Foreign Policy has a weird article about the upcoming election in France (which is not especially visible on the street, but I just got here Monday). The basic gist is that the liberal establishment should get some more popular candidates.
Macron’s success raises the question of whether center-left regimes are foundering under the weight of an unpopular platform or simply unpopular leaders. Although crucial blocs of voters in many countries undoubtedly favor retreating from global institutions like NATO and the European Union, it’s not clear whether such views actually command a majority in any country, perhaps not even in the United Kingdom, where multiple surveys indicate that most voters, faced with a weakening pound, wish Brexit had failed.
All of us suckers paid in tanking Queen money are not happy about the weakening pound. That said, the average Brexiter doesn’t seem like somebody who gets out of England much, unless they live in Spain, in which case they don’t get out of Spain much and will not be happy trying to get a visa.
It’s hard not to draw an unfavorable comparison between the center-left strategy in France and the center-left strategy in the United States, where leaders of the Democratic Party are mostly digging in, apparently unwilling to contemplate a hard reboot of personnel. Democratic Party regulars are fired up, but the party’s leaders, who remain unpopular, seem to be having difficulty capitalizing on that enthusiasm. [ … ]
There are many reasons why Democrats had a poor showing in 2016, but an important reason is that they were represented by septuagenarian leaders who had been wounded, over a period of decades, by billions of dollars of negative advertising. Fair or unfair, those ads hit their mark. Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi remain historically unpopular figures.
The article goes on, but what I don’t get is that it’s not like the Democratic party didn’t decide to go in a different direction in 2008. Barack Obama was a great candidate, who was a successful and popular president! It was only 8 years ago! Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy encouraged him to run!
So the confusing thing is not why the Democrats don’t know what works (they do!), but why they inexplicably didn’t recruit a larger and more diverse field to run in the primary in 2016. And why they are busy trying to vanquish Bernie (who already lost!) and prove that Hillary (who LOST TO DONALD TRUMP!) was perfect.
The way forward is obvious: promote the people who might be the next Obama.