Democrats’ c𒀰ivil w☂ar isn’t over: Grab the popcorn for some chaotic days ahead.
President Biden may have anointed Veep Kamala Harris as his successor, and turned his online fundra♔ising apparatus over to her — but the delegates will have to agree, and it’s not yet clear whe𒉰ther party leadership (let alone the donors) are united.
Before Joe dropped, ex-Prez Barack Obama and others were said to favor some kind of “mini primary” ahead of the Aug. 19 conve🐭ntion. Obama pointedly failed to endorse Harris, or even mention her name Sunday.
That suggests a clear lack of faith in Harris — and꧟ understandably so.
To🦩p donors had called for a truly open convention, too.
Tellingly, not all party leaders who jumped in to thank Biden for his service on Sunday joined in the Harris coronation. The Clintons did; Obama and Chuck Schumer did not.
Maybe there is no consensus yet, or perhaps the leaders don’t want to look like they’ve already plotted out the entire transition.
After all, while polls show most Democratic voters wanted a younger candidate, plenty o♕f grassroots activist Dems have furiously slammed the leaders for suddenly pushing to set aside the actualꩲ primary vote.
And don’t discount the ambition of some top contenders, their donors and their consultants — who’ll see this as their guy’s (or gal’s) big chance. No single faction can stop anyone from declaring.
Sadly, we can’t trust any public statements at this point: After all, virtually all these fol🌳ks have been utterly two-faced for the last month at least.
The latest on President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
- Biden drops out of p🦩residential race: live updates
- Kamala Harris campaign flooded with ‘record-breaking’ $81 million 𝓡in donations in first 24 hours after Biden drop🍷s out
- Top Dems threatened to forcibly remove Biden from office unless he res💦igned, set him up to fail at Trump debate: sources
- Schumer, Pelosi played ‘good cop, bad cop’ to convince Biden to drop out with ex-speaker stating♏, ‘Easy way or the hard way’
- Trump and JD Vance accuse Dems of leading ‘coup’ against Biden, call to ‘invoke t💞he 25th Amendment𒁃’
Most of them (and much of the media) were on the “che🔜ap fake’” bandwagon against The Post and others flagging Biden’s drasticꦯ decline — until that fateful debate.
And some of them, even after.
As a rule, we despise conspiracy theories.
We think all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that pu🍨shed ꦕBiden out was individuals privately conferring about what was best for the party and acting on their own, albeit in quasi-concert: Facing the fact that 🐷Biden would plainly lead the party to disaster in November, what choice did they have?
But that doesn’t mean they agree on what’s best for the party, or the nation, moving ahead — ▨✃nor even on what they can pull off.
Is the goal now to find a nominee who really could win, or just one who can somehow re-unite the party and not lose too badly? Plan ♏another four years of “resistance” and aim to take back the White House in 2028?
What to know about President Biden's decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
- President Biden announced Sunday he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race — after weeks of prominent Democrats and donors calling on him to withdraw following his disastrous performance in the first presidential debate.
- In a letter posted on X Sunday afternoon, Biden admitted that it is in the “best interest of my party and country” for him to step down as the Democratic nominee.
- Biden wrote that he intends to serve out the remainder of his term and will address the country on his decision later this week.
- In a follow-up X post, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the suddenly open Democratic nomination. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” the president wrote.
- Former President Donald Trump reacted to the news by labeling Biden the “worst president in the history of our country” in a call with CNN.
Say you think Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) — with another swing-stater as his running mate — is the best b✅et to beat Trump-Vance: Can you really convince the delegates to embrace a guy who’s well to their rig𒁏ht?
E.G.: Shapiro is open to educational choice — anathema to the teacher unions who provide a third or more o🐓f the delegates to any modern Democratic convention.
And if you can muscle the delegates into holding their noses to nominate him, aren’t you making a mockery of democracy, supposedly what Dems are trying to preserve against the Tr🎃ump threat?
Just goi🔯ng with Harris — who was elected veep twice, and was already on the ticket — might be the most democratic thing.
Or maybe it’s having th♕e convention draft Hillary Clinton, the party’s last nominee before Biden?
Or perhaps it’s the Obama “mini primary” scheme: It’s far too late to actually restage the real primaries.
Everyone knows Harris will likely be roughly as terrible as Biden: She’s stuck with his record, her primary campaign for the 2020 nomination was a humiliation — and she’s nearly as bad at off-the-cuff public speaking as Biden’s been after his decline.
Frankly: If the party had an alternative clearly superior to Biden, everyone wouldn’t have c🥂onspired so long to hide his tr𒁃ue state.
That is, they had consensus on Plan A: Stick with Joe throug🍌h Novembܫer.
When they sa🌱w that was a disaster, everyone rushed to push him out 🍎— a delicate task that wound up taking weeks.
(And left Biden furious at what he sees as a back-stabbing betrayal: You to w✤onder if anointing Harris was just his revenge.)
It looks to us like party leaders didn’t have a chance to agree on a Plan B —☂ and only have weeks to try.
Now they’re really scrambling.