'Joe Biden dug two big holes on Super Tuesday and each of them came with a name attached'
is a column by POLITICO founding editor John Harris, offering weekly perspective on politics in a moment of radical disruption.
Biden summoned high turnout from precisely the diverse constituencies of African Americans, suburbanites, working-class and older voters that another aging pol more at home with coalition politics than movement politics—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—marshalled to retake the House in 2018. So much of the Trump era has been so bizarre—from the circumstances of his 2016 victory to payoffs to a porn star to the surrender and servility of former Republican critics—that it can’t be understood with reference to precedent or familiar norms. The Trump era has been a séance with Henry Ford, who famously said, “History is more or less bunk.”be understood through a historical prism—indeed it doesn’t really make much sense through any other prism.
After a cup of coffee or two, however, most of the narrative reconstructions about Biden’s comeback seem a bit facile—not wrong, just insufficient. His revival is more indicative of something deep and important going on in the electorate precisely because it does not have a plausible precipitating event.
This is also the peril for Trump, the greatest movement politician of the past couple generations. Typically, movements compensate for smaller raw numbers with the greater passion of adherents. In this case, though, it’s likely he has inspired equal or greater passion among the opposition.Long marches to the nomination often don’t bode well for general election prospects.
It is improbable that Biden is in the process of marshalling an ideological mandate. More likely: Super Tuesday voters eager above all to beat Trump regarded Sanders’ democratic socialism with its high expense and uncertain popular appeal as a bridge too far.
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