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This is the final installment in a four-part series on Americas Industrial Revolution and the political responses it sparked. Go to Richmond.com to read the entire series.

On Sept. 14, 1901, President William McKinley died from a gunshot wound delivered by a crazed assassin two weeks earlier. Republican Party leaders were stunned by the recent string of events. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, former Republican governor of New York and hero of the Spanish-American War, would now occupy the White House, something the party bosses viewed with grave concern.

They had put the popular Roosevelt on the ticket to help ensure McKinleys re-election in 1900, despite the fact that many of them thought he was a reckless maverick.

Everything went according to plan after the election with a safe, traditional Republican in the White House. The assassins bullet, however, changed everything. While McKinley fit the profile of the non-activist presidents who had held office the previous half-century, Roosevelt was almost the opposite.

At age 42, he was the youngest man to hold the office, and unlike most of his predecessors, Roosevelt was anything but a hands-off president. The worst fears of traditional Republicans became reality when Roosevelt began using his office as a bully pulpit to promote an activist government to serve the interests of most Americans over those of the few masters of big business.

He called for a Square Deal for all Americans businessmen, laborers, farmers, and consumers. He implemented stronger federal control of corporations by attacking the large trusts and monopolies that had squelched competition; by giving more authority to the Interstate Commerce Commission; and by protecting the countrys natural resources.

He received congressional support for the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act to protect consumers from hucksters and unscrupulous food producers. More than any previous president, he took bold steps to protect some 230 million acres of the countrys wilderness from unchecked development.

***

The Progressive Movement clearly had an ally in President Roosevelt, and it did not end when he completed his next term, which he won in a landslide. Clearly, his activist presidency resonated well with the American public. For that matter his popularity helped ensure the election of his handpicked Republican successor, William Howard Taft, in 1908.

Although Taft continued breaking up monopolies and trusts, he seemed unable to control the Republican conservatives, who tried to reverse many of Roosevelts initiatives. He himself was more conservative than Roosevelt, and he took issue with many of the reformers and their demands for immediate action. A lawyer and judge by profession, he preferred a slower and more deliberate pace for reform legislation.

Tafts less-than-vigorous pursuit of reform raised the ire of his predecessor to such an extent that it led to a civil war within the Republican Party. The conflict grew so intense that Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912, splitting the party wide open.

Frustrated that the incumbent Taft had his re-nomination locked up, Roosevelt and his supporters walked out of the Republican convention and launched a third party, the Progressive Party, better known as the Bull Moose Party. Their platform advocated expanding the powers of the federal government to bring about more reform and regulations.

With the Republicans torn asunder, the Democratic Party, which had elected only one man as president since 1860, saw victory within its grasp. The native Virginian and strong reform governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, received the nomination and won the election by taking only 42 percent of the popular vote, but receiving 435 electoral votes to Roosevelts 88 and Tafts paltry 8.

***

Once in office, Wilson pursued an aggressive reform agenda. He created the Federal Reserve, giving the country a regulated currency. He pushed legislation that established the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit unfair business practices. He supported the ratification of the 16th Amendment that resulted in a graduated income tax, requiring wealthy Americans to pay a higher percentage on their earnings. And he addressed a number of social issues, such as greatly restricting child labor and limiting the hours of railroad workers.

Despite these many reforms, some of his policies were backward-looking. Following the example of his native South, he implemented formal segregation in the federal government. For example, government buildings in Washington were required to have white and colored bathrooms. Appointments to federal jobs through civil service became increasingly difficult for African-Americans to obtain.

Perhaps the most controversial piece of legislation coming from Wilsons administration was prohibition. Approval in 1919 of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of intoxicating spirits, has been described as the greatest failure of a social experiment in American history. The amendment resulted in a huge illicit liquor enterprise and an explosion of organized crime. Within 14 years, it became the only amendment to be repealed in its entirety.

World War I and its aftermath dominated Wilsons second term, as did a nearly fatal stroke, taking his attention away from continued domestic reforms.

The United States emerged from the war as the most powerful nation on Earth economically, but the American public had grown weary of Wilsons activist government and reform in general.

A severe postwar recession contributed to a landslide victory in 1920 for Republican presidential candidate Warren G. Harding, who ran on a ticket pledging a Return to Normalcy and a repudiation of the progressive agenda of political and social reform.

There would be no bully pulpit presidents for another 12 years, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide in the depths of the Great Depression.

