WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

Another promising Joe Biden presidential campaign has found another iceberg to ram and, once again, the orchestra’s playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” ... It also looks like the end of the white ethnic pol. Though Biden is no Kennedy or Daley, he bears many of the identifying traits of a classic Irish American on the hustings . ... Irish-machine politics built New York, Boston, Chicago, Kansas City — the list goes on and on . ...

Those pols came from a world in which being white and male was just the beginning of one’s identity. In the Chicago of 50 years ago, it mattered whether your name was Rostenkowski, Bilandic, Annunzio or Mikva. The answer told you which ward you were likely to live in and which voters you could count as your base . ...

We’ve now elevated other identities above place of origin. If Pete Buttigieg should be elected in November, the headlines will say he’s the first gay president, not the first Maltese American president. Or if Sen. Amy Klobuchar wins, she’ll be the first woman to be elected, not the first Slovenian American.

To be straight, white and male is taxonomy enough in today’s politics, with no further differentiation required or desired. That’s progress of a certain type . ... But progress means leaving something behind, and in this case what’s lost is the brawling, bruising, blatant variety of which those SWMs were capable. The young voters who look at Biden and see only a white guy whose time has passed missed the best part.

David Von Drehle, The Washington Post