Open Thread: So Just Literally No Democratic Process From the Democrats

the Democratic party is existentially undemocratic

Here’s an open thread for subscribers to talk about the election. Yes, I’ll have something to say of substance soon. It’s just incredible to watch it play out in real time, the Democratic party totally abandoning even the fig leaf of democracy in how their party chooses nominees. Not even pretending, anymore.

We got in this mess because the Democratic machine decided that Hillary Clinton was going to be the nominee no matter what, despite the fact that she was always clearly a uniquely risky candidate whose obvious vulnerabilities would be exploited, and they were. They pushed aside Joe Biden, a reasonably popular vice president in a very winnable election, to kneel before the Clinton-Obama center-right dynasty, risking the entire country on Hillary’s colossal sense of entitlement. Then they used all of the party apparatus, like the absurd and hideously anti-democratic “superdelegate” system, to ensure that the party’s choice was the nominee. But because Hillary Clinton is one of the least popular figures in the history of American political polling, she deservedly lost, after running a campaign built on celebrity glamour in a country that was slowly decaying from years of deindustrialization and winner-take-all capitalism. This very year, we’re seeing the terrible outcome of the Democratic machine deciding that there would be no primary process for the 2024 election, moving all the levers to ensure that the party’s choice was the only choice. Turns out he’s incapable of campaigning. Whoops! Biden’s infirmity is precisely the kind of problem that can be revealed in a primary process, but the party elites didn’t want one, and the party elites decide. Now they’re doing it again, doubling down on total control by the party, handing the nomination to the wildly unpopular Kamala Harris despite the fact that she has earned zero votes for the role. It’s incredible.

But hey, at least she has experience running tough campaigns in [checks notes] San Francisco and California. Surely, she has the stuff to secure Pennsylvania.

And of course, of course, of course our pliable liberal establishment media is nodding along and accepting all of this as business as usual without critique, questions, or complaint. The relationship between the media and the Democratic party has never been more accommodating or less adversarial; no one is going to be running major pieces that really, truly take the Democrats to task in the way they deserve. No one is going to defend democracy on its own terms, let alone as a means to choose the actual most popular candidate. The party is a joke and media coverage of the party is a joke, and no one within either is going to spoil the fun by pointing any of this out. I hope to God Trump doesn’t win, but the Democrats deserve to lose. They richly, richly deserve to lose. And since I’m hoping to God that Harris wins, I’m also necessarily hoping to God that the party never has any reason to question its destructive addiction to elite rule. When will Democratic voters actually get to determine the direction of their party, the way those lunatics in the GOP actually determine the direction of theirs? Probably never.

If you want to participate in the open thread here, subscribe.