***

What can we learn from the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era? Some critics contend that we are experiencing a new Gilded Age. They argue that during the past few decades, corporations and elected officials (many representing safe gerrymandered districts) have rolled back many of the gains made by working and middle-class people during the Progressive Era.

They point out that despite its great wealth, the country now has the highest level of income inequality in 90 years. Most disturbing to these critics is that federal and state tax cuts benefited the wealthy at the expense of the poor and many in the middle class.

Advocates on the other side of the political spectrum, however, argue that government has become more intrusive than ever, thereby stifling the economic potential of the nation and interfering with our individual freedoms.

In his run for the White House, candidate Donald Trump pledged to return America to greatness by slashing regulations, easing government controls, and reforming the tax code, among other things. Once elected to office, much like Theodore Roosevelt, the president has used his own bully pulpit to implement his campaign pledges.

But a hundred-plus days into his presidency, little of his agenda has been carried out, despite having Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. Why? Is it his political inexperience? Is it his confrontational style? No doubt those are factors, but I think it is something more fundamental.

A century ago, conditions in the country were as problematic, if not more so, than they are today; yet three successive presidents were able to bring about major reforms to address the issues. One of the keys then was that reform and progressive thinking crossed party lines. Two of the three progressive presidents were Republicans.

Through compromise, cooperation, and effective persuasion, they were able to work with Congress to bring about needed reform. They found viable solutions to the problems created by the painful transition from the 19th century to modern America.

Today, anyone who cooperates with members of the opposing party is an anathema. Cooperation within both parties also has become more difficult. The rhetoric has become increasingly confrontational. Fealty to party or faction within a party appears more important than loyalty to country. It is unfortunate that todays monumental challenges are not being met by either side of the political spectrum.

Perhaps the time has come for introducing fundamental change in the way we govern ourselves, much as the American people did a century ago.

Read this article:
Charles F. Bryan Jr.: With progressives in the White House, everything changed - Richmond.com

If you followed the race for the chairmanship of the Democratic Party of California this past weekend, you may have noticed several familiar plot points.

1. A heavily favored centrist was challenged late by a progressive, and the gap narrowed considerably.

2. Progressives demonstrated in the lead-up to the vote, while the centrists bristled and told them to shut the fuck up or go outsidein this case literally. And hey, at least they were honest this timetheir deepest desire is not to reach out to the newcomers, as they like to pretend, but to have them go away forever so things can return to normal.

3. The centrist won a very narrow victory.

4. Progressives were convinced that there was foul play.

5. The centrist faction shut down any investigation of the result, while the winner preached unitylaughably, since unity never means that actual concessions are forthcoming, but is instead a more polite call to step in line and shut up.

If any of this sounds just like the race for DNC chair, or just like the primary between Hillary Clintonand Bernie Sanders, thats no coincidencethis same story keeps playing out, over and over, in a starkly divided party. Heres what Politico had to say:

The tumult showed that in the countrys largest state which is controlled entirely by Democrats the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders divide of 2016 and the intra-party sparring that followed Clintons November loss remain very much at the forefront.

Of course it remains very much at the forefront! When writers express surprise at the so-called tumult that occurs in these situations, they are ignoring a very basic fact, which is that the two groups of people have very different belief systems. They mostly agree on social issues, but thats where the similarities end. The centrists believe in a corporate democracy, complete with free trade and all the giveaways to big business and the wealthy and private insurance that this ethos implies, while progressives are democratic-socialists who want to usher in a second new deal complete with universal health care and the restoration of a strong system of entitlements. These value systems are fundamentally incompatible.

Seriously, they cant be reconciled. They are, in fact, at direct odds with one another, and its actually kind of stupid that people who believe these very different things are trying to function under the same party. The only reason for that is the historical anomaly that is the Republican Partya cruel society-ravaging cabal of elites devoted to making life miserable for all but the top one percentthat has somehow tricked a whole lot of people, via racial propaganda and other forms of bullshit, into voting against their economic self-interestsand, in fact, into voting for their own continued immiseration.

The existence of this party as a political powerhouse, which was made possible by the abandonment of the working classes by the centrist Democrats, has now ushered in an ugly reality in America, and it has forced an alliance between centrists and progressives at a time when such an alliance is politically unnatural, and should be blown apart.

Instead, they fight under the same umbrella, absurdly, while making lame noises at unity, because each is too afraid of what will happen if they do the logical thing and split up. This is the stay together for the kids mantra of the political worldforced solidarity among groups who despise one another, inspired by abject fear of the consequences a break-up would entail.

