A Wolf at the DNC's Door

When Joe Biden ran for president four years ago he said, "We're in a battle for the soul of this nation."  And the truth is nothing less than the future of our democracy is on the line in November.

If you've ever given money to a Democratic Party candidate you will see emails like this pop up in your inbox on an almost daily basis.   It’s easy to become numb to "this is not a normal election" rhetoric.  I’ve voted in six presidential elections.  All six were declared the most important election of my lifetime by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).  

After decades of the DNC waking the entire village in pleas for donations to stop the Republicans, there is a growing sense that this year the wolf is finally at our door.  Will Americans respond to DNC pleas to save Democracy from a vengeful Donald Trump equipped with the Project 2025 blueprint for dismantling the regulatory state and endowed by the Supreme Court with immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts”?  Or will the apathetic villagers keep their doors locked, leaving the DNC out in the cold to be devoured by a Trumpian dictatorship?

On the night of June 28th, 2024, the American village was awake, watching Donald Trump and Joe Biden engage in their first debate of this presidential rematch.  While more haggard and hunched over than four years earlier, Trump was his old wolf-like self, tearing into Biden's first term with little regard for factual accuracy or debate decorum.  But it was not the wolf who would shock the American people that night.  It was the DNC’s trusted wolf-slayer who created the most unease in the American village.  81-year-old Biden's shuffling gait, his struggles to finish sentences, and his mouth-agape blank stares did not project the strength of a man capable of defending us from the wolf at the door.  Biden did not even appear to be capable of saving himself.  He looked more like a hopeless soul that would be thrown to the wolves by a village under siege.  

Watching the debate, it was hard to deny that American Democracy is in peril.  But in the past week, it has become even harder to maintain that Biden and the DNC are the ones to save it.  While a handful of Congressional Democrats have urged Biden to step down, the DNC hivemind has been unwilling and unable to swarm to a new candidate.  Instead, the Democratic establishment wove an elaborate tapestry of excuses to reassure Americans that they didn't see what they thought they saw on the night of June 28th.  We were told that if Biden hadn't come down with a cold, if the CNN moderators had fact-checked Trump, if Biden's advisors hadn't over-prepared him for the debate then we wouldn't have stared into the dead stare of a ghostly man but would have instead seen the scrappy and sharp octogenarian who is the real President of the United States.  

We will see whether these excuses unravel in the weeks to come.  What we do know is that Biden's infirmities will only inspire the DNC to more aggressively proclaim Democracy itself is on the ballot in 2024.  We will be told that pulling the lever for the Democratic presidential ticket is not so much a vote for Biden, but a vote for Democracy itself.  The flip side of this narrative is that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for dictatorship.  It's a great fundraising pitch.  But in their efforts to beat Trump in the quarterly donation race, the DNC is playing a dangerous game with the future of American Democracy.  If Biden continues his painfully public decline and Trump wins in November, the DNC's "Democracy is on the ballot" rhetoric will give Trump a popular mandate to indulge in his darkest authoritarian impulses, fulfilling the narcissistic dream that Americans love him more than Democracy itself.  

The harsh truth is, Democracy cannot save itself.  Democracy cannot bring itself into being.  You cannot take a vote to determine whether voting is a legitimate transfer of authority.  Democracy can only be secured by the will of the people and the spirit of a nation.  To say that "Democracy is on Ballot" is to concede that Democracy itself is already defeated, that our institutions cannot hold if Trump takes power, and that only vigorous leadership can reestablish government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  On June 28th, we saw in Biden a tragic public servant who has already given all that he can to this country.  We did not see the dynamic leader capable of protecting Democracy from the wolf at the door.  

This is not a call for abandoning the Democratic Party, third-party protest votes, or cynical disengagement.  This isn't even a call for Biden to step down to make room for a younger candidate.  But it is a call for accountability.  The DNC knows better than the American public whether Biden is fit to not only finish the next four months of this campaign but serve another four years as president.  If they get this right and a rejuvenated Joe rallies to win, they will have proven themselves trustworthy defenders of the village.  But if Biden fades into the stretch and Trump wins then the DNC bears the blame.  Every Democratic politician who has spoken out attesting to Biden's competence must then face the consequences of choosing party over country.  The DNC leadership who pride themselves on “being on the right side of history,” will have to concede that their risky bet on an 81-year-old candidate was an epic miscalculation.   For failing us in this pivotal moment in history, the Democratic Party establishment will deserve to be the first to feel the wolf’s wrath.  The villagers will then have to rally together and show the world that American people are more resilient than the Democratic National Committee and that American Democracy is stronger than Donald Trump.