An Inconvenient Blog

By Ashkan

footnotes from Abigail

Hey guys, I had an idea (just trying it on for size). I’m planning on executing the following series of events:

1. Stumble my way into a job for which I am severely cognitively unfit;
2. Perform so poorly that I earn nearly the worst performance reviews in modern history;
3. Be publicly embarrassed on a colossal scale due to my shocking incompetence;
4. Face countless calls to quit from my closest friends and colleagues;
5. Quit.

Then will Barack Obama, as he called Joe Biden, brand me a “patriot of the highest order” too?

Why are we all praising Joe Biden right now? For deciding to run for President in 2020 at age 78¹ — when even then we were all asking the question: can this guy make it to run again? For skillfully shielding the country from his rapid mental decline for the past 4 years? Or for stubbornly staying in a losing race before leaving his party hapless and scrambling at the 11th hour?

Joe Biden is no good guy. His acts are no feats of patriotism. They are acts of hubris. Joe Biden’s unwillingness to loosen his grip on power has created a scenario which has damaged our democratic process. Sound familiar?²

Ok, I know this is no January 6th. But Joe Biden’s ego, and his ego alone, prevented the carrying out of a fair Democratic primary. He should never have declared a re-election campaign in this mental state. He dropped out leaving no time for voters to have a say in his replacement, and only because his handlers — George Clooney and the mega-donor class, the Democratic establishment, and the Washington cabal — told him so. And now the Clintons and Co³ are instructing Democrats to shut up and take Kamala Harris as their undemocratically shoe-horned appointee. Pure plutocracy.

Are we forgetting that Kamala Harris already tried this whole “get the Democratic nomination” thing? And that she ended her campaign polling at 3.5%? Meaning over 96 out of 100 Democratic voters wanted someone else? But now Democrats get no say.⁴ Kamala fell out of Biden’s coconut tree and directly into a head-to-head with Donald Trump. 

And no, Democrats did not already vote for Harris because she was on the ticket in the primary. Biden’s re-election run prevented anyone from challenging him as the sitting President; at no point did Democratic voters get to ask themselves: do I want Biden-Harris for 4 more years?

Not only that, but vice presidential candidates have almost always been identity-based hires — politically theatrical choices, not at all vetted by voters based on their capacity to be President. Mike Pence was the evangelical, midwestern foil to Trump. Tim Kaine was the white man to balance out the unprecedented nomination of Hillary Clinton (exactly like Joe Biden to Barack Obama). This time around Biden, the old white man, chose a young woman of color. Kamala, like the vast majority of VP candidates — of all races and genders, to be clear — was chosen for optics.⁵ Voters rejected her bid to become the executive but felt comfortable with her as a smile-and-wave ticket-adorner. She does not have a legitimate claim to the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

We’ll see what happens in November. My hunch is that undecided voters will have trouble accepting the Democratic candidate that no one voted for. As for me? I don’t know. I look forward to hearing the Vice President’s pitch to Americans as to why she deserves a promotion. She has her work cut out for her. Thanks, Joe.

Abigail’s Response

1. Well, thank God no 78-year-old Republican would ever do this. ↩︎
2. This point feels purely diversionary. Sure, Democratic voters have consistently soured on the idea of a two-term Biden presidency as his term has gone on, but why excoriate him now that he’s taken his final bow? He did what mattered; he admitted defeat. That’s precisely what Trump didn’t do in 2020, and I think Biden’s belated decision to step aside for the good of the country is better framed as a helpful example of what politicians should do: know when it’s time to go. He may not have nailed it, but Americans will remember that he agreed to leave the Oval Office without attempting to incite a coup, and someday they’ll appreciate that. ↩︎
3. If we’re so worried about the mega-donor class, someone tell JD Vance to stop taking Peter Thiel’s calls. We all know that if the so-called “Clintons and Co” had half as much power as Ashkan claims, we’d already have Hillary on the ticket. And you know what? #I’mWithHer ↩︎
4. Day-old polls and $81 million dollars suggest that Democrats aren’t too unhappy with their lot. ↩︎
5. I won’t pretend I disagree with this because I made the exact same point. Maybe it’s just the magnetic pull of the context in which I live talking, but on reflection, I think Kamala has the opportunity to escape the gimmicky and reductive persona she created for herself in 2020. Back then, Democrats prioritized values so pointless and arbitrary that they incentivized a former tough-on-crime prosecutor to rebrand herself via identity politics. But one day of campaigning shows that Kamala is back to her roots and no longer pretending to be what she isn’t. Maybe this time around she’ll have a chance to show voters what she’s made of, instead of reminding them how they can score made-up points by voting for her. ↩︎