The tendency of the collective liberal mind, as my partner John Heilemann noted recently, is to lurch toward pessimism and doomsday proclamations. This has been true for a generation, from the freak-out over Barack Obama’s underwhelming 2012 debate performance to Robby Mook’s “don’t panic” memo in 2016, but it rings particularly true in the Biden era. For the better part of his presidency, after all, Biden has endured a cacophony of stories recounting the Democratic operative class’s fears over his physical fitness to be president, his concerning poll numbers, or his Trump strategy.
You know the drill: Every two weeks or so, bands of Democrats go on deep background with a litany of complaints, some of them legit and others merely performative bed-wetting. Cable news and Twitter pick it up, and for days the coverage centers on the party’s lack of confidence in the president and his team.
