Jamelle Bouie writes:

If you want a sense of what separates much of the leadership of the Democratic Party from many of its supporters — of what illustrates their profound disconnect from younger cohorts of liberal and progressive voters — you could do much worse than to read this recent statement from Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.

“Some things take longer than others, and you can only do what you can do at a given time,” she said in an interview with Rebecca Traister of New York magazine. “That does not mean you can’t do it at another time,” she continued, “and so one of the things you develop is a certain kind of memory for progress: when you can do something in terms of legislation and have a chance of getting it through, and when the odds are against it, meaning the votes and that kind of thing.”

“So,” Feinstein concluded, “I’m very optimistic about the future of our country.”

This entire comment was, in Traister’s analysis, a damning example of the sanguine complacency that seems to mark much of the gerontocratic leadership of the Democratic Party.

I agree.

What’s missing from party leaders, an absence that is endlessly frustrating to younger liberals, is any sense of urgency and crisis — any sense that our system is on the brink. Despite mounting threats to the right to vote, the right to an abortion and the ability of the federal government to act proactively in the public interest, senior Democrats continue to act as if American politics is back to business as usual. [Continue reading…]