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Should Democrats stay the course or replace Biden? | Robert Reich
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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politics
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Some in this thread think that ‘chaos’ would emerge if the party replaced Biden and that would hurt the party’s chance of defeating trump. You are correct that there would be a media frenzy, and weeks of exhaustive, drama chasing coverage. It would absolutely dominate the media narrative, and be pounded into the entire voting population’s psyche. You know what else? That would be a wonderful, wonderful thing. It would totally disarm trump’s ability to drive the media narrative for much of the rest of the election. Whatever deficit that exists of national awareness for the new candidate would be erased very quickly. That candidate would be gifted months of desperate, free, media coverage. It’s actually a great strategy. That being the case, I’m sure the DNC and the party elders will never attempt something so obviously effective since they are terrible at politics and their cowardly approaches to both campaigns and governing are ultimately the reason our democracy is in such an existential crisis to begin with.
The thing that makes folks pull their hair out is that we've known Biden has been sundowning for years. But in the run up to the 2024 primaries, we got this endless bullshit gaslighting of "Actually I think he's at the top of his game, never better!" articles coming out of the Dem establishment and Dem-friendly media.
So he ran virtually uncontested. And then he spent three months doing photo-ops with Dark Brandon laser eyes, trying to get people pumped up for November. And then he explicitly demanded a debate with Trump before the conventions were even held. And then this shit happened.
Now there's no normal democratic mechanism to pick a replacement candidate. So we're either stuck with Biden or we get some smoke-filled room full of superdelegates and mega-donors to make the decision. And that's what will fuck up the Dems' chances in November. You're talking about putting a guy on the ballot who never even went through the primary. Someone whose sole qualification was Biggest Insider Suck-Up. Someone who will have to square off against a legitimately popular candidate in a year when "Democracy is on the line!" is a thing the Democrats are asserting.
Its a fucked strategy, because the easiest line of attack on this new person is "Who the fuck is this asshole and why didn't they compete in a primary back in January?"
Holding a coronation rather than a primary was the DNC's big mistake. Now its too late. There are no savvy brilliant moves left to play. You're stuck with this lame duck through November.