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1/ The idea that Biden is most electable in the general election is rooted in the idea that bc most Americans are politically moderate (lib/left on some things, conservative/right on others), he is best positioned to attract their votes. This is wrong on multiple levels...
2/ First, it presumes that people vote mostly on ideology and policy ideas. But there is NO evidence they do. If they did, power wouldn't swing back and forth from Dems to GOP so often, especially when the latter hasn't been moderate for some time...
3/ People who voted for Obama then Trump did not do so because they were moderates and saw Trump as the more moderate choice. They did so on personality/charisma and, according to evidence, Trump's overtly right wing anti-immigrant and cultural anxiety message...
4/ IF you think they're gettable (Biden's assumption), u would either have to think they went from being sorta liberal (thus their vote for Obama), then to right wing...OR you would have to tailor yr message to also be xenophobic...the first makes no sense; the 2nd is awful...
5/ Or you would need a candidate who could match Trump on charisma, and Biden isn't that candidate under any rational analysis...secondly, the assumption of Joe's electability presumes his moderation would trump (no pun intended) the visible signs of mental slippage...
6/ his electability is based on an abstract Joe Biden, not the one in real life. Right now, those swing voters are not likely watching the Dem debates. They haven't seen the actual Joe. When they do--up against Trump, who will mock his slippage and make it worse--he's done
7/ Third, notions of his electability assume getting those "swing" moderates can happen w/o costing a larger % of base voters, but you can't assume that...if the base is unenthused in key states like last time, he's done, and that could happen...
8/ Especially when you know damned good and well that many of the white left in particular (and not just Bernie folks) will most certainly stay home or vote Green or something if Joe is the nom (I think these are shitty things to do, but they'll do it. They admit as much)...
9/ & if decent % of white left stays home/votes Green it can torpedo WI (like last time). Probably wouldn't sink PA/MI, if enuf POC show up, but could put OR, WA, CO in play bc there r just enuf such white folks there & not enuf black folk (the most loyal Dem voters) 2 offset
10/ U also can't expect Biden to excite people who have been non-voters (i.e., so turned off by politics as usual that they haven't been voting at all). Electability projections assume same electorate as 2016, or 2012, but prior abstainers are gettable w/better candidate...
11/ All the folks who keep showing polls and say "look, ALL the polls say he's viewed as most electable," mean nothing. The fact that he's perceived as most electable doesn't mean he is. People think that bc media keeps saying it and bc of these unexamined assumptions above...
12/ I need for Biden supporters to show why these assumptions are actually true, why my challenges to them are false, and why he's the most electable candidate with logic and evidence, not speculation and guesswork...
