A Contested Convention.

Nullification is a juror’s prerogative.

What does that have to do with a contested democratic convention?

Don’t worry. There’s a point to this. I promise

Chapter One: Nullification

Dreaming of a contested convention? A wild and raucous old school showdown with twists and turns to inject a little drama into this election? You’re not alone. Your dream is the establishment’s nightmare and they’ve been trying to prevent this scenario for longer than most of us have been alive. We’re going to walk through what it would take to wind up with a contested convention, look at some historical examples and then dream a bit more about a scenario that could get progressives back into the conversation. But first…

Nullification is a juror’s prerogative.

It’s a little known quirk of the judicial system. A jury of one’s peers is designed to be the last line of moral defense, not legal defense. When a judge sends a jury to deliberate, they typically charge them with a particular task: to determine whether or not certain legal standards have been met in a case for or against a defendant. But here’s the twist. This charge is a performative act that has been normalized, not formalized. If a jury was designed to judge a case on its legal merits, the jury box would be filled with lawyers. Instead, it’s filled with a bunch of people like you and me without law degrees and with a little time on their hands.

And, thus…Nullification is a juror’s prerogative. If any member of a jury thinks that the law being used to condemn a person is unjust, they can vote with their conscience and hang the jury. Also…

Apportionment is a delegate’s prerogative.

Can you see where this is going?

Let’s talk about democracy for a moment. During the first couple years of UNFTR we dedicated ourselves to explaining how the past half century belonged to the neoliberals. The inflection point happened as New Deal era was ending; stagflation gripped the world economies; tensions were inflamed in the Middle East; China was entering a new economic era; the Democratic and Republican Parties were having their own identity crises; the U.S. was war weary; Boomers were entering the workforce; the ozone layer was disappearing; major cities like New York were crime infested and on the brink of bankruptcy. Nothing seemed to be working.

(It was the ‘70s.)

Around this time, conservative legal scholars, wealthy industrialists and white Christian evangelicals made a pact: to grab power over the pillars of American society. Over the next 50 years they targeted the law schools and the courts. They attacked labor and sought to deregulate industries. Cut taxes on the rich. Went after higher education. Started charter schools to go after public education. Criminalized immigration. Stripped away welfare benefits. Privatized crucial industries. Loosened environmental regulations. If it fell under the umbrella of general health and welfare, it came under fire from the neoliberals.

Every so often, the Democratic Party would position itself against the tide rhetorically, but even their successful programs were stylistically neoliberal and only served to marginally and temporarily shift that tide. In hindsight, the past half century belonged entirely to the donor class. The oligarchy. The inverted totalitarian state. The neoliberals. By any name, it was a class struggle as old as time that fit neatly into a Marxian narrative. Haves and have nots.

But it was done with such a slow and steady hand, few realized what was happening until it was too late, and even now there aren’t enough of us with this framework at our fingertips and on our lips to mount a counteroffensive. For the briefest of moments, the Occupy movement illuminated the path and platformed figures like Bernie Sanders, but the opposition was armed and ready to beat back the progressive movement that wound up splintering. And I’m not talking about Republicans. I’m talking about the Democratic Party.

So this is the project that we’ve been working on since starting this podcast. To pull back the veil of liberal insincerity that has given cover to the worst instincts of the Republican Party, the real enemy of the people. The Democratic Party is the most useful of idiots. But whether we like it or not, it’s also the only mechanism with which we can pull the levers of change.

Now, on this many of my fellow leftists tend to disagree. Many see a third party as the most important political vehicle to effect change, and on the face of it they’re not wrong. But in the present reality, it’s beyond impossible to mount a third party challenge. If you read or listened to last week’s feature on the DNC, you’ll realize that this is a manufactured reality. Both parties are responsible for foreclosing on the third party option because they control the balloting in the primary states, have control over their respective donor bases and have arbitrary rules over the debates. Is it a noble goal to unwind this system? Absolutely. But it’s harder than one might imagine.