So whats the solution? Quite clearly, theres no easy way out, or one would have been found alreadythe Republican menace is real, even though withholding support from centrist Democrats is the best strategic move for progressives, since it would force the centrists to tack left in order to have any chance of retaking key offices, its also the kind of brinksmanship that can lead to further Republican victories, and all the consequences that entails.

In fact, as ridiculous as the current charade looks, it might actually be the rational choice for progressives, who have watched their ranks swell by shocking numbers in the past two years alone, and likely expect that with time, theyll become the dominant force in party politics. Until then, we live in the twilight zone, where two groups of people who would represent the left and right wings in any sane country are forced together to combat the far-right extremists who have been taking them to the political woodshed for the better part of four decades. And until progressives become the ascendant faction in the party, expect the same story that we saw this past weekend in California to play out over, and over, and over again.

See more here:
Can the Progressive/Centrist Split in Democratic Party Politics Ever Be Resolved? - Paste Magazine

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Now, a pair of enterprising hoaxershas proved it scientifically bypersuading an academic journal to peer-review and publish their paper claiming that the penis is not really a malegenital organ but a social construct.

The paper, published by Cogent Social Sciences a multidisciplinary open access journal offering high quality peer review across the social sciences also claims that penises are responsible for causing climate change.

The two hoaxers are Peter Boghossian, a full-time faculty member in the Philosophy department at Portland State University, and James Lindsay, who has a doctorate in math and a background in physics.

They were hoping to emulate probably the most famous academic hoax in recent years: the Sokal Hoax named afterNYU and UCL physics professor Alan Sokal who in 1996 persuaded an academic journal called Social Text to accept apaper titled Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.

Sokals paper comprisingpages of impressive-sounding but meaningless pseudo-academic jargon was written in part to demonstrate that humanities journals will publish pretty much anything so long as itsounds like proper leftist thought; and partly in order to send up the absurdity of so much post-modernist social science.

So, for this new spoof, Boghossian and Lindsay were careful to throw in lots of signifier phrases to indicate fashionable anti-male bias:

We intended to test the hypothesis that flattery of the academic Lefts moral architecture in general, and of the moral orthodoxy in gender studies in particular, is the overwhelming determiner of publication in an academic journal in the field. That is, we sought to demonstrate that a desire for a certain moral view of the world to be validated could overcome the critical assessment required for legitimate scholarship. Particularly, we suspected that gender studies is crippled academically by an overriding almost-religious belief that maleness is the root of all evil. On the evidence, our suspicion was justified.

Theyalso took care to make itcompletely incomprehensible.

We didnt try to make the paper coherent; instead, we stuffed it full of jargon (like discursive and isomorphism), nonsense (like arguing that hypermasculine men are both inside and outside of certain discourses at the same time), red-flag phrases (like pre-post-patriarchal society), lewd references to slang terms for the penis, insulting phrasing regarding men (including referring to some men who choose not to have children as being unable to coerce a mate), and allusions to rape (we stated that manspreading, a complaint levied against men for sitting with their legs spread wide, is akin to raping the empty space around him). After completing the paper, we read it carefully to ensure it didnt say anything meaningful, and as neither one of us could determine what it is actually about, we deemed it a success.

Some of it waswritten with the help ofthe Postmodern Generator a website coded in the 1990s by Andrew Bulhak featuring an algorithm, based on NYU physicist Alan Sokals method of hoaxing a cultural studies journal called Social Text, that returns a different fake postmodern paper every time the page is reloaded.

This paragraph, for example, looks impressive but is literally meaningless:

Inasmuch as masculinity is essentially performative, so too is the conceptual penis. The penis, in the words of Judith Butler, can only be understood through reference to what is barred from the signifier within the domain of corporeal legibility (Butler, 1993). The penis should not be understood as an honest expression of the performers intent should it be presented in a performance of masculinity or hypermasculinity. Thus, the isomorphism between the conceptual penis and whats referred to throughout discursive feminist literature as toxic hypermasculinity, is one defined upon a vector of male cultural machismo braggadocio, with the conceptual penis playing the roles of subject, object, and verb of action. The result of this trichotomy of roles is to place hypermasculine men both within and outside of competing discourses whose dynamics, as seen via post-structuralist discourse analysis, enact a systematic interplay of power in which hypermasculine men use the conceptual penis to move themselves from powerless subject positions to powerful ones (confer: Foucault, 1972).

