No guts

It's a beautiful thing.

Gut instinct won't get the job done for liberals, either. Your mileage will vary depending on the issue, but I'd argue, for example, that good analysis supports a fairly extreme view on Social Security (just leave it alone for now) but a centrist position on trade. The populist impulse on trade points us in the right direction, but a Lou Dobbsian solution (stop making trade deals, shut down the border) is nuts. Trade really does improve the economy after all, and the right answer for its ill effects on the working class is going to be found by agreeing on the populist goal and then letting the technocrats figure out smart policies to get us there. That's technocratic populism (an apparent oxymoron that confused a bunch of you when I first used it a couple of weeks ago).

The problem is not that smart policies aren't out there, the problem is that we've never built up the political will to insist that they be implemented. So let's work on that. And let's judge those policies on their merits. If a lefty solution works, that's great. But sometimes it doesn't, and if a wonky centrist solution works better, then that's what we should rally around. Whatever else we do, let's be sure to keep our eyes firmly planted in reality. The era of gut instinct is, hopefully, drawing mercifully to a close.

Digby reads further omens and warnings about trusting the Democratic leaderships' guts.