In his column, “Biden made a very tough decision to save the soul of America — again. Democrats need to get to a Harris nomination through a process the whole party will see as fair,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes: “Choosing someone other than Harris, who has already been well vetted, would invite turmoil the party can’t afford. Dumping your entire ticket three months before an election is not a good look. But Democrats need to get to a Harris nomination through a process the whole party will see as fair….Doing so would only strengthen Harris’s candidacy. So would a strong running mate. Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are among the many good options Harris would have….Biden’s decision will bring new energy to a party that had already gained confidence in its capacity to win, courtesy of Trump’s 92-minute disquisition on Thursday that drove even ardent loyalists to weariness and exhaustion. Trump’s lack of discipline and his vaudevillian affection for his old act led him away from the recommendations of his advisers. They understood that natural sympathy had rushed Trump’s way after a failed assassination attempt. They promised he would tell his moving personal story and call for national unity….Although the choice was excruciating, the president should be — and deserves to be — at peace with this outcome. None of what happened reflects badly on his record as president. He didn’t fail in that debate. His age failed him….All along, Biden cast himself as the person who could best preserve democracy by stopping Trump a second time. Paradoxically, perhaps, he stayed true to that mission by removing himself from the contest. He did the hardest thing a politician can do: relinquish power. His decision saved his legacy.”
“What we can say from head-to-head polling of Harris is that the general trend has gotten a lot better for her,” Christian Paz writes in “Does Kamala Harris give Democrats a better chance to win?” at Vox. “A year ago she was underperforming Biden in head-to-head polling against Trump in a variety of surveys. Closer to the debate and right after, she began to perform about evenly. And more recently, in July, a few polls comparing Biden and Harris against Trump in battleground states and nationally have shown Harris even with Biden or slightly ahead of him….The first sign of this change came from CNN’s first post-debate poll, finding the vice president trailing Trump by 2 percentage points (within the margin of error) while Biden trailed by 6 points. And in FiveThirtyEight’s polls-only post-debate comparison of Harris and Biden vs. Trump, Harris performs slightly better than the president in battleground states — though not in all of them….Recent polling from Pennsylvania and Virginia also shows more positive signs for the vice president: New York Times/Siena College polls this month show that while Harris still trails Trump by 1 point in Pennsylvania, that’s a smaller gap than the 3 points that put Trump ahead of Biden there. Both of these results are within the polling’s margin of error, making the race in the state essentially tied. In Virginia, meanwhile, Harris’s lead over Trump is 2 points larger than the lead Biden has over the former president….And a post-assassination attempt national poll from Reuters/Ipsos shows a statistically tied presidential contest for either Biden or Harris against Trump….Under the hood, however, Harris backers can find an additional data point in their column: 69 percent of respondents think Biden is too old; Harris doesn’t face that concern. And Biden is more unpopular than Harris, something that is consistently true: As of July 18, Biden has a net -17.7 approval rating in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate. Harris’s disapproval is at 11.8. And in RealClearPolitics’ average of favorability ratings, Biden (-16.3) is also more unpopular than Harris (-14.9).”
From “Joe Biden wants to pass the baton to Kamala Harris. Here’s how that might work” by Associated Press, via Daily Kos: “With President Joe Biden ending his reelection bid and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats now must navigate a shift that is unprecedented this late in an election year….Democrats are set to hold their convention in Chicago on Aug. 19-22. What was supposed to be a coronation for Biden now becomes an open contest in which nearly 4,700 delegates will be responsible for picking a new standard-bearer to challenge Republican Donald Trump in the fall….The path ahead is neither easy nor obvious, even with Biden endorsing Harris. There are unanswered questions about logistics, money and political fallout….Can Biden redirect his delegates?….Biden won every state primary and caucus earlier this year and only lost the territory of American Samoa. At least 3,896 delegates had been pledged to support him….Current party rules do not permit Biden to pass them to another candidate. Politically, though, his endorsement is likely to be influential….With Biden stepping aside, Democrats technically start with an open convention. But realistically, his endorsement pushes Democrats into murky territory….The immediate burden is on Harris to solidify support across almost 4,000 delegates from the states, territories and District of Columbia, plus more than 700 so-called superdelegates that include party leaders, certain elected officials, and former presidents and vice presidents.”
