When Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi had fully brandished the political knives in July to force Joe Biden out of the presidential race, it was undoubtedly their plan to anoint a successor by way of negotiation among the Democrat establishment. They would have thereby avoided any populist disruption that could have been caused by primary support for a hard-lined leftist like Bernie Sanders, and could have nominated a moderate with some crossover appeal in the swing states. Then, the Democrat faithful would rally to the party banner, and the media would have fallen into lockstep in supporting their replacement.
But as we now know, Joe Biden had other plans. He proved to be the gremlin in the gears of the well-oiled DNC political machine when he announced on July 21, a Sunday afternoon, that he was both dropping out of the race and he was endorsing Kamala Harris for president.
The fact that the announcement was made on a Sunday may be a critical point to help us begin understanding the Biden campaign’s motive. When it comes to which days of the week are most effective to send out a press release, “most experts rule out the weekend,” according to Canadian media intelligence firm, Cision. Sundays are better suited for talk shows with guests than breaking news coverage with primetime anchors, and according to Sprout Social, Sunday is the worst day of the week for social media engagement.
What this Sunday announcement may suggest is that the Biden campaign meant to blindside the party elites who wouldn’t have expected such timing for the announcement. And that suggestion is all but proven by the fact that the Biden campaign had clearly neglected to inform Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi before he made the announcement.
Immediate evidence after the announcement certainly suggests that these three most influential Democrats weren’t informed beforehand, because none of them rushed to offer their support to Kamala Harris after Biden’s endorsement, signifying a lack of party coordination in the messaging. As I observed in an article published on American Thinker the day after his announcement, it already seemed clear that Biden had just pulled the pin of a political grenade inside the Democrat tent.
This was merely a logical assumption at the time, but it was later proven beyond shadows of doubt when Nancy Pelosi said exactly this:
None of us had any idea he would do it that Sunday … So when he did that and endorsed [Kamala Harris], then the thought was everybody wanted an open process. Let’s see the talent, let’s see the bench of the Democrats and let them come. And see what they can attract. But when he endorsed her, then it was, “Are you with me or not?” And she moved quickly.
It was a shocking admission from Nancy Pelosi. She, Barack Obama, and Chuck Schumer must have been surprised when they had been politically outmaneuvered by Joe Biden, a man who was being forced to abdicate his position on the Democrat ticket because he was so obviously lacking in his cognitive faculties that his continuing as the nominee was an embarrassment to the party.
But the endorsement of Kamala Harris was too much for even the old guard of the DNC to stand against. Kamala represented the next zenith in the progressive quest to supplant life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with diversity, equity, and inclusion as the driving principles of our nation and its people. After the Congressional Black Caucus endorsed her immediately, opposing Kamala’s immediate ascent to the nomination quickly became an act of open racism and sexism.
And though it took almost a full week, Pelosi, Schumer, and Obama all succumbed to social and political pressure, and later chose to support Kamala Harris for the nomination, with Obama being the last holdout in doing so.This was a huge problem for Democrats because Kamala Harris was well known to be among the most uniquely unlikeable and untalented politicians in the Democrat stable. And few people knew that better on July 21 than her boss, Joe Biden.
There were plenty of theatrics that followed, suggesting an affection between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. “We love Joe and Jill,” Harris told an audienceafter receiving the endorsement from Biden, “they really are like family.” “I’m watching ya, kid,” Biden told Harris over a speaker phone, “I love ya.”
And we were all just supposed to buy that. We were all just meant to believe that Joe Biden thought Kamala Harris would be the best chance for Democrats to win in 2024, filling his shoes and carrying the torch of his legacy onward into the future.
This would be the same Kamala Harris who was rejected with extreme prejudice by Democrat voters long before the first state primary vote in 2020 because she was so incredibly disagreeable to the party’s constituents. It’s also the same Kamala Harris who aggressively accused Joe Biden of being a racist who opposed the busing that forced school integration in his early career. Since this moment, there has been “bad blood between the first lady and the vice president, a feeling so strong that one source describes it as ‘hatred,’” according to the Daily Mail.
And it’s the same Kamala Harris who was, in her short time as a California senator, known for being the most liberal senator in Congress -- even further left than Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden knows, perhaps better than anyone whose name is not Hillary Clinton, exactly how far the DNC would go to avoid having a leftist radical headline the party ticket and doom them in the swing states. And yet the Biden administration had endorsed the one candidate that was to the left of Bernie Sanders while having precisely none of his populist appeal?
Anyone paying attention should have always suspected that Joe Biden’s endorsing Kamala Harris was an act of vengeance against the conspirators in his party that led a coup against him. And the Biden administration’s most recent actions certainly support the notion that he’s continuing to sabotage Kamala Harris and the DNC’s campaign efforts.
But that’s just a “wild theory” being floated by Republicans like Scott Jennings on CNN, the Daily Mail says.
Is it, though?
Joe Biden famously spent the 2020 presidential campaign in the basement. During his presidency, he became known for “media evasion,” as Axios calls it, choosing instead to call lids early and often while finding ample time to vacation in Delaware and sleep on the beach.
But in his final months as president, he’s mustered the energy to go on a busy valedictory tour that is intended to remind American voters that Kamala Harris deserves much of the credit for all of the “accomplishments” of his historically unpopular administration. “We’re singing from the same song sheet,” he recently said in a White House press briefing, adding that “she was a major player in everything we’ve done.”
And few are more grateful for that messaging than the Trump campaign. “More Biden is good for us,” a Trump official told Newsweek.
And just as the Biden campaign didn’t coordinate with the DNC before announcing that he was dropping out and endorsing Harris on a Sunday, the Biden administration didn’t coordinate with the Harris campaign before surprising reporters with his aforementioned, first ever appearance as president in the White House press briefing room at the exact moment that Kamala Harris was at a campaign stop in Detroit where she was touting a vital pause in the dockworkers’ union strike and a promising jobs report.
Biden was “clearly overshadowing her,” CNN reported afterward. A CNN anchor wonders if it was “a communications mistake, is the left hand not talking to the right hand in this situation?”
That was last Friday. On Tuesday of this week, as Kamala Harris was slated to get some much-needed exposure on The View, Biden again stole the spotlight by concurrently holding a presser on Hurricane Milton, during which he attested that he had been working closely with Governor Ron DeSantis. He attested that the governor has “been cooperative” and is “doing a great job,” totally undermining Kamala Harris who had been complaining that DeSantis wasn’t answering her calls, and that he was “playing political games” while being “selfish” and “irresponsible” in his management of storm resources.
Make of this what you will. But Democrats are typically masterful in coordinating public messaging in conjunction with the media that are firmly in their pockets. Either the Biden campaign has been really bad at coordinating with the Kamala Harris campaign and the DNC since July 21 when he announced his withdrawal, or the Biden campaign has been really, really good at not-so-subtly sabotaging their efforts.