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In Constantinople in 1081, it was decided by palace insiders that the 79-year-old emperor, Nikephoros III Botaneiates — once a formidable military leader but now an old man in obvious cognitive decline — was too dotardly to continue to rule the Byzantine Empire effectively.
Two powerful generals immediately marched toward the capital, vying for the throne: Nikephoros Bryennios, from the West; and from the East, Nikephoros Melissenos. (Nikephoros was a popular name a thousand years ago, for reasons historians struggle to explain.) The political pundits back then, mostly the eunuch bureaucrats who ran the Empire, all expected Bryennios to win the day.
Instead, the young general Alexios Komnenos, who’d remained loyal to the aging emperor until the bitter end — and whose lover and puppetmaster, the 28-year-old beauty Maria of Alania, happened to be the (reluctant) wife of the decrepit Botaneiates — led a coup from within the capital, securing the throne for himself.¹
The takeaway: Starting a revolt against a vulnerable sitting leader is easy; having the results play out exactly as you expect is impossible. Unpredictable stuff happens. There are always forces beyond your control. Real life isn’t an Ocean’s 11 movie.
The Usurpation Caucus of the Democratic Party learned that lesson over in the last few days. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, who as far as I can tell were covertly the prime movers in the “Joe Must Go” movement, had both indicated a preference for an open primary to determine Joe Biden’s replacement on top of the ticket.
Well, they succeeded in bullying the president to step down. Congratulations. The second part of the plan? Not so much.
Since the night of The Debate That Changed The World, I have been a staunch defender of Joe Biden. He is, as I’ve said countless times, the best president of my lifetime (he was a much better POTUS than Botaneiates was an emperor); he was sitting on $96 million in campaign donations; he was popular among older voters in swing states; and he’d assembled a coalition broad enough to beat Donald Trump a second time. Ceding the incumbency seemed like madness to me.
But while I will always hate how the Usurpation Caucus did him dirty, I can’t say I’m unhappy with the outcome. After all, I am OG K-Hive. I wanted Kamala Harris to be the nominee in 2020. I was devastated when she dropped out before the December 2019 debate. Half the reason I wanted a second Biden term is that I assumed he would retire at some point, and she would take over.
Here’s what I wrote about Harris in February 2020, before Biden had clinched the nomination, in a piece called “Primary Sources: Breaking Down the Democratic Field”:
Bio: Senator from California. Attorney General of California. Destroyer of Sessions, Kavanaugh, and Barr.
Strengths: Smart, polished, capable, incorruptible, charismatic, experienced.
Weaknesses: Suspended her campaign.
Analysis: Within 24 hours of Harris pulling the plug, supposedly for financial reasons although it remains murky, most of the K-Hive jumped en masse — some more reluctantly than others — into the Biden camp. There must have been a secret deal, we all collectively decided, where Joe promised Kamala the VP spot. Was this wishful thinking? I don’t know. But a Vice President Harris would have a decent chance of taking over for an aging President Biden before 2024, and would certainly be in the driver’s seat for the next cycle in four years. Thus, a vote for Biden/Harris would be a vote for the frontrunner best equipped to beat Trump and the ticket most likely to put Harris in the White House, where she belongs.
So I can’t say I’m surprised that Biden/Harris became the 2020 ticket, that said ticket won, or that Biden stepped aside and gave her the car keys.
But no way did I expect this. Whether intentionally or by happy accident, Biden shivved the Usurpation Caucus right back.
He waited out Trump’s (disastrous) VP pick. He waited out the RNC, which was a week of hateful Republicans talking about senility; even Trump now concedes it was a waste of time, money, and effort. He waited out the Sunday shows. And instead of calling some press conference and having to take questions from a pack of bloodthirsty press vultures, he blasted out a letter on Twitter: He was out, and he was endorsing his vice president.
This last piece was vital, because, as AOC told us in her Instagram Live a few days ago, Harris was not the Usurpation Caucus’s candidate of choice. “A lot of them are not just interested in removing the president,” AOC said. “They are interested in removing the whole ticket.”
