Will the Democrats Endure the Biden Revenge Years?

President Joe Biden with Symone Sanders-Townsend

Symone Sanders-Townsend is a name you likely know if you watch MSNBC or follow politics, but isn't a household name in the way some White House staffers (or MSNBC reporters) have become.  Sanders-Townsend has a solid history in Democratic politics, working first in Nebraska for figures like former Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle, and eventually getting her big political break in 2016 working for Bernie Sanders as his campaign spokesperson. Since 2016, she has alternated between stints working for major political campaigns (working for both the Biden campaign and as Kamala Harris's chief spokesperson), and on cable news, including briefly getting an eponymous show on MSNBC called Symone.  Sanders-Townsend, though, expressed a statement this week that I wanted to take a look at, because it struck me as intriguing, mostly because it was targeted at, well, people like me.  She said, after President Joe Biden stepped aside as the nominee, "Joe Biden deserved the dignity that the people of his party did not give him over the past few weeks," essentially saying "Joe Biden deserved better than how he was treated the past few weeks."

It should not be a shock that Sanders-Townsend liked Joe Biden, after all of this; most people who have worked for Biden have expressed fondness for him, and she has spent much of her post-White House time expressing support for the current president.  But the need to point out the anger that she's feeling, and I think a lot of Democrats are feeling, with how Biden left the race is something real, and something that needs to be mentioned because while Democrats are currently rallying around Kamala Harris as her campaign shifts from zero-to-sixty...these hurt feelings are not going to go away at the end of this campaign.

I say this because we've seen it before.  Look at the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections.  Hillary Clinton was expected to win both of these primaries from the outset, and in both cases, Clinton faced a very spirited challenge.  The first one, she lost against Barack Obama and the second she won against Bernie Sanders.  But you see since then that both of these contests are being re-litigated over-and-over.  I promise if you go on social media for longer than five minutes you will find people accusing the DNC of rigging the 2016 election in Clinton's favor, and indeed, those feelings seemed to carry forward to 2020 when Sanders lost for a second time to Biden.

It's not just supporters, though, that carry this forward-it's also the candidates.  Bill & Hillary Clinton, in particular, are kind of famous for leaning in hard when it comes to congressional campaigns and whom they support.  Contested primaries featuring someone who endorsed Obama/Sanders over Clinton's campaign oftentimes have resulted in one or both of the Clintons supporting the opponent.  A good example of this is the 2012 CA-30 race between Brad Sherman & Howard Berman.  Berman had endorsed Obama in the 2008 primaries, but Sherman had been an early supporter of Clinton's in 2008.  Bill Clinton stepped in and endorsed Sherman, who later won.  FL Senate 2010, CO Senate 2010, PA-10 2012...all of these races featured Bill Clinton stepping in and endorsing a candidate (essentially on his wife's behalf) who had stood by her in 2008 against a candidate who had backed Obama in 2008.  This is something that candidates have done (not just the Clintons, but also Sanders and to a lesser degree Obama) in the years since.

One wonders if this is something on the Bidens' agenda.  Unlike Clinton in 2010-12, the Bidens don't have an obvious path forward to run for major office again; Joe is too old to go for another office, and honestly so is Jill, and neither of their children appear to have any interest in the family pasttime.  Each presidential couple finds post-presidency a bit different, and it's possible the Bidens may not be as involved in Democratic politics after they leave the White House in January.  But I do think there's something to Sanders-Townsend's comments-there is a clear anger from the Biden camp that this was happening.  As someone who actively pushed on social media for it, I'm one of those people who love Joe Biden, but was hoping that heaven-and-earth would be moved to get him out of the race, and I stand behind that.  Sanders-Townsend is right that he was treated poorly...she's wrong in that it wasn't necessary.  Had we just dismissed the debate performance, Biden might've won...but probably not.  And that made his tearing down unfortunate but (imho) necessary (we'll find out for sure in November if Harris wins).  But in the same ways that Obama, Clinton, & Sanders have continued to fight about their long-finished primaries...I do wonder if we'll see in the coming years Joe & Jill Biden remembering who stuck by them in the past few weeks, and who pushed them aside the hardest.