Democrats: Just a normal, regular, moderate white guy

What is going on with Democratic voters who tell pollsters they support Joe Biden, of all people.  

Leading the Democratic polls

Joe Biden? Yes, Joe Biden.

Here is why: Democratic activists are out of touch with many Democratic voters. 

There is a theory among Democratic activists that only a candidate who is "outside the box" deserves the nomination and can win if he or she gets it.

Someone "woke." Someone progressive. Someone that AOC would approve of.

They think it needs to be someone who says, clearly, that the status quo is broken. Bernie Sanders said it first, and clearest, and defends using the word "socialism" to make sure people get his message. He is changing things, not just repairing them. That sets the standard. He doesn't compromise.

Elizabeth Warren has roughly the same message, only with language designed not to worry people in the way Bernie does. Her stump speech repeatedly mentions "structural change" amid her talk of traditional values of hard work, surviving poverty, opportunity. She understands the need to try to thread the needle. Change, but to fulfill familiar heartland values.

Warren, husband, golden lab.

She had her husband, adult son, and golden lab right up front at a New Hampshire rally--body language communication for "See, I'm not scary, I'm a young grandmother with a mellow dog who naps on the floor while I speak. Safe change."  

Meanwhile, Biden has leaped up in the polls. Biden, with all his problems. Too old, too much history, supported the Iraq war, not-woke and indeed resists the language of woke, and had his first day fundraiser with corporations hosted by a Comcast executive.  He did everything wrong by the standards of Democratic activists. Doesn't he get it at all?

It is the Democratic activist elites who don't get it. What they don't "get" is that they aren't typical of--nor do the represent--a great many rank and file Democratic voters, especially ones outside college towns and diverse coastal cities.

Authenticity, intersectionality, and appropriation.  Joe Biden's appeal is that he is a rejection of Democratic elite identity politics. He rejects it by being who he is, not just by what he says. Democratic party orthodoxy has moved toward an understanding of intersectionality and identity that says that only a black person, or female, or gay person, or Latino can authentically understand the unique problems of that group. 

Intersectional thinking has created a new crime of thought and behavior: cultural appropriation. Don't you dare use your Beto nickname, Robert Francis O'Rourke!" Shame for thinking you were part-Cherokee, Elizabeth Warren. 

Click: Many Dems want "normalcy"

Intersectional politics is a rejection of the Martin Luther King idea of his children being judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Democratic activists have concluded that identity matters. Meanwhile, a lot of Democrats were comfortable with Dr. King. Look at the individual, not the skin color. 

Activists who read the New York Times or Washington Post and watch Rachel Maddow may think the success of Joe Biden is crazy, offensive even. They talk with one another in Facebook groups, shaming "thought errors" and fighting among themselves over whether Elizabeth Warren is sufficiently anti-bank, or Jay Inslee sufficiently hostile to fossil fuel companies.

Regular Democratic voters are sending a message back to their activist leaders, with their support for Biden. Don't wreck things. Many Democrats are not all that unhappy with their health care situation. The seniors have Medicare and it works for them. and they don't want it screwed up. People who have employer-based health care are more worried about losing it than they are eager to see it upset, which is why Obama had said that if they liked their health care they could keep it. 

Steve Bullock

Most Democrats don't want to "smash capitalism" and they worry some about Bernie. 

Many white Democrats resent the idea that their skin color is considered a intersectional disqualifier, and men think that Kirsten Gillibrand was too fast to conclude that Al Franken was unfit for office. They perceive intersectionality-talk as code for disrespecting them. They have enough trouble paying current bills without feeling guilty for not wanting to pay reparations.

They want to move on. They don't want Trump. They don't want revolution. They want "normal."

Joe Biden communicates that it is actually OK to be a normal, regular, moderate white guy. This is some of the reason why normal, regular, moderate white guys keep entering the candidate scrum, most recently Steve Bullock of Montana and Michael Bennet of Colorado. 

Michael Bennet

They want to be what Joe Biden represents, without actually being Joe Biden himself.