Democrats love to brag about how they are defenders of “democracy.”
Which is odd, because 2024 will be the first presidential contest in modern history featuring a nominee who wasn’t chosen by voters.
Kamala Harris did not get a single vote in the primaries.
And the same cabal that propped up Joe Biden, that hid his ailments, that put the nation in a perilous position, that used him to push hard-left policies, that bypassed the electorate, now promises that Harris is the very best person for the job.
Why would anyone believe them?
Al Sharpton contends that Kamala’s candidacy is a “grassroots” movement. Which is laughable. She has never displayed impressive political instincts. There is, and has never been, any organic movement championing Kamala Harris.
Now her base is Democratic Party elites.
Recall that Kamala couldn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses in the 2020 Democratic Party primaries, as her campaign went broke and disintegrated into bickering factions before it even really got started.
What has Kamala done as vice president? I can’t think of a single accomplishment.
Democrats are now forced to create a fake primary that approximates a legitimate “process” so they can argue Kamala’s ascension is democratic.
It is not. If there was a normal, open contest in 2024, Kamala would likely have faced a half a dozen accomplished governors, and almost surely lost.
So, this backroom nomination creates a lot of questions. For instance, will Kamala really be running the country, or do we have another Biden on our hands?
The Wall Street Journal reports that congressional leaders were worried about Biden’s mental state back in 2021. Democrats covered it up.
One person who knew the president was unable to perform even the most rudimentary tasks, incidentally, was Kamala Harris.
If Harris was a patriot, she would have done something about it. If Biden was a “patriot,” as so many Democrats now contend, he would have gotten out of the race months ago and allowed a credible candidate to emerge.
But the president didn’t step aside, he was bullied out of the race after the left’s gaslighting efforts about his mental acuity failed.
Only then did Democratic elites begin applying massive pressure on Biden to leave the race — among them big money donors, who stopped writing the president’s campaign checks.
Democrats love to scaremonger about the corrosive power of money in politics. Have big donors ever had a greater say in picking a major party’s nominee?
The latest on President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
None of this is exactly new. Recall that the entire left-wing establishment, including the media, let Biden campaign from his home in 2020 to help him beat socialist Bernie Sanders.
In 2024, the Democratic National Committee changed the party’s nominating calendar and put South Carolina first in line, overturning decades of tradition, to ensure that Biden avoided any inconvenient challenges — even though most elected officials knew about his diminishing mental state.
Once in power, the “moderate” Biden spent trillions on the left-wing grab-bag “inflation reduction” bill, even when economists warned the spending would spark inflation.
Biden rolled back numerous border enforcement measures, despite being warned the country would be flooded by illegal immigrants.
Biden dropped a moderate abortion stance and supported the procedure on demand without any limit.
Biden coddled the Islamic regime in Iran and sold Israel out on numerous occasions.
That’s just a taste. These policies had Barack Obama written all over them.
Now, Kamala owes the same people, not voters, her political future.
Like Biden, Kamala will be a useful proxy for those who propped up her candidacy and perhaps her presidency.
Maybe Democrats have no other choice. But please don’t tell me this is “democracy.”
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Twitter @davidharsanyi