When Michelle Obama announced in March that she and her brother were Start a podcastHe unearthed a familiar feeling for Democrats: desire.
If only the former first lady Uber-popular would return to politics. She could just go to the presidency, if she wanted.
It is a recurring wish for an Obama to save the Democratic Party. And as every time this chatter arrives, the dreamers were quickly disappointed. The podcast avoided politics, and Obama itself remained mainly out of the eyes of the public, leap high -level public events And do not comment on the news. She is not alone. The party leaders of the past also remained silent while Donald Trump and Elon Musk dispute the law, reflect the federal government and implement the Trump 2.0 agenda.
This entry for Obama’s return is not new, but especially during the second term Trump, he reflects something special at that time: the Democratic Party still has no clear leader, does not have a clear direction where to go and continue to look to the past for leadership.
Part of this identity crisis takes place in public. Various governors are competing for the attention of voter voters against Trump and the Republicans. They are on podcasts and television programs, town halls and listening sessions. In Congress, they slowly discover how their voters want them to resist Trump. And above all, Senator Bernie Sanders wraps a series of rallies with several states against “the oligarchy”, essentially anoin the American representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the successor of his movement in front of a huge crowd.
However, none of these people seem to unite the party from the way the most faithful Democrats could wish.
But it could be good. If history can show us something about what Democrats do now is that opposition parties need this time without a clear leader to debate their identity, rebuild basic energy and prepare for mid-term elections. The Savior of Democrats did not happen anytime soon. But it may be a feature, not a bug, to lose elections.
Democrats continue to look to the past for saviors
Hope for a great savior – either a veteran voice that can hand over the ship or a foreigner who can have him shake – could in fact be an obstacle as the Democrats arise. While a new guardian of politicians and voice always gets their foot or pushes for more influence, the “hero” they are looking for will not come for a while – which means that the party should use this time to rebuild and have these debates.
“The very fact that the Democrats are looking for a Savior, looking for the man or the woman on the white or black horse, is a sign that they do not really make what the right political parties do, which works at the base, recruits people to run and assert why what Trump and Musk make is horrible” Michael Kazin, told me.
Asking for a Biden return or Harris return is probably not the answer.
There are some who try to assert this case. Some of the noisiest voices on the Democratic side remain members of the old guard – Sanders, for example, or senator Elizabeth Warren, who has led many demonstrations against Trump and the so -called attempt by the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government to reduce the federal government in the first weeks of Trump’s presidency. Neither are positioned as the next party leaders, but Sanders, at least, seems to prepare the field for a younger voice. There is still the Most popular national figureBut the younger voices that could succeed him or trace a new chapter for the party are not as popular.
These younger voices – like the governor of California Gavin Newsom, the former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg, the Senator of Connecticut Chris Murphy or the Ocasio -Cortez – are polarizing or relatively unknown. They all represent different paths for the party. And they all try different approaches to exploit the anger that the average democratic voter feels.
And these divisions can in fact end up being useful: they define the field for a primary presidential competition, an animated democrat in two to three years, they offer voters an idea of what the party could still become, and all represent a new vision of the party – even if the noise currently concerns the disunity of the party. They also serve a mid-term objective: there is no leading leader or a unified democratic agenda allows individual candidates to manage their own localized races without being fixed at a figure, because they tend to be during the years of presidential election, as when Biden was being executed. So kissing that chaos and disunity could be a good thing.
“It is a mistake to think that you just have your pre -existing set of people who have already done it, that one of them must be a Savior. And frankly, at the moment, as opposed to four years, the Savior will not come from a single person. I am not convinced that this is really how it works.” The Savior could be the caucus of Congress in the Chamber and the Senate acting effectively.
Of course, Democrats will always be at a hero, a new JFK or Obama to face the New Democratic Party coat. But there is no easy way to get out of the current moment of the crisis. The Obamas will certainly not be those who resolve it. And wanting the figures in the past to return could be counterproductive.
This clamor apparently made its way to the Bidens, who would have offered to collect, campaign and stimulate democratic candidates This year and the next one. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, remained silent, while his former more popular running mate, the governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, rather embarked on a tour “I told you” as he test the waters for a third term as governor.
But asking a return from Biden or Harris is probably not the answer.
“What is it going to do?” Said Kazin. “It is quite common after the party that loses the elections and obviously does not have a clear leader, because there is a period when it is not clear that the leaders will be. This happened in some respects after 2004.