I don’t think a primary would have weakened Biden, but I also don’t think a viable candidate could have challenged Biden. Sitting presidents don’t face legitimate primary challengers.
The New Hampshire thing is a stupid DNC machination. They don’t want New Hampshire to be first anymore, and New Hampshire still wants to be first. That’s not Biden rigging the election, that’s just oligarchs playing chicken with human rights.
I’d love to see a barnstorming Biden go fifty states with a message of hope and progress. Biden ain’t that guy, and he wasn’t that guy when he was 20.years younger, he either. But he is the incumbent, and no serious Democrat is going to risk the ire of the party by challenging the person who is ostensibly the party leader. They won’t raise money, they won’t have volunteers, and they won’t get any pork or committee assignments. It’s just bad politics.
I agree with you, I think an actual primary would be good. But I’m no longer naive enough to think it might happen.
Why can’t we ask better of a party that wants our votes, money, and volunteer hours? Post-2016, the DNC has the weirdest possible relationship with its voters, leaning REAL hard into the “Well, it’s us or Comcast” of the whole party duopoly system, and is only made them electorally weaker. The GOP is running a man with 40% approval defending Dobbs, which cuts 60+/40- our way. That we’re not looking at a UK this year-style electoral massacre is an indictment of the DNC, and how the state recognized duopoly system squashes real democracy.
Bill Clinton and Obama were better at not specifically going out of their way to make a show of antagonizing their own base (with the exception of Sista Souljah). Hillary and Biden (especially Biden surrogates like Simone Sanders and Jen Psaki and Karine Jean Pierre) you can SEE the contempt just DRIP off of them. It’s insulting, and it’s going to cost them volunteers and donations, even if most of those voters are in one party DNC rule states they overtly take for granted. There’s a reason why the dems lost the house in 2022 basically entirely in the NYC metro area.
I don’t think a primary would have weakened Biden, but I also don’t think a viable candidate could have challenged Biden. Sitting presidents don’t face legitimate primary challengers.
The New Hampshire thing is a stupid DNC machination. They don’t want New Hampshire to be first anymore, and New Hampshire still wants to be first. That’s not Biden rigging the election, that’s just oligarchs playing chicken with human rights.
I’d love to see a barnstorming Biden go fifty states with a message of hope and progress. Biden ain’t that guy, and he wasn’t that guy when he was 20.years younger, he either. But he is the incumbent, and no serious Democrat is going to risk the ire of the party by challenging the person who is ostensibly the party leader. They won’t raise money, they won’t have volunteers, and they won’t get any pork or committee assignments. It’s just bad politics.
I agree with you, I think an actual primary would be good. But I’m no longer naive enough to think it might happen.
Why can’t we ask better of a party that wants our votes, money, and volunteer hours? Post-2016, the DNC has the weirdest possible relationship with its voters, leaning REAL hard into the “Well, it’s us or Comcast” of the whole party duopoly system, and is only made them electorally weaker. The GOP is running a man with 40% approval defending Dobbs, which cuts 60+/40- our way. That we’re not looking at a UK this year-style electoral massacre is an indictment of the DNC, and how the state recognized duopoly system squashes real democracy.
We can ask better, and you must be very young if you think this started in 2016.
But we also have to play the hand we’re dealt.
Bill Clinton and Obama were better at not specifically going out of their way to make a show of antagonizing their own base (with the exception of Sista Souljah). Hillary and Biden (especially Biden surrogates like Simone Sanders and Jen Psaki and Karine Jean Pierre) you can SEE the contempt just DRIP off of them. It’s insulting, and it’s going to cost them volunteers and donations, even if most of those voters are in one party DNC rule states they overtly take for granted. There’s a reason why the dems lost the house in 2022 basically entirely in the NYC metro area.