The New York Times continued its assault on democracy by headlining a terrible opinion piece by Ezra Klein where he shared his plan for the Democrats to win the 2024 presidential election. He has decided that the Democrats’ best chance is to run the race without the party’s best asset. Yes, Klein thinks Joe Biden should release all of his delegates at the Democratic National Convention this summer, and let party leaders pick a candidate who can beat TFG.
This is the clearly the take of someone with little-to-nothing to lose if TFG were to get back into office and keep his promise to be Dictator For A Day, and obviously no sense of perspective about the punishment the GOP is deliberately inflicting on poor people, people of color, LGBTQ people, women, and other vulnerable people. There is no way that a serious journalist who opposes another TFG term would suggest this stupid plan.
And in fact, Klein gives the whole game away in the piece. I chose this tweet because while the author is critical of Klein’s suggestions, he misses the most dangerous, entitled, and selfish part of what he quotes from Klein’s nonsense:
I just don't get this argument. I want better odds, but I'm willing to risk bad odds to get them? https://t.co/SWrRVQQlgd pic.twitter.com/9swZf1p7ok
— David Nir (@DavidNir) February 19, 2024
“It could make the Democrats into the most exciting political show on earth.”
There it is—the complete cynicism of the I Gots Minez Crew. Let’s throw the entire Democratic nominating process into complete chaos and let’s possibly create rifts that won’t heal in time for the November election–or ever, for that matter–because a comfortable, protected, bored blogger doesn’t want to have to take the time to write actual stories about real issues. Instead, he wants to sit back and simply transcribe what he sees on social media or on television.
And on further examination, his assertions are easily disproved.
Yes we know Biden is old and so there needs to be a contingency plan, and there is: Vice President Kamala Harris. What’s weird is that the people calling for him to be replaced don’t suggest that he resign now and then let her go into the convention with his delegates and become the nominee. Instead, the plan is for him to wait until the actual convention and then letting his delegates go free.
And there’s no mystery here: the people pushing this convention chaos plan want to cut VP Harris completely out of the loop. Their biggest problem with Joe Biden’s age is that a lot of people don’t want Kamala Harris to be president. And that is shameful behavior.
As for Democratic voters, they may say Biden’s too old when they are polled, but there were enough write-in votes in New Hampshire to give him a convincing victory. More importantly, and more telling, Democratic voters in Nevada had the chance to vote for “none of the above” and Biden beat NOTA 90-5.
Biden is also supposed to get out there more instead of hiding in the White House. OK, but here’s the problem with that—he is out there. His daily schedule is online. And even saying that, being president isn’t about being on TV. He’s not hosting a late night talk show. President are supposed to work on things that help Americans, and he’s done that over and over again.
And don’t get me started on the optics of the Democratic nominee being chosen by a bunch of unknown party operatives in a closed door process, although the strong push for that outcome betrays the bigotry of the people pushing for it. The Democratic Party is becoming less the party of white men, and increasingly it is the party of Black women, who form its electorate’s core. And all those journalists, bloggers, and strategists who hover on the periphery of the Democratic Party will lose their access as the party’s leadership changes. And they’re big mad about it. Too bad.
The Jam can take it from here:
