Incumbency in an Anti-Incumbent Age

One of the major issues in the late contretemps over Old Man Biden needing to step away for Harris is the idea of loyalty. Let’s face it, a lot of the strong feelings about him staying among many readers of this blog stem from the idea of loyalty from Democratic partisans who really like Biden. And that’s completely understandable. You all are, after all, part of the base. For that matter, don’t listen to those on the left who claim to be the base and then whine about having to vote for Democrats over the Issue of the Cycle, this year Gaza but there’s always something. Those people might make those claims, but if you have to be convinced to vote for someone, you are very, very much not the base. No, the Democratic base has multiple foundations and the type of middle and upper-middle class white liberal who makes up most of the LGM readership is definitely part of it. So part of the response here is a base response.

Now, our commenter Linnaeus has mentioned on at least a couple of occasions, maybe quite a few, that perhaps we need to rethink this a bit given the anti-incumbent age in which we live. I think this makes a lot of sense. I will leave it to him to elaborate if I have not represented him correctly. In short, do we hurt ourselves by thinking in terms of loyalty given the reality of the American electorate these days? Another way of putting it is this–does incumbency actually help anymore? It certainly does in local and congressional races–for all that everyone hates Congress, they usually like their congresscrtitter and hardly anyone gets primaried ever, for either party. But your everyday low to medium information voters–call them morons if you want–hate everyone and so these days seem to bounce between parties to find someone, anyone, they like better. They might not even have any ideological or political positions driving this, they just hate everyone. Now, this is still a minority of voters for sure. After all, Harris has polled far better than Biden did in almost every state, but we are still mostly looking at a 5-6% jump. So it’s a small minority of voters, but these are the people who decide whether this nation will continue to have democracy. We might not like it–I don’t either–but it is what it is.

In short, I firmly believe that if Harris wins in November, but by the end of 2027, she is pretty unpopular and is losing as badly in the polls against Trump or whatever proto-Trump Republicans nominate, well, can her ass and find someone else. If there’s one thing the DNC showed, it’s that the Democratic bench is in fact very, very deep right now. If voters want different candidates, as has happened at various points in our history, including most of the 19th century after the expansion of suffrage to all white males, then it makes sense to forget about the stability of mid-twentieth century American politics and act accordingly.

Note that I am not completely convinced of this point. But I am convinced that one of the ways that we need to rethink our politics right now–very much including most of you and your undying support for Biden–is to recognize the voters we have and not the voters you are. In short, in our politics, no one cares about policy, no one cares about accomplishments, it’s all a popularity contest for TV. Either adjust or change the voters if you want to win. Adjusting seems far easier.