The event the Democrats are staging this week is barely recognizable as a national political convention. And so it is fitting that a perplexing question hovers in the air in Delaware, where former Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. is in coronavirus retreat, and in homes across the country where the delegates will participate remotely: Is the party that is about to nominate Biden for president recognizable as the Democratic Party of recent memory?
That question is vital to understanding not only the Democratic Party of today but also the structure of contemporary politics — and the Democrats' prospects of denying Donald Trump a second term in the White House.
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