The Right Process to Replace Biden

A universal process will produce the candidate that beats Trump. A tribal process will hand Trump the election.

My first reaction to Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race was sadness because Joe Biden has been a remarkably effective president. My second reaction is the Democrats need the right process to produce the right candidate. I agree with Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn that an open process should select the Democratic candidate. Instead of a smoke-filled backroom of DNC leaders, the people will evaluate the leading contenders and choose. But there are two paths this can go. If Democrats allow a tribal primary, they will shine a spotlight on policy divisions like Israel-Gaza, identity politics, centrist-progressive power struggles, and heavy-handed hashtag activism. This will lose the undecided voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Like 1968, a vicious open Democratic primary will drive voters to the false protection of a corrupt Republican. This time, his hand-picked Supreme Court has invented for him an unlimited immunity for nebulous “official acts.” But, if Democrats strategically set up a universal primary, they can resolve their biggest challenge, select a unifying candidate, and defeat MAGA - maybe forever.

What do I mean by a tribal primary?

If the Democrats hold an open primary without design, it will become tribal. It will be ugly. It will reflect why some of the party’s most loyal supporters say “This isn’t Obama’s party.” The candidates who dare to run will bring a base of support, and fire them up. Kamala Harris will have African-American women and some men. Gretchen Whitmer will have white women and some union workers. Pete Buttigieg will have college-educated professionals, older whites, and LGBTQ. Bernie and AOC, who oppose replacing Biden, will back their favored candidate. You could imagine other candidates emerging with a stronger base of support among unions, progressives, Latinos, Asians, etc.

Each candidate will try to walk a fine tightrope. In major speeches, they’ll appear as a unifying general candidate. But they’ll look for analytics that show their tribal advantage. In fundraising emails and social media posts, they’ll appeal to that base of support. There will be a temptation to trigger anger and appeal to tribal identity. The candidates will subtly encourage their base to expect it’s their time. If Pete wins, you’ll hear some progressives complain, “Oh great, another centrist white man.” If Kamala Harris wins, some men will say, “Oh great, here she comes for my balls.” If a progressive wins, centrists will say, “Great, here comes Communism.” The eye-rolling and infighting will happen 2 not 8 months before a general election.

Sure, this process will resolve by September and retain the support of those who were already behind Biden. But it won’t win over the 5% of persuadable voters who today, according to polls, prefer Trump to Biden. 

What’s turning off undecided voters?

Democrats should be destroying Donald Trump after he engineered the Insurrection and violated America’s most sacred values. But, in every swing state, Trump has a 3 to 5% lead. This is the democracy-threatening shrug of undecided voters. In a quick poll or survey, they’ll say it’s because of a single issue like immigration, inflation, the deficit, or the Afghanistan withdrawal. But underneath it all, the real cause for their discontent is a feeling the nation has lost direction. The Pax Americana, where America led the world from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 2016, has ended. Trump assured that. Today, the real aim of “Truth” Social, Elon Musk’s X, Steve Bannon’s War Room, and Fox News is to show looping images of “Woke” chaos to kill our institutions. The machine pumps that feeling of lost direction all day, every day. 

In its place, Trump offers the vision of a stable, multipolar world led by regional strongmen supported by people raptured by tribal myth. Trump will lead America’s myth, while he’ll let Putin, Xi, Kim, MBS, Orban, Modi, Netyanhu, and others lead their spheres. In each nation, a high caste of billionaire donors will fund algorithmic media that fuels a poisonous nationalist myth that blazes, like a forever flame, in the simple minds of the people. 

It’s dark, condescending, and, over decades, will lead to proxy and direct wars among great powers. It ends the international cooperation required to fight climate change, clean the oceans and air, coordinate global responses to economic crises, and stand up to bullies. But it’s a clear direction that feels good. 

