"Voters Have Outright Rejected Dean Phillips"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes she is making sense, telling Jake Tapper

Right now, when it comes to the President's age, folks are talking about how he's 81 but first of all we have to look- first of all, Donald Trump is around the same age- he's 77 years old, they could have gone to high school together.

They didn't. Middle class Joe was in Delaware and attended a private (Roman Catholic) preparatory school in Delaware  and Donald J. Trump attended New York Military Academy, a private boarding school 60 miles north of NYC.  If they had gone to the same high school, Trump probably wouldn't have been even a freshman while Biden was a senior. Today, they are both seniors. And a lot can happen to an individual between age 82- when Trump would be completing a second term- and age 86, when Biden would be completing a second term. A lot.

The New York congresswoman continues

.... and beyond that, Donald Trump has ninety-one indictments.  And I know who I'm going to choose. It's going to be one of the most successful Presidents in modern American history, that passed the Inflation Reduction Act, that got us the American Rescue Plan, that ensured we could pass one of the largest investments in climate change in U.S. history.

(Sarcasm ahead.) It's heartening to learn that Ocasio-Cortez is going to vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Hopefully, it's not a close call for her. She deserves no argument on assessing Biden "one of the most successful Presidents in modern American history." No doubt, justifiably, she would not suggest a Republican President has been more successful. Therefore- depending upon her definition of modern- the young congresswoman may be comparing the incumbent against Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. If so, she could have omitted "one of" from her evaluation.

That may be nitpicking but it's not nitpicking to inform the congresswoman that Donald J. Trump is facing nor 91 indictments but four indictments. Presumably, she was referring to the 91 total counts with which he is being charged. By going with ninety-one indictments, Ocasio-Cortez was off by nearly 2300%. A rudimentary understanding of criminal justice is not one of the strong points of the congresswoman who, not coincidentally, was one of the most prominent and ardent supporters of the misguided Black Lives Matter movement.

Ocasio-Cortez added

And as far as we know, as we know, virtually all of the filing deadlines have passed. There's already been a primary, voters have outright rejected Dean Phillip. President Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee.

in which AOC describes Biden as "one on most successful presidents in modern American history" -- a statement that shouldn't be controversial on the left but is, sadly https://t.co/Tf1Kd3EHay

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 14, 2024

Well, of course, they have done so. The Democratic National Committee, in defiance of tradition (and why would tradition matter to a 77-year-old who has spent his entire career in politics), moved the primary in the Republican state of South Carolina. ahead of votes in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. President Biden explained that race was the explicit rationale for the move when he wrote the DNC

For decades, Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process. We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.

This is what can happen when individuals, including the President of the USA, prioritize race over everything. The will not level with the public.

The Democratic Party does not rely on South Carolina in elections. The last time a Democratic nominee captured So. Carolina in a presidential election was in 1976 (remember disco? bell bottom jeans?) and Joe Biden lost the state in 2020 by 11.7 percentage points. Knowing he won't win it in 2024, he won't campaign there in the general election. Democrats do not "rely on these voters in elections" nor have they "not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar." Biden gained the nomination in 2020 because of South Carolina's voters, and only because of South Carolina's voters. If he- like most of the Party movers and shakers- didn't recognize that, they wouldn't have maneuvered the state into first place in this cycle's process.

Joe Biden is going to be re-nominated (unless he expectedly withdraws) the Democratic nomination. However, it's not going to be because of the impressive record cited by Ocasio-Cortez in brief. As he realizes, he was nominated in 2020 because of African-American voters and, whatever his mental state now, he was smart enough four years ago to buy himself insurance against rejection by Democratic elites or Democratic voters (of whatever race). Vice-President Kamala Harris may have been a mediocre Senator and bad state Attorney General (both) and is very unpopular but her status as first in line to the presidency has scared away Democrats otherwise considering a challenge to Joe Biden.. Veteran Democratic strategist and Harris supporter Karen Finney was quoted by NBC News last September as warning

When you had people who were trying to test the waters, the party rose up and made it clear to those individuals- who were mostly white men- that to disrespect the vice president would not be well received by women and people of color within the party. They got a little bit of a smack in the face.

Notwithstanding the congresswoman's claim to the contrary, Joe Biden could, and would, be replaced on the ballot if the Party's power brokers wished. They do not, and it's not because of whatever filing deadlines have passed, because he has governed far better than the last Democratic President (never acknowledged), or because he won big in a Democratic primary against a United States Representative no one outside of Minnesota has heard of. Party establishment could replace Joe Biden on the ballot if it chose but the affront to the vice-president is more important than defeating Donald Trump. 

The reason is fairly obvious but cannot be uttered in polite company. Joe Biden appears to be (politically, anyway) dead man walking. But to many Democrats, some things are more important than defeating Donald Trump. 

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