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This weekend, I witnessed the Vibe Shift firsthand.
When we met for lunch, my mother’s first topic was the DNC. Who spoke and how great they sounded. How excited she was about the whole thing. She corrected me on “Comma-lah’s” name, which I’d apparently been mispronouncing, and used that as a springboard to discuss Kamala t-shirts. She didn’t mention that watching the DNC had been inspiring enough to get her volunteering to write postcards and stuff mailers. It was clear that she was all-in on the program without ever discussing policy—or even Donald Trump.
Dad chimed in a couple times to note that the overall messaging was much more positive, except for Bernie Sanders, who sounded unchanged from the last ten years. He appreciated this. I’d say he represents a section of the populace with immense distaste for Trump, but a comparable disdain for politicians who spend too much time talking about the man.
I had been under no illusions that Mom would vote anything but Democrat. Dad, not so sure; I’d have given good odds of a protest vote if the Libertarian candidate wasn’t such a non-entity. More likely that he abstained. But the last couple weeks appear to have left him much more comfortable voting D. The same has to be true for Mom, too, as I never saw this level of enthusiasm for anything Biden did or said.
That’s the Vibe Shift: apathy to enthusiasm.
It doesn’t take a coordinated blitz of friendly op-eds, since my parents were getting this straight from the TV. It doesn’t take an iron grip on that TV presentation; the DNC herds their cats, but they can’t convince Bill Clinton to get off stage. And it doesn’t even take a winning policy slate. The Democrat base, the casual never-Trumpers, maybe even the grillpillers? They’re just glad to have a candidate under the retirement age.
It would seem obvious to me that there are, in fact, a lot of Americans who like what the Democratic Party has on offer - obviously! A party can't survive for ages if no-one likes what it has on offer! - and are happy to have it represented by what has always seemed to me a basically (though not expectionally) competent politician (competent at politics, that is) who happened to have an off-season in 2020 and doesn't have an off-season now. Thus, there is not anything particularly special to what is happening now.
What I wonder about is how hard it seems to be for American conservatives to believe that there exists a non-astroturf sentiment (and what does astroturf even mean these days, anyway? Both major parties have well-honed political machines to make basically literally any movement existing within their purview at least partly astroturf if you choose to look at it that way) supporting American liberalism organically. Why wouldn't there be? The last four years have seemed to be quite good for a fair few Americans, materially, especially compared to what is the most natural comparison to me - Europe's continuing malaise and doldrums.
I have no trouble acknowledging that there are many people that support a bunch of Democrat policies that I don't like much. If, for example, someone just doesn't think they should have to pay their student loans, they're probably going to vote Democrat.
On the flip side, the enthusiasm for Harris is genuinely hard to understand. I accept that the firmware update worked as intended and people really mean it, but it is genuinely puzzling to me what they're seeing that they're excited about. The answer is apparently as simple as the fact that she's 60 and lucid rather than 80 and comatose, which is fine as far as it goes, but doesn't really get me to understanding excitement.
As a bit of an extra point, I think if you'd told me this was how it was going to go down a few years ago, I would have thought a bunch of Democrats would be annoyed that they didn't get a say in picking their candidate. Instead, everyone just happily agreed that they're coconut-pilled now, that they're not going back, and that it's time embrace what can be, unburdened by what has been. That, above all else, is why I can't stop thinking of the situation as embodying the NPC meme. It is very hard for me to believe that people authentically watched some teleprompter speech and thought, "wow, now I can't wait to get out there and campaign"; I don't think it was astroturfed, but I do think that this is almost entirely an exercise in groupthink.
From what I have seen, in my very blue bubble, it's 90% the euphoria of believing you were doomed and suddenly realizing you have a good chance of winning. Immediately after the attempted assassination of Trump, the mood among Democrats was bleak indeed. Pretty much everyone believed the election was basically Trump's to lose, and Biden gave little reason to hope.
The DNC had no real mechanism to force Biden to withdraw, and I was pretty convinced he would never do so voluntarily. Even if he did, I thought they would have to have an emergency primary, with the unappetizing choice of Harris (who until five minutes ago was considered an even worse candidate than Biden) or equally bad prospects like Gavin Newsom.
That the Democrats actually pulled off (1) getting Biden to withdraw, (2) instituting Harris in his place as a fate accompli, and (3) making it seem like a smooth transition, was actually a pretty impressive bit of political maneuvering. Republicans spent a little while trying to generate crocodile tears about the undemocratic nature of the process, but not only did this not stick, but the whole thing basically pushed Trump's post-shooting boost right out of the news cycle.
Now it's increasingly looking like Harris's race to lose. All the stuff being thrown at her and Walz look like cheap shots that aren't landing. Of course the Democrats are ecstatic. I was personally convinced Trump was going to win, and now if I had to place money, I'd bet on Harris. I think she will have to screw up hugely, or Trump will have to pull a hat trick of the type that is not really his forte, for her to lose. Any October surprises or sudden catastrophes will only help her.
To be clear, I absolutely agree there is nothing about Kamala Harris personally to inspire excitement. She's a political nothing (like most VPs, to be fair). But the fact that she's basically a generic Democrat with nothing terrible in her closets (as far as we know) and will be the first (POC) woman president is enough to make Blue tribe giddy at the prospect of the Revenge of Hillary Clinton.
In some countries, they refer to this as a "coup".
I generally agree with the rest of your post, but it isn't Kamala's race to lose. Right now, this is a toss up, which means it's about the next "thing" that turns into the "current thing" that each candidate has to respond to. Remember, Harris got a two free news cycle passes in a row - when Biden dropped out followed immediately by the DNC. In the next few weeks some-"thing" will happen. Then, the race actually starts.
When a political party replaces one candidate with another candidate (who is in fact the deputy of the current candidate) that can hardly be called a coup. Coups involve replacing the government, Kamala's government position (VP) hasn't changed, she's just now the person standing to be the next president instead of Biden.
Candidate choice is an internal party matter for the Democrats (as it is for any political party). There is nothing even remotely coup-like about this.
This is absurd. Candidate choice is not an internal party matter. We have these state run things called primaries that have determined nominations for a long time in this country. I know it’s convenient to say “internal matter” but most internal matters don’t require the local Secretary of State to get involved.
But it is still true. You are right to point out state involvement. But most states have no law about whether delegates are bound legally and those that do almost invariably have an exemption for the candidate withdrawing. Plus many other exemptions for being unbound after rounds of voting or if their chosen candidate is doing too badly.
But regardless of all that the Supreme Court held that state election law cannot override a parties internal processes in any case. It is literally legally an internal matter.
Regardless of the primaries, the delegates were legally free to pick Kamala. All the DNC delegates are bound to do is in good conscience represent their voters. If they in good conscience think their voters would no longer want Biden they can and indeed should switch even if he didn't step down. Note this rule was changed in 1980 when they were trying to replace Carter as acandidate with a Kennedy, and only their own internal rules prevented them from doing so. So this is something that has been planned for. The only thing they have to do is manage the political fallout if any.
The truth is the primaries are theatre legally. The only thing that binds the parties are their internal rules. Hence an internal matter.
There are principles of norms and there are legal realities. The fact is people have understood for a long time that primaries are how we pick candidates. The fact is those processes are run by states.
And now when the Dems were going to lose they claim “well it is just an internal matter” ignoring the norm that even involved the state!
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