this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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For a party that says they care about democracy so much, it's hard to understand why they refuse to have a primary or anything. Instead, they're just going to tell you who to vote for
The party nomination isn't official until the delegates vote at the convention. That isn't new. The nomination is never final until the convention.
The people voted in the state party primary. Biden and Harris were the incumbents on the Democratic party ticket. Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Harris as his replacement. If the party does not largely agree that Harris should be the new nominee, they will have an opportunity to vote for someone else at the convention.
For me this doesn't change anything. My vote was always going to be for the Democrat. Not because I love Democrats. I really don't. But because any other vote is basically a vote for the moron in the stupid hat, and I really don't want that.
Yes yes, they followed all the rules. ๐
You realize this is about appearances, right? It doesn't look democratic and that's bad for the legitimacy of the process.
But there IS a process and they are following it....
Did you misread what I said?
I said the process doesn't look democratic.
Yes, they're following a process. They are acting entirely within the rules, but that doesn't actually matter if Democratic voters do not believe it's a democratic process. It's about appearances, get it? The appearance of undemocratic rules within the party can be just as toxic to the electoral process as the appearance of corruption or the appearance of impropriety.
Wtf does "democratic process" even mean though? It's literally not feasible to restart the primary process at this point is it? Like you want people to arrange getting off work, researching candidates, etc etc etc ?
Mail ballots to all registered democrats and let them vote for who they want? It doesn't have to be a whole pageant.
In most countries the elections do not take as long as they do in the US. We're pretty unique for having these super drawn out elections and primaries, but we don't have to do things this way. Have an ultra condensed primary and then it's over, and Harris would probably win anyway. Just the simple act of giving voters a chance to express their support would quell these criticisms.
If they wanted they could organize this whole thing in a month. Just push the Convention to September 1st. That'll give everyone plenty of time to research candidates and time for debates and time for rallies, and it would suck all the oxygen out of the room so Trump would basically never be able to get on TV for the entire course of that month ๐
Most of those countries have less than 20% of the population of the US and are smaller than our largest states.
India pulled off their election this year in six weeks.
We live in the future. It's not like the only way to hear about a politician is to physically go to an event and see them in person, and it's not like the only way to research a candidate is to go through your local library to find physical newspaper archives. A debate anywhere is a debate everywhere and you can look up anyone's record in an instant on Wikipedia.
Also, remember, we're talking about a primary. Those are inherently smaller because they only encompass Democrats, instead of the entire population.
Also also, these excuses don't actually address the problem: the appearance of an undemocratic process.