Biden, Harris and ‘the Blue Screen of Death’

a mess. a Nonsense. There is no other way to describe the performance of the US Democratic Party in recent months. Yes, there is no doubt that, as all the media shout at us, the situation is “historic”, “unique”, “unprecedented”. But the only thing that is truly historic is the dimension of the mess. “The cowardice and incompetence of the PD elite is criminal,” my compatriot, political scientist Cas Mudde, said yesterday. “Everyone knew that Biden’s health was his main weakness. “They knew about it for four years, but they waited until three months before the election to get rid of it.”

For a country that considers itself the most advanced in the world, America is strangely old-fashioned. Every day, millions of people still pay their bills and make purchases using paper checks with barely legible numbers written by hand. Federal and state bureaucracy seems to have stagnated in the 70s, nor have many infrastructures been updated: airports, subways, bridges, electrical supply networks. The entrepreneurial spirit, which has given birth to multinationals and the world’s best universities, manifests itself on a daily basis in the form of failed reforms: the solutions are partial, temporary and as ugly as the piece of gauze that covered Donald Trump’s injured ear –temporary fix, Made from whatever was at hand and four strips of tape. You do what you can, This, in many ways, represents Kamala Harris’s candidacy.

For a country considered the most advanced in the world, America is oddly old-fashioned

What explains this lack of foresight? North American politics is perverse in many ways (who thought of associating red with the right and blue with the left, and calling it “liberal”?), but it is also a highly professional place; which is why this is the country that invented the modern political survey. (George Gallup’s first poll was conducted in October 1935.) Thousands of highly paid experts and consultants work behind the scenes. It is no coincidence that campaigns are so expensive.

Biden’s retreat is undoubtedly due to the pressure of these experts, who, in light of the surveys, considered victory in the presidential elections impossible and contemplated with horror the collateral damage in all other electoral races. After all, here we vote for several positions at once, from federal and state senators and representatives to judges, prosecutors and members of educational boards. But experts face entire teams of other experts whose professional future is tied to individual candidacies. Biden’s famous stubbornness turned into the dogmatism of those around him.

Still, even his most loyal relatives should have seen the physical, mental and demographic deterioration of their candidate. There are those who speculate that holding the first debate between the supposed Democratic and Republican candidates in June – never held before since the invention of the format in 1960 – was a deliberate strategy conceived by the Democratic apparatus to convince Biden and company of the unviability of their candidacy. If that was the idea, it ultimately worked. As happened last week, after chaos and paralysis had spread, a solve Which, for the time being, has scared the blue screen of death away.

For now. It remains to be seen whether Kamala Harris will be able to unite progressive (and anti-Trump) voters, defend President Biden’s achievements (which are nevertheless remarkable) and, at the same time, differentiate herself from him to underline her political identity. own. Her performance as vice president has been very uneven, it is true, but it is also true that it is a diabolical position. Let’s remember the excellent series Veep By Armando Iannucci, in whose third season Julia Louis-Dreyfus, already a candidate for president, admits she can’t say anything “as a woman”:I can’t identify as a woman! … Men hate it. And women who hate women hate it – which, I believe, is most women,, Vice President of the United States is a position that only the Dick Cheneys of the world know how to thrive in, and Cheney knew he would never run for president.

Harris has been fiercely vocal in her defense of reproductive rights

Although Harris’s weaknesses are not small – she is a 59-year-old woman of Caribbean and Indian descent – she also has undoubted assets: she is a 59-year-old woman of indigenous descent. Although she gets into trouble with unprepared speeches, she is a fierce warrior; it is not for nothing that she is a former prosecutor. It is very likely that Trump will not even dare to debate her. Harris has also been extremely energetic in her defense of reproductive rights, which has been an important motivating factor for the left in recent years, even in states like mine, Ohio, which have tended to turn red in presidential elections (right wing). It is worth revisiting the question that Harris, then a California senator, asked Brett Kavanaugh when he was being considered for the Supreme Court. Harris asked him: “Can you think of any law that gives the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” And Kavanaugh did not have to answer.

The early signs are positive for Harris. In less than a day, she has managed to secure massive support from the Democratic apparatus and – just as importantly – from thousands of large, medium and small donors. Undoubtedly, the first true test of the quality of her and her team’s political instincts will come when she makes her announcement running mate. There, demographers will once again play a key role behind the scenes.

In any case, 24 hours after Biden’s withdrawal, the dominant sentiment among the North American left is one of relief. There is a match. But only because the Republican Party of old Trump is, if possible, more lousy than the Democratic Party.

a mess. a Nonsense. There is no other way to describe the performance of the US Democratic Party in recent months. Yes, there is no doubt that, as all the media shout at us, the situation is “historic”, “unique”, “unprecedented”. But the only real historical thing is the dimension of the failed task…