American Prospect Co-editor Robert Kuttner probes the question of the hour, “Kamala Harris: How Strong a Democratic Nominee?” and writes: “As Harris molds her life story to fit a presidential candidacy, another big plus is her experience as a prosecutor, which gave liberals some pause. In the current context, that credential takes much of the Republican law-and-order story off the table, especially with Trump as a convicted felon….As a former prosecutor, she is also an effective debater. As a senator, she was superb in skewering Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney General William Barr. As a former prosecutor, she can counter Trump’s false claims that crime is increasing under Biden’s watch….Against Trump, Harris will be a far more effective debater than Biden. At 59, she will represent youth against age, and Trump will be the geezer. She will represent coherence against reckless craziness, wit against bile. Harris is a far better spokesperson for the achievements of the Biden administration than Biden himself….The practical question is how Harris would do against Trump and Vance among crucial groups of voters and in key swing states….One group is white working-class men, who have been deserting Democrats in droves. A second is the so-called emerging electorate of voters of color, young people, non-college-educated, and single women. The third is the small group of true swing voters, especially suburban Republican-leaning women….Onto this demographic analysis, we need to add the variable of turnout. Democrats have done better than projected in the last three elections because turnout on the Democratic side, especially among low voting propensity groups, beat traditional patterns….And then we need to do the analysis state by state, because the election will come down to seven or eight swing states….if Harris can energize the Democrats’ African American base, which she is likely to do as the campaign progresses, that would put back in play two states that had widely been written off for a Biden candidacy, North Carolina and Georgia.”
An argument could be made that it is time for the left to just join a new “popular front” to stop Trump, so as to not repeat the mistakes from pre-Hitler Germany.
But the lesson from Weimar Germany was that leftists shouldn’t be following a political line dictated from Russia.
If we now look at the popular front in France, it was a left driven coalition with the center in which the various leftist groups kept their own identity.
Even in the French context the left ultimately has served the center while the far right has slowly advanced.
In the United States the context is worse as the Constitution favors rural more conservative states.
Democrats have had bad luck. September 11 favored Bush, the Great Recession weakened Obama and Covid/Russia inflation hammered Biden.
But they also failed to capitalize on the Great Recession and the Great Inflation to rethink their approach to incremental economic reforms.
In the meanwhile Republican policy has completely shifted torwards economic nationalism.
Democrats could counter many Trump proposals for cronyism with their own explanation for why the economy isn’t working.
But a party whose main aim is to fundraise from an upper middle class that sees the status quo as fundamentally sound will never do that.
And a Kamala coronation it is…
Driven by Trump panic, fear of democracy, elite identity politics and a subordinated US left
Kamala’ coronation is best exemplified by the Clintons immediate public endorsement.
Biden couldn’t but endorse, of course, otherwise his motives for choosing her as Vicepresident would again resurface. And he is also foremost a party loyalist.
Obama, Pelosi and congressional leaders Schumer and Jeffries keep sort of silent (for now and just for the sake of appearances -we have seen this drill before-).
It was always obvious that mainstream politicians, specially so-called “moderates/centrists”, would mostly immediately endorse Kamala. After all, they pushed Biden out and can’t be seen to also be rocking the boat further. These politicians value stability and just follow whatever public opinion or elite push surrounds them at any given moment.
Being mostly whiter and more male than the rest of the party, “moderates/centrists” are also horrified of being accused of violating the elite definition of sexism/racism (selective identity politics).
On the other hand, while the Congressional Black Caucus kept silent during Biden’s dethroning, it has been key to Kamala’s coronation.
