Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The contours of a November election

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

Brian Beutler/”Off Message” on Substack:

Biden's Critics On The Left Should Rethink The Concept Of 'Leverage'

Our flawed political system gives them less power than they deserve, but more than many of them realize.

The 2000 election turned out as it did in part because a small but decisive number of voters convinced themselves the major parties were fundamentally similar and similarly unappealing. (Plus the whole Supreme-Court-stopping-the-count thing.)

The consequences have shaped the entirety of my adult life; for people of a certain age—my age and just a bit older—the lessons against complacency and collapsing important distinctions have proven lifelong.

To see something very similar happen on the basis of similarly lazy thinking in 2016 was a history-repeating trauma. One fateful error ought to have been enough to create a whole oral tradition and stigma against falling into the same traps. Casting enough protest votes to hand Republicans a slim electoral-college victory against the popular will, only to watch them wreck the country, ought to be prime Fool Me Once material—the kind of thing that should be off the table for decades, to say nothing of twice more in 20 years.

But here we are in 2024 staring down the real possibility that it will happen again just like it did eight years ago, and 16 years before that. It’s even possible to imagine that enough Biden-2020 voters will defect or stay home to hand Trump outright victory.