So, I didn't read all of original sin, but the first few chapters were available on google preview, and I honestly have some things to say about it. In a sense, this is just more resist lib preaching to the choir. It provides a scapegoat for the democratic party's problems, without considering the deeper problems and messages to draw from them. It seems to think that the democratic party went wrong because Joe Biden decided to run, that his inner circle covered it up, and that if only we ran someone else, we would have done better. I don't agree. My own take on the 2024 situation is rooted in a larger understanding of the arc of history and the arc of the democratic party. Here's my timeline of events.
2008
In 2008, Obama ran on hope and change. He was able to mobilize a new generation of voters, while also bringing over working class voters from the GOP who had become alienated by the republicans over the years. His coalition was relatively populist. 2008 was the first year where the emerging debate within the democrats took place. While it was mostly aesthetic, both were moderates on policy, Clinton was seen as further right wing and wonky, basically being a quite literal successor to the first Clinton administration and its brand of politics, and a more progressive brand. This is why the right freaked out over him. Some say it was racism, and yes, many were racist against him. However, it was the fact that he represented "socialism" to a lot of people and was seen as having radical roots, in part because of his blackness, but in part because the dude just had a more populist aesthetic.
2009-2015
Despite campaigning on hope and change, Obama was more of the same. His coalition faltered in 2010 as the myriad of young college students and voters failed to turn up in a less visible midterm election, and the republicans were fired up against him. In 2012, Obama was able to hold on and win somewhat comfortably because was the working class candidate who offered things like extended unemployment while Romney offered trickle down economics. In 2014 however, the democrats became deeply disenchanted in terms of morale. The democrats needed a shot in the arm. They needed another change candidate to shake things up. To this time go further and fight the right ideologically, not just cave to them. They needed Bernie Sanders.
2016
The democrats, however, had other plans. Clinton came back and decided it was her turn, and the party backed her based on loyalty and internal implicit agreements. Bernie didn't get the memo, and anyone who was not Clinton was treated with hostility and as an outsider. I was a Bernie supporter and the democrats created quite an echo chamber around themselves, convincing the masses that Sanders couldn't win (despite clear polling suggesting he would), that Bernie supporters were racist and sexist, and that we needed a strong steady hand and incremental change, not actual change from a populist.
This was the true original sin of 2024. The democrats went in this anti populist direction focused on winning over a coalition of minorities, women, and wealthy suburbanites, throwing working class whites, including young progressives like myself fleeing from the GOP under the bus. That's why they lost. She wasn't popular.
2017-2019
The democrats learned nothing, went full on into anti Trumpism that didn't resonate and continued to lose trust with the public. They blamed their loss on anything but themselves, James Comey, Russia, racism. As such, the tensions within the democratic party remained unresolved.
2020
Despite strong early primary showings, the democratic party was insistent on beating Sanders. The book claims that it was because they didn't believe he could win, but to be fair, they were governed by centrist logic. So, the same song and dance as 2016 happened. Biden emerged victorious in south carolina, and believing he was the centrist with the best chance to derail bernie, they made Biden their nominee and the other centrists dropped out to back him. Biden went on to win the election, although far more narrowly than he was supposed to. I predicted after the election that they would be doomed in the 2022 midterms and the 2024 election.
2021-2022
While Biden initially enjoyed high approval ratings, he declined like I expected. He inherited a rough recovery from COVID and struggled to pass legislation. Republicans attacked him from the right and democrats were always lukewarm on the guy.
However, then the republicans overthrow roe v wade, which energized the dems enough to staunch the bleeding in the mid terms, successfully depending most of their positions.
2023
Biden announces his run for election. The party quickly backs him, and any primary challenge is suppressed. While this was in part due to Biden's stubbornness and his inner circle covering up his obvious decline, the party mindlessly backed him, refusing to have a fair primary and even trying to put SC first to repeat Biden's 2020 landslide out of the gate to ensure that the process remained uncompetitive.
Biden's early polling was BAD. The party insisted it was good. Biden looked visibly aged. We were told if we didn't back him trump would win. To be fair, there wasn't even a notable challenger. You had marianne williamson, but she wasnt taken seriously. Nor was dean phillips. And the left went full into palestine derangement syndrome after october 7th going into 2024.
2024
Biden looked visibly old, but we were stuck with him with little to no recourse. The primary went on unchallenged. The biggest resistance to Biden wasnt from another candidate, but no one, it was leftist whackos writing in "free palestine" and crap. The entire thing was a crapshow. Biden it was. It wasn't like we had any options.
Even then, Biden looked old. Even before the debate, I'd look at him speaking on the news and be like MAN he LOOKS old. he looks like he's tired and about to fall asleep, the "sleepy joe" stuff actually had some legitimacy.
Inside the democratic party, everything was Biden was the best president ever and he created all of these jobs and youre stupid if you dont think he has a good record. And that's the problem. The democrats dont engage with voters in good faith. They lecture them, force ultimatums on them, and then people go off and vote for the other guy.
Biden did drop out, and we got harris in his place. However, harris also ran a centrist campaign and refused to distance himself from Biden. These were the expectations within the democratic party. Be loyal to the last guy and their legacy. Be a team player. Be centrist, always try to reach upper class suburbanites fleeing from Trump. And as a result, Harris never had an authentic feeling message, but some weird corporate "opportunity economy" speak.
And she went on to lose.
Conclusion
The democratic party lost in 2024 because they've been in their own echo chamber since at least 2016. Every election, they push some candidate no one actually likes on people, ignore what people do want, engage in weird manufacturing of consent and saying that if you dont agree with them, youre for the other side. They wrote off and ignored white working class people who were once an integral part of the party, and they just ran a cringey, out of touch campaign.
The covering up of Biden's decline was just a symptom of the problem. It was the personification of a party that was old, insular, and out of touch. While it might be convenient for democratic party leaders, operatives, and propaganists to throw Biden under the bus and act like if only we had buttigieg or klobuchar or god forbid, gavin newsom, that we would have done far better, the reality of the situation is that it wouldnt have mattered. The entire centrist brand of democratic politics is the problem, it's toxic, and simply replacing Biden with a clone of him on policy wouldnt do any difference. Because in this era, people want progressive fighters, not wishy washy centrists who sound like clones of each other. If the democrats want to be successful in the future, they need to go further than simply throw Biden under the bus. They need an entire rebrand for this new party system we find ourselves in. The more they resist change, the more they dig themselves into a hole. Everything that has happened since 2016 is the democratic party's fault, and Biden was a symptom of the problems, not the root cause. It's ironic. Just as the dems refuse to acknowledge the problems with capitalism and face them head on with policy that works, the dems refuse to face the fact that their core brand sucks. They are trying to instead paint biden as the entire problem, making him the fall guy, while then going on to rebrand neoliberalism into "abundance liberalism" and that kind of nonsense. They're not willing to offer anything new. Just a slight repackaging of the old. I believe, as long as the dems behave like this, they have no long term future in this era of trumpism.
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