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In the 2024 election, Barack Obama found himself in the unexpected position of fighting against the rise of the second black president. Opposing him was nearly every black Democrat, from Rep. Jim Clyburn, who helped put Biden in the White House in exchange for promises to appoint a black woman as his VP and to the Supreme Court, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, who were determined to make Kamala the candidate.
Biden’s debate collapse had created a historic moment of the worst possible kind. Dems needed to oust the man at the top of their ticket before his nomination could be confirmed and pick a replacement. Obama wanted a mini-primary process to pick his chosen candidate, but virtually every other powerful black Democrat wanted to rubber stamp Kamala for the position.
Kamala had desperately wanted to become the next Obama and had obsessively pursued Obama’s approval, but despite the similarities in their backgrounds, both were the children of radical academics and absent foreign fathers, raised in an atmosphere of privilege before learning to blow racial dog whistles to win over black voters and guilty white liberals, he had remained cool to her. Kamala had been far more interested in Obama than he was in her.
And that had not changed just as Kamala was on the verge of following in his footsteps.
Obama could see the disaster coming a while away. Kamala was unpopular, as bad a speaker as her boss, lacked charisma and had no appeal to voters, from his perspective, she had nothing in common with him other than their tentative racial identification, but he was unable to convince top black Democrats who may have had their own private doubts about Kamala’s political skills, but were not about to pass up the opportunity of a second black president.
Kamala’s appointment, or at least that of a black VP, had been the promise they secured from Biden, and with the old white guy on his last political legs, they were determined to cash it in.
Even as the fallout grew from Biden’s debate performance, ‘Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House‘ revealed that Congressional Black Caucus members “laid down a marker: if Biden exited the race, they would accept no option other than Vice President Kamala Harris”.
Racial tensions exploded among Democrat insiders right after the debate. “I watched the black-white stuff start on Thursday night,” an elected official recalled.
At a private chat, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the first ranking House Democrat and Rep. Jim Clyburn, the third ranking House Democrat, “had watched next-generation white governors lay the groundwork to battle Harris for the nomination” and agreed that, “they would not let their party skip over the first Black woman vice president, not without a fight.”
Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile and other black Democrats who had been helping the campaign with black turnout began lobbying delegates to back Kamala even before Biden dropped out. “We’re not going to let anyone skip over the VP,” Brazile had warned.
Obama had helped touch off the takedown of Joe Biden. His allies, loyalists and operatives had seeded doubt about Biden’s functionality and jumped on him when he faltered at the debate. But Obama had not done it for Kamala, he had done it to replace Biden with one of his own people, and yet after pulling strings on white establishment players, like Pelosi and George Clooneyi, his path forward was being blocked by the Congressional Black Caucus members with whom he always had an uneasy relationship. The CBC had initially backed Hillary Clinton over him. And while it was forced to hail him as the first black president, the same old time Dems like Jesse Jackson who once bragged on TV, “I want to cut his nuts off”, resented him.
Obama did not want Kamala, but that made black Democrats want her even more. Elevating Kamala would eclipse Obama. And Obama’s opposition to her only reinforced their mistrust of his racial solidarity. Black political activists of any generation had never trusted Obama to stand with the black community and his campaign missteps once Kamala became the nominee, which included attacking black men, only reinforced their doubts whether he was really one of them.
And they had a point. Obama was far more comfortable with the white Democrat power players than with the old black establishment that was busy cutting off his plans by rallying for Kamala. Obama was heavily reliant on white operatives like David Axelrod or his Pod Save America cohort who were of far less use against Kamala and the black activists laboring for her. His white operatives were afraid of crossing racial lines and Obama preferred to work behind the scenes, but the former community organizer had never been good at actual organizing.
That ineptitude was part of a larger problem. Obama thought of himself as an idea man. He expected others to do the hard work. His efforts to interfere in the 2020 primary by putting forward his own candidate had collapsed badly. And whatever candidate he had in mind for his mini-primary shell game in 2024 went unnamed. Obama correctly warned that Kamala would lose but he never revealed who his dream candidate was going to be. And that may be because the candidate would not make an appearance unless Kamala had already been sidelined.
Some speculated that Obama was going to put forward his wife. There is no way to know, but it’s likelier that Obama’s dream candidate was not black or even a woman. The CBC had been right about Obama. He was a leftist before he was anything else and his allegiance to the black community had always been a political facade to advance his radical agenda.
Obama could have put his wife forward before he could put forward a white leftist woman or man up against Kamala. The only way that could happen was if black Democrats had joined him in opposing Kamala and despite his best efforts, Obama could not get any takers.
Black Democrats had colluded to put forward Kamala, not because they believed in her personal abilities or because they thought she was the best candidate, but because she was black. Time and time again, black establishment players emphasized that she was black, was the first black vice president and would be the first black female president rather than any rationale rooted in her actual candidacy. The same irrational tribal logic that had elevated Obama was now being used to elevate Kamala. And Obama couldn’t do anything to stop it.
After Kamala’s defeat, party narratives and campaign books have attached most of the blame to Biden. But it wasn’t Biden whom voters rejected on Election Day. It was Kamala.
And how did Kamala come to be the party’s standard bearer in 2024?
Biden had picked Kamala because he had been obligated to pick a black woman and his choices were sparse. It had been either Kamala, future Los Angeles Mayor (and Castro sympathizer) Karen Bass and, somewhat bafflingly, Obamaite operative Susan Rice who had never held elected office. When it came time to replace Biden, Kamala got in because of race.
Democrats picked Kamala as their vice presidential and presidential candidate for the wrong reason. The resulting political disaster had less to do with Biden’s health than their racism.
Racism made Kamala the candidate and cost Democrats the White House.