None of it should have survived more than a moments scrutiny by serious academics. But it was peer-reviewed by two experts in the field who, after suggesting only a few changes, passed it for publication:

Cogent Social Sciences eventually accepted The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct. The reviewers were amazingly encouraging, giving us very high marks in nearly every category. For example, one reviewer graded our thesis statement sound and praised it thusly, It capturs [sic] the issue of hypermasculinity through a multi-dimensional and nonlinear process (which we take to mean that it wanders aimlessly through many layers of jargon and nonsense). The other reviewer marked the thesis, along with the entire paper, outstanding in every applicable category.

They didnt accept the paper outright, however. Cogent Social Sciences Reviewer #2 offered us a few relatively easy fixes to make our paper better. We effortlessly completed them in about two hours, putting in a little more nonsense about manspreading (which we alleged to be a cause of climate change) and dick-measuring contests.

No claim made in the paper was considered too ludicrous by the peer-reviewers: not even the one claiming that the penis is the universal performative source of rape, and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change.

You read that right. We argued that climate change is conceptually caused by penises. How do we defend that assertion? Like this:

Destructive, unsustainable hegemonically male approaches to pressing environmental policy and action are the predictable results of a raping of nature by a male-dominated mindset. This mindset is best captured by recognizing the role of [sic] the conceptual penis holds over masculine psychology. When it is applied to our natural environment, especially virgin environments that can be cheaply despoiled for their material resources and left dilapidated and diminished when our patriarchal approaches to economic gain have stolen their inherent worth, the extrapolation of the rape culture inherent in the conceptual penis becomes clear.

The fact that such complete drivel was published in a social science journal, the hoaxers argue, raises serious questions about the valueof fields like gender studies and the state of academic publishing generally:

The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct should not have been published on its merits because it was actively written to avoid having any merits whatsoever. The paper is academically worthless nonsense.

But they do not hold out much hope for it having any more effect on the bullshit in the social sciences industry than Sokals hoax did becauseleftist stupidity in academe is so heavily entrenched.

As a matter of deeper concern, there is unfortunately some reason to believe that our hoax will not break the relevant spell. First, Alan Sokals hoax, now more than 20 years old, did not prevent the continuation of bizarre postmodernist scholarship. In particular, it did not lead to a general tightening of standards that would have blocked our own hoax. Second, people rarely give up on their moral attachments and ideological commitments just because theyre shown to be out of alignment with reality.

Excerpt from:
DELINGPOLE: 'Penises Cause Climate Change'; Progressives ... - Breitbart News

Four and a half years ago, my wife and I relocated to Nehalem, a city on Oregon coast. We chose this place for its natural beauty. The stunning beaches and sublime forests were an immediate solace after the collapse of Occupy Wall Street, the movement I had helped start while working as an editor at Adbusters magazine.

Now estranged from the magazine and its visionary founder, who had been my mentor and close collaborator for a decade, Chiara and I found ourselves in rural America. Moving to this tiny city of just 280 residents wound up showing me a potential solution to the problems plaguing contemporary protest: running for local office.

Contemporary movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, along with massive protests like Januarys Womens March, have inspired people around the world. But too often, exciting movements fizzle outin large part because protestors do not have the political power to change the systems they critique. Its become clear to me that in order for protest movements to have a concrete impact, they need transform into a force capable of winning elections across the country. Protest alone is not enough; the best way to give power to popular assemblies is to capture sovereignty through the electoral process.

Four years went by in Nehalem, and Chiara and I had a son. Then I was approached by long-time residents concerned about the water quality in the town. They wanted help protecting our coastal forests and watersheds. I came to the conclusion that the only way to achieve positive change on this issue would be to gain control of our city councils.

I announced my candidacy for mayor of Nehalem five months before the November 2016 electionsand in doing so, I broke the central taboo of rural electoral politics. Out here, elections are typically uncontested, and the good ol boys are in control by default. What happened next was a wake-up callone that showed me just what social-justice activists are up against.

Before I relate what happened, allow me to say a word about what I was trying to achieve. I disagree with the American progressive electoral strategy that emphasizes idealized, individual candidates. Instead, I believe the best way to make positive change in politics is to create a series of micro social movements: neighborhood assemblies that can make political decisions together that impact their lives. We dont need representatives who we trust to make good decisions for us because theyre good people; we need delegates who will defer to the movement on big decisions. And so when I speak of an electoral social movement, I imagine a fundamental shift in the decision-making process, away from the corruptions of representative democracy and toward democracys earlier forms.

