Privilege vs. Electability

As of 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, there are three camps in the Democratic Party. There are those who will soon disappear, doggedly defending President Biden; individuals, such as Jim Clyburn, who believe that the presidential nomination should be handed on a silver platter to Vice President Kamala Harris; and individuals who believe there should be open competition for the top spot once Joe Biden bows out.

In the latter category are who could be characterized as democratic Democrats. Most clearly representative of this group is longtime U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas. He has it exactly right:

Doggett notes that Joe Biden has been an effective President and that "our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang." Having emphasized "too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory," the congressman proceeds logically to "he has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country thorough an open, democratic process."

This is, after all, the Democratic Party, which makes ironic to hear voice(s) which believes it should be transformed into the Undemocratic Party:

 

Listening to white folks desperately try to justify not going with the Black woman who has all the campaign money is something else.

Just, real ass showing all around.

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) July 3, 2024

Leave aside (for now) the race-mongering. In the midst of an occasional insight, it is just something you have to put with in Elie Mystal. More importantly, though a lawyer, he is not a campaign finance attorney nor possessing of any particular credentials in campaign finance law. And despite the highly misleading title of this article, it is not at all clear that Kamala Harris would inherit Biden campaign funds.  Reportedly, the money could be refunded to donors, "who could in turn donate to a new candidate. Further, two experts in the field

noted that if Biden steps aside, the funds could be transferred to a charity or a super PAC, which would not be able to coordinate with the campaign. The funds could also be transferred to the national party.

Campaign finance law is (in)famously complex and arcane. However (or therefore) the bottom line is that no one knows for sure what would become of the funds already collected for the campaign. Practically, that means that the Party could do whatever it wishes. In the worst case scenario, it does what is later deemed illegal and is eventually fined. And no one, aside from perhaps the then-chairperson of the FEC remembers the time in 1993 that

Senator Bob Dole's 1988 campaign for President has agreed to pay more than $120,000 in civil penalties for election law violations, the largest settlement for any Presidential campaign organization, the Federal Election Commission said today.

In the settlement, Dole campaign officials admitted that they had committed several serious violations in raising and spending money for the 1988 presidential primaries.

In an extensive article following Dole's death in December, 2021, The New York Times made no mention of the campaign violation.. Neither did The Washington Post. Few if any people paid attention at the time of the infraction; ditto when the fine was levied, and at the time of his passing, no one noticed, let alone cared about it. 

If privilege is to reign supreme, the Party vey likely could transfer the campaign funds to Kamala Harris. Mystal may be only the first, or close to the first, of well-known individuals to imply that race must be his party's primary concern in choosing someone to replace Joe Biden, and that to overlook her would be racist. (My "leave aside for now" meant only for the moment.) 

Political pundits have understood for many months that the election would turn on whether it is viewed by voters as a choice or a referendum, the latter obviously a welcome scenario for Donald Trump. If Kamala Harris is nominated for President, Mr. Trump would delight in excoriating what would become known as the Biden-Harris administration, an albatross no candidate other than Harris or Biden would have to bear.

In response, the Party should do as Lloyd Doggett suggests and recognize that keeping Donald Trump from returning to the White House is the greatest priority. The shattering of glass ceilings is far less critical, especially now that the US Supreme Court has decided in TRUMP v. United States that the President of the United States of America may assume the powers of a king.

 

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Lies and the Lying Liar Who Tells Them

On Friday, Bill Maher quipped "in case you missed (the Biden-Trump debated), so did one of the contestants."

“I think Democrats are being held to a different standard here.” @MollyJongFast says there’s too much focus on Biden’s debate performance and not on Trump’s egregious lies. pic.twitter.com/IqyxugddMX

— The Weekend on MSNBC (@TheWeekendMSNBC) June 30, 2024

CNN's great Daniel Dale did note that while Biden made at least nine false claims, Trump made more than thirty, including 

his assertions that some Democratic-led states allow babies to be executed after birth, that every legal scholar and everybody in general wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, that there were no terror attacks during his presidency, that Iran didn’t fund terror groups during his presidency, that the US has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has, that Biden for years referred to Black people as “super predators,” that Biden is planning to quadruple people’s taxes, that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 National Guard troops for the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, that Americans don’t pay the cost of his tariffs on China and other countries, that Europe accepts no American cars, that he is the president who got the Veterans Choice program through Congress, and that fraud marred the results of the 2020 election."best practice."

Yet it's difficult to focus on lies or other falsehoods because there is no video. Video drives cable news and television news in general because it's, well, visual, viewers like to see it, and interviews and discussions can be packaged around it. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to see it, it still makes a sound. But there is no one to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it, and.....

It would make for bad television and a trivial number of social media clicks. By contrast, if someone is videotaped slurring words, unable to complete a thought, speaking incoherently, or looking as if he is barely aware of where he is, people want to see it. Additionally, there is a sort of dog bites man to Trump lying whenever his lips move- it's what he has done for years and it's just another day in the life.

Donald Trump, as usual, rarely made an accurate claim. However, as Maher put it, "Trump told lie after lie after lie. He never would have gotten away with that if Joe Biden was there."

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