Are the Democrats democratic?

Taking a risk on principle

In the wake of Graham Platner’s withdrawal from the Maine Senate, I’ve seen a resurrection of a complaint that Republicans made after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden in 2024. The Democrats, some say, are anti-democratic (with a small “d”) because they overrode the will of the primary voters. This is wrong on a couple of counts.

First, and most obvious, is that strictly speaking, the Democratic Party elites did not force either Biden or Platner out. The lie of this claim can be seen through the simultaneous and contradictory claims that Democrats supported both Biden and Platner. It is logically inconsistent that Democrats could both support and undermine Biden and Platner at the same time.

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In reality, what happened was that new information caused both Biden and Platner to lose support abruptly. (It’s fair to say that both should have lost support earlier.) When the two politicians saw that their campaigns were damaged beyond repair and that there was no way forward, both chose to step down for the good of their party and the country.

The second fallacy is that primary elections are party elections, not governmental elections. When Biden and Platner secured their respective nominations, they won only a place on the ballot, not an office. It makes sense that the parties and the states would consider the possibility that a nominee might not make it from the primary to Election Day. There are legal and procedural steps to follow in such an eventuality.

In the same way that there is a procedure to replace elected officials if they resign or die in office, there are procedures to replace party nominees on a ballot. And just as elected officials might be replaced without an election, nominees can be replaced by party leaders. In one fairly recent example, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Johnny Isakson in 2019. Loeffler went on to lose re-election to Raphael Warnock just over a year later. No one said that Kemp was subverting democracy by appointing Loeffer.

Most people don’t understand that primary elections are a fairly recent innovation. Our system of primaries as the dominant means of picking nominees only dates back to the 1970s. The current system was born out of reforms after the turbulence of the 1960s. Prior to the 70s, primaries were a supplement to the traditional convention nominating process. The “smoke-filled rooms.”

Primaries are a failed experiment, in my opinion. They tend to reward extremism rather than electability or competence. The bottom line is that if a group of partisans gets together to select a nominee, they often choose the most partisan option, even if their ideas are not practical and they lack the skills for the job.

The proof for that argument is in the pudding. Candidate quality has decreased sharply over the past few decades. Joe Biden, Graham Platner, Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and AOC are only a few examples of what the primary system has given us. The flip side is that many of our good, competent leaders from the past would not be fringe enough to win a primary today.

So, no. The Democrats are not undemocratic for abandoning candidates who were flaming out in real time. The replacements of Biden and Platner are examples of democratic responsiveness in action. Not supporting candidates with obvious flaws should be normalized. It’s a good thing. Sticking with candidates who are bad because they are part of your tribe is the problem.

The Republicans shouldn’t be ridiculing Democrats for dropping bad candidates, especially as they rally behind Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist, and Ken Paxton, a serial philanderer and abuser of office. Loyalty is not an asset if you’re loyal to bad people.

I applaud the decision to dump Platner and encourage him to step aside. Even if the Democrats lose the race, they will have stood up for their principles and morality at the very real risk of alienating the progressive wing of their party. That’s a lot more than I can say for Republicans over the last decade.

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