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- Stuck in the Past
I’d missed this excellent Oliver Willis post about how the Democratic Party needs to stop relying on white, male, out-of-touch Clinton or Obama advisors whose best days are long behind them:
We can argue the relative merits of the Clinton and Obama presidencies (as well as Biden’s term, which in ways was Obama 3) but what is clear is that they are the past. The way politics operates now is significantly different from 2008, let alone 1992 – but Democrats keep listening to the people who coached during the leather helmet era of American politics.
And who are we really listening to here? Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama were completely inept bumpkin politicians who couldn’t get elected without their Svengali political teams. In fact, both men are among the most naturally talented political minds in American history and two of this country’s best orators. Operating like Axelrod or Carville or their extended political orbit had some secret sauce and now has the winning playbook for future victories makes as much sense as turning to Tom Brady’s water boy for advice on winning the Super Bowl.
The whole piece is worth your time.
One of the tools of opposition in a two-party democracy is the ruling power’s fear that what they’re doing to the other party will be visited upon them after the next election. Democrats are not leveraging this fear, and it’s in part because we’ve gotten to a place where we’re expected to clean up and shut up about it when we get into power. We’re the “adults in the room.” “When they go low, we go high.”
If the party that listens to Carville and Axelrod gets back into office in 2028, nothing will change. Republicans will use the same tools that they always have to make sure nothing good happens when Democrats are around. Then the politically unengaged voters will vote, once again, for the other guy.
Aimee Mann knows what I’m talking about. Open thread.
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