I got an email last night from a reporter doing a piece on Ezra Klein and his prominence in Democratic politics. They asked me how I felt my own piece criticizing his Thunderdome primary proposal held up given recent events and whether I saw Klein’s arguments differently now. It was an interesting question. So I thought I’d share with you what I wrote. I’m not identifying the journalist or the publication. Because I’m not trying to get a jump on them or get in the way of their piece. I’m doing it because it’s a good and interesting question. I took some time to write out a response and I thought you might be interested in seeing it.
Here it is.
It’s a very good question. The campaign so far has certainly played out quite differently than I expected. After I got your note I went back and reread each piece to refresh my memory because not only has a lot changed since then but there were several iterations of that conversation between February and July. I think my piece holds up pretty well, or I am quite comfortable standing behind it, pick your metaphor. My point was never that there weren’t major challenges to Biden’s candidacy. It’s that Ezra had no plan to do anything about it beyond what seemed me to be magical thinking – convincing Jill Biden or Antia Dunn to convince Biden to step down, holding an illegitimate Thunderdome open primary/convention, tossing aside Harris, who was Biden’s only legitimate replacement etc. To me there was too much ignoring how politics actually works and a too cavalier attitude toward basic democratic legitimacy.
In my way of thinking if you have a very non-ideal path and no viable alternative, it’s better to focus on doing your best on the non-ideal path than spending your time wishing that or talking about wishing that there was a better one. From a more sympathetic perspective, this may be a basic difference in how Ezra and I view things. I’m very practical. That brass tacks practicality may represent a failure of imagination. But Ezra’s proposals struck me at the time as imaginary – and thus not viable. And that’s why I think they never happened. No open convention, or mini-primary, no tossing aside Kamala Harris.
The facts and the possibilities all changed that night in June.
I didn’t get into it here. Because this is an article about Ezra and not me. But what I allude to toward the end is something I’ve thought about a number of times over my years doing this. Characterologically rather than ideologically I’m actually fairly conservative in my thinking. That tends to make me methodical and cautious, usually more focused on things that can go wrong than things that might be improved. I think that’s both core to my strength as a writer about politics but also one of my weaknesses. It’s two sides of the same coin. I of course try to use that awareness of my own tendencies to adjust for them, counter them, to do what I do better. But at a basic level it’s how my mind works, how I look at the world.
In this case, knowing what we knew then and even knowing what we know now I was pleasantly surprised when I went back to read the piece the reporter was referring to that I thought it held up pretty well and that I would still make pretty much the same arguments. There’s actually a passage in the piece that anticipates something approaching what actually transpired.
The right answer to anyone making these kinds of open-ended statements of concern is to say, tell me specifically what course of action you’re advocating and, if it’s switching to a new candidate, how you get there in the next few weeks? Could I end up looking silly if Biden stumbles through the campaign with growing evidence of declining acuity and loses in November? I guess. But I don’t see how that changes the validity of any of the analysis above.
In life we constantly need to make choices on the basis of available options. Often they are imperfect or even bad options. The real options are the ones that have some shot at success. That’s life. Klein’s argument really amounts to a highly pessimistic but not unreasonable analysis of the present situation which he resolves with what amounts to a deus ex machina plot twist. That’s not a plan. It’s a recipe for paralysis.
