#or even NPR’s consider this which is a single topic deep-dive per episode

[aveline-shepard]

That’s…not what happened, even a little bit. His debate performance was so alarmingly bad that major donors and political figures (including current members of Congress and most importantly, long-time allies like Nancy Pelosi) launched both public and private pressure campaigns urging him to step down that have been active for weeks and gaining increasing support. He has since endorsed Harris, but it’s technically an open field and the pledged delegates at the DNC will vote on who gets the party nomination. If no candidate wins a majority of delegate votes in the first round, then a second round of voting is held and the superdelegates are allowed to vote. They continue to hold rounds of voting with the full body of delegates and super delegates (a bit more than 4,600 people total) until someone wins a majority and becomes the party nominee. So voters actually get even less say regarding who the Democratic nominee is.

The current situation means that there will be at least one person on the ticket nobody voted for, or even had the opportunity to vote for (assuming Harris wins the presidential nom, her VP would have never been on a primary ballot; if Harris doesn’t win the presidential nom, then both the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates are people who were never on a primary ballot and frankly, we also risk irrevocably splitting the party). If the party doesn’t come together behind Harris and whomever her VP pick is (my guess at this point is Shapiro) it’s going to be an even bigger mess. There’s enormous uncertainty and risk, even more so than with Biden because we literally do will not have a candidate and will not until August 5th at the absolute earliest (an early roll call was scheduled to be performed ahead of the DNC in mid-August because of Ohio’s candidate certification law. Ohio did pass a bill moving the deadline back from Aug. 7th to Sept. 1st so the DNC vote would be completed before their deadline, but Dems wanted to do an early roll call out of an abundance of caution because the law doesn’t take effect until Sept. 1st, so they’re rightfully concerned about litigation) or if they don’t do the early roll-call, until mid-August. That’s a HUGE amount of time and an enormous loss of important and valuable campaigning. Now, if the party solidifies behind Kamala and her VP and no one else attempts to run, that’s the best chance we have at party unity and scraping through. The other option is last-minute infighting when we most need to unite against the authoritarian candidate who is more powerful, more organized, and more ruthlessly bloodthirsty than he’s ever been before.

Let’s be clear here: I am not a fan of Biden and I didn’t vote for him in the primary, in the hopes of sending a message that was never received. This is not a defense of Biden or his politics, this is simply an educated explanation of how the system works and the causes and effects of what you’re seeing unfold (as well as some speculation informed by national political coverage and my experience working in campaign politics). The reason he’s no longer running isn’t because he’s listening to progressive voices, it’s because he’s listening to people who actually have his ear, and were specifically reacting to his debate performance. None of this information is secret; it’s been openly discussed for weeks, there have been interviews and public statements available on elected officials’ social media, and it’s been covered by all major news outlets. If you’re looking for reputable news sources to follow, I recommend the Associated Press (usually abbreviated to “AP”), their Headline News is a very short daily podcast of headliners, or NPR; Up First and The NPR Politics Podcast are two great short-form resources which will keep you up-to-date and produce content 5-7x a week and cover the top three news stories of the day, and latest US political news respectively.

that's so funny. we were like . im not voting for this genocidal, decrepit man. and you were like. well we HAVE to. but .. saying you won't vote has actually very little to do with what you'd do down the line. but it's a powerful reminder to the powers that be that they are still, in some ways, beholden to you. i think the sentiment literally just fucking worked. when massive amounts of progressives are saying they will not be voting for another biden presidency, even in the face of trump... that's scary . and now we don't have to vote for him. It literally worked LMFAO