On Sunday, Harris took sole possession of the Biden/Harris war chest (pending resolution of a Trump campaign complaint with the FEC) — something like $96 million. Then, in the first 24 hours after the baton pass, she shattered the fundraising record, raking in an astonishing $81 million in donations — more than half of them by people who were making their first political contributions this cycle. She is also the beneficiary of $150 million from Future Forward, the largest Democratic Party super PAC, which threw in with her on Sunday as well. A buck fifty plus 81 plus 96 comes to $327 million, if I’m doing the math right. That’s not quite Pat Mahomes money, and it’s less than what Trump owes the state of New York, but unless you have a cash allergy, it’s nothing to sneeze at.
Endorsements came pouring in, starting soon after the announcement and never letting up. By the time I went to bed Monday night, Harris had captured enough of the Biden delegates to win the nomination — which will be made official at the DNC next month. Before Pelosi and Obama knew what hit them, the whole thing was over. Game, set, match.
And now? The energy is palpable. People are excited. The storylines are writing themselves: prosecutor versus convicted felon; public servant versus selfish businessman; healthy Gen Xer versus deteriorating Boomer; prime-of-life woman of color versus old white man; a woman fighting for women’s rights versus a man who wants to take those rights away.
Nikki Haley was correct when she said back in January, “Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump.” Specifically, most Americans — and I include my kids, other family members, and work colleagues in this group — did not want to have to choose, yet again, between two old white dudes (three, if you count Brain Worm). Now they won’t have to.
Monday, a friend forwarded me an email from a friend of his who had come across this reaction online:
A Harris presidential run would be up against a 250-year history of racial and gender prejudice. I propose to you that 50 percent of the country would vocally oppose her run. Half of the remaining 50 percent of the country would silently and cowardly oppose her run. Those are some tough odds. Especially since both prejudices are on the rise.
This friend of a friend wanted Mark Kelly to be the nominee.
No disrespect to the former astronaut, current senator from Arizona, and possible VP pick, but there’s no way, none, that Mark Kelly hauls in a quarter of a billion dollars in donations in 24 hours. And while there is no question that racism and misogyny are real and rampant in this nation where women couldn’t vote until 1920 or get their own credit cards until the 1970s, and Black people were enslaved until 1865 and legally deprived of their rights for (at least) a century-plus after that, the American people are also not fond of liars, crooks, rapists, cowards, bullies, Kremlin assets, Jeffrey Epstein associates, wannabe strongmen, and dictator-fluffers.
Do the math. Women make up 50 percent (plus) of the country, and I can’t imagine women being unreceptive to the idea of the nation’s first woman president. African Americans comprise an eighth of the US population. Ten percent identify as biracial. Six percent are of Asian descent. Six percent are of voting age for the first time, from a generation that doesn’t much care for old-fashioned ideas about race and gender. And while Trump has enjoyed a modest bump in his favorability in the days since a member of his own party tried to take him out, 51 percent of Americans continue to hate his guts, even after the rally shooting. Add it all up, and prognostications of Harris having no chance are premature.
Furthermore, the two attacks I’ve seen Republicans use against Harris so far are: 1) “She’s a DEI VP and therefore unqualified”; and 2) “She slept her way to the top.” In other words, she only got the job because she’s Black, and she only got the job because she’s a (slutty) woman. As hateful and ugly as MAGA is, as ingrained as racism and sexism are, are we really sure hitting at Kamala Harris just for being a woman of color is a savvy political strategy in the Year of Our Lord 2024? Post Dobbs? Really? I mean, it ain’t like she’s running against JFK. Trump is a white guy, true, but he’s also an overgrown nepo baby with a well-documented yen for sexual assault.
“The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate,” Nikki Haley said back in January, “is going to be the party that wins this election.” She was right about the first part. I think she’ll be right about the second as well.
Kamala Harris 2024! As the kids say, LFG!
And just for fun, let’s end today’s piece with a contrast in styles of dancing:
Adapted, with permission, from Prevail, Greg Olear’s Substack.
