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The Democrats chose Biden in the election. If a party's candidate cannot serve, there is a process to choose a new candidate, which is not a general party elect

The Democrats chose Biden in the election. If a party's candidate cannot serve, there is a process to choose a new candidate, which is not a general party election. (https://www.vox.com/2016/9/12/12887632/if-presidential-nominee-drops-out https://www.vox.com/2016/9/12/12887632/if-presidential-nomin...). There's a very good reason for this: those general elections cost states money. Money they have not budgeted to re-run a primary. In addition, in most states, the primary is framed in a legal process that does not allow for an "out-of-band" second election. It would, generally, have been illegal to re-run an election (at least using the physical voting apparatus of the myriad states) to choose an alternate when Biden dropped, which is why the party chooses via their own process. And as far as I'm aware, that process was followed following Biden's announcement. I wouldn't accuse Republicans of being uneducated and naive if people didn't vote for Harris because "she never won a primary..." I'd accuse traditional Democrat voters of not knowing very much about the party they (nominally) tend to support. It'd be nice if civics weren't just something people's parents and grandparents did. As for being an outsider... In 2024, I fail to see how voters would think a former President could be considered outside the system.

aftbit 2y ago
Biden should have simply refused to run again in 2024. There was already signalling to this effect in 2019, though it was never explicitly promised.[1][2] If he had just kept to that, there would have been plenty of time to run a primary and an actually strong candidate could have been selected. 1: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/joe-biden-one-term-lame-duck.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/joe-biden-one-te... 2: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/biden-president-trump-rematch-one-term-promise-nate-silver.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/biden-president-...
- scryers_bloom 2y ago
  My understanding is that Biden was very concerned about his legacy and there are rumors about the "no daylight" phrase he spoke with Harris on her campaign and probably part of the reason she lost. But Biden should have dropped down much earlier and will taint his legacy forever. At least he passed the infrastructure bill.
arrosenberg 2y ago
> And as far as I'm aware, that process was followed following Biden's announcement. This is exactly the problem. The Democratic Party excuse is always "we're following the process". The results suck and then they wring their hands wondering how they lost the election. The goal should be to get power, and getting power requires nominating someone popular. Anyone who has paid attention to US politics for the last decade could have explained just how unpopular Kamala Harris would be.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Pushing too far in that direction results in a Trump wearing a different hat. The Democrats do follow process. That's one of the key things that makes them Democrats in contrast to the demagoguery and power-at-any-cost approach that seems to have co-opted their colleagues across the aisle. I don't think the kind of people who would vote for a Democratic candidate at all actually want a rule-breaker (and if they do, we got one in the Oval Office right now).
  - arrosenberg 2y ago
    Wrong. We do want someone who will break rules when the rules are there to stop the government from serving its' constituents. So glad they kept the filibuster; so glad they listened to the Senate Parliamentarian; so glad they followed the process and anointed Kamala. Look at where worshipping the process lead.
    - pseudalopex 2y ago
      > Wrong. We do want someone who will break rules when the rules are there to stop the government from serving its' constituents. Some of you do. Some of you don't. Most of you want of you presidents to obey courts at least.[1] > So glad they kept the filibuster In 2013 Democrats eliminated the 60 vote requirement for most nominations. In 2022 all but 2 Democrats voted to eliminate it for some legislation. Who kept it was 100% of Republicans, Sinema, and Manchin. Some people who sounded like you said Democrats could have and should have blackmailed Sinema and Manchin to get 50 votes. They couldn't explain what would have stopped Sinema or Manchin from defecting to the Republicans. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-believe-presidents-should-obey-courts-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-03-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-believe-...
