Why Would the Democratic Party Give Biden’s Challengers a Shot?

Former adviser to President Joe Biden and current MSNBC personality Symone Sanders-Townsend is taking some heat this morning following her appearance on Morning Joe. There, she put the kibosh on the notion that the Democratic Party is under any obligation to undermine the president, the leader of their party, by putting Biden on a debate stage with his upstart challengers, mystic self-help guru Marianne Williams and prominent conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The “reality,” Sanders-Townsend said, is that the sitting president is running for reelection. As such, “the Democratic National Committee will not facilitate a primary process. There will be no debate stage for Bobby Kennedy, Marianne Williams, or anyone else.”

“There will be no debating,” she added. “The Democratic National Committee administers debate, and they’re not going set up a primary process for debates to — for someone to challenge the head of the Democratic Party.”

To this, the response from political observers should be, “Well, of course.” Not only is it well within the Democratic Party’s prerogative to shelter Joe Biden from exposure to challengers from within his political coalition, which would risk weakening his position within his party and expose rifts that could soften his support among Democratic voters, that is the party’s job. Even if Biden were facing a challenge from within members of his party with more institutional bona fides, which he isn’t yet, it would be within the Democratic National Committee’s purview to limit the president’s exposure to internecine conflict.

The major political parties are not democratic enterprises — not internally. They have one prime directive: winning elections. Anything that undermines that singular goal represents not only a threat to the mission statement but an abdication of the institution’s responsibility to its stakeholders, who presumably share the party’s interest in advancing their policy preferences by winning as many elected offices as possible.

Sanders-Townsend’s remark has sparked a flurry of condemnations from online observers who seem to think her indisputable observation exposes the Democrats to the criticism that their commitment to “democracy” is situational. Indeed, it is. But that has no bearing on internal party dynamics, in which “democracy” should play no part.

The parties have been auctioning off their institutional authority for the better part of the last century. The small-d “democratic” reforms the parties implemented after 1968 that allowed voters more influence over the nominating process have weakened these institutions considerably. In the years since, the incremental democratization of the parties has only accelerated. Today, the parties increasingly rely on small-dollar donors for funding, free-lancing PACs for messaging and mobilization, and hucksters with microphones to fill in for a competent communications shop. And what have we gotten for it? Factionalism within the parties, strategic incoherence in the pursuit of nebulous objectives, and a political culture that has hopelessly blurred the lines that used to distinguish statesmen from salesmen.

I’d say Republicans could learn something from Sanders-Townsend’s observation, but it’s not a lesson they need to learn. When it comes to protecting the leader of their party from internal criticism, the institutional GOP is no slouch. Not only did the party refuse to countenance the prospect of debates in 2020, there were no primaries or caucuses in some states. Because the GOP’s objective wasn’t to satisfy hysterics on social media or cable-news programs. It was to drag their weak incumbent across the finish line. Democrats confront a similar conundrum today, and they’re applying the same solutions to that problem. As they should.