Chapter Two: Delegate to the Delegate

Gerald Ford was the only executive never elected to the office. He was appointed as Vice President when Spiro Agnew resigned and assumed the presidency when Nixon resigned. So in 1976, there was a question surrounding his electability. The economy had cooled significantly and his pardon of Nixon angered large swaths of voters. The Gipper himself, Ronald Reagan, smelled blood in the water and took his shot in what became the last contested convention on the Republican side.

On the other side of the aisle, the relationship between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy soured over Kennedy’s healthcare bill, setting up a challenge to the sitting president in the 1980 election.

Of historical importance, of course, is that neither Reagan nor Kennedy won those conventions. But they left behind some interesting breadcrumbs for us to follow.

Let’s quickly dig into a little nuance to lay the groundwork.

The terms contested convention and brokered convention are often used interchangeably. In the modern era we don’t have brokered conventions because much of the math is done during the primary season to determine which candidate will appear on the first ballot in the convention. The ‘76 Republican convention between Ford and Reagan, the 1980 convention between Carter and Kennedy and the 2016 convention between Trump and Cruz are the most recent examples of contested conventions. This is where the candidates attempt to release pledged delegates before the roll call or when no candidate emerges with a majority on the first ballot.

The parties worked over the years to lock down the primary season and eliminate the possibility of contested conventions as they left too much to chance. But, as we’ve seen, contested conventions are still possible because of our nullification example. Though there’s more nuance to this as well. For our purposes, we’re going to focus on the Democratic convention process because there’s a difference between the parties when it comes to the number of superdelegates, which I’ll explain more in a moment.

Here’s the most important thing to know: Pledged delegates operate under the following directive under convention rules:

“Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

So these are party faithfuls that pledge to support the leading primary candidates come convention time. Superdelegates are from the party elite. Governors, Senators, House Representatives, DNC members and a handful of power brokers. (The Democrats have way more superdelegates than Republicans do, by the way.) Now, these people presumably reflect the will of the people. However, former DNC Chair and asshole Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the quiet part out loud to Jake Tapper in an interview a few years ago when she said: “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.”

Basically, the Party apparatus can theoretically override a tight primary race by throwing its support to the establishment candidate. In this way, the DNC is way less democratic than the RNC.

There are about 4,000 delegates who will appear at the Democratic Convention to cast their votes for the presidential nominee. Because they rigged the primary contest in several states and no big name Democrat came out to challenge Biden, Biden wound up with the preponderance of so-called “pledged” delegates. Now here’s the maddening part. There are more than 700 superdelegates. The key here is that they can only vote if the first ballot fails to nominate a clear majority candidate. So in a tight first ballot, these superdelegates can shut it down and put their thumbs on the scale to end things.

That’s why Bernie was screwed no matter what when he ran against Hillary Clinton. The democrats like to pretend that the superdelegates are independent because they’re not “pledged” but it’s just wordplay and fuckery. It’s not the superdelegates that should interest us. It’s the pledged delegates.

Imagine for a moment that we end up with a contested convention in August. The left wing in Britain and France just showed how coalitions can be built in relatively short order and when there’s an existential right-wing threat looming on the horizon.

Progressives have a big problem on our hands. Whatever semblance of a movement or a coalition that formed around Bernie’s campaign has all but disintegrated. The issues we care most about have fallen by the wayside. To counter Trump, the Biden administration has made a hard right turn on immigration, is supporting a genocide in Gaza, allowing the conflict in Ukraine to fester without any diplomatic intervention, putting zero pressure on the Federal Reserve to give consumers a fucking break on interest rates, and the list goes on. In typical modern fashion, everything of note was accomplished in the first 18 months of this presidential term and the rest fell to the cutting room floor.

No more talk of Medicare for All. $15 minimum wage? Never heard of it. A path to citizenship for dreamers? How about jail or deportation. The administration secured $167 billion in student loan debt relief, which is great, but students are carrying more than 1.7 trillion in student debt.

