A Plutocratic Coup in the Name of Democracy

The masquerade is over. The party which claims to represent and defend the interests of the working class has revealed its true identity and nature. The billionaire and millionaire entrepreneurs of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the Hollywood elite and self-styled public intellectuals completed the lynching of President Joe Biden. They overthrew the votes of approximately19 million voters who elected delegates pledged to the President, seized control of the Democrat Party and anointed a candidate for President whom they selected. Quite a lot of action in only two days! Joe never had a chance against the juggernaut that was launched against him by the elites.

Newly anointed as the leader and defender of the working class, Vice President Kamala Harris, a member of the millionaire class with her lawyer husband, is hardly representative of the Democrat Party’s core constituency. Her father was a Ph.D. professor and her mother was a medical doctor and cancer researcher. These are fine occupations and credentials. No one can critique her background. She and her husband are both attorneys, but they represent the professional class and have little connection to the proletariat beyond expressing their eternal love of their votes. At least President Biden, another professional class member, tried to claim he was “working" class Joe from Scranton, PA. He and his family left his birthplace by the time he was five and moved to Wilmington, DE where he proceeded to attend elite schools. Joe likes to quote his auto dealer father to give himself some cache of a hardscrabble youth but his biography tends to demonstrate a privileged background.

This is not the first coup in American history. One can make the case that the American Civil War, or War between the States as the south calls it, was an attempt to overthrow the legally elected government of Abraham Lincoln. Fortunately, that rebellion failed and the Union was preserved. More recently Lyndon Johnson was overthrown by street mobs. Technically, he withdrew from seeking re-election after he won the New Hampshire primary against Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Mn) by a narrow margin. However, in truth, because of the Vietnam War, LBJ could barely appear in public without mobs screaming at him “Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”. LBJ was a sick and broken man who lived only four years longer as he died in January 1973 of a heart attack. Johnson’s successor, Richard Nixon, was re-elected in 1972 in one of the greatest landslides in American history against South Dakota Senator George McGovern. Unfortunately for Nixon, he involved himself in the notorious Watergate cover-up and he resigned rather than face impeachment and probable conviction. It can be said that Nixon’s forced departure from office in August 1974 was the result of an institutional coup whose power he could not resist.

Of particular concern is the manner American voters participate in the selection of their party’s nominees for elective office. Prior to 1968, the legendary “smoke filled room” was the venue where most candidates were selected as party leaders caucused, made their selection and passed on to the various party hacks who were delegates and whose only function was to bless the leadership’s choice. The Democrat convention of 1968, following LBJ’s exit and the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, took place in rioting and violence in Chicago (SDS’s Days of Rage) which made national television. The Democrat party was determined to not have such a repetition ever occur again. A special committee led by Sen. McGovern and Rep. Don Fraser established new convention rules which became effective in 1972. The McGovern-Fraser rules endured until today, that is, until President Biden was ousted by the elite. The new rules created a new category of delegates called “superdelegates”. These were various party leaders and elected public officials, but they were to have no vote on the first ballot. Only in the event that a nominee was not designated on the first ballot would the elite superdelegates have a vote. These rules worked well until this year.

President Biden won all primaries and caucuses in the process which was leading to the August Democrat Convention. Only token opposition from Minnesota Representative Dean Philips challenged him. Phillips withdrew after failing to make a dent in Biden’s victories. The plutocrats and other elites decided they had to act. Despite the President’s poor debate performance against Republican challenger Donald Trump, Biden insisted that he would be the Democrat candidate in the November general election. The elite, the superdelegates knew they would have no influence if the President were renominated. They had to block the ability of the pledged delegates to nominate the winner of the primary season. Thus, the immense unbearable pressure on Biden, the withholding of pledged campaign funds by the plutocrats and the Democrat media’s continuing cynical attacks about the President’s mental status. He finally folded on July 21, only weeks before the convention’s start. The elite won. The coup was successful. They promptly led a rush to endorse Vice President Harris and the delegates were left with a fait accompli. The president was out. The McGovern-Fraser rules were in the garbage can. All of this was done, in our era of misinformation, in the name of democracy. Lenin couldn’t have done it any better.

We will know officially whom the Democrats nominate after they rush through a “virtual” ballot to make sure all runs smoothly later in August at the actual Chicago event. All will pledge unity and support for Vice President Harris, who after her anointment will name her running mate. A shining example of democracy! The elite will still have to put up with the general election to be held on November 5. The voters remain sovereign and they will elect the President on that day. Hopefully, democracy will endure.

Garry S. Sklar

Guttenberg, NJ

July 23, 2024