Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Change Versus Experience [View all]marylandblue
(12,344 posts)It argues that there is a pattern in American in which certain Presidents are transformative. They reform politics in a new way and set the guiding assumptions for the next generation or two. They usually come about when the guiding assumption lose their force and no longer work for changing curcumstances.
Transformative Presidents have been Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR and Reagan. We are still living under Reagan's conservative assumptions, but the assumptions are worn out. Tax cuts don't work, people want healthcare, wages have stagnated, and climate change is here.
So it's time for a new transformative President. Except for Jefferson, none of them were part of the Washington establishment. All of them had ideas that were significant departures from what had gone before.
Obama tried to be a transformative President, but the Reagan regime was still too strong. Trump is trying to keep Reaganism alive by taking it in a dark new direction. He might actually succeed by ending the Republic, hence transformative, but not in a good way.
To counter the danger of Trump, we need to recognize that he is the end stage of Reaganism, and look for what we want to be next. Looking backward for experience isn't going to work. Biden's experience is all under the old way of doing things, under old assumptions, but we need someone who makes new assumptions to create new politics. Running on the old assumptions won't work, Reaganism and it's Democratic accommodations are bankrupt and we all know it. People may still choose the darkness of Trumpism because we can't go back to the way it was.
I like Buttigieg because he is explicitly talking in these terms, which I think is why his most unlikely candidacy took off the way it did. But many of the other candidates bring new ideas too, so one of them could also be the leader for the new era.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden