From PoliticusUSA:
Democratic Megadonors Get A Reality Check
These are not the kind of checks that the richest donor Democrats are used to seeing.
Something has always been off with the effort to oust President Biden. It wasn’t like everyone woke up the day after the debate and realized that Joe Biden is 81 years old. There was no plot to hide the fact that Biden is an elder, which is why if the monied class within the Democratic Party was worried about Biden’s age, it was odd that they didn’t do something about it before the 2024 primary.
The wealthy Democratic donors could have funded a legitimate primary challenger to President Biden, forced primary debates, and given voters a real choice.
I am a big believer in incumbent presidents being primaried. A primary helps presidents shift back from governing mode to candidate mode. A good primary gets the rust off, and any issues with the incumbent are seen and addressed before the general election campaign.
If there were concerns about Biden, the time to act was last year, not when voters will begin to cast their ballots in two months.
Since the debate, wealthy Democratic megadonors have decided to throw weight around, but they are being hit with reality.
The New York Times reported:
For all their riches and ambitions, many Democratic contributors and their big-money advisers have become resigned to the notion that their influence is fairly limited, and are trying not to be naïve. A sense of powerlessness pervades.
After all, Mr. Biden is not, as one major Democratic donor put it, subject to a vote by the wealthy. And he and his team have bristled against wealthy “elites” who are trying to force him out of a Democratic nomination that he won democratically, heightening concerns from major donors who are already nervous about their efforts backfiring if they are seen as bullies.
Megadonors are very wealthy people who are used to being in charge, but they have found that their power is limited in this situation.
Read on, and we’ll discuss who has the real power over Biden’s candidacy.
Democratic Voters Have The Real Power To Determine Biden’s Fate
As we discussed in Friday’s newsletter, the donors have been pressuring Democratic candidates to call for Biden to step aside. This is why most of the members of Congress who are calling on Biden to go are in the House.
There is a reason why you aren’t seeing statements from state and local Democratic parties calling on Biden to step aside. The local and state organizations aren’t being flooded with voters demanding that Biden leave the race.
The Pass The Torch PAC tried to stage a protest at the White House that was sparsely attended, and the latest YouGov poll found that 56% of Democrats want Biden to stay in the race,
All of these elements are what make this problem that the big donors created so difficult to solve. Presumably, if President Biden would decide to step aside, a majority of Democratic voters will be unhappy.
Will those demoralized and unhappy Democrats still show up to support Democratic candidates?
Who knows.
In an election where the stakes are freedom and democracy, who knows is not a good enough answer.
Democrats were never going to blow out Trump in 2024. This election was always going to be close, because Donald Trump’s voters won’t be moved away from him by anything.
Since this election is a rematch of four years ago, it has always shaped up to be a base election with lower turnout than 2020. If this is the case, the dumbest thing that a political party could do is alienate its base with a self-inflicted wound.
President Biden has the advantage of already having enough delegates to be the nominee, and a process in place to win the nomination.
The megadonors in the Democratic Party learned too late that they have the dollars, but the base has the votes. Elections are’t decided with cash. They are won with votes. The power is with the people, and if a majority of Democrats want Joe Biden as their nominee, and no amount of rich person spending may be able to buy the Democratic presidential nomination.
TC note: the “Democratic elites” have been the problem ever since 1968. They sandbagged McGovern in 1972. They’ve been just fine with “Reaganomics” for the past 45 years as they got richer and the rest of us got screwed. Screw them! Show them we don’t need them. Grassroots organizing to get out the vote is more effective than all their bullshit. They figure they;’ll just fly off to their villas on Lake Como (like Clooney) when Trump is re-elected and starts dismantling the republic.
And then bring back the 90% marginal tax rate on income over $1 million per year (and count investment income as income). We did a lot of things back when the rate was that high under the “communist” Dwight Eisenhower we can’t do now.
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Great analysis. The power bosses went overboard. Obama showed no empathy. Garland was timid as a mouse. Remember when Hillary was inevitable until she wasn't. The pros don't seem very professional. Or grateful. And they seem very short sighted. And they should never have publicized their dirty laundry. Imho.
Amen. You explained a bit why some of the politicians are being idiots - they are being pressured by large donors. I will probably never understand why the large donors are being idiots, unless they actually prefer Trump to Biden, in which case why are they Democrats?