Perspectives: Joe Biden's Resurgence

An idea from progressive Catholic theology might be useful for our times: pater patitur — the father suffers. It goes like this: A father figure, divine or otherwise, isn’t meant to relieve our suffering. Nor should he suffer for us, which suggests condescension. And he certainly shouldn’t inflict suffering on us, as too many parents do with their children. Rather, the father’s role is to suffer with us. We’ve seen this gracious and ultimately progressive model of fatherhood from Joe Biden in recent days in his run for the Democratic...

So here’s what I think happened with the Democratic presidential nomination contest this year, at least so far. It’s still not entirely certain that Joe Biden will win, but I think Nate Cohn is right that the situation looks very difficult indeed for Bernie Sanders.

To begin with, I think Seth Masket is correct that this was a case of the party choosing, rather than the party jumping on a bandwagon established by voters. Here's how I would interpret the interaction between Democratic voters and party actors in February: