Author's Note
This post was originally written on Sunday evening, July 21, 2024 and published on July 22, 2024 at 9:30 a.m. The original post can be found here. What you are now reading here includes revisions which update the situation as it has transpired, as Democrats have coalesced rapidly around Vice President Kamala Harris, and as she immediately and effectively hit the campaign trail with a measure of enthusiasm that has already changed the circumstances existing when the piece was originally written.
Sometimes, politics can be painfully slow. But there are times when things can also move at the speed of light, inexplicably. President Biden's campaign had most of the "keys" that it needed, according to experts in presidential politics, to win, in addition to running against a candidate who, by every professional evaluation, was the worst President in American History. He had the record of achievement and a roaring economy, he is a man of integrity who can be trusted, he has incredible political experience and even in this most politically polarized and contentious time, could get things done.
But it seemed that an unseen weight was pressing him down, holding back his campaign. His opponents, along with the media, kept pushing his advanced age as his biggest handicap. And ironically, while anything which happened to disable him from serving would have led to his replacement by his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, as long as he was President, and nominee, it seemed that nothing was moving.
But when President Biden selflessly and out of consideration for absolutely nothing else but the good of the country, decided to drop out of the race, an act which contrasted sharply with the temperament and attitude of his opponent, who does nothing for anyone but himself and publicly displayed complete bafflement at this selfless act of sheer patriotism, and endorsed Vice-President Harris almost immediately, the chaos and confusion of the past three weeks literally vanished within hours. So, this piece has been revised, with the original left posted as a demonstration of transparency and honesty. We were caught by surprise And that's OK.
The President deserves a tremendous amount of credit and admiration for putting the country first. This was a very difficult three weeks, much more so for him than for us, and it was not the way he deserved to have his political career come to an end. This must be made up to him.
A Disappointing, Unexpectedly Poor Debate Performance at the Root of the Panic
Ever since the debate, we have been watching the Democratic party fall into chaos and confusion. The rhetoric prior to the debate actually helped set the President up for failure. There was a lot of talk on social media, on message boards like Democratic Underground and even on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, of how this debate would contrast the stumbling, rambling inability of Trump to organize his thoughts and coherently discuss his campaign with the sharpness of the President who, for the most part, had successfully "won" the debate contest with Trump in 2020.
Democrats who were expecting another debate kick in the pants delivered to Trump were more than disappointed in the President's halting, somewhat feeble performance and confusion. They were panicked. They had put a lot of stock in the Presidential debates being a point for the President to kick start a slow campaign and add some points to disappointing polling numbers. On one hand, Trump's failure to answer questions, and his incessant and continuous lying prevented a polling disaster. But on the other hand, the President did not help himself at all. Instead, this gave the media, already pushing his age as a primary reason for not re-electing him, more reason to pile on. And of course, they did.
It's been difficult to reconcile the President's job approval rating with what has been a stellar record of achievement. In spite of polls, what has happened in virtually every election cycle at the federal and state level, since President Biden took office has been Democratic party victory. The pollsters and the pundits started off predicting a "red tsunami" in the mid-term elections in 2022, based on the President's job approval rating and the conventional wisdom that the party in power in the White House always loses seats in Congress during the mid-term. And based on the polling numbers, the prediction was for a huge loss for Democrats in the House, 60 seats was the number being tossed around, and as much as a five-seat Senate majority for the GOP.
That never materialized, though most of the polls, right up to within weeks of the election itself, kept hammering that theme, in spite of data that was showing otherwise. But the media kept insisting, in spite of the numbers, that voter enthusiasm among Democrats wasn't going to be high enough to prevent the mid-term "red wave" from the GOP.
But something sure did.
The "red tsunami", then "red wave," turned into the "pink trickle" on the house side. On the Senate side, the election of Democrat John Fetterman as Senator from Pennsylvania, to replace Republican Pat Toomey, and flip a seat, combined with the re-election of Raphael Warnock, in Georgia, to hold a seat flipped in 2020, gave Democrats enough support to keep control of the Senate.
So, one poor debate performance by the President, and a cluster of polls with some provably dubious data, sent Democratic party leaders and donors into a panic, and created what has been some of the most damaging and destructive internal confusion and chaos within a political party since the Vietnam War. Democrats, in typical fashion, could not grab control of the narrative in the media. Not even the assassination attempt on Trump or the chaotic Republican convention could wipe it off the news cycle, because in what appeared to be a clearly orchestrated effort, Democrats kept popping up to ask the President to bow out.
And so, on July 21, a Sunday afternoon, after consulting with his advisors and with his family, he did.
Where do Democrats Go From Here?
