- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Kamala Harris has the support of enough Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination for president, according to CNN’s delegate estimate.
While endorsements from delegates continue to come in, the vice president has now been backed by well more than the 1,976 pledged delegates she’ll need to win the nomination on the first ballot.
Harris crossed the threshold amid a wave of endorsements from state delegations Monday evening.
Exactly! The party running on saving democracy already stole our ability to democratically select a candidate. At least they should be willing to present the appearance of an approximation of democracy. Somehow that’s suddenly a radical position.
Just like in the actual presidential election, during the primary, you are voting for electors (delegates) who have pledged their votes to a candidate, and their votes are cast at the convention.
If that candidate leaves the race, those electors still get to vote their conscience. That is what you have entrusted them to do.
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A state is allowed to allocate their delegates by whatever rules they see fit, it varies state to state. In Maine they don’t even all have to go to the same candidate.
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No kidding. Now go learn what an open primary is.
Allowing multiple candidates to present their case at the primary would give the public the chance to choose and try and to convince their delegates. It would be a farce that Kamala would still win, but it would at least present the Democrats as trying to represent instead of rule.
We should have had a proper primary in the first place. By the way, do you even know what delegates you “chose” to represent you? I doubt it. Then how did you choose them? How many Americans do you think even know who their delegates are? I’m pretty wonky, and I have no idea. Delegates (and electors) aren’t even known, nevermind trusted by the vast majority of Americans.
We did have a primary. Remember “write-in uncommitted”? Those were primaries. Anyone who wanted could have ran, even you, assuming you’re an American citizen over the age of 35. Which is actually pretty unlikely now that I think about it, but whatever.
I said a proper primary. I’m not going to argue the point though. If you think we had a proper primary then I can’t help you.
In what way do you think it should have been fixed? A Philips/Biden/Williamson debate?
Didn’t they already tell you? The primary election is done.
It’s hard to keep the talking points in order, I guess.
This particular thread is about whether we had adequate primaries or not. Not when they were.
Sure, but “The primaries are over.” Whether that primary was “adequate” when Biden was a candidate is kind of orthoganal to Harris securing enough delegate endorsements.
Seemed like the other commenter was dismissing the primary as “over” with one side of their mouth while complaining about its “inadequacy” with the other.
It’s not complicated. There is no time for a primary at this point. We had an official primary, but it was a farse. This is where the incestuous relationship between the political establishment and the media establishment comes in. They can do their primary without it ever being an actual contest. When mainstream media backs a single candidate and shuts out all others from public view, a primary becomes a joke.
This is where the blue MAGA accusation becomes valid. You would never in a million years be OK with this state of affairs if it didn’t benefit your chosen candidate. You don’t want democracy, you want to be in charge.
It might have saved us the Biden Trump debate.
Probably not. Dean was running to the right of Biden and unlikely to appeal to current day dems, and Williamson has no political experience.
If the Biden that debated Trump showed up to debate Williamson, she would hand him his ass. If she’s inexperienced then let her make a fool out of herself. I’m not outraged that I didn’t get my choice, but I am outraged that the establishment can just shut opponents out of the public discourse and subvert the primary. You don’t get to decide all by yourself who is qualified to be President.
I’m not sure why not having to be registered with the party whose primary it is has any relevance here, and I’m not sure why you think that’s important in this context.
Sorry, brain fart. I meant open convention.
That’s essentially what’s going on right now.
The fact that this torch-passing is happening in an organized fashion, as opposed to “at the actual convention” is irrelevant. Having a contested nomination at the convention (in Chicago, no less) would be “a bad idea.”
A bad idea? Protesters got major concessions from the Democratic party that improved the primary process markedly. It’s still shit, but it’s not a bunch of white guys smoking cigars in a back room. Fostering democracy isn’t a bad idea. Protesting isn’t a bad idea. Mayor Daley with the blessing of the DNC cracking down on protests with over the top police violence is a bad idea. Just don’t do that and it will be fine. What kind of a pussy country curtails the political process out of fear of protests? That’s some despotic shit.
Where are the public discourse between the candidates? Who in media is informing voters of the options? When the media establishment conspires with the political establishment to focus all discussion on a single candidate, that’s not a healthy democracy. This is just back to cigars and back rooms.
