I subscribe to the Washington Post despite having serious problems with how their editors choose stories and frame current events in ways that favor Republican talking points.
WaPo’s opinion pages rankle far too often. But the Post has made efforts to expand its opinion voices toward younger, less clubby writers, and Perry Bacon Jr. is one of the best among them.
His latest column takes on the often out-of-touch, sclerotic Democrats and the many ways they continue to fail while the Republican political long game has been ascendant:
To be sure, inflation, the obstinacy of Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and the Republicans themselves have caused most of those problems. But the Democratic Party’s leaders have made constant blunders along the way. Most fundamentally, they have not adjusted to how politics is increasingly fought online, in state capitols and in other venues outside of Washington where Republicans are notching many of their victories. And while Republicans are attacking America’s democratic system itself, Democratic leaders and their allies are deeply invested in a far-less important cause: defeating candidates associated with star progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) in Democratic primaries in heavily liberal districts.
But the problem runs deeper than the past 18 months.
…
Pelosi, Biden and other Democratic leaders of course don’t sit on the Supreme Court or in state legislatures. But too many of them have been major players in the party over the past two decades as it has failed to create an apparatus of media, think tanks and other institutions to rival what exists on the right. They have been deeply involved in bland Democratic campaigns and candidates who often lose key races to Republicans, even as the GOP has much less popular policy goals.
I still believe that if you are down to the general election and your choice is between a so-so Democrat and any Republican, you would be stupid — as we have all learned so painfully — to not see the election of the Democrat as your only logical best choice.
But the Democrats can and should do better, and until that binary choice arrives, we need to point this out forcefully.
You can read the rest here.