The undecided voter likes that fantasy much more than infighting among Democrats. The infighting suggests there’s no shared vision or plan. If there is talk of a plan, it’s a dated call to the fading Pax Americana. The infighting also brings back bad personal experiences - getting called out by friends for a racist joke, complaints about an unwanted sexual advance, a DEI seminar at work, or a triggering social media post. The anti-woke movement has, for some fair and many unfair reasons, changed how undecided voters see the noble cause of social justice. Good aspirations like racial, gender, or class equity, in the anti-woke narrative, are just tribal poker chips in corporate politics. The winning corporate middle manager or executive isn’t a great leader, but a skilled politician. It’s made the aspiration for justice ring hollow. When the undecided voters see tribal leaders vie for primary votes using tribal appeals, they remember these corporate games at work.

You might say Democrats are much more united than Republicans - look at what they did to Kevin McCarthy and look at the 50% of Republicans who voted against Trump in deep red Iowa. It’s true that MAGA infighting is much more vicious, but this misses the point. Infighting helps MAGA form its pecking order. The point of their bloodfest UFC culture is that Might is Right, and the all-out fight produces a justifiable hierarchy led by the Mightiest Warrior. The strong don’t just get to take what they want - they must take what they want to justify their position. By contrast, infighting hurts Democrats achieve their stated goal of fairness and justice. The vicious games to win the better cubicle betray the ideal. When a Democrat quotes MLK on racial equality and then knifes their colleagues, it’s hypocrisy. When Trump repeatedly quotes Hitler on immigration and then spreads daily disinformation on Truth Social, Trump is considered consistent to his worldview. 

What’s a universal primary?

But there’s another way. We can pursue a primary that fixes this flaw in today’s Democratic Party and also selects a unifying leader who wins this election.

The primary should not be structured by social media algorithms that pretend to be “global town squares” but are, in reality, mob-speech-machines designed, by the world’s best product managers, to divide.

Instead, the forum of primary selection must be designed to unify by universalizing our many tribes. 

This starts by acknowledging the many groups in the Democratic Party because, without a plan, social media would exploit their divisions. This means racial groups, gender groups, labor groups, cause groups, and age groups. The primary should set up separate debates and forums with 100 people of each group and ask them:

1. What are your deepest pains?

2. What are solutions that would solve your problem - and also fit into the whole?

3. What can you do to adjust your group so we better fit together?

The end of the meeting should result in a solemn commitment from the candidates to prioritize the real pains of the group and to test solutions without assuming the right answer. But also a solemn commitment from the group to adjust its positions so we can all fit together. We won’t sacrifice the whole to get a slightly bigger piece.

The rules should also require every fundraising email, text message, and social media post is published openly. There should be an editorial committee of all the campaigns that flags language that’s tribal and divisive. Each campaign should be transparent about the analytics they use to optimize their messages.

We must address the potential for division head-on and eliminate it. We must close off any opportunity for a candidate or activist group to lean on the algorithm, and find the tribalizing message.

Can you chart a new national direction in 90 days?

These process rules won’t, in 90 days, produce a universal vision that gives the nation a new direction after the Pax Americana. But that’s missing the point. Voters don’t want candidates to give them the direction they lack today. They want to participate in charting that course with their fellow citizens. They know the dark, false, and un-American road they’d chart with Trump, but they don’t know what future Democrats offer. This process will show them that road will be inspiring, truthful, and grounded in universal values.

What is Biden’s role?

Ironically, I believe Biden was the only candidate whose life experiences, record, and vision already unify the many groups. But he has not, to date, set up the party to remain united after him and avoid the trap of tribalism.

His best legacy would be to lead a universal primary that inspires a movement among African Americans, union workers, independent women, white liberals, white moderates, Latinos, Asians, LGBTQ, and all the other groups. If they hear Biden’s message, each group would understand that politicians and algorithms are out to exploit their vulnerabilities, fragmenting Democrats into a feeble coalition. They would not allow this division to weaken the coalition, and turn off persuadable voters.

Biden’s role is to run this universal primary and produce a candidate, party, and movement that offers a better national direction that is grounded in truth, fairness, and universal values.