This made talking politics with my social circle difficult. Don’t shoot the messenger. This was not the time to run a risky candidate. I actually think Harris ran a decent campaign, much better than I thought she would, but I don’t think she had much of a chance. I remember when Biden dropped out several groups came out saying that if the DNC didn’t give Harris the nomination, that they would consider than to be a betrayal and that they’d lose their support. It was frustrating to see them so focused on what was “right” or “fair” when the stakes were so high.
The crazy thing is that we already went through this in 2016. We had people protest voting against Clinton. It didn’t work. And yet we seem to have been ok letting unyielding idealism sabotage important elections.
That said, I think a huge problem was Biden’s ego and his inability to stick to his campaign promise of being a one-term president. With him dropping with only a few months left, democrats didn’t have many options.