Nowhere Girl
The leadership, donors, and consultant class of the national Democratic Party see themselves as part of a white ruling elite with Republicans and the centrist "intelligentsia," and they don't care about social or economic progress for anyone outside that group and a halo of white middle class center-right voters except as absolutely necessary for social stability.
They're still better than Republicans, who would murder half of us given the chance, but that's not saying much.
Nowhere Girl
I mention this because a lot of apparently self-defeating Democratic behavior makes sense when you realize they aren't trying to maximize their election chances and they don't feel obligated to win over anyone outside of that bubble.
They are not even greatly concerned about Trump. Most of them will be perfectly fine one way or another, insulated by whiteness and wealth.
Nowhere Girl
Like, the biggest difference between Biden and other stock national Democratic figures is he's affectionate for white male blue collar workers and their unions, who constitute a trivial number of American workers, mainly out of nostalgia and a Democratic version of white populism. The guy likes trains! It's one his few positive traits.
Nowhere Girl
The halo of white middle class and more affluent voters are the national party's primary boosters because they have a one-way parasocial relationship with the leadership owing mostly to shared whiteness and conservatism, which they nonetheless consider very liberal compared to their closest white peers.
Nowhere Girl
That said, they're aware of their relative precarity and consider stopping Trump and the GOP a matter of some urgency, mostly as self-interest but also because Trump being president is obviously offensive. They're bad advocates for the party, however, because their "I got mine, suck it up" and "do as you're told" attitude rubs everyone else the wrong way.
It's easy to have a glowing opinion of Biden and Democrats when you don't need them for anything.
Nowhere Girl
To be fair, they're following the party's lead as national Democrats generally adopt a "you can't make us" attitude toward anything and anyone more liberal than say, Mitt Romney.
They tend to be fans of centrist status quo media like the NYT or Atlantic or Washington Post, expressing only disappointment and confusion with their both sides coverage and anti-anti-Trump opinion making.
But the rest of it? The anti-trans stuff? That's fine. Gotta ask the hard questions!
Nowhere Girl
There's a wide cultural gap between Democrats' preferred voters, who are generally white, well off, think the party is doing fine, and see themselves and the party as more liberal / progressive than they actually are, and the much larger number of likely or potential Democratic voters, who are younger, more diverse, more vulnerable to right-wing attacks, more financially precarious, and more liberal / progressive / leftist because of it.
Nowhere Girl
The problem is Democrats and their boosters feel entitled to the latter group's votes without having to give them anything and rely on the bogeyman of Trump and the GOP to threaten them into going along with it.
And for the most part, people do.
But when Democrats themselves willfully do horrible things like materially supporting genocide, the "lesser evil" equation starts to break down in the minds of potential voters, especially when the party treats them with contempt for disagreeing.
Nowhere Girl
And those rifts are dredging up decades old criticisms and resentment of the Democratic Party for its racist support of cops and mass incarceration, its failure to protect abortion rights, and its wishy-washy attitude in general toward civil rights and economic justice, where Democrats have long preferred to punt issues to the courts, only the SCOTUS is now a corrupt, far right captured institution -- which Democrats nonetheless insist on supporting.
Nowhere Girl
At the national level, Democrats don't have anyone capable of bridging that gap, not even to paper over the cracks, who isn't already seen as complicit.
There are no stellar Democratic politicians I'm aware of waiting in the wings to offer charismatic new leadership, none who would be allowed to do so anyway, because the party has pushed them to the margins, keeping the same basic conservative leadership in power for multiple decades now.
Nowhere Girl
Democrats have long understood that turnout and enthusiasm helps them, but the Biden era has seen a curious disregard for that approach in favor of "you don't have a choice."
National Democrats, often contrary to their state level colleagues, can barely be arsed to talk about abortion rights even though it's a galvanizing issue that has pulled several electoral rabbits out of hats already.
Mostly because they're conservative and don't want to do it.
Nowhere Girl
Likewise, the Biden led "you can't stop us from supporting genocide" caucus is doing potentially irreparable damage to Democratic election chances, but they simply don't seem to care. They don't even seem to consider bombing, starving, and dismembering Palestinian women and children to be a moral problem.
They're the ones gambling with the country's future, not people who expect better from "the good guys."
cognitively accessible math
@gwynnion probably not true for quite as many of them as believe it, though.
Nowhere Girl
@geonz It's kind of amazing how a right-wing extremist attacking the Pelosis at home barely had any effect on their politics.
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