One question that I think needs to be answered, for President Biden's sake if for no other reason, and it is something he deserves, is why this was not laid out a year ago, prior to his decision to run again, with serious, firm discussions about the fact that, to preserve his legacy, and to help ensure that Donald Trump, who was certain to be the GOP nominee again, would be defeated. The President was 80 years old then, he had said, on more than one occasion, that if he could be convinced he was too old to run again, he would accept that advice. Media coverage always focuses on whatever it is Trump is doing, so I may have missed the high level party leadership negotiations during which he got the green light to move forward.
The Democratic bench is full of politicians who, given a year's worth of primary elections running up to the convention, would have established a front-runner who would be able to win against Trump and make his age and dementia an issue. Instead, they opted for this very bad public relations disaster, which was characterized as the rebellion of a small group of big donors subverting the will of the people by using their money. Whether that's an accurate perception or not, it's what it looked like.
However, the President followed his announcement with an endorsement of his Vice President. Amazingly, in the middle of chaos, that worked beautifully. There were a few donors who stubbornly resisted, and pushed other courses of action like a mini-primary. I don't know how accurate the reports were, but I did see the name of Joe Manchin pop up, pushed by major donors. And this is one of the problems when people with money want to use it as a means of influence. This was a case where it would have been better to tell the donors, keep your money. Fortunately, Manchin said no.
By endorsing Kamala Harris, the President avoided what would have been the alienation of his core supporters from whomever the party chose as its nominee, as a result of the actions of the past three weeks. A lot of his loyal supporters were pretty upset about how this all came about, and his endorsement of Harris, and the coalescing of the party around her candidacy, ensures that the vast majority of them will show up and vote, instead of staying home on election day. President Biden is still the party leader, and his endorsement carried a significant amount of weight. It was the right thing for him to do, and it seals his reputation as one of the greatest Democratic Presidents of our time.
And, in the Meantime?
It's been amazing to observe, on Democratic Underground, the shift that took place in just one day, Sunday, after the President announced that he was stepping out of the race. Suddenly, as if by some miracle, support for Vice President Harris appeared from everywhere. Just the day before, a poll on DU showed over 90 percent of those who responded wanting the President to remain in the race. By late Sunday evening, after President Biden made his announcement and endorsement, Vice President Harris had the majority of Democrats in her corner.
We are facing an election in which the other side is completely sold out to a convicted felon and insurrectionist, and is intending to pull every trick in the book to steal the election, regardless of how the votes turn out. They've been in the Viktor Orban school of "How to use Democratic Processes to Build a Dictatorship," and if one really believes history repeats itself, shades of the Weimar Republic come to mind. Democratic party leadership must be prepared to fight off and stop Republican efforts to suppress the vote or steal the election outright. The unity that has been demonstrated will go a long way toward doing so.
As a volunteering, contributing, supporting Democrat, who has accepted the party's goal of keeping Donald Trump and the GOP out of the government because he is an existential threat to Democracy, I have a right to expect the party leadership to be as committed to the goal of winning control of the government, and doing what it takes to achieve that, as anyone else does. We must be assertive, take control of the narrative and force a biased, incompetent media to act as a free press for a while, anyway. I believe Kamala Harris will succeed in controlling the narrative and getting the party's message out.
In addition to knowing who is carrying the torch, we also need to know what is being done to effectively counter Republican efforts to steal the election. We know this is going to happen, they've talked about it for four years. We know what they're planning to do. What's being done to stop it or prepare to prevent it from happening, such as calling it out and getting law enforcement on top of it? Our justice department doesn't move very quickly, these days.
A Victory for Democrats is a Victory for Democracy
I will cast my ballot for whomever the Democratic party nominates for President. I have no plans to spend much time at the polling place, I will walk in, get my ballot, press the key for "straight Democratic ticket", turn in the ballot and head out. But in order to do this, we need clarity, not confusion and we need to look like we know what we are doing, and not have this chaos which not only alienates Democrats, but other voters we must have in order to win elections. These past three weeks have been a demonstration of inexcusable incompetence and have done more to put the party in danger of losing the election than the President's debate performance or his age ever did. Thankfully, it appears we have dodged a bullet, but we cannot let anything like this happen again.
The focus right now is on winning the election, making sure that we have the White House, and as much of a congressional majority in both houses as we can get. But Democrats are going to have to address a real problem when it comes to campaign finance reform. This cannot be allowed to happen again, and whatever it takes to eliminate donor money as a greater influence over the party's politics than the will of the people who make up 98% of the party's membership must be done. And if that means breaking the filibuster in the Senate to get things done, so be it. The rules have to level the playing field on both sides of the aisle.
We are running against the biggest anti-American, anti-democratic threat to our Constitution and to American Democracy that we have faced in over 150 years in Donald Trump. We have been sharpened by our experience and we need to motivate our voters to turn out and elect the first female President in American history, in Kamala Harris.
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