Massive spending, industrial policy, aggressive anti-trust, tight labor markets, wage compression, pro-union moves both in policy and symbolism. None of it moved the political needle even a little bit in the desired direction--quite the opposite in fact.

And this was true when it came to classic welfare state stuff too. Part of what accounted for the expirations-without-a-fight of big temporary stimulus programs like the expanded CTC was its marginal-at-best polling, weakly conducive to powerful policy-politics feedback effects.

Got the very clear sense that AOC and Bernie are both extremely aware of this stuff because they actually pay attention to things, which explains why they were in the tank for him earlier this year and why so many observers found it “confusing”