Thread by @WillMcAvoyACN

What we are seeing play out on twitter (and almost entirely on twitter) is a debate between three factions of the movement that doesn't want to see Trump get a second term, but these factions are not divided on ideology but rather on a belief on how to best defeat Trump in 2020.

The first group is the group that thinks that Democrats did not get enough voters in key states (PA, WI, MI) because they failed to appeal to white, blue collar workers in 2016.

The second thinks they failed because turnout was low as a result of low passion for the candidate.

The third group thinks that Trump has already lost enough support and his narrow victories in the three states listed above means that Trump should be on defense not offense, but these people make up a small fraction of people so lets ignore them for now.

The first two groups have pretty opposing views on what a candidate should be like. The first group wants a safe candidate, which right now is Joe Biden. The other group wants a passionate candidate they can rally a lot of support behind easily, like Warren.

Of course, the real lesson from 2016 should be that you need both, and I'm honestly not sure there's a single candidate in the field that fits both needs. But that's why you're getting the more moderate/conservative wing feeling they are undeserved at the moment.

And that's because the candidates appealing to moderate politics are, by and large, performing poorly, either in the polls (Ryan, Hickenlooper, Bennett) or on the campaign trail (Biden).

Biden's biggest problem right now is that he's already running for President when the nomination won't be decided for almost a year. This was Clinton's biggest mistake in 2015 and it is a bit surprising to see Biden repeat it here.

That said, the 2020 Democratic Primary feels like it is going to be closer to the 2016 Republican Primary, with the exception being that they're not going to nominate the worst candidate on the stage.

It's also going to be a marathon, not a sprint. Right now Biden is the front-runner, but he also doesn't seem to be doing much to ensure and build the type of grassroots support that served Obama so well in 2008. That should concern all three groups, to be frank.

In short, the ideological debate of the Democratic primary is going to be this: "Should the focus be on getting voters lost to Trump in 2016, voters who stayed home in 2016, or voters who have never voted before?" That's the subtext to almost every argument happening right now.