The Democratic establishment got the candidate it wanted by deploying the narrative that Joe Biden is the “electable” one—the one most likely to beat Donald Trump. But the price Democrats pay for embracing that fictional narrative is high, since it fuels Trump’s re-election, just as it helped him in 2016.
Sadly, a close reading of the electability narrative shows it’s not just untrue, it undermines democracy.
In nonfiction, Biden looks roughly as electable as Hillary Clinton looked four years ago, which is scary. The numbers keep telling us that with Biden as standard-bearer, progressives will be hard-pressed to rally the turnout needed to beat Trump.
The numbers keep telling us that with Biden as standard-bearer, progressives will be hard-pressed to rally the turnout needed to beat Trump.
The horse-race narrative of this and past elections is a made-for-media tale of who will win and why, as told by elites—political elders, party apparatchiks, mercenary consultants, think-tank partisans, and journalists. It’s a story where self-serving guesses get treated as facts and…
