From 4c400159844b0bf539a9595907708781b2c61114 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dominic Ricottone Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2024 17:34:35 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] New post --- content/posts/democratic_slide.md | 197 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 197 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/posts/democratic_slide.md diff --git a/content/posts/democratic_slide.md b/content/posts/democratic_slide.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2bded61 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/democratic_slide.md @@ -0,0 +1,197 @@ +--- +title: Democratic Slide +date: "2024-07-21T19:09:15+00:00" +draft: false +--- + +President Biden has given up the 2024 presidential race. +At least for now, +the consensus is that Biden's candidacy (and leadership) crisis hit +a turning point in the June 27 debate. +Clearly though, he maintained his candidacy for almost a month thereafter. +I would argue this implies that he himself does not want to give up on the +nomination. + +The question is begged, +how was the president compelled to give up? + +---- + +Some people attribute the decision to donors. + +Many political scientists who study and model U.S. national politics-- +certainly any in the Downs-Fenno-Mayhew family of theories-- +recognize the importance of re-election assets, +and how political actors respond to providers of those assets. + +The public diatribe surrounding money in politics suggests that *belief* in the +power of money over politicians is real. +There's been a series of events or ideas that became foci for outrage. +From the McCain-Feingold Act to the Citizens United v. FEC decision. +From the 527s of yesterday's elections to the SuperPACs of today's. + +Unsurprisingly then, there was no shortage of witty quips after the +[New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/us/politics/biden-democratic-donors-trump.html) +published this little gem: + +> President Biden is not, +> as one major Democratic donor put it, +> subject to a vote by the wealthy. + +Now where do we stand? +Institutions were the defense of the masses against the elite, +and that defense is evidently buckling. + +---- + +Other people attribute the decision to pressure from other Democratic Party +politicians. + +I have to wonder where all these critics were hiding for the last year. +It's not like the Democratic Party is a stranger to chaotic primary seasons. +2016 and 2008 *(which involved Biden no less!)* are the obvious examples. +Biden swept every meaningful contest this year. + +Jason Palmer won American Samoa and for that he will be immortalized in bar +trivia questions. + +The only other candidate that has earned any delegates on the continental U.S. +is Dean Phillips. +*(Wikipedia eagerly tells me he +["is one of the wealthiest members of Congress"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Phillips) +. How curious...)* + +To summarize, +you can't explain variance with a constant; +if the Democratic Party is in revolt, +something has to have changed because they *weren't* a few months ago. + +With that said, +I can't actually disprove the idea. +Backroom politics being in the backroom, after all. +It begs several follow-up questions. + +Like: if we take this theory as given, +why are people celebrating a plainly anti-democratic action? +Biden was elected to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. +More than 14 million people cast ballots for him and Harris as a ticket. +Sadly, this fits into that same theory that institutions are buckling. + +Most importantly, +who stands to benefit from this coup d'etat of the Democratic Party? + +In case you blinked, +as of two weeks ago, +presidents have broad authority and are above the law in every execution of +that authority. +Biden made promises to not use that authority. +Whether he intended to keep those promises or not, +whether his proposals for constitutional changes were serious or superficial, +he clearly didn't use his authority to keep the Democratic Party's nomination. +Will the new nominee have the same demeanor? + +And could there be a link between the timings of the Supreme Court's decision +and and this party takeover? +After years of popular calls to 'pack the court', +Biden's lukewarm call for ethics reforms certainly aren't prompting a +counter-revolution. +So if there is any correlation, +I'm afraid it's part of the same trend towards autocracy. + +---- + +Other people attribute the decision to popular opinion. + +There's a major caveat needed to such a theory: +Joe Biden has already won a presidential election at the top of a ticket, +and won twice before that as VP nominee. +There literally is *no one else* with those qualifications and a beating heart. + +Not to mention all the Democratic Party primaries for the presidency, +and all the primaries and elections from his 36 years serving Delaware as +senator. +([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_United_States_Senate_election_in_Delaware) +includes a quote from *Current Biography* noting that just months +ahead of the 1972 senatorial election, +Biden trailed J. Caleb Boggs in head-to-head public polling by 30 points.) + +There's another major caveat needed: +Much like the DNC nomination process, +the electoral college is not a direct democracy. +Within my **lifetime**, +a Republican nominee for president has won the support of a majority only once. +George W. Bush, in 2004, beat John Kerry with a margin of about 2.4 percent. +He was the incumbent and was leading a *(vague)* war effort and was overseeing a +strong *(not for long!)* economy. +And yet I have lived through more than 4 years of Republican presidential +administrations. + +But let's examine the idea. +First, by putting things into perspective. +Trump's approval ratings peaked at 49% and, +at the end of his term, +stood at 34%. +(See +[Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx).) +Biden's standing at 38% currently and has varied between 37% and 57%. +(See +[Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/329384/presidential-approval-ratings-joe-biden.aspx) +for the numbers, +or +[538](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/) +for a neat and similar chart.) +It's not a *great* number but it doesn't have to *be* great; +it just has to be *better*. +But maybe modern American politics is going be characterized by presidents +becoming more popular after they leave office. +This phenomena certainly seems to have touched on Bush and Barack Obama. +The natural consequence is that, +in a couple years, +the Democratic Party is going to look very silly for having axed an +increasingly popular Biden. + +There's also head-to-head public polling. +[538](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/) +has an aggregated average 43.5% to 40.2% for Trump. +[RCP](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-biden) +has 47.7% to 44.7% for Trump. +There seems to be ample evidence for an about 3 percent lead for Trump. +We ought to bear in mind that there are 3+ months before the election, +with which ads will be run and speeches will be made and GOTV campaigns will be +launched; +and the Republican National Convention has just concluded with much fanfare +following an attempted assassination; +and the Democratic National Convention is weeks away still. + +That leads neatly into my biggest gripe with this theory. +After all the strife about the superdelegate system in the 2016 convention, +we are headed into the 1968 convention. +We have tossed the only institution that let popular opinion dictate whose +names are on the ballot. +Is *that* what people mean by popular opinion causing Biden's decision? + +---- + +Nothing happens in a bubble. +There's no doubt that Trump's Republican Party has challenged our democratic +institutions. +We really can't afford the same populism from the Democratic Party at once. +But I don't have a reason to believe that one party or the other is +'fundamentally' more resistant to democratic slide. +On the contrary, +I expect preferences for autocracy to form around the foundations of democracy +*(i.e., who stands to benefit from those foundations crumbling?)* +rather than any true demographic, ideological, or socioeconomic cleavages. + +---- + +For all the reporting about crime and violence, +I do not find Chicago to be a dangerous city. + +*(I suppose I am thus predisposed to doubt all the reporting about Joe Biden's +age.)* + +But it seems we're racing back to Chicago's 1968 DNC and, +wow!, +I wish I wasn't in the front row seat. + -- 2.43.4