“We recognize that, in the next four years, our decision may cause us to have an even more difficult time. But we believe that this will give us a chance to recalibrate, and the Democrats will have to consider whether they want our votes or not.”
That’s gotta be one of the strangest reasonings I’ve heard in a while.
At this point I honestly think the lesson they’ve learned is that curb-stomping the progressives and daring them to stay at home gets us all 4 years of punishment under the GOP and in the next election they get 100% of what they wanted in the first place without any actual lefties having power.
When you remember FDR, this is exactly what they did then- FDR, scion of privilege, ran on a progressive platform for an electorate thirsty for lefty policy. He surrounded himself with other left-leaning bluebloods interested in progressive politics but dead set against actual leftists gaining power. They doled out progressive policies as political favors but strictly kept the rabble out of actual power.
Likewise, in the waning years of the Prussian Empire, Otto von Bismarck (a staunch monarchist, facing an uprising of social democracy politics he despised) famously undertook socialist-y policies like socialized medicine and old-age insurance/pensions to steal political support from the social democrats while keeping them strictly out of power.