Party Rules are Made Up, Let’s Change Them
Or: What Can Be, Unburdened By What Has Been
I think there are legitimate signs Biden may drop out, so I’m getting this out now while it’s relevant even though it is unpolished and may quickly be obsolete. I think even though the specific example may be outdated quickly, the principle of actually thinking through what can be done is still worth getting out in writing.
By now, you’re probably sick of hearing about Joe Biden’s debate performance, so I won’t talk about it. I’ll just say that, given his debate performance, it’s clearly time for a new nominee. The tricky thing is, in every article I read about what it would actually take for this to happen, the author references the party rules in the way of replacing Joe Biden as if they were handed down from on high.
They reference things like the fact that the Primaries have already been held and Biden holds a supermajority of delegates. He would have to voluntarily drop out for those delegates to be free to vote for somebody else. There’s no clear frontrunner to replace him, his current VP is maybe even a worse choice than he is (though I’m not sure about that at this point), plus the Democratic party is very anti-smoke filled rooms (at least publicly). There’s no time to hold another primary and a contested convention is messy, especially given how close it is to election day (who chose that date anyway?).
But these are all made up issues by made up parties with made up rules. We can change them if we want to1.
Take the delegates for example: the DNC can simply hold a vote to change the rules that the delegates aren’t bound to Biden in the first vote so that other candidates can start reaching out and trying to persuade them. See if there’s a consensus that can build early and bam, no contested convention.
Take holding another primary as a second example. Did you know that many of our peer countries only campaign for like 2-6 weeks? It’s an anomaly that our campaigns last anywhere from 90 days to 2 years. There is a structure in place such that the Democratic party could call for snap primaries to be held across the country and the people could nominate a new candidate before the convention so there’s not a contested convention. Just because we’re not used to it, doesn’t mean it’s not possible and the various local and state parties could surely organize a primary in 40 days.
But better yet, both for this election and all elections going forward, the Democratic party needs to take back control of their party. This handing things over to the people was a fun experiment, but it’s clearly producing worse and worse candidates. The Democrats can, if they want to, simply change the rules such that the smoke filled room picks a moderate (non-geriatric) candidate who is likely to beat Trump and simply tell states, “This is our candidate, put her on the ballot.” Bam, no contested convention.
It’s time to take back your party, Democrats. That or watch Trump get reelected all because you didn’t have the fortitude (and frankly patriotism) to put country before tradition and stand up to an 81 year old who can barely string together two sentences. If it were me, I’d go for Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro, but what do I know? I’m just exactly the demographic of voter (conservative who doesn’t like Trump) you need to persuade to turn out and vote for you.
This whole “There’s nothing we can do” narrative, when held up to scrutiny, just sounds a like a lot of people who don’t want to stick their neck out there and be brave. Because there is a lot you can do, you just don’t want to risk your livelihood or reputation with your comrades.
This may not be 100% true. Some states do have laws regarding primaries, so I don’t know all the ins and outs of that. But by and large parties are not government entities and can do what they want.