The Counterpublic Papers vol. 9 no. 1

Author

Lester Spence
August 20, 2024

What a year this past six or so weeks have been. 

A few quick notes after the first day of the Democratic National Convention:

Debates usually aren’t a good predictor of results, and they tend to reproduce a consumerist vision of politics and our responsibilities. 

I still believe this to be true. 

However Biden performed in the debate, he still had the capacity to defeat Trump come November. 

But with that said, the question isn’t really whether he had the capacity or not. 

It isn’t even about Biden per se, but rather about the party itself. And then, about us—and when I write “us” I refer to the large swath of voters who either vote Democratic or for some third-party candidate but aren’t necessarily party members. 

The Republican Party has made themselves clear since 2016.    

Yet and still the institutions that shape our politics, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, haven’t responded to this fact. The rhetoric is there—the Washington Post for example changed their masthead to “Democracy dies in darkness.” Specialists of authoritarianism in other nations began to apply their craft to the United States itself. Johns Hopkins and other universities stood up pro-democracy institutes of one sort or another. And Democratic Party elites have all rhetorically recognized the threat the Republican Party poses. 

But institutional behavior is another thing. And it’s this that had and still has me concerned. Because without the shift in how the party functions, even if we get the best case short term scenario, we’re still going to struggle in the long run.  

Biden did have the capacity to defeat Trump but he wasn’t and isn’t the only one with that capacity. I don’t think he was in 2020, and it should be crystal clear.  

So given this why do I think him dropping out was the best decision? 

Because this election is about defeating Trump, but about establishing better democratic conditions going forward. 

If we don’t have two fully functioning parties, then we need to create the conditions that ensure the one functioning party continues to win at the federal level, to ensure the one functioning party wins at the state level, and that the one functioning party institutes policies that promote and extend democratic practice. Nominating Harris was the best way to create these conditions. It sends a signal that they trust Harris and the population she’s thought to represent. Further it pushes people like us past spectatorship and into something a bit more robust. This increased responsiveness has the potential to transform the party. Perhaps not radically…but just enough. 

….

One of the more aspects of the Harris candidacy pundits and scholars are likely to examine to bits in the future is how quick the rollout was. Her support among black women and men have to be accounted for here. Within days of Biden dropping out, a group of black women who’d already been doing standard political organizing held a zoom call that topped out at somewhere around 44,000 participants—so many that Zoom had to stretch its technical capacities to enable the call. The women were able to raise somewhere around $1 million dollars. Less than 24 hours later a group of black men held a similar event, organized by media personality/journalist Roland Martin. Approximately 50,000 people signed up for that call and raised around the same amount. (I was on that call, and even though I opposed Harris in 2020 I wrote a check.) 

We can and should read this as an example of black elites mobilizing to ensure that Harris wasn’t discarded (and we don’t have to look hard to see examples of this—the same day women met on Zoom, Aaron Sorkin suggested in an NYT op-ed that the Democratic Party nominate Mitt Romney), with black men following suit. In the men’s gathering in particular fraternal affiliation loomed large--every presenter was a member of one of the five major black fraternities. 

After seeing that Black Lives Matter didn’t support Harris and called for an open primary instead—Thomas Chatterton Williams applauded them:

BLM is weighing in on the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris. One might assume, based on the group’s foundational emphasis on identity politics, that its support for a liberal Black woman would be full-throated. Instead, I was surprised to see it release a statement last week that was strikingly critical of the Democratic Party’s decision to elevate Harris without a primary.

“Democratic Party elites and billionaire donors are attempting to manipulate Black voters by anointing Kamala Harris and an unknown vice president as the new Democratic ticket without a primary vote by the public,” the statement reads. “While the potential outcome of a Harris presidency may be historic, the process to achieve it must align with true democratic values. We have no idea where Kamala Harris stands on the issues.” The group called for a “virtual snap primary” that would give voters a chance to voice their preferences and concerns. Bernie Sanders famously argued that “it is not good enough for somebody to say, I’m a woman; vote for me.” Now Black Lives Matter seems to be arguing that it is no longer good enough to say: I am a Black woman; vote for me.

Refreshingly, Harris herself has not relied on this argument, focusing instead on uniting liberals and their allies to defeat Donald Trump. At her first rally after President Joe Biden left the race, Harris vowed to protect reproductive rights, strengthen the middle class, and fight for a future “where no child has to grow up in poverty.” Still, her candidacy immediately inspired waves of identitarianism among various Democratic constituencies. Hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters segregated themselves by race and gender to attend fundraising calls on Zoom, as if preemptively highlighting superficial differences could somehow help them come together at a later date. Such tactics don’t reflect the fact that many voters are rejecting identity politics, which have only exacerbated the divisions they purported to heal. 

Approximately three weeks prior, Chatterton wrote about the French election:

The likelihood of a far-right nationalist government in France—the first since the Second World War—reinstilled the fear of God in the majority of a population that had grown listless and disorganized under Macron. With just a week to take action, and no other choice, the center and the left worked together to withdraw candidates from races where they were competing for votes. Their joint effort was effective: Added together, Macron’s party and the New Popular Front took 328 seats. It was an unequivocal loss for the center that nonetheless blocked the right from victory.

The lesson was clear: Centrists, liberals, and leftists took the credible threat of right-wing authoritarian rule seriously enough to act quickly and strategically. Behaving as though their country’s future was at stake, they reacted to new information in order to maximize success. No one spoke about personal loyalty to individual candidates. No one spoke about it being a given politician’s turn to be in office. No one said that it was too late to change the plan. The extreme deadline instead became a motivational boon, not unlike the way a capable basketball team may go on a scoring rampage as the clock runs out.

This is exactly how Democrats should have behaved after the debate between Trump and Joe Biden. In the weeks leading up to their convention next month, this is precisely what they should be doing now. There is still a limited window of time to incorporate crucial new information and make the necessary, painful, and self-sacrificing adjustments required if Americans are to avert an electoral disaster.

This isn’t exactly what happened. Biden had to make what for an elected official has to be the ultimate individual sacrifice. But it’s clear that Chatterton Williams’ understanding of identity politics itself requires updating (as an aside, why would BLM ever have supported Harris as quick as members of black sororities, given that in 2020 she ran as a prosecutor?).

….

About this time twenty years ago I moved to Baltimore. Class starts next week—teaching Urban Politics at the grad level and American Racial Politics at the undergrad level. I’ve noted that this academic year is going to have me less, pressed than previous ones. I’m hoping this gives me more time to pursue some of the projects I’ve had to put on the back burner. 

I’m also hoping this will give me a bit more time to write these. It seems like everyone and their mother has a newsletter now. But I think there’s still a need for writing that gets people to think differently. 

Thanks for reading. 

And for those doing so for the first time, welcome. My name is Lester Spence. This is the Counterpublic Papers.