{"id":29686,"date":"2023-11-07T12:02:28","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T20:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=29686"},"modified":"2023-11-07T12:02:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T20:02:29","slug":"democratic-establishment-seems-ready-to-lose-with-biden-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/11\/07\/democratic-establishment-seems-ready-to-lose-with-biden-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic Establishment Seems Ready to Lose With Biden in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"President<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

President Joe Biden delivers remarks in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 15, 2021 in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo: Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks as though there is only one scenario that offers hope for November 2024: the increasingly unpopular Democratic president announces in the coming weeks that he won\u2019t seek reelection.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

JEFF COHEN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nov 06, 2023 Common Dreams<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you get your news from Biden-protecting outlets (MSNBC is just the most extreme of many), you\u2019ve been warned daily that the Trump movement is preparing to steal the 2024 election. It\u2019s a totally legitimate worry \u2013 given that MAGA forces nearly stole the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s another totally legitimate worry that Biden-friendly media don\u2019t like to discuss \u2013 that Joe Biden is such a weak candidate, he\u2019s likely to lose a fair-and-square election in 2024. And likely to lose<\/a> even to the discredited, unstable, repeatedly indicted Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times<\/em>\/Sienna College poll of registered voters<\/a> released Sunday should cause alarm: Biden is trailing Trump in head-to-head match-ups in five of the six most crucial battlegrounds states \u2013 all of which Biden won in 2020. The president trails Trump in Nevada by more than 10 points. He trails Trump in Georgia by six points, in Arizona and Michigan by five points, and in Pennsylvania by four points. (Only in Wisconsin does Biden lead, and that\u2019s by only two points.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your news diet is provided by MSNBC<\/a> or other pro-Biden corporate outlets, you may have heard Biden likened to the second coming of FDR, a savior to the working classes. That\u2019s not how the working classes see him. They see him as economically ineffectual, especially in dealing with inflation<\/a>. \u201cBidenomics\u201d may be a success story in the studios of MSNBC or CNN or NPR; it\u2019s not seen that way by the voting masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cnot-as-bad-as-Trump\u201d pitch is obviously not satisfying many Democratic-leaning voters and activists, especially young progressives who are angry with Biden over Gaza civilian deaths and other failings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fairness to Biden-allied media, many of those who voted for Biden in 2020 \u2013 but now tell pollsters they won\u2019t do so in 2024 \u2013 are \u201clow-information voters.\u201d While some are misinformed by right-wing outlets, most don\u2019t pay close attention to news or politics. You can tell that from the ill-informed quotes they gave to the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in my view, the new poll actually understates the problems for Biden. The president has lost many of the activists who are needed to inform the ill-informed, to organize get-out-the-vote campaigns and mobilize occasional voters. These activists are often highly informed. Indeed, they are so well-informed that they know all too well about Biden\u2019s policy reversals<\/a> and broken promises<\/a>. For example, thousands of climate activists mobilized in swing states to help Biden defeat Trump in 2020. Will they in 2024<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As civilians in Gaza are being massacred day after day, Biden\u2019s one-sided \u201cI stand with Israel\u201d policy is losing him countless young activists and racial justice organizers<\/a> who mobilized for him against Trump in 2020. In Michigan<\/a> and other swing states, Arab<\/a> and Muslim activists<\/a> who detest Trump have said they won\u2019t vote<\/a> for Biden, let alone mobilize for him<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me be clear about my own position: On every issue where Biden\u2019s policies are mediocre (like on climate or the corporate greed<\/a> that has fed inflation) or awful (like Israel-Palestine), Trump\u2019s policies are even worse. Far worse. That\u2019s not debatable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the \u201cnot-as-bad-as-Trump\u201d pitch is obviously not satisfying many Democratic-leaning voters and activists, especially young progressives who are angry with Biden over Gaza civilian deaths and other failings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As my RootsAction colleagues and I have been pointing out for the last year via the Don’t Run Joe and then Step Aside Joe <\/a>campaign, there\u2019s a major split between Democratic Party leaders and donors on the one hand, and Democratic voters on the other. Polls have long shown that the Democratic base does not want Biden to run in 2024. But Democratic leaders and officials<\/a> have ignored the party\u2019s core constituencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the big donors<\/a> who\u2019ve funded Biden for years<\/a> (some of whom donate to both parties), they\u2019d rather lose with Joe than risk the election of a change-oriented Democrat they don\u2019t know well or can\u2019t control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is only one scenario that offers hope for November 2024: the increasingly unpopular Joe Biden announces in the coming weeks that he won\u2019t be seeking reelection (President Johnson took that step in March 1968). This would lead to a wide-open primary process<\/a> featuring competition between Vice President Harris (with approval levels even lower than Biden\u2019s<\/a>) and various senators, Congress members, governors and activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an open primary process, the activist base of the party\u2014which is more progressive than the party leadership on every issue from racial justice and economics to climate and foreign policy\u2014could exert its influence and make demands on the candidates. For example: given that most activist Democrats don\u2019t believe \u201cself-defense\u201d justifies the day-in day-out massacre of Palestinian civilians, there\u2019s a real possibility that the winning Democrat would have a more even-handed approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s needed is a democratic and transparent primary process. Such a process could enable the party to unify and rally behind a Democratic nominee who is capable of soundly defeating Trump and Trumpism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JEFF COHEN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Cohen is an activist and author. Cohen was an associate professor of journalism and the director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, founder of the media watch group FAIR, and former board member of Progressive Democrats of America. In 2002, he was a producer and pundit at MSNBC. He is the author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media” – and a co-founder of the online action group, www.RootsAction.org. His website is jeffcohen.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Joe Biden delivers remarks in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 15, 2021 in Washington, D.C. \u00a0(Photo: Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images) It looks as though there is only one scenario that offers hope for November 2024: the increasingly unpopular Democratic president announces in the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29687,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29686\/revisions\/29687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}