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Democrats: Joe Endorsed Kamala. Time to Get to Work!

Updated: Jan 17

By Jessie Seigel / July 22, 2024


President Joe Biden and his chosen successor, Vice-President Kamala Harris


Yesterday, President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race for president and endorsed his vice-president, Kamala Harris to replace him on the ticket. This was largely the result of Republican machinations, aided and abetted by the media and by the Democrats themselves.

 

Donald Trump--applying his one-trick tactic--long ago planted the seed by projecting his own myriad mental and age-related deficits onto his opponent.

 

Prominent members of the mainstream media copiously watered that seed, even before the unsatisfactory Biden-Trump debate--which was problematic for both performers, not just one. But no one in the media ever argued that Trump should withdraw or hounded him to have real neurological tests to which they would have access. Instead, after the debate, the New York Times editorial board ignored Trump's performance and waited not even one day before demanding Biden withdraw for the so-called good of the country. The New Yorker then rushed to publish an article courting the negative medical speculations of nine anonymous doctors. These doctors had never examined Biden and, the New Yorker conceded, they “stipulated that they couldn’t diagnose the President from afar, and none wanted to be quoted by name.”—which reduces the New Yorker’s article to the value of scuttlebutt.

 

Furthermore, during a crucial pre-election period when the Democratic party should have been bringing their fight to Trump on all fronts, they wasted precious time in very public divisions, oblivious to the destructive effect on their own chances to save democracy. Trump and the Republicans must have been quietly drinking (hopefully premature) celebratory champagne.

 

 A few days before President Biden’s announcement—and after he again came down with a bout of covid--California Congressman and Senatorial candidate Adam Schiff joined those suggesting the president should withdraw. To his credit, Schiff did not question Biden’s fitness to serve, but only his ability to win. By that time, Schiff’s assessment was accurate. The media and the Democrats had created an atmosphere in which, no matter what proof of competence Biden provided, it would be rejected. And any further sidetracking of the main battle—democracy vs. fascist dictatorship under a Project 2025 blueprint—could be devastating.

 

So, okay. The shameful manner in which President Biden was ousted by his own party?  Bygones.

 

In Kamala Harris we have a great candidate, a former prosecutor who can ably take the political fight to the Trumpists. Many elected Democrats quickly endorsed her. Act Blue reported that it had raised $27 million in the first five hours after the Vice-President was endorsed. And according to CNBC, her campaign raised $49.6 million in grassroots donations in less than one day. Apparently, the people are behind her.

 

However, Reuters suggests that, despite Harris’s early support, talk of an open convention in August has not been totally silenced. It also points out that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama have not yet announced endorsements.


Others have speculated that Obama is waiting in order to be sure he can endorse whoever is the candidate without having appeared to take sides beforehand. Hopefully, Nancy Pelosi’s reticence is based on some similar reasoning.

 

In addition, Reuters claims that Harris performs no better statistically in polls than Biden had done against Trump: “In a head-to-head match-up, Harris and Trump were tied with 44% support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted immediately after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.”

 

To give any credence to this snapshot in time is ridiculous given that Trump, in that moment, was bound to get a sympathy bounce from some, and Harris had not even begun to campaign in her own right. Not to mention that the Democratic party as a whole has not yet begun to fight.

 

An open convention in which various additional politicians vie for the top spot less than three months before the election would tear the party apart and end in disaster. There is no time to waste in petty, self-interested competitions.

 

If the Democrats have any sense, they will stop any party indecision or division in its tracks,

continue to coalesce around Kamala for president, and spend their energy figuring out who will best balance the ticket for a win in the fall. And, of course, begin--immediately-- to address and attack the many horrors the Trump team is proposing to perpetrate.


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