NBC News ran a story Saturday about how Joe Biden wants to help. The former president met with Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin to say that he will “raise funds, campaign and do anything else necessary for Democrats to recover lost ground as the Trump administration rolls back programs the party helped design.”

Martin did not comment for the story, but influential Democrats did, off the record. They are done with Biden. The Democrats may be “adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger,” as the report said, but “a major Biden supporter, speaking on condition of anonymity,” told NBC News: “Who’s going to want Joe Biden back in the game?” 

Actually, Democrats want him back. Same report: “Some party activists believe Biden is an admired figure who remains a draw inside a grateful party. Jane Kleeb, a vice chair of the DNC, said in an interview: ‘If you were to call any state party chair and ask them if they wanted Joe Biden to be a keynote speaker for their annual dinner, the answer would be yes. He is beloved by the party and beloved by the voters.’”

Like virtually all reports about Biden’s relationship with the party, this one privileges the views of donors, strategists and other elites (who decline to go on record in order to “talk candidly”) over the views of rank-and-file Democrats who would be thrilled to see more of him. 

That’s suggestive. It tells us that the dominant faction – the one with the money and the influence over the press, as well as incentive to bargain with the GOP – does not want to revisit what it did to Biden. As far as they are concerned, switching candidates in the middle of a presidential campaign was one of two things: a tragic circumstance no one saw coming or Joe Biden’s fault entirely, as he should not have run.

Meanwhile, the other faction – what I call normie Democrats whose greatest asset is their labor, energy and numbers – will never get a chance to air its views on what happened, indeed, is encouraged to accept uncritically what the dominant side did. (It was either tragic or Biden’s fault; those are the options, take your pick). Moreover, normie Democrats are expected to keep trusting the dominant faction, as if being dominant were proof, ipso facto, that it knows what it’s doing.

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Schumer: "If he defies the Supreme Court, then we are in uncharted territory … our entire democracy is at risk. I believe that if Donald Trump should defy the courts, the public will rise up. Democrats will fight it in every single way … autocrats only succeed if the public lets them."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-23T14:22:50.555Z

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Here’s what it did. It stabbed Biden in the back. Donald Trump made a fetish of his age. The rightwing media apparatus made a fetish of his age. The Washington press corps made a fetish of his age. After the debate, when the consequences of aging seemed conspicuous, the dominant faction of the Democratic Party decided to agree and caved. 

The surrender was made more outrageous by the fact that no one can imagine the same thing happening on the Republican side. Trump put in a terrible debate performance. He looked bad. He was incoherent. He lied. He lied. He lied. Did the Republicans second-guess their man? Would they have buckled under pressure if the Democrats and the press and pundit corps had piled on Trump the way Joe Biden was piled on? Would they have said, you know, our enemies have a point?

That’s because the Republicans, top to bottom, put their people at the center of their decisionmaking while using their media power to keep their people in line. This is not the case for the Democrats. When it comes to group cohesion, they outsource that labor and expense to a corrupt and careless press corps while putting at the center of their decisionmaking people who may or may not support their candidates, it depends, mostly on whether the candidates sound like Republicans. 

The dominant faction of the Democratic Party tends to maximize the interests of someone else while minimizing the interests of normie Democrats, especially Black Democrats, who constitute the majority of the party. This habit of mind was made excessively transparent by the desire of some elites to skip over Vice President Kamala Harris in favor of some random white candidate to appeal to white swing voters who “lost faith in Biden.” Unmentioned was the likelihood that lost faith came in no small part from watching Biden’s party stab him in the back.

To be sure, victory in November would have healed the wounds of betrayal and Kamala Harris’ defeat, but in any case, the dominant faction has an interest in normie Democrats accepting what it did. (Also: the possibility of Biden losing even if party elites had fought tooth and nail does not absolve them of their decision to betray him.)

If normie Democrats do not accept it – if they start thinking about choices made for them by donors, strategists and other elites who claim to know what they were doing – they might also start thinking about what they really think about disloyalty, which is say, what they really think about the dominant faction’s true intentions, which is say, in light of Trump’s evil regime, they might start having extreme doubts about whether the party’s dominant faction wants to actually fight or just pretend to fight in order to better cover up collaboration with evil.

Among normie Democrats, doubts have been simmering for months, at first quietly and privately, but then two weeks ago, loudly and publicly, after Chuck Schumer led eight other Senate Democrats to voting for the Republicans’ government funding bill, in effect, giving in to their blackmail demands. The base of the party wanted Schumer to fight, damn the consequences. He made like he would, then turned on his heel to surrender. He’s since been on tour, trying to rehab his image. 

No one knows whether Schumer will leave the Senate leadership (I doubt it), but the fact remains that scrutiny is not coming from “the left.” It is not coming from outside the party. It is coming from deep in the heart of the party, from people who can normally be relied on to operate phone banks, knock on doors and make $5 donations. The faith of normie Democrats was shook after Schumer’s dominant faction caved, pushing Biden out rather than fighting for him. The saving grace was Biden’s ability to create instantaneous unity behind Harris. Two weeks ago, however, their faith collapsed after Schumer caved again.

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I don’t see the trend ending. 

On his rehab tour, Schumer has tried reassuring normie Democrats that the party is ready to stand up for the law and against tyranny. Twice he has said that if Trump defies rulings by the Supreme Court, “our entire democracy [will be] at risk. I believe that if Donald Trump should defy the courts, the public will rise up. Democrats will fight it in every single way … Autocrats only succeed if the public lets them.”

But “if the public lets them” is a condition. If it does not rise up, whatever “rising up” means, the Democrats might not have to fight. Democracy will have spoken. Silence will be taken as consent. 

That would mean that the dominant faction of the Democratic Party, the one Schumer represents, caved again, only this time, the betrayal will be deeper than stabbing one president in the back. If normie Democrats, most of whom are Black Democrats, do not have the Democrats to fight for them, they will have no one to fight for them. (Having a party fight with you is better than fighting alone.)

Some are starting to compare what’s happening to the Democrats in the wake of defeat in 2024 to what happened to the Republicans in the wake of defeat in 2008. Back then, there was a feeling of outrage and disgust with the way things were in the GOP, especially a sense that the Republicans were not fighting hard enough against Barack Obama. In time, that energy was organized into what is now called the tea party.

I don’t know if what we’re seeing is a Democratic version of the tea party. Time will tell. However, if that’s what it becomes, it didn’t start with Schumer’s surrender. It didn’t start with Harris’s defeat. It didn’t start with Trump’s evil. It started with Biden’s betrayal. As NBC News said: Biden “remains defiant and believes Trump’s victory shows the party did itself no favors by pushing him to drop out of the race.”

The dominant faction said trust us — we know how to fight. 

It didn’t.

And it keeps on caving.