Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate for one reason: during his 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination, he had vowed to select a female of color for his vice president. Kamala Harris represented a plausible individual who fit those criteria, and so she became his running mate.
That was it: a cynical marriage of convenience. Not the first one in the history of American politics, certainly. But let’s not kid ourselves about what it was really all about. The two never worked particularly well together. Nor do we get the sense that Biden and Harris, separated by a wide gulf of age, ideology, regional affiliation, and lived experience, ever had much in the way of personal rapport.
Neither Trump nor Biden performed particularly well in their June 27 debate. But Trump at least remained coherent, while Joe Biden often appeared confused and disoriented onstage. That debate was an unmitigated disaster for Biden, who already faced concerns about senescence and cognitive decline.
Days later, the Democratic Party establishment, with the collusion of the mainstream media, pushed Biden aside in a coup-like process that was anything but Democratic. There were no primaries; Democratic voters did not get a say. The party’s elites anointed Kamala Harris, and told the unwashed rank-and-file to get in line with the [new] program.
Kamala Harris nevertheless lost on Election Day, despite a poor showing from Trump in their September 10 debate. Despite numerous public gaffes by Trump and his surrogates. Despite the best efforts of the celebrity class and the mainstream media.
And so now, with only a few weeks remaining in office, Joe Biden is reportedly expressing regrets about dropping out. In what must have been an authorized leak to the Washington Post, Biden has claimed that he could have beaten Trump in November—if only his party would have stuck with him.
Biden’s reported claims are difficult to square with the evidence. First there was Biden’s horrific showing in every poll. Kamala Harris, despite her many flaws as a candidate, did at least energize a portion of the electorate. (Just not as big a portion as her cheerleaders had hoped.) Had he continued to head the Democratic ticket through Election Day, Biden likely would have lost to Trump by an even wider margin.
The Democratic Party should have run a moderate centrist: someone like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. But therein lies the root of the Democratic Party’s actual problem. The Democratic Party did not lose the election on the outward visage of its standard-bearer, but on its basic sales pitch.
As recently as the Bill Clinton era, the Democratic Party was the party of the working class. Yes, there was always an element of social liberalism: abortion, gay rights, and protest culture. But Bill Clinton won the 1992 election primarily on kitchen-table issues. Hence the famous rallying cry of the Clinton-Gore ’92 campaign: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Economic issues are barely mentioned in progressive circles nowadays. Gone are discussions about healthcare reform, to cite just one example.
Bernie Sanders once tackled CEO pay, a cause that brought him into line with conservatives like Lou Dobbs and old-line populists like Ross Perot. No Democrat in 2024 would have dared raise the issue of CEO pay. CEOs, after all, are at the core of the Democratic donor class, along with the millionaire celebrities: Lizzo, George Clooney, and Taylor Swift.
A progressive of 1994 would barely recognize a progressive of 2024. A “progressive” is now someone whose highest priority is championing the cause of pregnant men, and making sure that every pregnant man has a right to an abortion.
The Democratic Party has combined these positions with a stubborn refusal to address both crime and the breakdown of our southern border. That is simply not a platform with any broad appeal, as the results from Election Day proved.
That platform could not have been carried to victory by either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. But “Kamala or Joe?” is the wrong question. The Democratic Party has a more fundamental problem appealing to the American voter.
-ET