Highly recommend this read. It's not behind the Bulwark's paywall and I think that it should hopefully quell concern that folks have about a possible selection of Shapiro.
"For days there has been chatter on the progressive interwebs about how Josh Shapiro would “
divide” the party. Extremely online politicos upset about his views on Israel or school vouchers or his
Kosher Obama speaking style have asserted this dispositively. Deep inside the politics internet there has been a spate of retrospective complaints about how bad a “
blitz primary” would have been as evinced by the
aggressive and deranged online discourse that has supposedly tainted the purity of the “veepstakes.”
If you are involved in these online meme wars, I grant that it might feel as if things are very contentious. You might see yourself as being on one side of a battle that must be won, and that your activism is the tip of the spear that represents a broader coalition behind you out in the world. For example, if you are involved in progressive or anti-Zionist online activism it might seem as if
everyone hates Josh and
game theory requires him to be passed over. If you fancy yourself a political polling and data nerd, you might have come to the conclusion that
anyone except for Josh would be idiocy. If you are a regular resistance activist your
feed is exploding with Hot Walz content.
Even the unifying, thoughtful Bulwark
Redditors have exploded in a #war between the Walz-pilled and the Shapiro-stans.
Here’s the problem with all of this.
This “war” that is purportedly happening within the party over the VP selection is all an illusion. It is taking place in a hermetically sealed bubble among political hobbyists who have extremely strong feelings about the ideological trajectory of the Democratic party . . . and nobody else. They are a fraction of a fraction of the party.
Rank-and-file Democrats are unburdened by the veepstakes discourse. They only have
surface-level knowledge about the main contenders, according to polls. And the Democrats who live in each contender’s respective states overwhelmingly love their hometown boys.
The one supposedly “divisive” name being discussed, Shapiro, is viewed favorably by 90 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats. I guess the Keystone State progressives didn’t get the internet’s memo.
The reality is: Concerns about whether one of these DEI whites will
salt the vibes are based on Twitter-brain alone."
Here is the link to the longer article:
The Democrats Will Unite Behind Any VP Choice
