The Democratic Party is a disaster. No clear message. No unity.
They’re flailing against Trump’s well-oiled machine. The budget fight? A total cave-in. Pure chaos on the left.
It all traces back to the 2024 election. That’s where it unraveled. Internal feuds exploded after Biden was booted from the ticket.
Even then, Biden didn’t stop. He kept hamstringing Kamala Harris. Some say he was always dead weight for her.
“No daylight.” That was the rule. Biden wanted Harris to protect his legacy. Not carve out her own.
Voters didn’t know why she was running. Biden’s team made sure of that. They blocked her at every turn.
“Joe might have been half braindead, but his crew did everything to sabotage Harris.”
Here's an except from FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes:
He would say publicly that Harris should do what she must to win. But privately, including in conversations with her, he repeated an admonition: let there be no daylight between us. “No daylight” was the phrase he had used as a vice presidential candidate in 2008 to bind Republican nominee John McCain to an unpopular president, George W. Bush.
Almost everywhere she went, Harris walked among former Biden aides who sought to defend his presidency. Her campaign was run by a former White House deputy chief of staff — whom she had just empowered to box out her own confidants — and a phalanx of department heads who had served Biden until the previous month.
The day before Harris’s first interview, a joint appearance with [Vice Presidential nominee] Tim Walz, she dived into the recurring question of whether and when she would let daylight shine between herself and Biden. Veteran Democratic communications strategist Stephanie Cutter launched into a proposed preamble — a list of all the items that made Harris proud of her work with Biden.
“Wait, wait, wait!” said Sean Clegg, a longtime Harris adviser who was regarded with suspicion by the Biden holdovers running the campaign. “Let’s not do this. Let’s not go down memory lane.”
That was the last time he was invited to media prep. Cutter, another Harris confidant later joked, cut him out.
Her rallies and convention speech had not answered the question of why she was running for president — or how her vision for the country would deliver for voters — other than having been next in line. She was running out of major moments to explain a vision to a broad audience. Her September 10 debate with Trump would offer another opportunity — perhaps a last chance before voters cast early ballots — to establish that key part of her narrative.
But the day of the debate Biden called to give Harris an unusual kind of pep talk — and another reminder about the loyalty he demanded. No longer able to defend his own record, he expected Harris to protect his legacy.
Whether she won or lost the election, he thought, she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him — especially during a debate that would be watched by millions of Americans. To the extent that she wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so. He needed just three words to convey how much all of that mattered to him.
“No daylight, kid,” Biden said.