Both parties squander faith of American public

Honest observers question why there wasn't an open process to selecting nominee when Democrats knew truth about Biden's issues with memory and cognition

Throughout this presidential election, I’ve criticized both Republicans and Democrats for handling their candidates' selection and nomination. 

President Joe Biden stepped aside finally and endorsed Kamala Harris as vice president. I had called for an open primary after reading an incomprehensible speech Joe Biden gave in which he said that he was against abortion personally because of his Catholicism but that he supported Roe v. Wade. I had included text that I drew from the White House website to show that he had serious concerns with cognitive function and mental decline. No one listened. 

But that’s not the only failure we’ve seen in this election from our political leaders. 

First, Republicans had a series of debates with candidates who ultimately didn’t win the nomination or get selected as Vice President. The person who did get the vote, and whom it was apparent would the entire time, didn’t appear in a single debate. They wouldn’t even talk about him. He was simply like Voldemort–he who shall not be named. 

Republicans cared little that Trump faced indictment, cared less when has was convicted, and would fully rebel if he were imprisoned. Democrats on the other hand cared little for creating an open and democratic process for selecting a nominee based on popular vote instead of being chosen by party leaders. 

Had this been done properly, there would have been an open Democratic primary. Courageous governors and senators would have formed exploratory committees and said the truth: Biden was too old, and we needed a new generation to carry the torch. They would have forced a debate with Biden in the primary, where we would have seen his cognitive decline long before he was matched up against Trump. Voters would have chosen Shapiro, Whitmer, Wes Moore or Kamala Harris independently. The campaign would have raised the profile of the eventual winner, and he or she would have been in a position to take on a weak Republican candidate. 

But operatives kept candidates off ballots. They amplified voices that misrepresented concerns about his age and memory and de-platformed those who called for him to step aside when democracy could choose his replacement. 

So we’re essentially left with a convicted felon against a candidate who got the nomination through backroom deals. This is another reason why the American public lacks faith in our political system. Gallup recorded a record low in tallying voters' faith in American democracy. It came in at just 28 percent of those who felt it worked. 

Furthermore, those who seek to improve it through open dialogue, honest journalism, civic engagement, and attention are often marginalized because their criticisms of government are seen as threatening those who hold and want power. Even now, the expectation is that people will fall in line, even if their real duty rests with telling the truth to their readers, viewers, and listeners. They do so with the help of influential but unscrupulous journalists who undermine watchdog reporters. 

The only winning issue that Democrats have consistently had throughout this process is reproductive rights, largely because the information and journalism that leaders have received has been honest, engaging, and from a willingness of reporters to criticize powers that be. 

Yet Trump has evaded the issue and forswore Project 2025, which I dubbed a conservative manifesto that had called for the politicization of the Justice Department. So will that deliver the election for Democrats, who have bungled the nomination process? We’ll see. It depends on whether they continue to support local activists or seek to consolidate control of the movement for a presidential campaign, whatever fate it’s destined to have. 

Both Democrats and Republicans have created the bed they currently lie in, but it will be the rest of us who sleep in it.