The Biden administration has done just enough to keep the economy from flushing down the toilet and restart key industries. But the majority of the country is more in debt and less secure than they were during the pandemic.

To quote the president and presumptive nominee, “here’s the deal.” Joe Biden or no Joe Biden, Democrats aren’t winning this election. We’ve been saying for months now that the combination of economic insecurity and the war in Gaza are going to sink the Democrats. Factoring Biden into the equation and the figures fall off a cliff. That’s why this is our 1976 moment as progressives.

The Democratic Party is dead. And as we learned from our discussion with Yanis Varoufakis, the entire system of capitalism that we know and recognize is dead or dying as well. We’re in the midst of a complete paradigm shift and it’s time to get organized and dedicate ourselves to the long fight ahead just as the neoliberals did by running Reagan in ‘76 and launching their omnichannel campaign to attack the pillars of democracy.

Reagan may have lost in ‘76, but he won in ‘80 and they’ve been in control ever since. Even when a Democrat was sitting in the oval office.

Chapter Three: Moon Shot for Progressives

In 1976, Gerald Ford was the incumbent, but many believed him to be illegitimate. The GOP establishment was fearful of a challenge from the right under the populist former governor of California, Ronald Reagan. He was just an actor. He was a radical. A vainglorious, prompter reading, shallow Hollywood avatar of a cheap political stunt. So they begrudgingly mustered support ahead of the nominating convention to stave off the attack from their right flank.

To a younger generation of Republicans, however, Reagan represented the future. He was bold and polished. Glib and handsome. Forward thinking rhetoric brimming with promise and idealism for young people in a throwback brill cream package for the older generation. In the end, the establishment had the numbers and a dejected Reagan was sidelined. And even though there was clear acrimony between the two men and their camps fought bitterly, Ford took the high road and invited Reagan to address the convention.

Rather than appear petty, Reagan seized the moment and graciously thanked the president and addressed the crowd, bringing the thousands of raucous attendees to a hush. It’s been reported that several of the Ford delegates, particularly the younger ones, wept at the conclusion of the speech and regretted their decision to toe the party line.

Last week on Morning Joe, President Biden said this:

“Run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president—challenge me at the convention!"

So fucking be it, right? The only question is, who?

If we’re to believe the armchair pundit class it’s Governor Handsome-Win-Some-Lose-Some Newsom or perhaps Governor Whitmer. The non-existent KHive is still trying to make Kamala happen. But where are the progressives in all this? Where’s the next Bernie? Up and down the progressive caucus, whether it’s actual progressives or in name only, they continue to back Joe Biden and say he’s going to be the nominee. Pretty much everyone in the caucus but Rashida Tlaib is on record saying that they still support President Biden.

Cowardice? Hardly. Democrats are getting a taste of their own medicine from the Squad. Imagine if AOC came out forcefully against Joe Biden right now? Democrats would hang this inevitable skull fucking that Biden’s about to get around her neck and any other Squad member that dared to challenge the DNC. It’s a non-starter. Frankly, I applaud it.

So the real question becomes, what’s the 2028 plan for the 2024 convention?

Let’s assume Biden continues to lose ground in the coming weeks. The DNC will have no choice but to start cooking up backroom deals for Harris. Maybe it is Newsom, considering he’s been hanging around Biden like Drakkar Noir. That’s an ‘80s reference to bad cologne. And yes, I wore it. Perhaps it’s Whitmer since Harris’ poll numbers are as shitty as Biden’s. Are progressives really going to sit back and just swim with the tide? Maybe. Or maybe there’s another way.

So let’s dream a little dream. To counter Project 2025, I propose Project 500.