Elites wouldn’t get away with their definition of identity politics without the cover of minority electeds.
What has been (mildly) surprising has been the role of the US left these past months.
Only a few weeks after being kicked out of Congress with Hillary’s backing, Bowman was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Kamala.
After months of undermining Biden with their Gaza criticism, members of the Squad then became some of his strongest defenders and now have been some of the first to endorse Kamala. Is her position on Gaza truly that different from Biden’s? If it was, why were they defending Biden lately?
What were the Squad’s complaints about elites trying to push out Biden about? Was there a real concern about democracy?
Or have the members of the Squad accepted that their own survival in their districts increasingly depends on a mix of identity politics, the advantages of incumbency and toeing the party line (specially after Bowman’s defeat)?
This of course goes beyond the Squad and encompasses most progressives. The Chair of the House Progressive Caucus Jayapal was also one of the first to endorse Kamala.
Even those progressives that could break the line have chosen to follow it. Warren being the most obvious example.
Warren’s choice is not surprising though, given her decision to base her 2020 primary campaign on a mix of some of the wokest identity politics with populist economics (same as Bernie in 2020 in comparison to 2016).
Only Bernie so far has not endorsed Kamala. Like Warren his future career is basically over. They could both be on the lookout for further influence inside both Congress and the White House under a Kamala administration.
But their careers and legacies don’t really depend on speaking out, which is why their choices aren’t really important (unless Bernie were to back another candidate -which is very unlikely given this would “tarnish” his legacy by again provoking accusations by the identity politics crowd-).
Which leads us to AOC.
Along with being de-endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America only a few weeks ago, AOC seems to be moving further and further into mainstream Democratic politics and further and further away from her democratic critiques.
The fact that her career also has no future prospects other than Mayor of New York City or Senator for New York State is the most obvious explanation for her choices.
If AOC is to succeed Schumer in the Senate she has to tone it down and play it cool with party elites.
The Bernie revolution has been completely absorbed by identity politics and political careerism.
As a matter of electoral strategy the left’s choices are not really choices at all. The Democratic oligarchy has made sure there is no alternative.
Just a few days after the first major assassination attempt in decades against the convicted candidate of a cult of personality authoritarian party, the opposition chooses to finish a process of tricking the electorate into a fake primary only to have the candidate discarded and replaced at the last moment by a politician that couldn’t even finish the previous primary process.
The notion that both parties are the same is nonsense, but not complete nonsense. They support different coalitions, policies and interests and have very different internal political cultures.
It is also actually appropriate that neither gets to impose its agenda when neither really wins decisively.
What is not healthy is that the party that has chosen to use as its only rallying cry to defend democracy is so afraid of actual democratic processes.
Democrats terribly mishandled the 2016 primary. The 2020 primary was better, but only because Bernie himself mishandled it and then because Biden chose the right strategy to unify the party. But in 2020 too we could see that Democrat elites think any extended debate is inherently dangerous.
Biden won fair and square as electability has become the only concern of Democrats during the 9 years(!) of the Trump era. Electability chose him and then discarded him.
But electability is not really the problem inside the Democratic party/coalition, governance is. Democrats’ problem is lack of coherence in messaging and lawmaking. One can achieve coherence by losing swing districts and states, but then you can’t govern. The party is at a deadlock.
Identity politics only makes the deadlock worse. Even selective identity politics by moderates/centrists and careerists creates the opening for toxic ideas like defund the police, transgender fundamentalism and open borders policies.
Furthermore, arguments around Black women’s role inside the Democratic party are also toxic. They are supposed to be both the backbone and the saviors. Which is it? Are they the core of the party or swing voters that only vote for Black candidates? Do they serve their own interests or do they follow the lead of elite opinion makers?
Even if it was not an elite conspiracy to cover up Biden’s problems (whatever they may actually be), the elite consensus around how to replace Biden and how to coronate Kamala does too much damage long term to American democracy. Trump’s threat doesn’t warrant less democracy, but more.