Why the unity around Harris is good for democracy

In the hours after the president dropped out of the running, my first concern was the same concern I had before he dropped out – party unity. With it, Joe Biden might have survived* the crisis. Without it, no alternative nominee could possibly hope to defeat Donald Trump.

Unity is the main reason why I have said the only alternative to Biden is the vice president. The nominee can’t be some other relatively unknown Democrat, no matter how good they might look on paper. If the party stepped over Kamala Harris, the first biracial woman to be second in command, the Democrats would crack. There are not enough white swing voters around to make up for the loss of Black women and women of color who would stay home with a vengeance.

Fortunately, miraculously, the Democrats seem to have unified in one day. Biden made his historic announcement early Sunday afternoon. (He plans to address the country tomorrow evening during a televised address.) An hour later, he endorsed Harris. Then came endorsements from the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Then came endorsements from various labor unions, including the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and the United Steelworkers.

Then former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had spearheaded the pressure campaign to push out the president, and who had said she favored an “open convention,” got on board. In short order, all but 26 out of the 286 congressional Democrats and Democratic governors followed suit. Then came the delegates. By early Monday evening, the Associated Press had reported that practically all delegates pledged to Biden had pledged themselves to Harris (after he released them).

This is not to mention the money. As Fortune put it, “Trump had finally closed the fundraising gap in the election — then came a $100 million blue tsunami.” Most of that came from first time contributors, the Harris campaign said. Some 58,000 new volunteers signed up. At the same time, all those relatively unknown Democrats, the ones who looked good on paper, like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, endorsed Harris. Indeed, none of the 23 Democratic governors are on the sidelines. They’re all in.

As I said, this is miraculous. A party that had been coming apart at the seams in the long days after the disaster debate had all of a sudden found unity where beforehand there appeared to be none. Around the country, elected Democrats, activists, donors and delegates seemed to recognize, collectively and instantaneously, the need for party unity around the vice president, and that effect had one cause: Joe Biden.

Without Biden’s snap endorsement, we might still be talking about the need for unity rather than its establishment. More precisely, we might be talking about what’s called a “brokered convention” or an “open convention.” Even though they spell chaos, they were reportedly the preferred path for Pelosi, former President Barack Obama, Democratic strategist James Carville and some of the party’s big-wheel donors who thought it best for the party to step over Harris. (If you’re curious, Google “mini primaries.”) But thanks to Biden, we’re not talking about chaos. We’re talking about calm, order, unity and the will to win.

The collective and instantaneous unity around the vice president explains efforts by some in the press corps to characterize it as somehow antidemocratic. The Post’s editorial board said this morning that it would be better for the party, and for democracy, to allow the Democratic National Convention to pick a replacement. The Times asked whether it’s wrong “to go all in on Harris?” The Atlantic’s Graeme Wood went a step further to say that nominating Harris would be a mistake because of “the impression that Democratic politics [feels] like a game rigged by insiders to favor a candidate of their choice.”

The collective and instantaneous unity around the vice president also explains efforts by some Republicans and their rightwing media allies to characterize Harris as if she were a welfare queen of sorts, who is undeserving of the nomination on account of being a “DEI hire,” who was picked not because she earned it but because she is Black, and who is being rammed through the process by arrogant liberal elites. “Kamala Harris is going to be the Democratic Party nominee for president and has never had a single person vote for her in a primary,” wrote Stephen Miller, voicing one of the milder rightwing complaints.

Don’t be fooled. The Democratic Party’s collective and instantaneous unity around the vice president is right and good, and it also represents the best shot small-d democrats have in this country in defeating Trump and the authoritarian takeover of the United States government. The party’s critics and opponents are trying to make something wholesome, normal and American seem like anything but.

Harris’ nomination is not a coronation. It’s not antidemocratic or rigged. And Harris is certainly not a DEI anything. From January to the spring, more than 14 million people voted in the 57 Democratic primaries and caucuses in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Eighty-seven percent chose the “Biden-Harris” ticket, and they did so knowing the “Harris” in “Biden-Harris” was Vice President Kamala Harris. They also understood, as voters generally understand, that if the president can’t do something, the vice president can. Sadly, Joe Biden can’t. He has passed the torch. And everyone else – from electeds to donors – chose to get behind her. That’s how it should be. There’s nothing elitist, anti-democratic, rigged or wrong with that.

*As I was writing this, Politico reported that top congressional Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, were prepared to go public with internal campaign polling in swing states that would provide concrete evidence of Biden’s sinking prospects. I said party unity might have gotten him through the crisis, but obviously, I can’t really know.

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