Im an activist, not a politician: Im trying to spark a movement that spreads to city after city in the way that Occupy spread to 82 countries. So in my campaign for mayor, I proposed that Nehalem voters form a Peoples Association: a forum open to all local residents that would meet prior to each city-council meeting to discuss what the city council and mayor should do. I promised that, if elected, I would abide by the decisions of the Nehalem Peoples Association. I hoped that a majority of city-council members would make the same pledge to carry out the wishes of their neighbors. My goal was to give residents clear decision-making power over their local government. If it could work in Nehalem, it could work in dozens of rural cities across Oregon, Washington, and California.

Some residents loved the idea, but others were highly opposed. The opposition created a nativist group called Keep Nehalem Nehalem, portraying me as a disruptive outsider. A majority of city-council members wore T-shirts with the slogan to council meetings. They spread false rumors about me, reporting that I was a Satanist (yes, an actual Satanist) employed by billionaire investor George Soros. By the time I even heard one of these rumors, everyone else had heard it twice. People who were thought to be allies of the Peoples Association faced social isolation and bullying on Facebook. A resident was quoted in the only local newspaper making a racist death threat against me.

I hadnt expected to encounter nativist rhetoric in Nehalem, which is one of the last places to be settled in the US, back in 1899. My undergraduate alma mater, Swarthmore College, is older than Nehalem. And many of the people who claimed to be keeping Nehalem Nehalem didnt have long family legacies here either. But in a microcosm of the factors that shaped the US election, hyperbole and xenophobia proved to be powerful forces.

The crux of the conflict emerged at the first meeting of the Peoples Association. I sent a letter to every Nehalem voter inviting them to attend. The room was packed with dozens of people from Nehalem and two neighboring cities, including city-council members, leading local-business owners, and local residents.

The theme of the gathering was Nehalems next 100 years. Participants spoke about their aspirations for the communityand one of the most persistent themes was the problem of change.

Like many rural communities across the US, Nehalem is changing economically and culturally. A persistent housing crisis means that local businesses are often unable to find housing for potential employees. Meanwhile, many houses are empty 50 weeks a year because of second homeowners living in metropolises. A burgeoning creative class is renovating the downtown, despite resistance from the older businesses.

That day, the room was divided between people who felt hopeful about the future of our tiny town and people who were afraid. Many, many people expressed a desire to define the features of Nehalem that we love so we could stay true to those elements while also introducing positive changes that could improve our daily lives. But the tone in the room was loud and aggressive. I realized the town was at a crossroads. We could try to foster the elements that we all loved, or we could let fear keep us chained.

Ultimately, I lost the election, 139 votes to 36. But I remain convinced that winning elections in rural communities and giving power to the people is not only possible, but one of the most viable new directions for social movements.

I see two paths forward. Here is my advice for both:

The first path would be for the idea of a Peoples Association to take root in a rural city, introduced, perhaps, by a long-time resident. The challenge here is that most people will face social pressures from people theyve known for a long time, even if they personally agree with the movement. That said, the voting booth is a private space, and people are still able to vote their conscience. It is not inconceivable that the correct activist tactics could quietly garner a movement that holds a majority of votes in a rural city. This achievement could trigger the movement to spread to neighboring cities.

The second way would be to encourage emigration to rural communities. Right now, only people who live within roughly 90 houses in Nehalems narrowly defined city limits are allowed to run for city council and mayor or vote in city elections. The city excludes people who live in mobile homes and residential trailers and includes newer, wealthier developments. One sympathetic Berkeley or New York City homeowner could easily sell their residence and buy four or five homes in Nehalem. This path would be an acceleration of a rural culture wara struggle to define the rural lifestyle in the 21st century.

Some might condemn this tactic as an unfair attempt by outsiders to reshape rural culture. But it is worth noting that rural is simply a census designation meaning territory, population, and housing units not classified as urban. If rural only means not urbantechnically, a community less than 2,500 peoplethen it is an open canvas for reimagining how we live together. And as Alec MacGillis wrote in the New York Times last year, suggesting that liberals move away from coastal cities and into Republican-leaning areas, By segregating themselves in narrow slices of the country, Democrats have also made it harder to make their own case. They are forever preaching to the converted, while their social distance also leaves them unprepared for whats coming from the other end of the spectrum. If progressives are serious about changing the way US politics work, we need to seek out places that dont feel comfortable.

