Florida appears poised to hold no presidential primary election for Democrats this cycle after the state party submitted only President Joe Biden’s name as a candidate up for the nomination.
The move to leave Rep. Dean Phillips off the primary ballot left the Minnesota Democrat enraged on Thursday. In a statement first provided to POLITICO, Phillips, who has launched a longshot primary bid against Biden, accused Florida Democratic Party officials of rigging the primary. He threatened a lawsuit and a convention fight if he didn’t win ballot access in the state.
“Americans would expect the absence of democracy in Tehran, not Tallahassee,” said Phillips. “The intentional disenfranchisement of voters runs counter to everything for which our Democratic Party and country stand. Our mission as Democrats is to defeat authoritarians, not become them.”
It should be clear to all of us, whether you are a Biden supporter or not, that this is not only hypocritical and undemocratic, but with polls showing Biden losing to Trump it is incredibly dangerous for our democracy. This is a the Democratic establishment showing that they do not actually believe in democratic governance or the people’s ability to vote in their own self interest. How many times have progressives been condescendingly told to vote in primaries?
Further analysis available here: Humanist Report.
This is about access to the polls. What on earth is the point of a democracy where the people aren’t voting for candidates? The process of democracy matters, to say it doesn’t works entirely counter to the goal of maintaining people’s faith in that democractic process, which is in crisis at the moment if you hadn’t noticed.
As Marianne Williamson points out in the Humanist Report video, these “little” trangressions are where the line needs to be drawn especially for the party that claims to be the the ones defending democracy.
Defending it by eliminating the voters ability to participate in choosing their candidates? That’s not democratic, it’s quite literally authoritarianism. It doesn’t matter that Joe Biden is going to win, it’s the worst message to send at the most critical time in our democracy’s history where it’s on the verge of literal collapse due to these same little compromises with authoritarians.