What Joe Biden Is Teaching Democrats About Democrats

[RandySF]

The prevailing mood toward a Biden candidacy has been a combination of anger that he has the temerity to lead a party that has left him behind and sympathy that he’s too addled to grasp his predicament. A genre of op-ed has developed out of liberals pleading with Biden, with such headlines as “Why Joe Biden Shouldn’t Run for President” (The Week, The Guardian); “I Like Joe Biden. I Urge Him Not to Run” (the New York Times); “I Really Like Joe Biden, but He Shouldn’t Run for President” (USA Today); and, as exasperation has sunk in, “Again, Joe Biden, for the Love of God: Do Not Run for President” (The Stranger).

The poor guy has disregarded all the advice and decided to run anyway. And initial polling has revealed that a large number of Democrats have not left Biden behind at all. He begins the race leading his closest competitors, including early front-runner Bernie Sanders, by as much as 30 points. Perhaps it was the party’s intelligentsia, not Biden, that was out of touch with the modern Democratic electorate.

The conclusion that Biden could not lead the post-Obama Democratic Party is the product of misplaced assumptions about the speed of its transformation. Yes, the party has moved left, but not nearly as far or as fast as everybody seemed to believe. Counterintuitively, House Democrats’ triumph in the midterms may have pushed their center of gravity to the right: The 40 seats Democrats gained were overwhelmingly located in moderate or Republican-leaning districts.

Biden’s apparent resurrection from relic to runaway front-runner has illustrated a chasm between perception and reality. The triumph of the left is somewhere between a movement ahead of its time and a bubble that has just popped.



http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/what-joe-biden-is-teaching-democrats-about-democrats.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Fascinating article. I like this summary:

The long-term question for the left is whether it can build a movement that can dominate in the real world, not just on Twitter and in some magazines. The short-term question is whether it can leverage what power it does have among activists and intellectuals without blowing up an election many Democrats see as an existential fight for the republic.

[honest.abe]

10. +1

[Kahuna7]

13. Amen. The intelligentsia are becoming increasingly...

salty, as they realize they have living in a progressive bubble.

[madville]

2. People like to pretend that a large swath of the Democratic Party isn't made up of

Middle-Aged and older white people in vital swing states. The "Not another old white man" movement is a small but very vocal wing of the party, hope they don't turn some of those voters in their fight against Biden (and Sanders to a lesser extent).

[angrychair]

5. Actually poor assumptions

Millennials and Gen Z make up the largest portion of the voting population (roughly 35%)
They are also more diverse than any other voting block.

Not saying that middle aged and older voters are not a strong voting block but they are the minority now.
(Receipts: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/)

The presumption that their objectives and vision for the future can be delayed or subjugated is foolish at best, self destructive at worst.
Their concerns are rejected and disregarded at Democrats peril.
We are playing to middle ground that is smaller, not larger.
We need to stop living in the past. We have to start looking for new leaders among us and draw on the wisdom of those that came before them.

Playing it safe is not what helped us win the House in 2018. Fresh faces and innovative ideas are what that possible.

[dsc]

8. they may be the minority of people

Last edited Mon May 13, 2019, 08:12 AM - Edit history (1)

but probably not of voters. Younger people don't vote as much which dilutes their numbers. Also the early states (other than Nevada) all have high median ages so those electorates are even older.

[angrychair]

16. Old thinking

In 2018, a significant portion of voters was between 18-29. In fact the largest midterm turnout in over 25 yrs for 18-29 yr olds.

It was a 79% increase from 2014.

Gen Z and Millennials are the future.

Your way of thinking appeals to old, primarily white, primarily straight, primarily Christian, primarily coal mining voters (that demo is significantly less than 1% of population)

This is math on who is the future of the Democratic Party:

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/behind-2018-united-states-midterm-election-turnout.html


We have to figure out how to appeal to these people because they will be running the world.

[dsc]

19. It was a huge increase on a small number

they still don't vote anywhere near as often as their older peers.

This is percent of overall for each age.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/12/18083014/2018-election-results-turnout

The median age falls between 50 and 64. Almost Two thirds of voters are over 49. I can't copy the table but for the part that matters for this discussion:

18-29 9 percent 30 - 39 13 percent, 40 - 49 15 percent that totals 37 percent

50 - 64 31 percent, 65 and above 32 percent or 63 percent total

Our primaries would be younger than that likely but not by a ton.

[angrychair]

21. Not really the point

This Vox article is highly suspect for 'outcome bias'. The most glaring hint is here:

And since non-college educated whites are relatively rare on the ground in New York and Washington, DC — where the political and media worlds are based — it’s easy to fall prey to the illusion of believing the exit polls.

Written by media writer born in NY and based out of DC that has written for primarily centrist publications, the irony in those words seem to allude him.

The point is that a younger and more diversified group are rising while the older, more white population, is falling off. We have to think past the nose on our face and work toward a future that includes new ideas and new faces.

That day is coming. We either embrace it, guide it and adapt to it or become irrelevant. That choice, the only two options, isnt coming but its here.

[dsc]

23. no matter who is rising, the people voting now (or more accurately in one year)

will determine the nominee. And all of the evidence suggests that the electorate is older than the population as a whole. In addition, Iowa has about the highest median age in the country with New Hampshire and South Carolina in the older half of the country. People who look more like me are going to determine who wins than those who look more like people who are young enough to be my children. It is simple math.

[angrychair]

24. Ok

We are going to have to agree to disagree.

