Dems in array (derogatory)

A few people have already mentioned this act of self-parody in comments, and somehow the execution is even worse than the premise:

Yesterday, Joe Biden did the honorable thing, after weeks of denying that anything had to be done at all. His announcement took his party by surprise—and now, in haste, the Democrats are making a colossal error and ensuring that they will reap as little advantage from Biden’s decision as possible. The error is not the choice of Kamala Harris. It is the sudden rallying behind her, the torrent of endorsements, right after Biden’s self-removal. Biden’s senescence was only part of the party’s crisis. The other part was the impression that Democratic politics felt like a game rigged by insiders to favor a candidate of their choice, and to isolate that candidate from the risk associated with campaigning. For 27 minutes, between the time Biden announced his withdrawal and the time he broke the seal on Harris endorsements by bestowing his, the contest felt thrillingly, bracingly wide-open. The Democrats should have kept it open all the way into the convention next month, in Chicago.

THRILLINGLY, BRACINGLY wide-open. The cards are right out on the table, and the idea that this is about the good of the party, rather than people who have long fantasized about a Wrestlemania convention getting their kicks, is absurd. They can barely hide it.

Aside from that, the deeply cynical Catch-22 cycle being set up here is obvious. If Dems reach a consensus, the process is RIGGED. If there’s a “bracingly” contentious process with bitter internal divisions Dems are in DISARRAY and every attack on the frontrunner is amplified, leaving the party unable turn to the urgent task of getting its message out and going after Trump. And then when Harris wins (as he concedes would almost certainly be the case) it shows things were RIGGED anyway! And if someone else somehow won, this would also be evidence of RIGGING, as the party deposed the candidate people actually voted for in favor of a some shiny new toy picked arbitrarily by party elites. It’s a no-win situation, which of course is the point.

It’s also worth noting again too that all this blitz primary/America’s Got Talent featuring Ben Sasse, Rick Warren and Zendaya convention scenarios are completely nonsensical if you think them through for more than 10 seconds. How, exactly, is a governor with no national name recognition going to assemble a campaign operation that can take on a sitting vice president in 72 hours? Even if this were possible, how does a replacement for a primary that has no way of getting input from voters generate a legitimate candidate if it isn’t the vice president, let alone one who can pre-empt charges that the process is rigged?

Conviniently, we get to a point where the subtext becomes text:

If a campaign launch is a candidate’s chance to show off his pearly smile, the primary is the candidate’s chance to show off that smile after he’s been slugged in the face a few times. And as in boxing, it’s better to take one’s practice hits from a sparring partner rather than from the defending champ who awaits you on fight night. Harris is now in danger of bypassing that jaw-hardening process…

That’s what this is about. It’s not about democratic legitimacy, or the health of the party, or God knows staving off fascism. It’s a complaint that the press hasn’t been able to mercilessly beat up Harris, the way they’ve been beating up Biden ever since he took away their beloved war in Afghanistan, and especially the way they beat up that bitch Hillary in 2016. That’s entertainment!

Well, sorry, but you’re not getting your dumb Mr. Beast and Oprah two-week reality show or West Wing convention. You won’t have as much time to break the jaw of the Democratic nominee as usual. The party went the only way, democratically and logistically, it could go if Biden stepped down. Suck it up, buttercup.