extraordinary grassroots coalition and infrastructure in 2008, then explicitly dismantled it after winning. He wanted technocratic, centralized control. 1/

I'm too distant from UK politics to comment very informedly, but the new AI push from labor looks strikingly like a party seeking to insulate itself from burning public concerns by substituting something onto which inchoate hopes can be projected that does not disturb its insiders' positions. 2/

In the US "centrist" pundits are obsessed with blaming "the groups"—philanthropically financed activist organizations, made up of elite professionals pursuing environmental and identity agendas— for Democrats' failures. 3/

And fine! It's probably right that NGOs claim to represent more than they do represent. Banish them to the wilderness! 4/

But the "and then" is not to reconstitute the party as an in-person membership organization or anything like that. It is to implement their own technocratic solutions, and address politics through polling and "popularism"—messaging what people say they like regardless of what you mean to do. 5/

I could be wrong, but my ill-informed sense is that post-Corbyn Labor is quite similar. 6/

Notionally socdem parties are constituted of entrenched insiders, whose public mouthpieces get labeled "centrist" or moderate". They have their own interests + clients. Much of their work is defending what must be done from demands that might come from ostensibly their own constituents. /fin