You can keep thinking that but there are not enough 50+ yr olds to win elections unless Biden intends to to go center-right to make up the difference he won't get in young voters with a centrist, let's court the .001 percent of population coal miner vote, approach.

[MH1]

20. By the time they are running the world, they will be old, too.

I thought I was a libertarian when I was a newly minted voter. Later I thought I had more in common with the Green Party (only later I found out how a) that doesn't work in this country due to our electoral process and b) the U.S. Green Party is not who they pretend to be, not remotely).

As I got older my attitudes changed.

I suspect many of the "young people" of today will have changed attitudes by the time they are older. And they won't much like the next younger generation saying they should be ignored and put out to pasture.

[angrychair]

22. Again, old thinking

I'm not young. I'm not a Bernie supporter. I'm almost 50.

This insistence on "doing things the way we always did it" is absurd.

Catering to old, narrow-minded and primarily white male voters, is not how the world that is coming will work.

It world coming is mixed race. Non-religious. Pro LGBTQ rights. Pro-environment.

Never thought I'd have to argue for policies that are more inclusive and pro-environment here. That don't cater to the small rural uneducated voters.

That is the true damage of trump: false notion that we need to appeal to small town rural voters to win.

Never forget that Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. She did that my going more left. More open.

A hard centrist to center-right agenda is not going to win us the upcoming election.
That is a complete misreading of the electorate.

[MarcA]

29. Or another way to put it, Playing Not to Lose is Not Playing to Win. n/t

[True Blue American]

7. Thank you!

We are supposed to accept the opinions of a few writers as Gospel when the facts tell us another story?

When you have young people joining with the more mature to back a man, who is full of compassion, understanding of the plight of the worker, strong backing by Union members, i think not.

A few articles mean nothing to me.

[Duppers]

3. 👏 👍👍

[Cha]

4. "..From relic to Runaway.. "! Stranger

things have happened!

[EveHammond13]

6. yup.

[honest.abe]

9. "a chasm between perception and reality"

Ain't that the truth!

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Geez, I know the right thing is to walk away and not say anything,

But, the party is moving left today mostly because of the decisions that Biden’s Democratic generation made in order to get along with Republicans. Whether it involved gay rights, favorable legislation for struggling families that would have also helped women and minority groups, and defining moments that would have made a difference on the Supreme Court, Biden’s generation was not on the right side of history. Do I think he can change? I presume he can. But not with people feeding him with the idea that past mistakes don’t matter.

[MarcA]

30. No, the right thing is what you have said. Many in MSM and $$$

and elsewhere are pushing the Biden inevitability narrative to make it "reality".

[beachbum bob]

12. Biden would have been an easy winner in 2016, but same democratice intelligentsia

made it "hillarys" election from the getgo. If Joe hadn't suffered the personal loss, he may have decided to take on Hillary in the primary

[dsc]

14. I really get tired of hearing this bullshit

Hillary won the primary because black women and men voters voted for her in droves and refused to vote for Sanders. To a lesser extent that is also true of hispanics and LGBT voters. Now you may or may not agree with the choice those voters made but they made the choice. It wasn't a DNC plot, it wasn't the democratic intelligencia casting a voodoo spell, it sure as hell wasn't a Hillary favoring press. It was voters who decided she should be the nominee and the rest of the party should accept that just like I did in 2008 when Clinton lost to Obama in part because Obama pandered to anti gay voters in South Carolina. But the fact was that the voters chose him and I got over it. She won the primary in 2016 fair and square.

[oasis]

15. +1

[mtnsnake]

17. You are correct. Biden would have been sitting in the WH as we speak

if he had entered the 2016 primary and won it. There is no doubt about it that he would have beaten the one asshole in the world that anyone should have been able to beat. Biden would have whipped Trump in 2016, electoral college or not.

[LibFarmer]

18. The so called intellegentia

has a romanticized delusion of socialism.

The real world with its real people doesn't.

A case could have been made to write editorials telling BS to not run because he is not electable. However, the pundit's romanticized pink colored glasses couldn't see it at all.

BS should drop out and let life-long Democrats duke it out without Marx/Engels/Lenin visions.

[highplainsdem]

25. K&R

[saidsimplesimon]

26. "A movement ahead of its time"

This is most likely where I have traveled, not bragging. Through my grandchildren, I try to check the pulse on the views of those between 18-40 yrs. old. If there is a trend for this age group to support Mr. Biden's ground game, get out the vote, etc. it will be a very good sign that his chances of winning in 2020 will increase.

[Demsrule86]

27. Wow, what a great article. It is all true.

[Gothmog]

28. From Political Wire

Here is a summary from Political Wire https://politicalwire.com/2019/05/12/what-biden-is-teaching-democrats-about-democrats/

“The poor guy has disregarded all the advice and decided to run anyway. And initial polling has revealed that a large number of Democrats have not left Biden behind at all. He begins the race leading his closest competitors, including early front-runner Bernie Sanders, by as much as 30 points. Perhaps it was the party’s intelligentsia, not Biden, that was out of touch with the modern Democratic electorate.”

“The conclusion that Biden could not lead the post-Obama Democratic Party is the product of misplaced assumptions about the speed of its transformation. Yes, the party has moved left, but not nearly as far or as fast as everybody seemed to believe. Counterintuitively, House Democrats’ triumph in the midterms may have pushed their center of gravity to the right: The 40 seats Democrats gained were overwhelmingly located in moderate or Republican-leaning districts.”

“Biden’s apparent resurrection from relic to runaway front-runner has illustrated a chasm between perception and reality.”