The Real Danger Within the Democratic Party of a Fundamental Crack-Up

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It was once a fringe opinion to say President Biden should drop his re-election bid and Democrats should embrace an open convention. That position is fringe no more. But when the conventional wisdom shifts this rapidly, there’s always the danger of overlooking its potential flaws. My colleague, the Times Opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie, has been making some of the strongest arguments against Biden dropping out and throwing the nomination contest to a brokered convention. So I invited him on the show to talk through where he and I diverge and how our thinking is changing. Book Recommendations: Into the Bright Sunshine by Samuel G. Freedman Wide Awake by Jon Grinspan Illiberal America by Steven Hahn Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. So I'm recording this on Friday, July 5th. As of now, we have not seen Joe Biden's ABC
0:28.8	News interview. There is a lot happening, so I am loath to give a state of play on where the Democratic
0:36.1	nomination is at the moment because by Tuesday when this comes out it might be somewhere very different
0:40.7	But what I can say is as somebody who has been arguing for an alternative path to Biden since
0:46.6	February and particularly making the case for an open convention, it has been startling to see
0:51.6	so many people come over to this position.
0:54.8	And as always when the conventional wisdom shifts very rapidly, you run the risk of the
1:00.0	weak points in it, the flaws, the soft thinking being overlooked. The person I think
1:07.4	making the best argument against some of these pathways has been my colleague
1:12.0	and New York Times opinion, Jamal Bowie, who has been my colleague in New York Times opinion
1:13.0	Jamel Bowie, who has been making very historically
1:16.7	and institutionally and coalitionally grounded arguments
1:20.3	for what could go wrong at convention.
1:22.0	So I want to have him on the show to talk through his thinking,
1:25.6	how it's evolving, the weak points he sees in some of these emergent arguments that I've been making,
1:30.8	and see where we end up.
1:32.1	As always, my email, as her client show at nytimes.com.
1:38.0	Jabel Bowie welcome back to the show.
1:43.0	Thank you so much for having me.
1:44.7	So let me offer a roadmap for this.
1:47.3	I want to talk about whether Joe Biden
1:49.7	is in shape to govern, which is one of the questions
	...

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