kelipso 2y ago
Do the post-hoc rationalizations matter? Kamala wasn’t elected in a primary and so the perception by many is that she was an illegitimate candidate. That perception translates directly to votes, the justifications for Kamala being the candidate do not.
- zzrrt 2y ago
  When the choice was between a current VP or an insurrectionist and convicted felon, anyone who thought Harris was less legitimate for candidacy has a funny definition. (I guess I don’t believe in protest votes or third parties in this climate.) Maybe subconscious feelings made people not bother to get to the polls to vote for her, but I don’t think there’s a sensible conscious argument to ditch her on this basis. In fact, people often say she failed for a reason that is almost an opposite of her unfairly replacing Biden – they say she acted just like him and wouldn’t differentiate herself from him. I get it was unusual and maybe offensive the way she got nominated, but if a principled voter is going to weigh informal notions of legitimacy, the obvious choice is hold their nose and vote for Harris.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    The most rational conclusion after the 2024 election is that most voters are not rational (or, more specifically, "models of their behavior need to prioritize something other than rational-self-interest").
  - kelipso 2y ago
    It would be rewarding bad behavior though. Since there would then be no incentive to stop, voting for Harris would increase the likelihood of the Democrats continuing to skip primaries or promote candidates from within while ignoring their lack of popularity in the primaries. I don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. It’s a myopic viewpoint that doesn’t take into account long term consequences. People can rationally look at the long term benefits vs short term risks and rationally vote for Trump. It is extremely hubristic to think that people who don’t agree with you politically are stupid or irrational.
ElevenLathe 2y ago
Not to rehash this for the 1000th time, but I really don't understand this point of view. Why assume that everything before the Biden drop-out was unchangeable and ordained by God? It is very clear that, long before the primary, Biden was not fit to run again, probably not even fit to stay in office. A functioning party would have gotten their senile standard-bearer to at least not run again, ideally even step down and let his VP take office and build a relationship with voters. Either way, they could have run a real primary and therefore chosen somebody that Democratic voters might actually have been excited about voting for in the general election. This may even have been Harris, but a version of Harris with a much better shot at winning because she'd spent an additional year or so campaigning. Why is this an impossible set of events? If it isn't, why not lay the blame for this colossally bad fuckup at the feet of the Democratic leadership?
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  I wouldn't, personally, have had any issue with such a scenario. My comment was in response to the pervasive and wrong idea that the Democrats could have "just" re-run the primary when Biden dropped after being elected in that primary. I think people believe elections are internet-fast or internet-convenient, which is where this skewed idea comes from. They aren't, for reasons that should be obvious with some consideration about how elections are secured.
  - kelipso 2y ago
    They could have had a mini primary leading to the Democrat convention in August and let the voters in the convention (electors?) decide from multiple candidates while taking polls into account, for example. Having a memory, I do remember people discussing the option of mini primaries. Harris wasn’t pre-ordained, she was just a bad decision that Democrat insiders made without input from the outside.
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      What is a "mini-primary?"

