For more reasons than I can count, this year I will most certainly vote for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. That will be true if it’s President Joe Biden. It will also be true if it is Vice President Kamala Harris.
Should the Democratic Party’s convention pick Gov. Gavin Newsom or Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, they would also have my full support. Just like millions of voters, more than anything else, I will be casting my ballot hoping to preserve our 248-year-old democracy.
Toward that end, I want to vote for a candidate whose policy is to tell the truth. Which means that it’s about time for us to hear the unvarnished and complete truth about what happened to bring on Biden’s shockingly poor June 27th debate performance. If he was all that sick, why did he go on the debate stage?
Moreover, labeling it a “bad night” just hasn’t been a satisfying explanation. What really happened?
Now, what’s next?
Well, maybe Biden can still turn it around. But I’ve never seen a presidential candidate manage such a heavy lift. Much less an 81-year-old candidate. However, we know that for there to be a replacement at the top of the ticket, the Democratic Party’s current presumptive candidate, Joe Biden, would have to step aside on his own volition.
Maybe Biden has known for some time this day was coming … maybe not. Does Biden still believe he’s the only Democrat who can beat Trump? This morning I heard him say he is the “best” one.
If Biden does suddenly opt to park his bandwagon and switch off its engine, the improvisational process to select and install a new nominee is largely something that would have to be made up on the fly. The party’s leadership must find a way to make that process run smoothly.
Not easy. But with top-shelf leadership, a unified political party can get it done because it cannot fail.
We’ve heard talk of an old-fashioned “open convention,” whatever that might mean in 2024. Hey, I’m old enough to remember watching such political conventions on black-and-white television in the 1960s. The spontaneity and raw uncertainty of those events were quite entertaining at times. Very different from the snooze fests of recent years.
Whether such a rabbit-out-of-a-hat type move would turn out to help, or hurt, the Democrats on election day is anybody’s guess. Still, for what it’s worth, I think the party’s national convention would get good TV ratings.
Naturally, I know all this uncertainty makes the path ahead sound scary. But dear reader, take a deep breath. Because this year’s election cycle was always going to be scary, no matter what. Nonetheless, I am absolutely certain that moaning and fussing over how we got in this fix won’t do a thing to help save America from the danger posed by unbridled fascism.
Meanwhile, maybe this somewhat eerie debate aftermath we’ve been going through could help some citizens grasp that presidential debates generally don’t reveal much of any value about candidates’ ability to make good decisions—especially those heavy decisions about the assembling of an honest, seasoned team of expert advisers and worthy department heads. The ability to do that expertly is much more important for a president to have than a cocktail party honed knack for spouting witty comeback lines.
As I type these words, I can easily see a decent argument for Biden remaining on the ticket. And the same goes for stepping down. At this point, it looks like Biden and his team probably need to decide sometime next week which move—stay or go—they truly believe will do more to unify the Democratic Party going forward. Hopefully, the nation’s best interest is what they will be focused on.
Stop here for a moment to envision a coast-to-coast, truly unified Democratic Party. In spite of all the troubles, at this writing, I can already see the path leading to it.
Then the freshly unified party must declare that strengthening the United States’ grand experiment-in-progress, its democracy, is the top priority in 2024. Debts owed to groups with pet issues have to wait for another day. Until this election is behind us, fretting over old ideological arguments must be put on hold.
By the way, the Supreme Court’s dreadful “immunity decision” could spawn a fresh irony. In spite of its help to Trump, as a defendant, it might alert independent-minded voters to be much more afraid of a Trump second term. Given the Court’s Trump-pleasing immunity decision, the outcome of the upcoming presidential election takes on even more importance (if that’s possible).
After the Democrats’ convention next month, a unified political party should ask the electorate three questions:
Whose judgment should we trust to appoint the next Supreme Court Justice?
Which candidate can be trusted to not abuse the new immunity powers granted to presidents by the Court’s mindboggling decision?
After January 20, 2025, which nominee can be trusted to be a proper Commander in Chief?
To keep hope alive, we Democrats must have our democracy-saving discussion in millions of settings—should Biden continue his reelection campaign, or should Biden bow out? And, in a matter of days, we must form a national consensus about how to go forward … together.
Therefore, during this consensus-building process, we have to assume all genuine democracy-lovers expressing opinions actually want to win in November. Thus, we must listen, as well as talk. So, let’s not ruffle too many feathers beyond repair.
A unified Democratic Party can win in 2024 because it must.
Illustration by Mauricio Vargas @a_vicarious_gram
