1. At the risk of being reductive, my disagreement here is that I think base is more important than superstructure, that material realities (including the social relations they create) are more important ideology. In sum, existence precedes essence. https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1247930492286111746

2. It's not that Chapo, Jacobin, Current Affairs, Bruenigs are unimportant or don't have any influence but that to understand their influence you have to understand the economic and generational conditions that has given them their audience

3. Here is the reality of the generational divide: Americans over 45 or 50 grew up in a country that had many flaws but basically worked. The racism, misogyny, homophobia were there and had to be fought but on a basic economic level the country provided jobs & pensions.

4. Democrats over 45 buy into the Clinton-Obama-Biden worldview (that America is fundamentally a functioning society which needs fixing) because that's their experience of life. The under 45 set have had a very different experience of an American that on basic level doesn't work

5. If you are under 45, your adult experience of the United States consists of Bush/Gore, 9/11, Iraq & Afghanistan fiasco, Katrina meltdown, 2008 meltdown, slow and partial recovery, Trump, and now COVID-19 fuck ups & new depression.

6. So Biden does have an enthusiasm problem, one that is particularly acute among the very voters who were more likely to sit out 2016 or voted third party: young voters (including young POC), former Democrats in rural areas,

7. I took a dive into Biden's enthusiasm problem by talking to activists in Pennsylvania who have spent the last few years trying to win back the marginal voters drifting away from the Democrats. Worth listening to them! https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrat-pa-biden-problem/