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Monday Miscellany, 7/22/24

Monday Miscellany, 7/22/24

Last updated on: July 23, 2024 at 6:50 am by Gene Veith

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Monday Miscellany, 7/22/24 2024-07-23T06:50:33-04:00 Gene Veith

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Joe Biden drops out of the race; the transformation of the Republican Party; and the summer of resistance.

Joe Biden Drops Out of the Race

President Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. After resolving to stay in, he faced intense pressure from Democratic leaders, donors, and the media to step aside, due to the perception fostered by debate performance that he is too old and frail to defeat Donald Trump.

President Biden has won virtually all of the delegates to the Democratic Convention, which will be held August 19-22, so he has released them to vote for whomever they choose. But his statement stepping down included a strong endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Many Democrats are rallying behind her. But others are questioning whether she could beat Trump either. She ran a disastrous campaign for president in 2020, she is a terrible off-the-cuff speaker, and she has a history of bad relationships with her staff, which bodes ill for a candidate and for a chief executive. She was the “immigration czar,” and so can be saddled with the administration’s unpopular border policies; she is a pro-abortion extremist, which will alienate moderates; and she embodies the woke progressivism that so many Americans are sick of.

Some politicos are advocating an open convention, in which delegates would cast votes for the candidate of their choice, whereupon the one with the lowest tally would be dropped, proceeding in multiple ballots until one candidate had a majority.

My sense is that Democrats are so wedded to identity politics that they will be unable to say no to Harris, even though other Democrats–including other black women–would make a better candidate and a better president. And that Trump will beat her easily.

The Democrats defeated Trump in 2020 by passing over the more divisive radicals who were running–including Harris–to pick someone who was perceived to be more moderate and thus more electable, Joe Biden. Though he did not turn out to be more moderate, probably because his age and infirmities made him dependent on his advisors, that was a good strategy. A more moderate candidate could pick up the votes of Trump-skeptical Republicans and Independents who would never vote for Harris. The Democrats will blow their opportunity to choose an electable candidate and will hand the presidency to Trump.

Am I wrong?

UPDATE: Kamala Harris now has enough delegates committed to her to clinch the nomination.

The Transformation of the Republican Party

Politico has a story entitled A New Kind of Republican Party Is Forming at the RNC with the deck, “The GOP is dramatically transforming. Just listen carefully to the RNC [Republican National Convention].”

According to the article, “The party is changing — increasingly embracing economic populism at home and isolationism abroad, shifting its decades-long position on abortion and not only leery of, but hostile to, certain business interests.” It goes over those changes, which are summed up by a concerned old-school Republican:

“I think what we’re witnessing now is a full on frontal assault on conservatism,” said Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence from 2019 to 2021, who is so estranged from this new version of the party that he was advised to skip the convention. “And you can look at the platform walking away from issues like life and traditional marriage, embracing tariffs across the board, but I feel like yesterday and last night went a step further when you have speakers that are basically saying NATO was at fault for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and referring to job creators as ‘corporate pigs’ and announcing national right to work.”

That last bit, I believe, means getting rid of right to work laws–which mean that workers don’t have to join unions–nation-wide, a position advocated by Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters Union, who addressed the convention.

So, remind me, how are Republicans ideologically different than Democrats? Is it just the border, the personal differences in the candidates, and the Republicans’ more Marxist view of class conflict as opposed to the Democrats’ post-Marxist conflict between identity groups?

Who’s a pro-Right to Work, pro-free market “corporate pig” supposed to vote for?

The Summer of Resistance

Anti-Israel protesters have big plans for this summer. Leftwing groups are hailing what they are calling the “summer of resistance,” focused especially on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 19-22.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the activities of Behind Enemy Lines, which calls itself an “anti-imperialist organization” that is organizing the protests. The goal is to “Make 2024 as Great as 1968!” The reference is to the anti-Vietnam War riots that broke out during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, also in Chicago.

And the plans include violence and provoking violence:

If the DNC proceeds as planned, the group says it has a backup plan to “mobilize the broadest possible opposition” over a two-week period that begins on Aug. 9. “Week 1 will be focused on mass outreach,” including door-knocking, “agitating car-to-car on the Chicago L train” and other efforts to recruit and mobilize protesters.

Behind Enemy Lines says the second week “will be focused on protesting the DNC,” and its plans aren’t peaceful. “Have you thrown down against the Chicago police yet?” it asks on its website while urging “students and youth to be bold and audacious, take the frontlines, and yes, take police beatings and arrests. . . . Make bruises from Chicago police batons the 2024 back to school Fall fashion!”

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