It’s time for Dems to shift to a new…mood
Many people want the Democratic party to shift presidential candidates. I’m one of them. Yet isn’t it also important to shift our collective emotional orientation or mood around the election — to give resignation and anxiety the boot and in their place welcome curiosity and resolve? Doing this might produce better decisions about who to nominate and better action in getting that person elected.
First, a few words about the outer choices.
Two choices the Dems face
Since the presidential debate two weeks ago, columnists, journalists and politicians have been talking a lot about Joe Biden. Should he keep running, or should he step aside? If he steps aside, should the party anoint Kamala Harris or hold a mini-primary to determine the new nominee?
I’d like to see Biden step aside and the party create a mini-primary. Here’s why:
- Biden stepping aside will increase the Democrats’ chance of retaining the White House by transforming the campaign, infusing new energy into the Democratic Party, and, most importantly, creating more positive energy in everyone who wants a Democrat in the White House. This, in turn, will get out the vote — an often underestimated factor, especially in swing states like my home state of Michigan, and influence persuadable voters who are on the fence.
- Creating a mini-primary, despite the risks and uncertainty involved, will allow delegates to make grounded assessments of the different candidates (“give them more information,” in Ezra Klein’s words”) and pick the best one for the job in terms of both electability and likely performance.
I could say a lot more about each of these points, but that’s not why I’m writing today. What’s on my mind isn’t why the Democrats are best served by taking these actions but instead the moods that are influencing all of us in considering these choices to begin with.
I think it’s time not only to shift candidates but also to shift moods.
The current mood among Democrats
According to recent news reports, many Democrats who want a new nominee aren’t speaking up because they are “resigned” to the fate of Biden staying in the race. They want Biden to step aside but don’t think he will, so they figure, “Why bother speaking up if it isn’t going to make a difference yet will create enemies in the party?”
This question is understandable, but it reflects a particular bet about the future that is worth testing.
The bet goes like his: Biden is determined to stay in, so no matter what I do or say, it won’t make a difference. We’re stuck with him as our candidate and therefore likely stuck with Mr. Trump as our next President.
This bet, in turn, reflects a mood or sustained emotional predisposition called resignation or despair. No matter what I do, things aren’t going to turn out well, so why bother?
The mood of despair is both widespread and understandable. We see it in people’s stance not only toward the presidential race but also toward climate change, political polarization, and nearly every major collective challenge we face.
The impact of despair
The downside of despair is its impact.
When we are caught in a mood, rarely do we consider its impact. Our attention focuses instead on the rationale for holding the mood. Rather than asking how well the mood serves us, we point to data that supports it.
The shift from justifying a mood to assessing its impact isn’t easy, but it’s essential to being active contributing citizens and mentally healthy adults in a complex world filled with challenges and catastrophes.
I feel a lot of frustration, anger and even despair about the current political situation. I feel these as emotions that come and go. Sometimes they go quickly. Sometimes they stick around. What I’m not willing to do is to allow my overall orientation to life to be one of despair. It’s fine as a temporary weather pattern in my day but not helpful as the overall climate of my life.
Shifting to new moods
This is one reason that in my writing and in my podcast, How My View Grew, I’ve been repeatedly saying to myself and others, “Your permission to despair has been revoked.” And why I’ve been considering what’s possible when we approach this political moment and the larger world through other moods like curiosity and resolve.
With curiosity, we think, “Hmm, I wonder what’s going to happen next.” With resolve, we think, “You know, a lot of bad stuff is hitting the fan, but we can do this.”
Notice how it feels to hear these words I have written. Take a moment to say them yourself right now and see what that experience is like.
In a mood of curiosity, I admit I don’t know what Biden will do if enough Democratic leaders and funders gently but directly encourage him (as Adam Grant has suggested) to consider not only his reasons for staying in the race but the reasons he might exit. I don’t know what will happen if the Democrats create a mini-primary and decide the nominee at the convention. I don’t know what will happen if the new nominee runs against Mr. Trump. I don’t know, yet I’m curious to find out.
In a mood of resolve, I realize that today’s Democratic Party has a lot of assets and capabilities suitable for this moment. True, it has no recent experiencing in make a late change like this, holding a mini-primary right before the convention, or choosing the nominee at the convention. True, it remains a mismash of interest groups, each competing for their own causes. True, it has been enmeshed in an intra-party brawl of sorts about the Middle East. Nonetheless, the party has a degree of discipline today that would have been difficult to predict twenty years ago. It was this discipline that allowed the party to pass several pieces of major and extraordinary legislation in the past three and a half years, including the American Rescue Plan, an infrastructure bill, massive climate investment, and the semiconductor chip act. For most administrations, any one of these alone would be a major accomplishment. And the party’s discipline tends to increase when it has a clear opponent who is both dangerous and beatable — an opponent like Mr. Trump.
So what I see with moods of curiosity and resolve are two things:
- I don’t know what is going to happen if Biden steps aside and the party creates an open primary, but I’m curious to find out
- We can do this. It’s hard. It’s not inevitable. But it’s possible. And it just might happen.
The next week
The next week could be very interesting. I suspect there is movement happening under the surface that could produce surprising events.
Yesterday I wrote to a friend that the wild card in all of this is Nancy Pelosi. Widely respected within the Democratic Party for her disciplined leadership and success, her words carry weight even after passing her speakership to the next generation. This morning, I woke to news that Pelosi wants Biden to reconsider his decision to stay in the race.
This might have little impact. Or it might have a lot.
Wouldn’t it be fun to have the Republican convention next week overshadowed by news of Biden stepping aside and opening the party to new leadership?
Stranger things have happened.
Either way, a bit of curiosity and resolve might be just what the doctor ordered.
(Note: in the original version of this essay I used the word “ambition” to describe one of the two moods I recommended. I have replaced “confusion” with “resolve” to avoid confusion with other meanings of “ambition.”)
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