Why Joe is in trouble.
Going into the Democratic primaries the main concern of the candidates seemed to be one thing in particular: electability. Electability serving as a unifying goal of the party with one objective in mind: defeat President Trump. But in the race to represent the DNC, schisms and ideologies have reigned supreme. This election is not a battle of compromise, but a war over the heart of the democratic party in an election cycle with rewritten rules. Electability isn’t what it once was.
In 2016, Donald Trump was pivotal in the derailing of a political establishment on both sides of the aisle. Trump proved to be the ultimate outsider within the GOP. A billionaire playboy who spent most of his life embodying the Hugh Hefner’s of the world rather than the Reagan’s and Bush’s. On the other side of the aisle, Sanders a self-declared ‘democratic socialist’ delivered a legitimate challenge to a candidate that had just about been anointed by her party.
Today we live in an era of outsider politics. An era where president’s can be celebrities, long-shots, or even radicals. Where the commonplace old-school politician seems out of place in a time where messages are mobilized on social media and campaigns are becoming evermore digital. We are in a time where policies can be as ambitious as possible and where notions of pragmatism and centrism can be seen as weakness rather than strength.
President Trump proved to the American political establishment that anyone can be President with the right message, even if it goes toe to toe with the party line.
The Democratic primary is conventionally thought to be Vice President Joe Biden’s race to win. Following conventional logic, this makes sense. Biden’s campaign has sought to characterize him as some great unifier who served as the loyal understudy to a democratic hero in President Obama. Joe Biden’s greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. He’s just an old-school politician who wants things to return back to how they used to be..
Biden’s campaign is based on a nostalgia that many would argue does not entirely exist. But in his world it creates a rose tinted lense into a kinder America. It seeks to bring about a restoration of a world of bipartisanship – where Republicans and Democrats could peacefully converse issues over dinner and be friends afterwards.
Where leaders would use pragmatism to bring about the best possible solution for the American public. But even in the Obama-Biden presidency, partisanship reigned supreme and ratcheted up to new heights that we had never seen before. A presidency which largely ushered the current political climate.
Biden is a politician from a different time;
Biden’s democratic opponents are further left than him, and proud of it. On the debate stage they reject the Obama years. Creating a schism between supporters of the former president and critics of him.
Biden’s competitors have embraced the new order of politics and are running with it. They characterize Biden as a Republican-lite, whose ideas are nowhere as ambitious or far-reaching.
Their ideas are not contingent on any collaboration with the Republicans – outsider radical politics are seemingly becoming the new normal. Shouting out to America acceptance of Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, decriminalize the border, abolish ICE, $1,000 dollars a month for every American, eliminate all student debt. The list of outrageous policies is endless.
Joe stands for the return of a different kind of America than his Democratic counterparts. Joe Biden, the current front-runner, seems to be at war with other candidates on the debate stage. Seemingly out of touch with the era of outsider politics, Joe’s biggest hope is that America just wants to go back.