“Defund” is a straw man in the debate over what went wrong for downballot Dems - and an excuse to throw activists under the bus. Progressives urged Dems to run on corruption and economic fairness far more than defund. But Dem leadership insisted on a myopic focus on health care. https://twitter.com/elizacollins1/status/1335643804859133954

Health care was extremely salient in 2018 when Republicans had unified control of government and were actively trying to repeal the ACA. But repeal efforts were not dominating the news in 2020 and downballot Dems had no message for people suffering from covid’s economic fallout.

This. In 2014 we tried to recycle the “war on women” message that worked in 2012 but it flopped. In 2020, Dem leaders over-learned the lessons of 2018. Dems’ economic message in 2020 was far milder than, say, Obama 2012. Little to no focus on economic fairness or GOP corruption. https://twitter.com/godlesslib_cb/status/1335666243664310287