Joe Biden 2020 campaign megathread v3 (pg 45 - mass-dropout aftermath) (user search)

How Joe Biden Will Float to Victory

Quote

There are two theories of what Democratic voters want right now. We’ve been living through a political moment characterized not just by anger but by an endless scream of reaction and response. Trump’s performance is largely legible as a furious reaction to President Barack Obama; he’s tried, with obsessive zeal, to undo everything his predecessor achieved, from the Iran deal to the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s more original initiatives have been reactive too, driven not by vision but resentment: family separations and the “Muslim ban” reflected the wishes of an embattled white conservative base happy to sacrifice things like human rights, an independent judiciary, and a free press if it could punish and dehumanize immigrants. Whether this rage against minorities is motivated by racism, “economic anxiety,” or some mix of the two is a matter of some debate; what it clarifies—on both sides of the aisle—is that most Americans aren’t content. Quality of life has gone down. One theory of how to respond to all this isn’t reactive but proactive: As the left has observed, income inequality is at an all-time high, corporations pay virtually nothing in taxes, and climate change will only accentuate the crises that currently exist. According to candidates like Warren and Sanders, part of the electorate wants change. Tired of the technocratic centrism that has enriched the 1 percent and slowly eroded the hopes of the rest of the country, voters want a system that actually responds to their needs. Achieving such a system will require enormous energy. Warren’s and Sanders’ agendas require work and engagement. (They also have the potential to transform society.)

The other theory is that people are tired. They’re tired of reacting; they’re tired of change; they’re absolutely sick of engaging, emotionally and practically. They don’t want to be glued to the news anymore. They want to be able to safely tune out. This is the group for which the inert gas candidate has some appeal. Trump’s presidency has, for many Democrats, been an unending emergency that has required voters horrified at his actions to throw everything they can—and it’s not much—against an out-of-control executive. The airport protests after the Muslim ban, the uproar over family separations, the Women’s March all reflected an enormous popular will to stop Trump’s government from doing what it threatened to do. With a government unable or unwilling to check or balance itself, the public has had to go into overdrive and react nonstop: People have had to plug so many leaks in this sinking boat that many simply feel depleted. That the plugging of the leaks isn’t really working only exacerbates the exhaustion.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/joe-biden-democratic-primary-nomination-american-exhaustion.html

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