Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Reuters
Christopher Caldwell, The New Republic: The Biden Popular Front Is Doomed to Unravel
It may turn out that Donald Trump was the one force keeping the Democratic Party together.
It’s lucky that votes usually don’t get counted till late at night. Victorious presidential candidates have two audiences to speak to. Their zealous volunteers generally get little reward other than the sense, inculcated over months of battle, that they are fighting to vanquish the forces of evil. On election night, they expect someone to extol their bravery and ruthlessness, and to hold aloft the head of the vanquished foe. It’s preferable if this can be done while the rest of the country is either sleeping or weepily watching its own candidate concede. When, days later, the president-elect pivots to flatter the whole country and extend an olive branch to his rivals, his loyal followers can feel jilted.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: My must read post for today.
IMHO the Democrats are on course to fracture. There are too many conflicting interests, and expectations are high from each group that their concerns will be prioritized. I do not see that happening, and definitely not under Joe Biden. And with Trump gone, who will they focus their animosity now?
A long time reader of this blog told me last week that in this election 30% of the Democrat electoral base made a decision to give the Democrats one more chance to govern. A last hurrah for a party that they have supported for decades but is now ideologically shifting away from them. I thought about that for a few days, and I then asked some of my Democrat friends. They agreed. They wanted Trump gone, but their vote came with a condition. That if the Biden-Harris administration fails .... primarily on the economy .... it would be the straw that broke the camel's back, and they would then desert the party or sit out in future elections.
I am not sure about that 30% percentage. But I do sense that sentiment growing among some of my Democrat friends who voted for Biden in this election and who are now wondering on what will happen next. My guess is that we will know the answers to all of these questions when the midterms arrive in 2022, and the next Presidential election in 2024.
