'Deepening divisions' among Democrats highly exaggerated

One of the themes of post-debate coverage has been about “deepening divisions” among the Democrats between those who want Joe Biden to remain as the party’s nominee and those who don’t. Those “deepening divisions” are greatly exaggerated. I know, because I can read.

Consider this new report by the Associated Press. It plays loose with the words “leaders” and “top,” as in “Democratic leaders” and “top Democrats.” The headline: “While Biden campaigns in Pennsylvania, some Democratic leaders in the House say he should step aside.”

Just one problem.

Those “leaders” are not leaders.

What they are is ranking members of House committees. That makes them leading Democrats, to be sure, but, strictly speaking, they’d be leading their respective committees if the Democrats controlled the House. (The report made no mention of Democratic leaders in the Senate.) But they are not Democratic leaders in the sense that the Associated Press headline suggests. They do not speak for the party.

To the extent they are “Democratic leaders,” there aren’t many of them, just four, and they spoke only at a private meeting convened by the office of the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries. During that same meeting, four other ranking members “fiercely defended the idea of Biden staying in the race,” according to the Post. So the AP’s headline, while about “Democratic leaders” calling on Biden to drop out, could have been, just as legitimately, about “Democratic leaders” calling on him to stay – if that were the story the AP wanted to tell.

(The Post report added a detail that should tell us where the actual leaders of the House Democrats are, which is to say, where the people who speak for the party are. “Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) and other leaders on the call did not voice their opinions on the matter.” In other words, they’re doing what leaders do: reserving judgment, allowing members to air views and, you know, leading.)

The theme of “deepening divisions” is virtually everywhere, and it’s giving the public the wrong impression: that “the dam is breaking,” as one CNN reporter put it. It’s creating false conditions in which the president’s campaign seems to be hanging by a thread on account of his own party rejecting him. It’s even giving rise to a preposterous debate over Biden’s vanity. When you give these “deepening divisions” a hard look, however, you can see they are based on surprisingly little.

According to another Post report, there are now nine “top Democrats” who have called on Biden to drop out. (It defines “top Democrats” as the 287 Democratic representatives and senators in the US Congress and governors.) Of those, four haven’t said so publicly. So that makes five “top Democrats” on which to conclude that “the dam is breaking.” (Those five can hardly even be called “top Democrats.”)

If we were talking about some other organization, and not the Democratic Party, and if I said “the dam is breaking” to convey that a tiny number of people in that group is for something while the vast majority of people in the group is against it, I don’t think you’d believe me. I think you’d believe I was reaching for something. You’d be right.

The Post report also blurs the distinction between elected Democrats who have voiced their concerns about the president and those who have said he should drop out. Sixteen Democrats, three senators and 13 representatives, have expressed worry, most recently my senator, Chris Murphy. He said Biden has to do more to “prove to those that are skeptical out there that he can do the job. And if he can't do that, then he's got a decision to make about what the path forward is.” While that’s suggestive, it’s not the same as calling on Biden to drop out.

The Post isn’t alone in this sleight of hand. ABC News ran a news summary before broadcasting its interview Friday with the president. It said he’s trying to save his campaign as “a growing number of top Democrats [who] are calling on him to drop out.” The report noted those five congressional Democrats I mentioned. Then it cited Gavin Newsom, who … didn’t call on Biden to drop. The popular California governor didn’t even express deep concern. The report quoted him saying that the next week will be pivotal for Biden’s campaign. That’s it.

Of course, it may feel like there are deepening divisions among the Democrats. But that’s due to all the chatter coming from unnamed sources who have their own reasons for complaining to reporters without risk of attribution. Most of these people are not “top Democrats.” They are donors or strategists or activists. They don’t speak for the party. They certainly are not leaders. No Democratic senator have demanded Biden step aside. Neither have any Democratic governors. We’re talking about five clear voices, 18 if you include those Democrats who are covering their asses by expressing concern.

The closest I have seen to a real intraparty revolt came with news of Virginia Senator Mark Warner. According to the Post, the conservative Democrat had planned a meeting this week with other Democratic senators to discuss staging what might be called an intervention. That was Friday, though. By Monday morning, those plans had been scrapped, reportedly because they’d been revealed to the public.

That right there.

That’s what I’m getting at.

Why would Warner pull back? Why would the most serious effort to urge the president to drop out fail before it began? It’s not because it was made public. It’s because of the reaction among Democrats in the Congress or Virginia and elsewhere. It’s because the president still has party unity behind him. Elite Democrats like Warner may be surprised by Biden’s age. But rank-and-file Democrats? They been knew.