Super Tuesday: a tired electorate in a tired country

Whoever is elected President in 2020 will be older than I am as I approach my 73rd year. That feels discouraging. Lively inventive societies are not ruled by the old, though, if they are wise, they can be informed by their old people. Somehow the earnest engagement of millions of citizens has brought us here.

It seems that after Super Tuesday we're back to something very close to where we were last July. We've learned that people who will vote in a Democratic primary want above all to get rid of Trump. Their aims and understanding of that imperative differ, but they agree on that much.

So we're back to the two old white guys already known to this electorate. None of the new faces broke through widely. When Biden showed an actual sign of life in South Carolina where he has a legitimate Black base -- and endorsers and all-rans pointed to him -- he resumed his front runner status.

Nobody has convinced this electorate that any new and better future is on offer in this election. Collectively, we hope to retreat to an imagined safety. That's the disappointment -- but can empathetic people disparage safety as a goal? Only if we convincingly propose something worth increasing risk to gain. Not happening at present.

Elizabeth Warren offered competence and grit -- but had the wrong plumbing and the insult of excess intellect.

Bernie has a 30 percent base (figured generously) rooted in young, Latinx, and left voters. He hasn't built a campaign to enlarge that base. He has just asserted his righteousness. And he's pretty righteous. But righteousness alone, especially when yoked to some of his followers' ill-aimed rage, doesn't build toward a broader force. Winning a majority requires adding to your coalition -- as well as being right.

At least we had the chance to see Mike Bloomberg personally humiliated, a guilty pleasure not to be sneezed at.

And so -- on to working to deliver the one end voters have settled on: defeating Trump in November. That work is not optional for anyone who struggles for a better day.