“Project 500”

For the sake of round numbers and to make this fantastical point, let’s focus our attention on a handful of states. There are 124 delegates in Ohio, a swing state. 159 in Pennsylvania, also a swing state. 82 in Wisconsin. Swing state. Georgia, 108. Swing state. There are two uncommitted delegates in Michigan, swing state, thanks to Rashida Tlaib’s grassroots movement during the primaries to protest Biden’s support of the genocide in Gaza.

And rounding us out to 500 is another 25 delegates in New Hampshire a state whose motto is “Live Free or Die” but might as well be “Fuck off and leave us alone. We’re doing our own thing up here so suck it.”

As a practical matter, the states are meaningless. Any combination of pledged electors from across the country that get to 500 will do fine. But focusing on the all important swing states sends a different kind of message to the establishment. Of course the DNC is trying to prevent the kind of shitstorm that occurred the last time they did this in Chicago in 1968. But while they’re thinking about something that happened in Chi-Town 56 years ago, I find it more helpful to go back a bit further. Go back 144 years to 1880 when the Republicans, which were more like Democrats at the time, held their nominating convention in Chicago.

President Rutherford B. Hayes had declined to run for re-election, which opened the field to office-seekers from across the country. The lead candidates for the nomination were James Blaine, John Sherman and past president Ulysses S. Grant. Over the course of several days, support shifted between the three men and others such as William Windom and Roscoe Conkling. But it was a quiet and respected brigadier general turned congressman who spoke on behalf of John Sherman that wound up captivating the throngs of exhausted and frustrated delegates at the convention: James Garfield.

Garfield’s speech was so well received people forgot that it was about John Sherman. So much so that in the next ballot his name was floated and he won. The reluctant Garfield became one of history’s greatest “what if” leaders as he was assassinated shortly into his term and never executed the duties of the office.

In the modern era, it is beyond unlikely that a contested convention could erupt into such mayhem that it would produce a happenstance nominee. But it’s a hell of an opportunity to pull a Ronald Reagan and groom a successor to Bernie Sanders and get the progressive movement back on the rails.

So here’s what I would propose if I had a magic wand. (Or an actual following.) It’s a mix of progressivism and realism.

Draft Jamie Raskin and Pramila Jayapal.

Let me balance this up front by stating that they are both weak on Gaza. Despite calls for a ceasefire and votes against continued funding of Israel’s war, they can and need to do better. And even though we certainly don’t need another white dude at the head of the ticket, Raskin fits the bill because he’s progressive, intelligent, a skilled debater and legislator and has a higher profile than most due to his efforts leading the January 6 investigations. Jayapal is the head of the progressive caucus, is a woman of color that balances out the snub of establishment VP Kamala Harris and is also skilled in the art of backroom deals. They’re professionals who get it right most of the time and pretty good is better than nothing.

Raskin is also the type of player that could secure a speaking slot at the highly orchestrated convention proceedings without raising too many eyebrows. In him, we’re most likely to get a Reagan ‘76 moment. (I would just need to get my man to a barbershop.)

I also believe that they’ve learned hard lessons about negotiating with the bad faith core of establishment democrats who have been dealing from the bottom of the deck against progressives every step of the way. We need to normalize progressive voices and issues again on a national stage. There’s no Bernie to come to the rescue, but boy-oh-boy would he be an effective voice to emerge in support of an alternate ticket. A contested convention has the ingredients of some captivating television if we can program the schedule under the noses of the DNC and deliver an August surprise that sets us up for success in 2028.

No matter how you slice it, Democrats are going down in November because the American people are under water. It’s time for progressives to grab a mitt and get in the game. This electorate is yearning for an alternative but if we don’t beat the front line of defense in our own house, we’ll never get to the dance. We’re in the Empire Strikes Back phase of the series once again and it’s going to be a long slog back to the Oval Office and an even longer slog to winning back the American people to the ideas and policies that have the potential to save lives and prevent the climate apocalypse. So let’s begin.

Here endeth the lesson.

Image Source

• Cornell University Library, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Changes were made.