Democracy Is Comin'... To The U.S.A.

"The economy can only go down from here. The number of revelations from Robert Mueller can only go up," wrote Edward-Isaac Dovere in his Atlantic essay, 10 New Factors That Will Shape the 2020 Democratic Primary. And whether those two sentences excite you or depress you, he wants to warn you that they don't mean a Democratic candidate is a shoo-in for 2020. That's debatable but what isn't is that the primary race for the nomination "will be different from any that have come before" and that, as he put it so eloquently "the early polls being circulated will likely have as much relevance to the outcome of the race as learning Mandarin does to visiting Algeria." [That said, Sonatrach, Algeria's government-owned oil giant-- the largest company in Africa and 11th largest oil consortium in the world and employs 120,000 workers, producing 30% of Algeria's GNP jointly operates the Adrar refinery, near the village of Sbaa with the China National Petroleum Corporation. On top of that, China is playing an increasingly important and hands-on role in Algeria's economic development.]

Dovere lays out 10 factors he says will define the Democratic primary to choose a final combatant to take on Trump. First off will be Trump's role as an annoying ring-side commentator. He'll try to do as much damage to each candidate as he has already likely done to Elizabeth Warren. "The most predictable part of Trump’s reaction to the primary campaign: He’ll be tweeting about all the big candidates as they get in. He’ll throw out nicknames. He’ll insinuate. He’ll let loose rumors from the oppo files, forcing reporters to chase them down... Usually, an incumbent lets the other party’s primary finish before getting engaged in the race, but Trump isn’t the usual incumbent. The 2020 Democratic candidates will be introduced to the broader American public not just by the media and their own campaigns, but also by the man they’re hoping to run against."

And then there's the cost, especially now that "the primary calendar now puts California and Texas so early in the process, any campaign looking to survive will need to run simultaneously in both of those large states, along with the traditional early states and a handful of other big primaries. The candidates will need to run organizing operations on the ground across the country, and they’ll need to run commercials on the air." That's great news for Beto in Texas (and theoretically for Kamala Harris in California, although many California Democrats barely know who she is and she certainly isn't as popular a figure in California as Beto is in Texas). It also gives a huge advantage to candidates with the most name recognition: Bernie, Biden, Elizabeth Warren... and whomever Rachel Maddow decides to plaster all over MSNBC over and over, whether Amy Klobuchar, Eric Swalwell or... well, let's just remember how lucky we all are that Maddow's self-admitted choice for president, failed Missouri conservative Claire McCaskill, is off to the glue factory. "According to Democratic operatives who are planning campaigns," wrote Dovere, "to get to the first week of March, when Super Tuesday is held, it’ll take a minimum of roughly $40 million. On the high end, it could soar past $60 million. And they’ll need many millions more to take them through the rest of the campaign season." That gives an advantage to plutocrats Mike Bloomberg and John Delaney, as well as to the progressive billionaire "in" the race, Tom Steyer.

Monday night Lawrence O'Donnell had a panel on his show discussing the portnetial candidates. Joy Reid ventured that Kamala "ticks off all the boxes," but, alas, none-- not one-- of the boxes she listed have anything to do with being a good president. It was wall-to-wall identity politics: her gender, the unending list of races in her pedigree... all the kinds of things that excite political journalists for whom issues are just too damn complicated to talk about. Dovere wrote that "There’s never been a presidential-primary race with more than one female candidate. There’s never been a presidential-primary race with more than one black candidate." (At least he adds that "There’s never been a presidential-primary race with more than one candidate running from the left of the base.")

All those patterns will be broken in 2020. And that means the traditional calculus about who gets which voter groups is out the window.

Some of these changes could directly affect candidates’ thinking about the primary map. The heavily African-American Democratic electorate in South Carolina, for example, tends to favor black candidates and those with strong ties to the black community. But this time around, there will likely be at least two black candidates, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, and others with a long history of support from black voters.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, the conventional wisdom is that local New England candidates have the edge. But this cycle, there could be several who come from neighboring states, such as Elizabeth Warren, who launched an exploratory committee on Monday, and Bernie Sanders.

And at the same time California is moving up in the primary calendar, this race could have four Californians-- Harris, Steyer, Eric Garcetti, and Eric Swalwell-- and others with strong support in the state, such as Sanders and Joe Biden. If no one can count on locking down any particular group or place, it could mean just about everything is up for grabs.

And then there's the undeniable fact that voters will want "to know where the 2020 candidates stand on impeachment questions, and there likely won’t be much room for anything but absolutism. Revelations from Mueller’s Russia investigation are likely to keep coming-- including indictments, pleas, and sentencing deals-- and the new House Democratic majority is planning multiple new lines of inquiry. If the past two years are a guide, the Democratic candidates’ responses to the latest Trump scandals will get much more attention than any policy rollouts they might prepare." Every campaign will have to come up with some kind of canned response that doesn't sound canned. "And," as Dovere reminds us, "any House members who are running for president would be in a position to vote on sending impeachment articles to the Senate, and any senators running would be in a position to vote on whether to keep their Republican opponent in office." Awkward.

And this seems really important: besides Biden, obviously, how many candidates are just going to be campaigning on a kind of status quo ante? "As they look ahead, will Democrats want a restoration of the last president’s policies, or a restart?" By now, we should all know where Bernie stands, Jeff Merkley and Elizabeth Warren too. Anyone else? Most are just the kinds of politicians who know how to pull their fingers out of their asses, put them in their mouths to wet them and hold them up to the wind. "For all the Democrats still gushing about Obama, many also see his presidency as full of missed opportunities: What if, for example, he’d included a public-insurance option in Obamacare? What if he had been harder on Wall Street after the crash?"

Then there's something special for the candidates like Bloomberg and others from-- at best-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party:

The Republican electorate doesn’t tend toward soul-searching or taking out its leaders—at least not usually. This time around may prove a little different, as the remaining Never Trumpers reach out to Had-Enough Trumpers and There’s Got to Be Something Other Than Trumpers—who, along with the rest of the traditional Republican Party, have been left dizzy and confused by the president. Operatives are working hard to come up with a consensus choice to run against Trump. But so far, they have not come close to a consensus, let alone a choice.

For the Democratic candidates hoping to make it to the general election by picking up wayward Republican votes, that could mean engaging in the debate going on within the other party. They’ll have to answer several tactical questions: Do you agree with the Republicans attacking Trump? How do you do that without seeming sympathetic to the Republican arguments and leaving yourself vulnerable to the absolutism of some Democratic voters? How do you embrace the turmoil within the other party while also making the wider aspirational embrace that campaigns are going to be aiming for?

Will evil outside forces play a role... via hacking? Russia? China? The Saudis? Israel? Organized Crime? The Mercer family?

And then there what Dovere dubs "The X factor. Recession? War? Natural disaster? Presidential meltdown? Trump spent the holidays showing just how wild he can make things on his own. The months ahead could present any number of world- and history-turning events, and any number of reactions from the president will shape what follows them. More than just reacting, the people auditioning to replace Trump as commander in chief will have to come up with their own proposed solutions amid the flames of whatever is burning-- and will likely have to do so more than once."