A proposal for a qualification requirement for pundits

Ezra Klein is depressed. His impeachment podcast went looking for a new angle on the unhappy process in the House of Representatives. They came up with partnering with a survey research group (a pollster) to listen to a group of "undecided voters mainly" in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania about these events.

The experience had a similar effect on him to what so often seems to happen to the consumers of focus group research (like, say an earnest campaign committee): he found his neighbors astonishing, inarticulate, and inhabitants of another planet from the one on which he lives. Overwhelmingly, they can't stand conflict, yet conflict is the stuff of our polarized politics and a weaponized instrument wielded by the current Republcan Party.

My reaction to Klein's reaction was all too familiar. I wanted to tear my hair. These pundits should all have to spend a few weeks knocking on doors and talking with voters before they are allowed to pontificate. The experience would give them far more understanding of, and appreciation for, their fellow citizens.

I was so annoyed by listening to this that I got myself a transcript -- quotes here are from that, slightly smoothed because people don't talk in complete sentences and the translating algorithm still finds our patterns of speech confusing.

Here's my take, derived from years of knocking on doors. These are decidedly not undecided voters. I suspect that, although many are probably registered whatever variant of "no party preference" Pennsylvania offers, most of these people vote for Democrats most of the time. They don't want to throw down with a party team; Washington is "similar to a Patriots fan defending Spygate." But they are open to Democrats.

If, and this is a big if, Democratic activists search out and create ongoing contact with this sort of people (as so many extra-party organizations did in 2018), they'll be there for whoever the Dems get around to nominating. If neglected, they may not vote.

Why am I so sure? Because the leanings and values expressed by these nice, mostly lower middle class workers (of the sort who shower before, not after, work) are so overwhelmingly ethical in a secular frame. They think of themselves as citizens and want to do the right thing. They find the political fray hard to grasp, but they want to be good within it. Some examples:

• ... I am not paying much attention to it. I'm exhausted. ...

• ... I work for the government, but I've always believed in process and things happening according to a procedure ...

• ... this is unethical behavior or illegal behavior if he did what they're saying that he did

• ... I just want a smooth transition of power no matter what ... I have stopped thinking about the minutiae. I'm just worried about like not dying...

• ... I just think about my kid. I only have one now I have but one on the way. It is scary, it's a scary world, you know...

• ... I want people to have acceptable behavior. ... Where my kids go to school, there is a big focus on kindness ...

As any responsible pollster always reminds the consumer of a focus group, this is just one tiny group of people who may or may not be representative of anything. But years on the doors have shown me that there are a lot of these good, ethical, somewhat detached, citizens waiting to experience personal contact with someone who will listen and gently explain. That's the job in 2020: we must go find them.