aftbit 2y ago

Biden should have simply refused to run again in 2024. There was already signalling to this effect in 2019, though it was never explicitly promised.[1][2] If he had just kept to that, there would have been plenty of time to run a primary and an actually strong candidate could have been selected. 1: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/joe-biden-one-term-lame-duck.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/joe-biden-one-te... 2: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/biden-president-trump-rematch-one-term-promise-nate-silver.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/biden-president-...

scryers_bloom 2y ago
My understanding is that Biden was very concerned about his legacy and there are rumors about the "no daylight" phrase he spoke with Harris on her campaign and probably part of the reason she lost. But Biden should have dropped down much earlier and will taint his legacy forever. At least he passed the infrastructure bill.

arrosenberg 2y ago

> And as far as I'm aware, that process was followed following Biden's announcement. This is exactly the problem. The Democratic Party excuse is always "we're following the process". The results suck and then they wring their hands wondering how they lost the election. The goal should be to get power, and getting power requires nominating someone popular. Anyone who has paid attention to US politics for the last decade could have explained just how unpopular Kamala Harris would be.

shadowgovt 2y ago
Pushing too far in that direction results in a Trump wearing a different hat. The Democrats do follow process. That's one of the key things that makes them Democrats in contrast to the demagoguery and power-at-any-cost approach that seems to have co-opted their colleagues across the aisle. I don't think the kind of people who would vote for a Democratic candidate at all actually want a rule-breaker (and if they do, we got one in the Oval Office right now).
- arrosenberg 2y ago
  Wrong. We do want someone who will break rules when the rules are there to stop the government from serving its' constituents. So glad they kept the filibuster; so glad they listened to the Senate Parliamentarian; so glad they followed the process and anointed Kamala. Look at where worshipping the process lead.
  - pseudalopex 2y ago
    > Wrong. We do want someone who will break rules when the rules are there to stop the government from serving its' constituents. Some of you do. Some of you don't. Most of you want of you presidents to obey courts at least.[1] > So glad they kept the filibuster In 2013 Democrats eliminated the 60 vote requirement for most nominations. In 2022 all but 2 Democrats voted to eliminate it for some legislation. Who kept it was 100% of Republicans, Sinema, and Manchin. Some people who sounded like you said Democrats could have and should have blackmailed Sinema and Manchin to get 50 votes. They couldn't explain what would have stopped Sinema or Manchin from defecting to the Republicans. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-believe-presidents-should-obey-courts-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-03-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-believe-...

kelipso 2y ago

Do the post-hoc rationalizations matter? Kamala wasn’t elected in a primary and so the perception by many is that she was an illegitimate candidate. That perception translates directly to votes, the justifications for Kamala being the candidate do not.

zzrrt 2y ago
When the choice was between a current VP or an insurrectionist and convicted felon, anyone who thought Harris was less legitimate for candidacy has a funny definition. (I guess I don’t believe in protest votes or third parties in this climate.) Maybe subconscious feelings made people not bother to get to the polls to vote for her, but I don’t think there’s a sensible conscious argument to ditch her on this basis. In fact, people often say she failed for a reason that is almost an opposite of her unfairly replacing Biden – they say she acted just like him and wouldn’t differentiate herself from him. I get it was unusual and maybe offensive the way she got nominated, but if a principled voter is going to weigh informal notions of legitimacy, the obvious choice is hold their nose and vote for Harris.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  The most rational conclusion after the 2024 election is that most voters are not rational (or, more specifically, "models of their behavior need to prioritize something other than rational-self-interest").
- kelipso 2y ago
  It would be rewarding bad behavior though. Since there would then be no incentive to stop, voting for Harris would increase the likelihood of the Democrats continuing to skip primaries or promote candidates from within while ignoring their lack of popularity in the primaries. I don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. It’s a myopic viewpoint that doesn’t take into account long term consequences. People can rationally look at the long term benefits vs short term risks and rationally vote for Trump. It is extremely hubristic to think that people who don’t agree with you politically are stupid or irrational.

ElevenLathe 2y ago

Not to rehash this for the 1000th time, but I really don't understand this point of view. Why assume that everything before the Biden drop-out was unchangeable and ordained by God? It is very clear that, long before the primary, Biden was not fit to run again, probably not even fit to stay in office. A functioning party would have gotten their senile standard-bearer to at least not run again, ideally even step down and let his VP take office and build a relationship with voters. Either way, they could have run a real primary and therefore chosen somebody that Democratic voters might actually have been excited about voting for in the general election. This may even have been Harris, but a version of Harris with a much better shot at winning because she'd spent an additional year or so campaigning. Why is this an impossible set of events? If it isn't, why not lay the blame for this colossally bad fuckup at the feet of the Democratic leadership?

shadowgovt 2y ago
I wouldn't, personally, have had any issue with such a scenario. My comment was in response to the pervasive and wrong idea that the Democrats could have "just" re-run the primary when Biden dropped after being elected in that primary. I think people believe elections are internet-fast or internet-convenient, which is where this skewed idea comes from. They aren't, for reasons that should be obvious with some consideration about how elections are secured.
- kelipso 2y ago
  They could have had a mini primary leading to the Democrat convention in August and let the voters in the convention (electors?) decide from multiple candidates while taking polls into account, for example. Having a memory, I do remember people discussing the option of mini primaries. Harris wasn’t pre-ordained, she was just a bad decision that Democrat insiders made without input from the outside.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    What is a "mini-primary?"