How Democrats Learned to Love the Smoke-Filled Room Again

It’s because they want to win.

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Democrats quickly coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Biden on the ticket after he announced his exit from the race.

Good evening. It took less than two days for Vice President Kamala Harris to secure commitments from enough delegates to capture the Democratic presidential nomination, so my colleague Charles Homans is here to tell us how a party that spent much of the past year divided fell in line. Then, I’m brat — I mean, back — with a look at that meme. — Jess Bidgood

By Charles Homans

After President Biden’s debate performance last month unleashed existential doubt about the future of his presidential campaign, political veterans and pundits wondered aloud whether the party was walking into a sequel to its disastrous summer of 1968. That year, against the backdrop of a nation-dividing foreign conflict, an unpopular president decided not to seek re-election and anointed his vice president as his successor. The decision set off a momentous clash at that year’s Democratic National Convention between the left and the party establishment.

Unpopular president not seeking re-election? Check.

Anointment of his vice president? Check.

A clash between the left and the establishment? As of now, not so much.

The 1968 cataclysm shattered the old order of the party and ultimately produced the modern primary rules, which place most of the power for picking a nominee in the hands of voters — the very system Democrats will be bypassing if they nominate Harris for president, as delegates and party leaders have indicated they will.

But the initial response to Biden’s endorsement of Harris has shown that few Democrats have an appetite for 1968-style intraparty conflict, and many are happy to accept the informal decision-making of party elites: to learn to love the old politics of smoke-filled rooms again, however briefly.

The left stands by Biden, and by Harris

One of the most significant differences between then and now is that influential voices on the party’s left — the key element in the confrontations of 1968 — both stood by Biden through the last days of his campaign and quickly welcomed his replacement. In the hours after Biden announced his decision, a majority of the left-most Democrats in Congress — who had been among the last vocal holdouts for Biden’s staying in the race — announced their endorsements of Harris, including every member of the Squad, the informal group of high-profile left-wing House members, save for Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

“It’s an open process. Anybody can run,” said Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida, a grass roots activist elected to Congress in 2022 who campaigned for Biden in New Hampshire this month and quickly endorsed Harris on Sunday. “But nobody’s doing it, because she’s done a good job of bringing together the coalition.”

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