Archetypes

WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan muses about two Democratic Party septuagenarians.

Joe Biden is Caesar:

(Nate Beeler cartoon)

The political class of Rome wanted Caesar gone and successfully dispatched him with 23 wounds. But the conspirators themselves came to unhappy ends—Caesar’s base hated them and chased them out of town! Nobody loves an assassin. The only political survivors were Caesar’s designated heir and the leaders who didn’t join the conspiracy.

That is the predicament of the 23 contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination who are not named Joe Biden. They want the front-runner gone. But they don’t really want to be the one who does him in. Pete Buttigieg doesn’t want you saying he has a lean and hungry look! Amy Klobuchar doesn’t want it said she really is mean. The safe course for them is to let someone else do it, then mourn, with poignant words, the end of an epic 20th-century career.

Nancy Pelosi is Big Mama:

grandma has been observing them [the "Squad"--the four progressive House Democrats Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.) and sees what others see. She doesn’t mind that they’re hot, aggressive and ideological, but they don’t confine their fire to outside the tent. They attack moderates as sellouts, racists, child abusers...

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been destructive to her party’s chances in 2020. She is a one woman Committee to Re-Elect the President. The way I read it now, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been dunked on by a pro and schooled by Big Mama...

in private, Mrs. Pelosi couldn’t be clearer. To her caucus’s progressives at the closed-door meeting Wednesday morning: “Some of you are here to make a beautiful pâté, but we’re making sausage.” “You got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it. But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just OK.” On attacks on moderates: “Think twice. Actually, don’t think twice. Think once.”

Like other seasoned pundits and politicians, Peggy Noonan uses logic and math to discount the power of the young lionesses of the Democratic Party.

However, given that few understand the political forces at work in the current environment, much less can use them to make predictions, anything is possible. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez could be Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, or Alexandria the Great, who conquered an empire before the age of 30. I think the former is more likely than the latter, but who knows?