Alas, “generic Democrats” don’t exist. All the ones we can actually vote for have pesky details, like names and histories. Generic candidates pretty much always outperform specific named candidates. That’s true of Biden, sure, but it’s also true of alternatives to Biden.
Instead, name a specific Democrat that you think will do better, and we can compare their performance to Biden. Who specifically do you propose?
This captures public sentiment towards the party itself not those towards a specific candidate, so really what you’ve said is the point of that poll. The question of why the Democrats, and Republicans for that matter, can’t appeal to popular sentiment is to identify a problem with politics in this era. What if no candidate can fulfill the hyperreal brand that the party’s construct? What if these politics no longer affect economic arrangements, which are consented to by both parties, and are merely a post-political spectacle to choose the aesthetic of the consenting economic arrangement.
Obama really committed the party to the policy-first thing, which requires inventing a popular politics, and he was very good at this and I think is the best the Democrats could offer in this political era. Convincing people something is right after policies that appeal to the party donors are formulated takes someone like Obama. You see this all the time from the former Obama admin Pod Save America guys where they’re always desperately pleading with the audience about why a policy is reasonable, and of course from current Democrat hopefuls.
The exception is obviously Sanders who was polling well against Trump, but Democrat superdelegates and Democrats campaigned against him, because he appealed to popular politics and threatened the economic arrangement of party donors, most of which don’t really care which party is in power. That’s ultimately what has to happen, popular politics has to override the economic interests of the parties. Unfortunately every time that’s appearing to happen in America’s history the powerful manage to divide everyone. That’s largely what Jim Crow did was impose an order to divide the Populists, who were black and white workers demanding better treatment and less corporate financial power driving policy.
So “specific Democrat” here isn’t a who, it’s a different mode of politics.
Alas, “generic Democrats” don’t exist. All the ones we can actually vote for have pesky details, like names and histories. Generic candidates pretty much always outperform specific named candidates. That’s true of Biden, sure, but it’s also true of alternatives to Biden.
Instead, name a specific Democrat that you think will do better, and we can compare their performance to Biden. Who specifically do you propose?
This captures public sentiment towards the party itself not those towards a specific candidate, so really what you’ve said is the point of that poll. The question of why the Democrats, and Republicans for that matter, can’t appeal to popular sentiment is to identify a problem with politics in this era. What if no candidate can fulfill the hyperreal brand that the party’s construct? What if these politics no longer affect economic arrangements, which are consented to by both parties, and are merely a post-political spectacle to choose the aesthetic of the consenting economic arrangement.
Obama really committed the party to the policy-first thing, which requires inventing a popular politics, and he was very good at this and I think is the best the Democrats could offer in this political era. Convincing people something is right after policies that appeal to the party donors are formulated takes someone like Obama. You see this all the time from the former Obama admin Pod Save America guys where they’re always desperately pleading with the audience about why a policy is reasonable, and of course from current Democrat hopefuls.
The exception is obviously Sanders who was polling well against Trump, but Democrat superdelegates and Democrats campaigned against him, because he appealed to popular politics and threatened the economic arrangement of party donors, most of which don’t really care which party is in power. That’s ultimately what has to happen, popular politics has to override the economic interests of the parties. Unfortunately every time that’s appearing to happen in America’s history the powerful manage to divide everyone. That’s largely what Jim Crow did was impose an order to divide the Populists, who were black and white workers demanding better treatment and less corporate financial power driving policy.
So “specific Democrat” here isn’t a who, it’s a different mode of politics.