Myrtle Beach, SC Both halves of this question assume the shock faded because the coalitions decided to let it fade. That is not what happened, and the actual explanation is sitting in plain view on the calendar. Butler was July thirteenth. Biden withdrew on July twenty-first. Eight days. A sitting president abandoned a re-election campaign … Continue reading Did the Butler attempt change the 2024 race by making political violence the central fact, or did both coalitions absorb it as a one-week shock and return to the prior script?
Weekly Correspondents’ Forum 2024
Is the speed with which the party, donors, and major media aligned behind Harris evidence of impressive coalition discipline, or of a nomination that was assigned rather than won?
Myrtle Beach, SC Discipline is what you call it when a contest never starts and the line still forms. That was my instinct and I want to test it against the one thing that would settle it, which is whether anybody was actually prevented from running. The answer is no. The party set a qualifying … Continue reading Is the speed with which the party, donors, and major media aligned behind Harris evidence of impressive coalition discipline, or of a nomination that was assigned rather than won?
Did Harris’s assignment on migration belong at the center of the 2024 race once she became the nominee, or was that role always a title without operational control?
Gastonia, NC I have to start with the title, because the question uses it and it belongs to a different person. The Coordinator for the Southwest Border was Roberta Jacobson. She was appointed to the National Security Council in January of 2021 with that exact job description and she left at the end of April … Continue reading Did Harris’s assignment on migration belong at the center of the 2024 race once she became the nominee, or was that role always a title without operational control?
Should donors and elected officials who spent 2019–20 calling Harris a historically weak primary candidate have been required to explain the 2024 conversion, or is elite preference allowed to change without a public accounting?
Myrtle Beach, SC Preference may change. Memory should not be optional. But before demanding an accounting, somebody should state the 2019 record accurately, because it is stranger than the shorthand. She did not lose a primary. She dropped out on the third of December 2019 — two months before Iowa, before a single vote was … Continue reading Should donors and elected officials who spent 2019–20 calling Harris a historically weak primary candidate have been required to explain the 2024 conversion, or is elite preference allowed to change without a public accounting?
When Kamala Harris inherited the nomination without facing a single primary voter as the presidential candidate, did that settle the succession question the Constitution left to parties, or did it confirm that the primary calendar had become a formality?
Gastonia, NC One correction before the argument, because the roll call is running as I write this and it matters. Votes are being cast. Not by the public, but by roughly four thousand delegates, and those delegates were themselves elected in primaries this spring. The party set a qualifying threshold — three hundred delegate signatures, … Continue reading When Kamala Harris inherited the nomination without facing a single primary voter as the presidential candidate, did that settle the succession question the Constitution left to parties, or did it confirm that the primary calendar had become a formality?
Should federal and platform treatment of assassination rhetoric after Butler have been even-handed across targets, or did the week after July 13 reveal a one-way urgency that had been missing when the target was Trump?
Gastonia, NC Even-handed is the only rule that is not a jersey, and I will defend that all day. What I am not going to defend is the empirical claim underneath the second half of this question, because it does not survive five minutes with the record. The claim is that assassination imagery aimed at … Continue reading Should federal and platform treatment of assassination rhetoric after Butler have been even-handed across targets, or did the week after July 13 reveal a one-way urgency that had been missing when the target was Trump?
Was the operation to force Biden off the ticket in July 2024 a necessary correction by party elders, or a demonstration that the 2024 Democratic nomination had never been a voter-controlled process?
Myrtle Beach, SC Everyone is arguing about the removal and the removal is not the exhibit. The replacement is. On the twenty-first he posted a letter and withdrew. He endorsed Kamala Harris the same afternoon. By the evening of the twenty-second — about thirty-six hours later — she had public commitments from more than enough … Continue reading Was the operation to force Biden off the ticket in July 2024 a necessary correction by party elders, or a demonstration that the 2024 Democratic nomination had never been a voter-controlled process?
After the July 13 shooting at Butler, should Secret Service failures of line-of-sight, roof coverage, and local coordination have produced immediate resignations and a public after-action, or was “we will review” an adequate first-week response?
Gastonia, NC The director is testifying this morning, and by the time most people read this the question may have answered itself. Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Raskin sent a joint letter today calling on Kimberly Cheatle to resign. Not a Republican letter with a Democratic dissent — the chairman and the ranking member of … Continue reading After the July 13 shooting at Butler, should Secret Service failures of line-of-sight, roof coverage, and local coordination have produced immediate resignations and a public after-action, or was “we will review” an adequate first-week response?
When Judge Cannon dismissed the classified-documents indictment on appointments-clause grounds, was that a technicality that delays accountability, or a reminder that how a prosecutor is installed still matters in a republic?
Gastonia, NC "Technicality" is usually what people call a rule after they have decided they dislike what the rule is delaying. That is why I would not describe Monday's ruling that way. The appointments question goes to who was authorized to wield federal prosecutorial power in the first place, and that is not decorative procedure. … Continue reading When Judge Cannon dismissed the classified-documents indictment on appointments-clause grounds, was that a technicality that delays accountability, or a reminder that how a prosecutor is installed still matters in a republic?
Should Cabinet officers and congressional Democrats who privately doubted Biden’s capacity in 2023–24 have raised the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in public, or would that have been an undemocratic coup against a nominated incumbent?
Myrtle Beach, SC Before anybody answers this, read Section 4, because the mechanism people are demanding does not work the way they think. Section 4 requires the Vice President. Not a majority of the Cabinet acting alone — the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers. Her signature comes first and without it … Continue reading Should Cabinet officers and congressional Democrats who privately doubted Biden’s capacity in 2023–24 have raised the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in public, or would that have been an undemocratic coup against a nominated incumbent?