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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Progressives who want real change should run for office in rural Americalike I did - Quartz

Larry Krasner, the Democratic nominee for Philadelphia district attorney.

Lawrence Krasner for District Attorney

On Tuesday, Philadelphia Democrats picked criminal defense lawyer Larry Krasner as their nominee to run the citys district attorneys office. A progressive firebrand who has defended Black Lives Matter protesters and Occupy Wall Street activists pro bono, Krasner has gone to court more times to sue Philly cops for civil right abuses (75) than he has to prosecute a crime (0). He has described the office he intends to run as systemically racist. Given the makeup of the electorate in Philadelphia, it is a near-certainty hell be in charge of prosecutions in the city after Novembers general election.

Since Donald Trumps shocking victory in 2016, nearly every political contest has been viewed as a referendum on whether voters in Kansas or Georgia or wherever else are tired from all the winning yet. This Philadelphia primary was no different, with Krasners unusual background drawing national media attention. His win has now been heralded as a stinging rebuke of Trump, Jeff Sessions, and aggressive policing in general, and as proof that Democrats best path to electoral relevance lies in moving further to the left.

There are plenty of lessons for Democrats to glean from this race, but the fact that an extremely progressive candidate won it is one of the least interesting. While its rare that someone with no prosecutorial experience runs for district attorney, let alone wins, theres nothing surprising about the most liberal candidate winning a Democratic primary in Philadelphia, where Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 67 points. Sure, Philly is the same place that elected Lynne Americas Deadliest DA Abraham four times by sizable margins, but her last victory came a dozen years ago. When Abraham last ran in 2005, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by a 4-to-1 margin. Today, Democrats outnumber Republicans 7 to 1. In Philadelphias last two contested mayoral primaries, and now in the last two contested DA primaries, the most liberal candidate won.

Still, the race was considered wide open before Krasner won decisively, with 38 percent of the vote in a field of seven candidates vying to replace the outgoing, disgraced Seth Williams. Williams, whod run as a reformer himself, announced he wouldnt stand for re-election just days before the feds made an announcement of their own: a 23-charge indictment alleging various forms of bribery, extortion, and fraud, including a claim that hed even stolen from his own mother.

In terms of policy, the national focus on Krasners victory buries the lead. All seven candidatesnot just Krasnerran as progressive champions of criminal justice reform. Not a single Democrat promised to be tough on crime. Instead, all spoke passionately about ending mass incarceration and holding police accountable. A week before the election, a liberal Daily News columnist remarked incredulously that the candidates had spent less time discussing how they would protect residents from crime than how theyd protect suspects rights. As University of Pennsylvania law professor and civil rights attorney David Rudovsky told the Atlantic, It sounds like theyre all running for public defender.

The fact that all the candidates fell over one another trying to prove they were the best equipped to reform the DAs office is all the more remarkable given the relatively progressive state of criminal justice in Philadelphia today.

In absolute terms, Phillys justice system is very deeply flawed. Its prisons are woefully overcrowded thanks to years of mass incarceration. The DAs office abused civil asset forfeiture to seize propertycash, cars, even homesfrom residents, many of whom never committed crimes, boosting its budget by about $6 million a year. Williams shamefully fought convictions overturned by DNA evidence. A federal court called the Philadelphia Police Departments stop-and-frisk tactics racially biased and unconstitutional.

But there have been signs of progress. Former Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey asked the Department of Justice to study the departments distressingly high number of officer-involved shootings and then swiftly implemented the vast majority of the DOJs recommendations. Cops have shot far fewer people since, and Ramsey was named to President Barack Obamas national task force on police shootings. Last year, the city launched a new initiative to reduce its prison population by 34 percent over three years; since then, the population has fallen by 12 percent. The number of illegal stops has gone down.

The ongoing reforms have paid some dividends in the form of trust. According to Pew, 60 percent of Philadelphians said they have confidence in Philadelphia police to treat blacks and whites equally. Among the citys blacks and Hispanics, those figures are just 47 and 45 percent respectively. But that is still high compared to national numbers, which show that only 35 percent of blacks believe police treat people of all racial and ethnic groups equally.

Many cops and prosecutors despise Krasner, which will make it harder for him to live up to his supporters high expectations.

