The Absurdity of the 2024 Democratic Primary and Maybe of the Current Primary System in Total

One of the least serious arguments pushed out there about Biden staying in the race is that “we had a primary and the people decided they wanted Joe Biden again.” A sizable number of LGM commenters love this line. This is patently unserious. First, the Democratic Party has not had a seriously contested primary against an incumbent since Ted Kennedy tried to knock out Jimmy Carter in 1980. Every lever in the party stops it from happening. So all you get is wannabes like Dean Phillips and clowns like Marianne Williamson. There is no actual democratic process happening here.

But I will go further. I don’t think the primary process is democratic anyway! The reason for that is that four states make all the decisions. What about a process that allows white people in Iowa and New Hampshire to make this decision makes any sense or represents democracy at all? Democrats have realized this to an extent, demoting Iowa and its stupid caucus and promoting South Carolina and Nevada. That helps a little bit by at least having some states with non-white voters matter. But basically if you don’t live in one of four states, the Democratic Party primary process largely leaves to disfranchised!

Let me put it this way. I have now been eligible to vote in 9 Democratic Party primaries. I spent 1992 and 1996 in Oregon. 2000 and 2004, I was in New Mexico. 2008 I was in Texas. 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024 I was in Rhode Island. None of these states except Texas are even close to the top of the list. The closest was 08 because Texas was on Super Tuesday, but even there, it was mostly already decided.

I would also argue that we have not had better outcomes in the post-68 direct primary process than we did with the hybrid before that still included a lot of smoky rooms. George McGovern was an unmitigated disaster as a candidate. Jimmy Carter became the candidate in 76 because of a very specific set of circumstances that his personality could respond to, but he was an awful president and I have a hard time thinking that the party leadership couldn’t have picked someone more competent. That leads us to 80 and the outrage over his terrible performance and thus the Kennedy challenge. 84 was weird, in part because of Gary Hart imploding (as commenters correctly note, it was 88 when he imploded). Mondale was the kind of guy the bosses might have picked anyway, either way that didn’t go well. 88 was like 76 in that some kind of weird outsider in Dukakis took it and then bombed the campaign. Bill Clinton, I grant you that guy is really good at politics, as much as I find him personally detestable. 2000 there wasn’t a serious primary despite Bill Bradley trying to create one against Al Gore. 04, OK, John Kerry is also the kind of guy the bosses might have picked and I don’t think he really blew that campaign so much as Americans still believing Iraq was a good idea. 2008 obviously was an extremely interesting moment in our history. 2012 there was nothing and there was no good reason for there to be. 2016 almost was picked by the party leaders, icing out Joe Biden in favor of Hillary, which was extremely stupid in retrospect and then that led to the Bernie Sanders challenge, demonstrating a lot of voters were really unhappy with this choice, as much as many Democrats wanted to deny that. 2020 was a genuine process, I grant you, and although I was a Warren person all the way down, I don’t think there’s any question that Biden is who almost every sector of the Democratic Party wanted. But 2024 there was no real process at all.

So it’s a mixed bag, at best. Between allowing rural whites in a couple of states to dominate the process, the lack of competitive primaries for most voters, and some very poor choices made by the voters, I don’t exactly see some great democratic process here. Moreover, it’s not even a democratic process if most Democrats don’t have a reason to show up because it’s already decided by the time they get to vote!

In conclusion, saying that “Biden won the primaries in 2024 and therefore it’s a coup that he was forced out” is a clown show argument. But maybe we need to rethink the whole system to create an actual democratic process, if that is what you are going to hang your hat on.