The Regeneration of the Biden-less Democrats

A debilitated chicken. That is the description I would pin upon the Democratic party on or around June 27th of this year. The party was pitifully squabbling over its internal loyalties to President Biden, who had just made himself look beyond senile in the first Presidential debate. The whole situation gave a stench of grim acceptance as if the wider party’s belief was that defeat was an inevitability come November 5th. The dismemberment of cohesion within the party had begun, and it would not be a bold assumption to suggest the big whigs and senior figures of the party may have thought that wasn’t such a bad thing - espousing the idea that they needed to chalk 2024 up as a humbling defeat, in order to get the arguments settled and out the way, allowing a passionate revival for the ‘26 midterms or the ‘28 Presidential race. 

Such a pessimistic perspective serves as a defining tipping point, that once truly affixed in the psyche of a political party, makes recovery (in an immediate electoral sense) an impossibility. The Democratic party desperately needed momentous, rapturous regeneration. Up stepped Kamala Harris.

Various Democratic power brokers had been pushing incumbent President Biden to step back from the 2024 Presidential race for months when he finally announced he would step back on the 21st of July, at the unusual hour of 1:46 pm. At that precise minute, Harris was already raring, organising meetings and conferences with the key political seniors and players on the left-leaning side of the US political sphere. 

Reeling off key figures like a well-oiled machine - within hours Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro, democratic governors of Michigan and Pennsylvania respectively, had been contacted, alongside Senator Bernie Sanders, the leading figure of leftist US politics. A cascade of political ingenuity was streaming across the political landscape, highlighted by President Biden’s official endorsement of his Vice-President a mere 27 minutes after he stood down for the US’ highest office.

It was as if, within a day, so many key figures had become amalgamated into the Harris entourage, that the need for squabbling had subsided. A political world in which forcing aside your experienced, electorally proven incumbent would result in such fruitful rejuvenation of a party - it certainly would have seemed far-fetched a few short weeks ago - and yet the Democrats appear the most united they have been since Obama first ran for office in 2008. 

‘Divided parties do not win votes’. It's a rule as fundamental to psephology as gravity is to physics. Harris may have managed to miraculously unite the internal party through swift, decisive diligence amongst the traditional limbs of power, but that didn’t mean voters would be swayed back to side so easily. After all, if the party wasn’t perceived as fully united amongst the US electorate, the ballots wouldn’t have turned. Yet, Harris possesses a 3% lead over Trump in the polls (according to The New York Times). How? Well, former Conservative cabinet minister, Rory Stewart, aligned this swing in popularity to the sophisticately dubbed “big smiley thing”. 

American politics has always been more glamorous than in the UK. Across the pond, style takes priority over substance in an extreme way. Policy is low on the food chain compared to the apex predators of initial perception and publicity, and the Democrats utilised these actualities going into their convention this year.

If the 2024 Democratic convention was a somewhat sombre, monotone, lethargic affair, I do not think many would have been shocked. Turmoil can breed conventions that are infested with tension and unease, as opposed to unity and unwavering support. Something, however, just clicked at the Democratic convention this year. The word I cannot shift away from to depict it is: celebrity.

Harris’ face plastered over screens large enough that Voyager 1 could probably sneak a glance, the stadium rammed with passionate supporters of the cause, a star-studded cast: Bill & Hillary Clinton, Barack & Michelle Obama, Biden, Stevie Wonder, Pink (to name a few). The combination of a newly united party and a flurry of US celebrity glitz illuminated a profound optimism around the McCormick Place Convention Centre in Chicago, unbridled optimism the Democrats have not possessed in years. It felt like regeneration was afoot, a party in a place that it could stand for and fight for. The Democrats were finally up and running. 

Does this mean we are going to see a sweep, comeback victory over Trump and his Republican allies? I wouldn’t be so sure. Whatever the outcome is come the 5th of November, Harris and her allies can be proud this election is going to be a fight between two political powers - and not a one-sided slamming in favour of the MAGA legions. 

Cianan Sheekey

Managing Editor

29th August 2024