“Why the ‘Wokest’ Candidates Are the Weakest.”
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie mildly chided me this week in his piece, titled “Why the ‘Wokest’ Candidates Are the Weakest.”
Pointing to a column I wrote back in April, warning Democrats that they were too “woke” for their own electoral good, Bouie writes: “If this were actually true, you would expect real traction for the wokest candidates in the Democratic presidential race. But it’s been just the opposite. The woke candidates have been the weakest, electorally speaking, and the defining attribute of the Democratic primary has been a preoccupation with the voters that put Trump in the White House.”
Sitting here in December of 2019, Bouie looks to be absolutely correct. Despite many stumbles, Joe Biden (who, in today’s Democratic Party, passes for a moderate) retains his front-runner status. Moreover, as progressive Elizabeth Warren has faded, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (who has, in recent months, moved to the center), appears to be surging. For now, at least, it looks like the Democratic Party will avoid nominating someone whose politics is too far left to at least have a shot at winning the electoral college.
Still, pride insists that I add a couple caveats to this story. (Why have an email newsletter if you can’t use it to seek revenge--or, at least, set the record straight?)
First, it is at least possible that pearl-clutching essays and commentary (such as yours truly) actually served their purpose. Maybe they played some small role in persuading Democrats to avoid going down this fraught route?
Second, after I wrote my warning to Democrats, their primary election candidates did, in fact, do what I feared. Democrats spent the first several debates trying to go to the radical left.
Early 2020 debates featured unanimous and unfettered support for abortion (including for a "trans female"), support for decriminalizing border crossings, calls for 'mandatory' gun buybacks, lots of talk about “Medicare for All,” and lots of candidates blatantly pandering to Spanish-language viewers.
The good news, as Bouie points out, is that it didn’t work.
This, of course, is something to celebrate.
In truth, we have long known that there was a significant gap between the progressives on “woke” Twitter and the rank-and-file Democratic base.
My fear has always been that the former would eventually drive the latter. Thankfully, that did not come true. Democratic voters, it turns out, are much more sane, moderate, pragmatic, and stubborn than many of us suspected.
In this regard, I am happy to have “misnunderestimated” them. I hope they continue to surprise me.
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