[Dems’ are settling on the same playbook: shifting right,
crushing a primary, and hoping demoralized voters are repulsed by the
GOP]
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DEMS’ OLD FORMULA IS A BIG 2024 RISK  
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David Sirota
May 10, 2023
The Lever
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_ Dems’ are settling on the same playbook: shifting right, crushing
a primary, and hoping demoralized voters are repulsed by the GOP _

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The Democratic Party’s political class has developed a rote formula
over the last decade: ignore rather than channel discontent among the
party’s rank-and-file voters, prevent competitive primaries where
those voters can act on their dissatisfaction, and then hope to eke
out general election victories on a wave of voter disgust with the
Republican Party’s freakshow nominees.

This isn’t just a fleeting tactic. This is now The Formula Of
Democratic Politics™, one with mixed results. In 2016, Senate
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly bragged
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The Formula would result in flipping enough moderate voters to secure
a victory, just before The Formula’s epic failure handed Donald
Trump the presidency.

Four years later, though, The Formula seemed to work — Democrats
united to quash the primary against the quasi-incumbent Joe Biden, and
Trump’s horrific first term allowed Biden to eke out a win with a
flaccid campaign based on a meaningless platitude
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“the soul of America.”

Now Democrats seem intent on using The Formula again — only this
time, it’s even more risky because this is not a race against a
sitting Republican president. In 2024, Biden is the incumbent playing
defense, and data suggest that there’s not much enthusiasm for his
reelection campaign, even among his own party.

A stat from _The Washington Post_
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this larger problem: “Biden has less support for renomination among
Democrats than Trump, Obama, and Clinton had from their parties,”
the newspaper reports, noting that surveys show just 38 percent of
Democrats want Biden to be the party’s nominee in 2024.
CNN’s polling
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that right now, just one third of Americans believe Biden deserves to
be reelected — lower than where Trump was at around this stage of
his first term.

If there was a healthy democratic culture among the Democratic
Party’s political class, the response to the prospect of depressed
voter enthusiasm
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be a serious primary challenge. There might be a traditional top-tier
candidate — maybe a senator, a governor, or even a member of the
House — who is both ambitious enough to run for president and
worried enough about a Biden failure in a general election against
Trump.

Such a primary would serve the additional benefit of testing Biden’s
own reelection viability, and making sure he can handle the rigors of
a campaign before he’s already the nominee.

But that hasn’t happened. The response has been The Formula.

First, Biden and Democratic leaders have rejected
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FDR strategy of winning elections by making a show of delivering for
the working class. They have instead made a show of putting their
boots in the eye of dissatisfied voters as a way to brandish their
“centrist” (read: corporate) credentials.

After a very good American Rescue Plan momentarily helped millions of
people and boosted
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standing among voters, Democrats cut off pandemic aid
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up taxes on the working class
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out a rail strike
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fossil fuel drilling
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the climate emergency, demagogued the crime issue
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and reappointed
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Federal Reserve chair 
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while abandoning the minimum wage
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care
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they made in 2020. And then they spiked the football by bailing out
Silicon Valley Bank tech moguls
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the government moved to force up to 15 million people off Medicaid
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With voters now understandably ticked off, here comes The Formula’s
primary-crushing phase.

There was the decision to move
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first Democratic presidential primary to South Carolina — a
state widely seen
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a place where the party machine has the best chance to control the
outcome against insurgent candidates.

More recently, there’s the effort to shut down the discourse: Though
a Fox News survey shows 28 percent
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Democrats already saying they will vote against Biden in a primary
contest, _The Washington Post_
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“The national Democratic Party has said it will support Biden’s
reelection, and it has no plans to sponsor primary debates.”

So far, this phase of The Formula has been successful. Though Marianne
Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are promising primary
challenges, no elected official in the party seems willing to
vigorously support even the concept of a primary, much less run in
one.

No doubt, every Democratic officeholder is deterred by the cautionary
tale of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) being shamed
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having committed the crime of momentarily considering a primary
challenge to Obama while the incumbent was bailing out banks amid the
foreclosure meltdown. For his part, Sanders provided
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early Biden reelection endorsement, not even holding out for any
policy concessions.

So far, this part of The Formula has been successful in manufacturing
a sense of inevitability and creating the illusion that there is no
other path – even if voters might want one. As _The Washington
Post_’s
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put it: “Democrats reluctant about Biden 2024, but they see no other
choice.” Or as Sanders told
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about his Biden endorsement: “I don’t think one has many
alternatives here.”

Assuming Biden is the nominee, The Formula’s final phase will likely
be anchored in Schumer’s 2016 assumption. Democrats will presume
that come general election time, disgust with the Republican nominee
will cure all the discontent, demoralization, and disillusionment sown
by a feeble left-punching incumbent and by the party’s heavy-handed
primary suppression tactics.

Maybe that’s what ends up happening. Maybe voters will see the
Republican nominee as so flagrantly grotesque that Biden will get four
more years. But there’s mounting evidence
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the opposite could happen, and that 2024 could be more like 2016 than
2020.

That’s hardly surprising. As freakish as Republican politicians are,
Democrats’ formula may not be sustainable over the long haul. There
may be only so long that a party can ignore and suppress mass
discontent and then just hope the other party’s extremism generates
revulsion.

As FDR once warned
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“The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever
while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.”

_The Lever, formerly known as The Daily Poster, is a
reader-supported investigative news outlet that holds accountable the
people and corporations manipulating the levers of power. The
organization was founded by owner David Sirota, an award-winning
journalist and Oscar-nominated writer who served as the presidential
campaign speechwriter for Bernie Sanders.  _

_To paraphrase Archimedes: We believe that with a strong enough lever,
we can help move the world. SUBSCRIBE TO THE LEVER HERE.
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