Dr Nsungbemo Ezung
Wokha Town
The Democratic establishment in Washington had just executed the most significant political coup in modern American history, compelling its official nominee for the 2024 US Presidential Election, to withdraw from the same presidential race marking a dramatic and unprecedented development in American political history. With Joe Biden disgracefully succumbing to the demand of the Democratic establishment to quit the race, the party had successfully overturned their own primary election results. The Democratic establishment had chosen to ignore the fact that the party’s primary elections process across the United States for electing its nominee for the ensuing Presidential Election was already completed, and Joe Biden was overwhelmingly chosen by the Democratic primary voters to be their nominee to become the next president of the United States.
So what new political narrative does the Democratic Party need to craft to override the choice of its own primary voters and supersede the will of the people in general just to ensure that the party officials in the capital will maintain complete control of the party and the fate of the nation at large? Is it not illegal for the party establishment to undermine the already pledged of the delegates in favor of Joe Biden which will have a serious repercussion in the future? Forcing Joe Biden out of the presidential race would create a troubling precedent for future elections. It will render the future primary elections for the Democratic Party to no relevance because scenarios would certainly emerge where even if the delegates/primary voters of the party from across the country would choose a certain candidate as its nominee for any election if the same candidate chosen by the primary voters did not satisfy some few elected democratic officials in Washington, then the latter can overrule the nominee of the primary voters by creating any undue pretext or unreasonable excuse. What is the purpose of holding primary elections if the establishment still has the power to override their outcome and impose a different candidate, disregarding the choice of the primary voters? Primary elections that can be overridden by the establishment render the entire process a futile exercise, wasting time and resources and undermining voters’ confidence. Joe Biden’s unceremonious exit from the presidential race, under pressure from the top, would further embolden the Democratic establishment granting them unprecedented power to potentially override the will of the people and even subvert the democratic process in the future.
It is also astonishing to observe that the Democratic establishment political figures like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton, despite the fact that they have already served their time in politics, continue to try to exert influence in Washington rather than choosing to graciously retire from the public life, taking a key role in forcing out Joe Biden.
By forcing out Joe Biden from the presidential race, the Democrats have created a paradox undermining the democratic process that they claim to seek to uphold. The one who can no longer run for the presidency and is incapacitated, according to the Democratic Party, can still be a president, and while the party paradoxically hails Joe Biden as one of the most consequential presidents in modern times, highlighting his supposedly numerous achievements, simultaneously pressured him to exit the race, citing his supposed unsuitability to be the president for the next four years. This Democratic Party’s inconsistency is the stark contradiction that undermines the very principle of democracy. The biggest humiliation of Joe Biden during his more than fifty years of public life and public service came not from his political opponents but unexpectedly from within his own party.
The “threat to democracy” narrative created by the Democratic Party has become a dominant feature in the American political discourse as the presidential election closes in with the Democrats trying to portray a kind of dire situation for America and the world should their political opponents win the upcoming presidential election. Joe Biden also affirmed his party’s narrative that democracy was under attack during his address to the nation while confirming his exit from the presidential race. It is interesting and at the same time intriguing to examine which party, the Democrats or Republicans, poses a greater threat to democratic principles and institutions.
In June, the Democratic Party had defied tradition by advancing the presidential debate when none of the major political parties had done with their respective party’s national convention thereby breaking the normal tradition of holding presidential debates during September-October every presidential election year. Advancing the date for presidential debate, using their given power, to help their candidate boost his campaign is a classic case of abuse of power. The Democrats assumed that an early debate would give an early advantage to Joe Biden for his presidential bid. However contrary to the expectation, the ever-ready President Donald Trump humiliated Joe Biden and routed him in every aspect of the debate. The effort of the Democratic Party, by defying democratic tradition, to put Biden in the driving seat as early as possible backfired as the Democratic nominee did not recover from the disastrous debate performance with Donald Trump to eventually bow out of the race for the White House.
If there are ever threats to democracy then it should be the weaponization of the nation’s justice system to conduct endless and baseless investigations against a legitimately elected president, seeking unilateral packing of the Supreme Court without bipartisan consensus, pursuing unproductive impeachment proceedings, adjusting debate dates to suit a particular candidate and overruling a legitimate mandate of the primary voters.
And the best means to addressing the threats to democracy, both in the United States and globally, is to draw inspiration from the Make America Great Movement (MAGA) Movement led by President Donald Trump, which prioritized national popular sovereignty, secured national borders and democratic values. The MAGA Movement seeks to challenge the deep state and establishment politics, which can subvert the will and interest of the people and pose a significant threat to democratic institutions. The MAGA Movement also embodied the principle of popular sovereignty, where power is vested in the people, and the purpose of the government is to serve the people and not for the people to serve the government, which is the surest path to securing democracy in the world.
