Dems in Array: Biden to Harris Handoff Appears Seamless

Harris wasn't anointed by the Democratic "establishment," she was chosen by a coalescence of the wide swath of Democrats who'd voted for Harris as VP in both the 2020 general and 2024 primary elections.

According to some of the country's most prominent news publications, the Democratic establishment moved quickly beginning Sunday afternoon to lock down the Democratic presidential nomination for Kamala Harris.

But the idea that the establishment' anointed Kamala Harris and locked the nomination down for her turns the whole matter pretty much on its head. What locked in Harris was the overwhelming resistance of Democratic voters and activists to anyone else. It was national columnists and a significant number of Democratic elites who were pushing for the thunderdome primary.

A good bit of this was support for Harris herself. A lot of it was the fact that with the incumbent president and presumed nominee out and no time to run anything other than a fake primary, Harris had democratic legitimacy on her side. Eighty million voters literally chose her in 2020 to be the person who took over for Joe Biden if he couldn't serve. Democratic primary voters in effect reconfirmed that this Spring since Biden and Harris were again running as a package deal. Few things are more embedded in American political culture than the idea that vice presidents succeed presidents.

Democratic legitimacy in this context isn't some political science concept. It is what makes her the one person who most or all party stakeholders could rally behind even if she wasn't necessarily their personal choice. That was never going to be possible with any other potential nominee.

Once Biden made his announcement she moved rapidly to channel and direct support for herself in a way that all potential challengers threw their support to her within 24 hours. The "establishment" didn't shut down the Thunderdome contested convention that columnists and reporters were demanding. The convention remains wholly open. Once Biden ended his campaign all the delegates had a total free choice. What killed Thunderdome was the mass of the party making it impossible for anyone to challenge Harris. Josh Marshall

Just like all the false laments that somehow Joe Biden winning the most votes from actual primary voters in 2020 was orchestrated by party elites, it's equally false to say that the rapid coalescence around the Vice President once the President stepped aside was somehow again the work of these disliked "elites."

We've all watched and lived through these last 5 extraordinary days, unprecedented in US presidential election history. Don't buy the idiocy that your eyes and ears didn't actually see and hear exactly what happened, and that it was led by the will of Democratic voters and related ideological stakeholders, not party powerbrokers.