In Search of an Honest Democrat

As a lifelong fan of the Philadelphia 76ers I have always loved the story of the time owner Harold Katz called a team meeting to ask his players why they were playing so poorly. The great Charles Barkley raised his hand and, pointing directly at two of his teammates, answered “because those guys suck at basketball”.

If only Congressional Democrats had Barkley’s honesty. If only they’d collectively raise their hands and point their fingers and inform Joe Biden that the exclusive reason why polls are dreadful and despair is rampant is because he sucks at being the candidate.

This should not be so difficult.

The Democratic Party must stop treating the urgent need to rid themselves of Joe Biden as though it were a proposition from Ludwig Wittgenstein. A philosopher might assert that “what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence” but a functioning political party cannot.

If Donald Trump is the existential threat to democracy which Democrats claim him to be, it is impossible for them to permit Joe Biden to continue as the absurdist alternative. As an angrily incapacitated 81 year old man bleating at pliant media enablers that voters must embrace his irrational and meaningless belief in his own goodest destiny because nothing else is possible.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m used to nothing mattering. To Obama turning out to be the Clintons and AOC turning out to be Nancy Pelosi and John Fetterman turning out to be worse than an empty Senate seat. But this goes deeper.

The entire purpose of politics is to be able to plausibly lie. The electoral success of any political party begins with that essential skill. And there is no longer a plausible lie that can be uttered in defense of Joe Biden remaining the nominee of the Democratic Party.

MSNBC, having made a flawless transition from transparent Biden advocacy to maniacally strident pro-Biden propaganda, can provide all the talking points for inertia: voters have spoken and there’s no time to have other candidates and Biden has all the money and even if Biden were to drop out all the money would go to Kamala Harris and he’s not dropping out anyway so better not to change horses in midstream but give Biden time to step up and show the country he is still the old Joe Biden.

This is madness on every level. Our candidate doesn’t always look like he’s going to die and sometimes he reads groupings of words pretty well is not a path to victory in November. It is the idea of Joe Biden which can no longer be propped up.

Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism and fought a World War and died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 63 while sitting for a portrait in the company of his mistress. Biden, to put it mildly, ain’t him. Yet it is amazing how thoroughly Biden apologists have morphed into Trump apologists when attempting to pretend otherwise. For it is not the media and the elites who want Biden to step aside, it is the people. It is anyone with functioning synapses who desires the possibility of a better world.

So in a political moment where Biden’s vow to “finish the job” is sounding more and more like a deranged threat, I have taken the liberty of annotating the famous dissent of Supreme Court Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson in Terminiello v. Chicago to address the havoc which continued timidity will wreak:

“There is a danger that, if the Court {meaning in this case The Democratic Party} does not temper its doctrinaire logic {meaning in this case that Biden must be the nominee} with a little practical wisdom {meaning in this case that Biden cannot in any way and for the love of god be the nominee}, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights {meaning in this case the 2024 Election} into a suicide pact {meaning in this case FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT BECAUSE OTHERWISE IT’S A F**KING SUICIDE PACT THAT RESULTS IN LOST SEATS TO MANIACS!}.

Parties have chosen their candidates in open convention since 1832. It would not be hard for a clear-eyed political party to replace Biden and generate excitement in doing so. To tell him, in the bloodless words of Michael Corleone, that it’s not personal Joey, it’s strictly business.

Force Biden to renounce his candidacy and free his delegates for the good of the people. Force Harris to renounce any special claim to either funds or stature for the same reason. On the opening day of the convention, six members of Congress place in nomination the names of five sitting governors and the Vice President. On the second day, all the candidates speak. On the third day, the delegates vote. The highest vote getter is the nominee, the second highest the running mate.

On the fourth day the nominees make their speeches and then balloons drop while Joe Cocker’s version of “A Little Help From My Friends” blares from the speakers then segues to “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers then to “Sunflower” by Post Malone. And then a united Democratic Party goes forth to appear to believe in things.

And all those who will chortle at the juvenile impracticality of such a scheme are obliged to explain how letting Biden remain atop the ticket is saner.

Will he somehow manage through sheer force of arrogant self-absorption to rally those repulsed over Gaza and struggling over inflation and the unaffordable cost of a home to go to the polls and vote neither their hopes nor their fears but their instructions?

I suppose in a column chock-full of hoops and the Supreme Court and the Godfather I may as well end with one more analogy.

I have come to thoroughly despise both the Biden family and its insular group of advisors. To me, they’ve become the DC version of Elvis’ guys. They may think that they can ride this out. That they can sit with Joe in the back of the limo and fawn over him and tell him he’s great and hand him his shades and laugh along at his jokes.

But Joe Biden’s presidency is about to take a seat on the toilet. And, as everyone knows, the only stop from there is the floor.