Still, in my talks with voters leading up to the election, there was very little discussion of changes in Philadelphia. Nor did anyone really talk about criminal activitythe fact that the citys homicide rate has been ticking upward again or that those murders have increasingly gone unsolved. Instead, conversations centered on national issuesTrump, Black Lives Matter, the war on drugs. It's as though Tip ONeills famous maxim has been turned on its head: All politics is national.

So, against this backdrop, perhaps it was inevitable that the race tacked so hard to port on policy. Against a field of five seasoned prosecutors and one also-ran judge, Krasner stood out for two reasons: his atypical career path and his fiery antagonism toward police and prosecutors.

Where other candidates equivocated, Krasner was resolute. Most described Williams almost as a fallen angel, a man who began his tenure with important reforms but then grew increasingly reactionary as questions about his probity mounted. Krasner, by contrast, never described Williams administration as anything other than an unmitigated disaster.

Krasner wouldnt merely stake out his position on an issue and leave it at that. In debates and speeches, the Stanford Law grad would explicate why he was rightand why anyone who disagreed with him was wrongwith both contempt and crystalline logic. Krasners self-righteousness induced disdain in a number of his future underlings in the DAs office but inspired intense devotion from his supporters.

For progressive voters, the choice came down to trust. Runner-up Joe Khan, a former assistant district attorney and federal prosecutor, staked out a nearly identical policy platform. But Krasner argued convincingly that only a true outsider could reform the office. Even though Khan made his name prosecuting Democratic politicians, that argument resonated with Philly voters. While Khan sounded like he was trying to please the crowd, it felt like Krasner was speaking from the heart.

Money also obviously played a role in the race. George Soros backed Krasner via an independent PAC to the tune of $1.45 million, far outpacing the rest of the field. In low-turnout racesonly 17 percent of voters showed up at the pollsmere name recognition can be the decisive factor. In Philadelphia, the candidate that spends the most airing ads on local TV often wins. (There is a corollary to this in presidential elections, articulated by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, that the candidate who attracts the most media coverage wins.) Krasner also put together an impressive ground game, aggressively canvassing the citys most progressive neighborhoods.

Krasners win has also been celebrated, incorrectly, as a sign that national Democratic groups have learned to support local candidates. Consider the case of Rebecca Rhynhart, a political newcomer who decided to run for office after Trump won in November and unseated a 12-year incumbent in the Philadelphia city controllers race. Rhynhart won in defiance of the citys rusting Democratic machine, with no significant support from outside the region. More importantly, even as Soros PAC ran ads touting Krasners promise to end cash bail, no one seemed to bother supporting progressive judicial candidatesthe men and women who, if elected, have the power to actually set bail.

Pennsylvania elects its judges in a process that resembles a cheap lottery more than a thoughtful plebiscite. In Philly, its fair to say judges are chosen by picking names from a canspecifically, an old Horn & Hardart coffee can used to determine ballot position. A recent statistical analysis showed that the position of a judicial candidates name on the ballot mattered more than bar association recommendations, newspaper endorsements, and the Democratic partys endorsement. As they do every year, a handful of candidates rated not recommended by the Philadelphia Bar Association defeated a number of highly recommended candidates.

If dumping money into a local DAs race amounted to sending a message to Jeff Sessions, then supporting Henry Sias could have been the local judicial equivalent of flipping off Neil Gorusch.

Sias co-founded Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity, which among other things represents low-income residents through the criminal record expungement process. The Yale Law alumnus, who earned a recommended rating from the bar association, would have been the nations first male trans judge if elected. But outside money didnt pour in to support Sias. He lost with just 3.81 percent of the vote, finishing well behind a nonrecommended former state representative infamous for racking up massive per diem payments in his previous stint in office and having an unusually long and impressively annotated Wikipedia page.

If Krasner wins in November as expected, his next challenge will be tougher than the race itself. Many of the citys cops and prosecutors despise him, which will make it harder for Krasner to live up to his supporters exceedingly high expectations. Ultimately, it's judges who decide whether to set cash bail, even if it isnt sought by prosecutors.* If Krasners deep-pocketed backers had spread a bit of their money down ballot, maybe he would have had a little bit more help from the bench.

Correction, May 20, 2017:This story originally and incorrectly stated that judges in Pennsylvania can sentence someone to death even if that outcome isnt sought by prosecutors.

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Progressives' Expectations for Philadelphia's Next District Attorney Are Ridiculously High - Slate Magazine