The Democratic Process

I'm seeing a lot of concern trolling on the right about how Harris being the presumptive nominee is unfair to the close to 15 million Democrats who voted for Biden in the primary. My own take on this is that since Harris is Biden's VP, the assumption was that if something happened to him, Harris would take over. Well, something happened to him. In fact, technically Biden was never the nominee, just the assumed nominee, as no one will be nominated until the convention (or the virtual convention which will take place earlier to meet several states' filing deadlines).

So I'm asking our conservative SW members, if the way it was done wasn't "democratic," what would you suggest? If nominating Harris at the convention won't be good enough, then nominating anyone else who isn't even in Biden's administration, like Newsom, Whitmer, Shapiro, Pritzker, Beshear, Kelly, etc. won't be good enough either. There isn't time to redo the primaries. So what would you suggest? With all the complaining about this, I haven't seen a single suggestion of how the Democrats could have a "democratic" nomination process.

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SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

I'm sorry but this is a biased take on what happened. Nothing suddenly "happened" to Biden other than it became clear he was not able to carry himself through a debate that he should have been able to do in his sleep.

He was forced out, he didn't take a look at himself and decide, it was clear he needed to resign or they possibly were going to go forward with removing him.

So combine that with the closed primary where nobody but Biden was allowed on the ballots, then suddenly after 7 months of we are going with Biden, Biden is our guy, Biden is sharp as a tack...never mind all that, here's Harris!

It doesn't seem very "democratic"

As an aside, I wouldn't go out and purchase Harris 2024 bumper stickers just yet. My belief is she has until the convention to get this campaign off the ground or you may see an open convention.

LeopoldBloom · M

@SumKindaMunster I’m not asking what should have happened, I’m asking what your suggestion is moving forward. Turning back the clock for Biden to drop out a year ago and holding conventional primaries isn’t an option.

SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

@LeopoldBloom I would say if you are ok with DNC insiders deciding the candidate, you don't have to do anything. They will take care of it.

If you are upset, organize a protest and see if you can get some attention and traction.

LeopoldBloom · M

@SumKindaMunster Yes, I'm OK with delegates (not "DC insiders") choosing the nominee according to Democratic party rules. None of us are upset about this, so you don't need to concern troll on our behalf.

How do you feel about JD Vance being sprung on you at the convention? It was clear that Trump would be the nominee a year ago; shouldn't he have announced his VP back then? You didn't get to vote on Vance; you basically voted for Trump, trusting him to choose a VP you approved of.

SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

@LeopoldBloom Hm, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Shumer, George Cloony, Van Jones, and David Axelrod are all DNC delegates? 🤔 Who knew?

My take on Vance is he is being setup to run for 2028 should Trump succeed in getting elected in 2024. Kinda undercuts the whole "Trump is a dictator who plans on staying in office forever..." nonsense.

I'm fine with Trump's choice.

LeopoldBloom · M

@SumKindaMunster Nobody could force Biden to step down. He decided to end his campaign when it became clear that he didn't have the support of party leaders. I guess you would have been upset over Richard Nixon resigning after Barry Goldwater told him the same thing.

The delegates choose the nominee at the party convention. Biden was the presumed nominee, not the official one.

Trump picked Vance over the other contenders (reportedly, Doug Burgum and Marco Rubio) because he felt Vance liked him the most. Vance owes his political career to his former boss, Peter Thiel, who bankrolled his Senate run and pushed him to the Trump campaign, along with Elon Musk. It's nice that you're "fine" with Vance, but his utter lack of charisma and extremist opinions make it unlikely that he will inherit the MAGA cult. In 2028, he'll be facing heavyweights like Brian Kemp, Greg Abbott, Glen Youngkin, and others with more experience both in politics and as campaigners. This assumes the Trump campaign doesn't dump him sometime in the next month as Vance brings absolutely nothing to the ticket other than Peter Thiel's money.

What's hilarious is the only people who seem to be upset over Biden's withdrawal are Trump supporters who weren't going to vote for him anyway. It's obvious that you view Harris as a stronger candidate and are unnerved by the increased enthusiasm on the Democratic side. So we have the incoherent argument that Biden is impaired and needs to resign immediately to let Harris take over, but should also continue to campaign for a second term.

SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

@LeopoldBloom I'm not upset at all at by the changes made by the DNC. Again, my point was to marvel at the party that makes "Saving Democracy" their calling card isn't very democratic....maybe they should change it to "Saving the republic".

LeopoldBloom · M

@SumKindaMunster Harris' selection was completely democratic. The only people complaining are Republicans.

You'd better get busy going after the Libertarians, the Constitution Party, the Natural Law Party, the Greens, Peace and Freedom, etc. None of them bother with primaries. Their candidates are chosen at their conventions.

I'm not sure why the Republicans bothered with primaries and debates when it was obvious that Trump would be the nominee.

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LeopoldBloom · M

@SumKindaMunster I don't care about people on TikTok saying "vote for Harris or you hate Black women." They're about as relevant as people saying "vote for Trump or you're a commie."

Why are you worried if you think Harris is such a terrible candidate? Do you think she won't even do as well as Biden would have if he'd stayed in the race? It's obvious that the Trump campaign was caught flat-footed as they have no idea how to go after Harris.

I don't see the same resistance to Harris from the equivalent of the Bernie Bros that we saw in 2016. The only people upset with her are the extreme left wing, pro-Hamas crowd, who would only be happy with Rashida Tlaib as the nominee. It must be disconcerting seeing the explosion of enthusiasm for Harris after everyone was resigned to Biden losing.

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LeopoldBloom · M

@SumKindaMunster At least it's not the endless string of anti-Biden articles that the so-called "liberal media" has been pushing for the last year.

And yeah, right now we're in Harris' honeymoon period. Right when it starts to die down, we'll have the Democratic convention, which will give her the boost that the GOP convention didn't give Trump. Of course there will be people who don't like her, just as there are conservatives who don't like Trump. I'm not concerned about the pro-Hamas crowd or the cretins who think "both sides are the same." They can vote for the Russian stooge Jill Stein if they like.

SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

@LeopoldBloom Well good, I'm glad your pleased. I see it differently but understand we are not politically aligned.