(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Process Isn't Broken; The Political Landscape Is Broken [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-07-23 There’s a diary currently up that argues the process for nominating a presidential candidate — the one that effectively nominated Biden, then resulted in him suddenly being replaced by Harris, is broken. I’d say it was more the current political landscape that is broken. This was an extraordinary confluence of events, not a sign the process was broken. First, the Democratic primaries this year weren’t real primaries. The main potential contenders — Newsom, Whitmer, Shapiro, Pritzker and a handful of others — bided their time because it’s extraordinarily rare to mount an intra-party challenge to a sitting President. What we had, then was a primary populated by Biden and a number of cranks (Dean Phillips was never a serious candidate). That these weren’t real primaries is reflected in the vote totals. In 2020, around 81 million voters voted for Biden. In the 2024 primaries: around 14 million. That is a very sharp drop in engagement. One primary drop in that engagement was concern for Biden’s age and capacity to conduct his duties. That concern, however, was muted by the expectation that the normal process would play itself out, and that Biden had a good chance to win if internal criticism didn’t damage his candidacy. But his candidacy was already damaged. That was reflected in consistent polling results from the beginning of the year through the middle of June. Biden’s favorable/unfavorable polls were consistently underwater. And he trailed Trump in the great majority of polls. Yes, one or even a handful of polls can be off, but not the consistent trend of polling — that shows a much realer state of affairs. At best, by early June, Biden had pulled into a statistical tie with Trump in national polls. Swing-state-level polls showed a darker trend, however, with Biden trailing in key states like Pennsylvania and Nevada, and what should have been safe states, like Virginia, coming into play. This built up a great deal of tension within the Democratic Party that Biden’s campaign was going seriously south, and could result in disaster — election of Trump and possibly loss of both houses of Congress. Criticize polling all you want. But the people actually holding office, who had to meet and talk with voters, were deeply, intractably concerned by mid-June. Then Biden had his disastrous debate performance. His infirmity was laid bare for all to see. And voters who voted for him in the primaries got to see a side of him they had been completely unaware of. Biden’s post-debate polling wasn’t terrible, but it got worse. And that galvanized the situation in many voters’ and Dem leaders’ minds. Because of the bad polling this led to a trickle of calls for Biden to step down, which turned into a torrent, which turned into a landslide. Look, if Biden had consistently been polling above Trump by 10 or even 5 percent, this likely doesn’t happen. The Party would say Joe had a bad night but was still fundamentally a sound candidate. But he wasn’t; he was polling behind Trump. If the Republican Party of today was the Republican Party of the 1080s, this likely doesn’t happen. But it’s not; it’s now a dangerous full-blown fascist authoritarian movement. If Trump had been a normal Republican candidate, this likely doesn’t happen. But he is not; he is the head of this full-blown fascist authoritarian movement. All of this is underscored by the reaction to Biden’s withdrawal and naming of Kamala Harris as his candidate of choice. Her acceptance by the Party was immediate. She broke funding records on the first day of her candidacy. And she got the delegates to win the nomination by the third day of her candidacy. All of this indicates that the Party had a lot of pent-up energy that just needed the right candidate to express itself. And sadly, yes, that candidate wasn’t Biden. And let’s not forget just how viciously rightwing much of the media has become. The NY Times has become ardently pro-Trump. The Washington Post is now run by a Trump supporter. CNN is being run by a Trump supporter. Politico is being run by a rightwing German company. Twitter is being run by a Trump supporter. They were out to destroy Biden and help get Trump elected. So replacing Biden with Harris was the result of not a broken process, but a broken political landscape. The ordinary process for nominating a candidate wasn’t designed to handle an elderly President running for a second term against a Republican Party turned fascist, an authoritarian Republican Party candidate and an anti-Democratic — and anti-democratic — media. Something had to give. So now we have a fresh start and a lot of renewed enthusiasm. And recall that primary voters did vote for Harris, if only as VP instead of President. But they still voted for her. Does the nomination process need to be changed? Perhaps. Probably. A changing political landscape may demand an updated process. But let’s not forget that this is a deeply abnormal political year, and the normal process of nominating a candidate can’t be expected to achieve a normal outcome. 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