Democrats seem to be always hungering for criticism of their fellow legislators.
It seems that Kamela Harris’s media coverage, she’s not merely mismanaging an apparently restless, frustrated staff. She’s bursting into flames and incinerating everything in her midst, including Democrats’ hopes of holding on to the White House in 2024.
And word of Joe Biden is just as bad. His low approval ratings give way murmur by Democrats in the media that he’s in dire political straits .
It is true that Biden could be trapped between the left wing that has messed up the party’s image and centrists unable to conceive of their job in any terms except their business donors.
And it has done so noisily, its internal discontents as public as can be.
Democrats have never possessed Republicans’ talent for unity. But the stakes are high would would imperil democracy itself.
The leaders of the Republican Party and Donald Trump are attempting to destroy the foundations of American democracy. This must be stated clearly, and repeatedly.
As I have said before, the media is drawn to, and amplifies, Biden’s failures.
The country is in an existential struggle between self-governance and an authoritarian alternative. And the news media have given equal, if not slightly more favorable, treatment to the authoritarians.”
Such self-examination and self-criticism are healthy to a point. And Democratic pessimism isn’t unfounded: Polls show real frustration and impatience among Americans, who reliably pin the blame on whoever is in charge. Additionally, the party’s loss in the Virginia governor’s race — and the implications of that — can’t be ignored.
But we are in danger if some Democratic politicians’ refusal to compromise and come together. None of the ideological rifts within the party matter as much as what the current crop of Republicans might do if given the chance.
So enough about Biden’s age, about Harris’s unpopularity, about the impossibility of figuring out precisely the right note of Omicron caution.
It will be scarier still if Democrats can’t successfully project cooperation, confidence and hope.