Giving attention to the diversity of opinion under the Democratic party is healthy. The establishment always insists that any kind of contention is bad, but that’s bullshit. Clinton and Obama had a contentious primary and he won the general. Sanders challenged Hillary with kid gloves and she lost the general. Trump had massively contentious primary and he won. Biden has a contentious primary and he won. Biden has a show primary this time and that worked out great!
This is the period when the people actually have some shred of influence over the party direction. We don’t expect a fair primary because we know that the system is designed from the ground up to make that impossible. However, when we don’t really get to run, that’s not something I’m going to shut up about.
It would be great if we had a system like that, but we never have and it is not part of the constitution. Political parties have always been allowed to choose any candidate by any means that they want to put on their ticket. They could even choose 2 people, but that would be a bad idea. This will continue to be true as long as we have first past the post elections (and the electoral college). Ranked choice voting would solve some of these problems.
The democratic election happens when we vote for the president. The primaries are basically large state by state polls. No one’s ability to vote was stolen and everyone who votes is still allowed to write in a name if they choose (but that is akin to not voting given our current system).
Quit abusing the word “democracy” like that. A country picking one of two choices handed to them by oligarchs is not democracy.
Activists labored for decades and died in police crackdowns to achieve the concession of primary elections from the two parties. You are pissing on their sacrifices. We don’t give up hard won rights just because they aren’t explicitly mandated by the constitution.
Ranked choice voting would fix these concerns.
Agreed, but that’s not really relevant as to whether or not we should wait for the convention for the delegates to choose. The primary election is done.
They are waiting for the convention to choose, these choices are not made yet. They do, however, still have first amendment protections, so if they want to tell CNN who they plan to vote for, then they may. CNN, enjoying freedom of the press, has the right to ask.
It’s wagging the dog. The delegates declare support now, the media runs with that and treats Harris as the obvious winner while ignoring other candidates. By the time the convention happens the public has already accepted Harris as the winner, making it inevitable.
Well, it pretty much is inevitable. Nobody else really wants the job on such short notice. President is something you want to prepare for, have a good, solid plan, with people you’re planning on staffing your presidency with. You usually start the groundwork years in advance, to avoid failure with extraordinary consequences once you are actually in office. There’s reasons Whitmer, for instance, simply endorsed Harris even though a lot of people wanted her to be the nominee.
Even Manchin waffled on it in his interview, and he’s a colossally arrogant asshole.
This is testament to how deceived you are by whatever media you consume. There were no other candidates who were allowed into the public discourse, but there were plenty of other candidates running. If there were an actual primary there would have been a lot more.
I also want more choices, such as provided by ranked choice voting. However to say that our elections aren’t democratic is far worse of an insult to the sacrifices of the labors of prior generations. Voters may still choose anyone that they want, and that ability to choose is better in our system than it is in many other places in the world. It’s not the best though, and I would like to see us get there. But it is not fair to say that our election (run by the government) is no longer democratic just because an independent 3rd party is now going to register a different person on the ballots than their initial polling suggested.
Nonsense. They would almost certainly agree. It’s better in a lot of ways, but it’s not democracy to pick between two establishment choices. It’s just not.
It was never Democratic in the first place. I’ve been fighting this fight for over 25 years, and I’m a latecomer. However, it’s not “just because” of that one thing. This is the moment we are in right now, so it’s what I’m engaged with right now.
It’s sounds like the democracy we have is not the one that you want. That’s fine, it’s also not the one I want. Again, I’d prefer to be able to choose between a range of progressive candidates. But either way they are both still democracies and we should keep on asking for better systems. I disagree that what we have is a completely undemocratic system, that would imply that our system is similar to Russia’s or NK’s and it simply isn’t.
Asking for a better system is exactly what I’m doing, and look how everyone closes ranks against the guy not towing the party line.
You guys are really going to complain about this? Seems like there’s probably more effective ways to dissuade voters. Especially considering that incumbents usually always receive nomination unopposed, and no one has opposed her.
What “guys” do you think I represent? Where did I try to dissuade voters. That’s the opposite of what I want. Know what dissuades voters? When politicians choose to rule and manipulate instead of represent.
I swear to God that if there were a manual for how to foster a fascist backlash the Democrats wouldn’t be missing a single step. This undemocratic bullshit is exactly the kind of neoliberal shenanigans that tilled the soil for the growth of MAGA in the first place.
I dunno man, complaining about the part of the democratic process where you get to vote your party’s candidate seems pretty basic democracy to me, but I must not understand American “democracy” 🤷
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