Guest post: Cultivate the garden
Originally a comment by Artymorty on How it happened.
One of the reasons Biden won in 2020 is that the Democrats had not cultivated any good alternatives to him.
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris. None of them looked like reasonable choices for President to me, and surely to many other Americans, too. I’m all for youthful “energetic grassroots” lefty mojo, but at the Presidential level, I want nation-leadership and world-leadership qualities, too. Big-picture compromise, shrewdness in global geopolitics, that kind of thing. Especially so, as progressivism has begun spiralling into absurd extremism at home, and the threats from abroad have gotten more severe.
The Dems have had four years to start building up-and-coming talent, and they’ve come up with bupkis.
They should take some cues from the entertainment world. The Hollywood system plants fresh crops of future A-listers years in advance. For example, I used to be roommates with a young actress, who was then relatively unknown, who seemed to know that she was going to be on the cover of certain magazines years in advance, based apparently on contracts for films that had not yet even completed production.
Sure enough, two or three years later, a batch of films in which she was the star came out, the Vanity Fair and Vogue and Elle and Interview covers came true, and she was even a presenter at the Oscars. (She’s since gone on to become an Oscar, Tony, and BAFTA nominee, too. She’s a major movie star.)
Actors compete fiercely with each other for coveted roles in films, but the industry as a whole still manages to come together to bring new talent into the fold, for the sake of the industry overall, to prevent existing stars hoarding all the good parts, leaving the well of new stars to run dry.
The Dems have not learned how to balance the competition between politicians in their stable with fostering a system of bringing in new talent. They’re overly reliant on dynastic politics instead — Clintons, Kennedys, Bidens, etc. Trusted names over fresh new faces. Everyone’s loyal to their tribe.
I think that part of the problem is that people who vote in Democratic primaries (many but not all of whom would consider themselves Democrats) have placed a great priority on the concept of small-d democratic elections in the primaries, and the Party has catered to this demand. The “Democratic establishment” is considered the enemy, instead of being considered simply the people managing the Party. Attempts to develop candidates are derided as “establishment interference”, while outsiders are praised. They can’t do both of these things simultaneously, be broadly “democratic” while also trying to cultivate candidates.
I concur with you, generally, though I would’ve voted for Warren in a heartbeat if she’d made it far enough in the primary for me to do so. I think the leadership balked at trying to pitch another woman after Hillary lost to Trump, and ignored that Hillary was a uniquely flawed candidate (infinitely better than Trump, but with both external and self-inflicted baggage that made her far easier to tear down).
I am so, so tired of hearing the “Hillary was a uniquely flawed candidate”. She was not, but like all of us, she had some flaws that were built up into huge wrongnesses. Her flaws were far from unique; they are characteristics many male candidates also possess, and many of them were seen as strengths in males. Yes, she came across smart and skilled and not always warm. So WTF? Why should anyone have to be warm? Trump certainly isn’t.
As for losing to Trump – I would like to remind everyone she won the popular vote, and by a fairly good margin. She got more votes than any candidate in history, with the exception of Obama. Biden beat her votes in 2020, but at the time of the 2016 election, she showed she was not in fact uniquely flawed.
Our system is uniquely flawed, that’s the problem. If we inaugurated the candidate the voters wanted, Hillary would have been our 45th president. Of course, Gore would have been our 43rd. People also referred to him as uniquely flawed. They referred to Kerry as uniquely flawed. Seriously? All you have to do to be considered uniquely flawed is to run for president with a (D) after your name and lose.
Democrats continue to select candidates who are more qualified than their opponent (perhaps not with Romney and Obama). They lose when they do that. They only win with charisma, or when the (R) is so awful people definitely want them out.
This suggests the flaw is in the electorate, that they will vote for celebrity over competence, they will vote for division over unity, they will vote for people starving over finding ways to feed them…I could go on for a long time. I think the basket of deplorables is bigger than Hillary will admit (and yes, I admit that lost her some votes. Telling the truth almost always does).