Well it’s been one helluva Sunday. A political earthquake, following by one breaking piece of news after another. It will continue in the days ahead, just not in the way so many rich and powerful people had counted on. Executives (and talent) at major news outlets got their wish. President Biden stepped aside – and since they’d put SOOOOO much work into it I’m sure initially they exploded in orgiastic bliss. Late tonight there are serious signs their celebrations might have been a tad premature. (Insert your own premature ejaculation joke here) And Trump? He put out a quick statement that was about what you’d expect but he’s feeling like he looks in the title pic – as in ‘Oh shIt!’
As for the newsies, oh how they wanted their brokered convention, and as so many (including me) kept demanding of Democrats (and donors) journalists scared into coming out against the President WHO do they want to take over. No one was willing to step up and either name themselves or anyone else. So the bosses (and much of the talent) dreamed happy dreams of a fractured Democratic Party putting on a sh!twhow convention and campaign. As the day and evening wore on something quite different began to happen. Something dashing their dreams. Democrats aren’t there yet but seem to be quickly getting behind VP Kamala Harris. Enthusiastically. And potentials newsies had floated as part of a slate of people who’d duke it out in a political version of some wrestling “cage match” have pretty much already endorsed…Harris!
Oh, but there’s one person who seems willing to take her on for the nomination. Politico reported earlier that none other than retiring Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has people encouraging him to re-register as a Democrat and run for the nomination. So the source of this not-bombshell story is wait for it… Joe Manchin. Manchin authorized someone to confirm it to Politico:
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is fielding calls from Democratic donors and officials encouraging him to re-register as a Democrat and run for the Democratic nomination, CBS reported on Sunday. A person familiar with Manchin’s conversations confirmed it to POLITICO.
This both sad and pathetic. Could we possibly hear Manchin tomorrow on Morning Joe (he’s scheduled to appear) claim “people say” he should run? That could be fun as Trump might sue him for “phrase infringement.” Former Senator Clair McCaskill of Missouri drive me up the wall sometimes but hearing her earlier say Oh Joe was the equivalent of southern gals saying Bless his heart. When they say that in a certain tone they aren’t being nice and supportive – they are saying ‘how f**king stupid ARE you?’ Hey I take my entertainment where I can find it so if Manchin, who is retiring because he knew he was going to lose his Senate seat this fall wants to take a shot it will be fun watching his ‘candidacy’ flies around for a few seconds like a punctured balloon.
However lets get back to news executives and most of their “talent.” The corner offices of course have a collection of the “good stuff”, booze like Johnny Walker Blue or maybe 30 year old (or older) single malts for special celebrations. Please let them have cracked a bottle or two open before the afternoon wore on. By this evening, watching all the endorsements for Harris coming in from Democrats who’d stabbed President Biden in the back, PLUS various state Party chairs announcing their delegates were ALL pledging to vote Harris as our nominee they were sending interns down to the street. To hit up winos and homeless people for cheap rotgut!
I wrote in an earlier article about our not having any time for bitterness something that turned out to becoming a reality. I said by tomorrow most if not all the backstabbers should have come out in full throated, no wiggle room support for VP Harris. And by Tuesday every damn one of them should. I didn’t say so then but if Schumer and Jeffries have caucus meetings in the next day or two they should knock heads and get everyone in their respective caucuses to agree to a unanimous letter of support that ALL of them will sign and announce THAT to journalists! I said that a process for reaching out to state Parties to not threaten but encourage support for Harris should begin. I truly believe that if not threatened, most if not all Biden/Harris delegates would go along with the President’s wished and by Wed. there should be well more than enough delegates pledge to Harris that it would all be over. Tonight it’s looking like it might not take even that long!
Oh the despair, the tears flowing from so many journalists and their bosses about a full-bore Dems in Disarray sh!tshow until the convention, a worse scene on the convention floor than 1968 in Chicago and a wrecked, divided Democratic Party for weeks afterwards, if not right up through election day. Oh, there’ll be some grumbling, especially from big money donors who wanted to dump both the President and VP Harris too. I was going to write an article tomorrow about smug business leaders looking forward to some kind of “process” where they’d play a major role in picking the nominee.
Well, the ship has slipped the mooring lines and the President has piloted it away from the dock. Then turned over the Captain’s seat to Kamala Harris who is superbly ready to pilot it down the channel and into the open waters of a campaign. It will face stormy seas in the form of huge, crashing waves of racism and sexism. I have every confidence Kamala Harris is capable of navigating through it all because she’s turning out to have a crew that will bust their butts for her.
So to news executives and talent crying in your glasses of rotgut booze tonight I say drink and drink heavily. I WANT you all to wake up with a hangover from hell, the kind where when you’re done puking you still have dry heaves. Just STFU and go away for a while. In the meantime we’ll have the entertainment of Joe Manchin doing a real life version of the “OW!! MY BALLS!!” guy from Idiocracy. Tears and jeers folks
I love your turn of phrase Denis!! All of them! 🌊💙🌊💙🌊💙🌊💙🌊💙🌊
Great column! Loved every word of it.
…. I think the “ship has slipped the moorin lines” allegory is terrific. Thanks
Denis in my neck of the woods they usually added bless your little pea pickin heart…but you’re on point marine…it was never a complement. Joe Coal Barron Manchin reminds me of Mr. Haney from Greenacres. Unfortunately Arnold the pig had more sense. If he wants to strap himself to the train track fine by me. As Dustin Hoffman, playing the muleskinner in Little Big Man told Custer, you go on down there general, and when they get through with you, you won’t be nothing but a greasy spot.
Well, pick your favorite metaphor: we’ve crossed the Rubicon, the dice are tossed, blah, blah, blah. I have little to say about Biden’s decision. Like every political choice, it’s a crapshoot. One thing I AM sure of, though: the senior Democratic Party leaders who forced Biden out have staked their own political futures on the November election. If Harris loses, it will be time for all of them — Schiff, Pelosi, and every single Democratic Representative who called for his withdrawal — to retire from politics and let a new generation of party leaders take the helm. We voters who overwhelmingly endorsed Biden in the primaries won’t stand for another four years of Donald Trump without demanding a thorough housecleaning. It will then be the task of Buttigieg and AOC to join with Warren and Sanders to rebuild a shattered party.
Joe Manchin?
Who?
I look forward to the day I can say,
Donald Trump?
Who????
Denis, this party is through. It’s all over. Project 2025 is going to win it all and we progressives are well and truly f*cked. I myself am looking at which country to hie my ass off to ’cause this one A) isn’t worth a shit and B) sure as shit won’t be safe for anyone other than mindless slaves who will bow to whatever fecal deity the magat mighty put up for everyone to bow to.
It’s all over, the fat bitch has sung her final aria, and we’re just waiting, if we’re stupid enough, to be marched off to the detention camps…if we’re lucky.
Oh, my effin’ God! Would you just go the f#ck away, already?
You’ve been nothing but a whiny little bee-yotch (though my preferred term would share the title of Meredith Brooks’ late 90s hit song) all this morning.
Whine, whine, whine. Go get some damn cheese already and get the f#ck out of here.
spike…I understand your frustration but one thing I’m absolutely certain of is NO ONE can be certain what the future holds. No one thought Obama could win. No one thought the 1980 US hockey team of college kids could beat Russia. No one in their right mind could review the facts and think for a second Washington could take on the best trained, most powerful army and navy, when we didn’t even have a navy, and WIN THE WAR! So it’s no time to throw the towel in. It’s time to fight pure and simple.