Out of the ruins
Out from the wreckage
Can't make the same mistake this time
We are the children
The last generation (the last generation, generation)
We are the ones they left behind
And, I wonder when we are ever gonna change, change
Mad Max.
The third one, I think.
Two men enter, one man leaves, that one. The one with post apocalyptic Tina Turner -- which is mostly just regular Tina Turner, but in chainmail. Back when you could watch Mel Gibson movies without cringing.
So, long time ago now, since that movie came out.
But you remember.
Anyway, despite the aforementioned Mel Gibson thing, it's still a damn good movie, if you're into Australian post nuclear war wasteland car flicks without the graphic brutality of the more recent installments.
There's a reason I mention it.
See, there's this one scene:
Max beat Blaster in the Thunderdome and was betrayed by his erstwhile allies. Now the whole town is after him and he's running for his life, again. Max and the Onlies, along with their former enemy Master, have busted out of Bartertown's pig shit methane factory, blowing up half the town in the process, and they're roaring down the rails through a nuclear wasteland on this slapped-together ramshackle circus train that's half truck and half locomotive with a dash of construction shack thrown in. They've got Aunty and an army of turbocharged barbarians chasing after them, hellbent on revenge. Max throws the last of the enemy warriors off the caboose and fights his way upstream to the engine where he's clinging to the outside of the door and over the roar of the motors and the wind he shouts to a guy artfully named "Pigkiller" in the driver's seat,
"So, what's the plan?"
"PLAN?!" Pigkiller laughs incredulously. "There ain't no plan!"
There ain't no plan. It's just ass backwards straight towards the radioactive horizon, a whoopin and a hollerin' and hopefully Bruce Spence will show up and fly us all to safety.
That scene has stuck with me over the years and I find it's a useful metaphor far more often than you would think.
You know where I'm going with this, don't you?
Sure you do.
So, what's the plan?
Here we are, hanging on for dear life, barbarians in hot pursuit, rolling ass backward through the apocalypse in a circus train full of howling mutants, and you're like, hey, let's shoot the engineer!
Yeah, let's just shoot the guy driving the train. Good idea, right?
So, tell me, what's the plan?
What's the plan after we shoot the engineer and toss him over the side?
You want Biden to step down, resign, drop out of the race, go away.
Let's face it, Ol' Creaky Joe had a good run. Sure. No one's arguing that. But after that one debate, woo, yeah, he's just dragging us down. Dead weight, man. We gotta dump him. Throw him off the train before the barbarian mutants catch us.
Turns out Republicans were right.
We can admit that, can't we? New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and Bernie Bros and Trump and the MAGAs were all right. It's Dementia Joe. He's just too damn old. And so here you are in my mentions, standing with Republicans and the Russians, calling for Biden to drop out. For the good of the nation. Of course. I mean, you're not an asshole. But, look at the guy. He needs a nap and a cup of hot cocoa.
We gotta get out while we can and find us a new hero.
Looking for something, we can rely on
There's gotta be something better out there
Ooh, love and compassion
Their day is coming (coming)
All else are castles built in the air
Right?
Right.
So, tell me, Pigkiller, what's your goddamn plan?
We're barely four months and some change away from the most important election of your lifetime. And you want to dump the one guy who has managed to win every single election he's ever been in, and who beat Trump last time around?
Yeah, yeah, I hear you. This Biden is a lot older than that Biden. Yep. I got it. I'm not arguing that. Biden is old. And tired. And he's slowing down. And maybe he's not as sharp as he used to be. Biden's in the back bedroom taking a nap while Trump is out golfing 18 holes and fucking 17-year-olds. That's all true, probably.
But we're one Steve Bannon prison sentence out from the election and you're talking about handing Biden over to the mutants.
I don't think I'm out of line here asking to see what you plan to do after that.
We don't need another hero
We don't need to know the way home
All we want is life beyond Thunderdome
You all love military metaphors. Military terminology.
This is war! you shout. We're in this fight to the end! We're ready for battle!
I've been to war. Couple times now. War was my profession, most of my life. I don't recommend it, but it worked for me. I know something about it.
You know who wins wars? Who wins the battle? Who ends up victorious in the end?
The army with the plan, that's who.
You can lose the general. You can lose the colonels and the captains and the lieutenants. Hopefully not all at once, but if you've got a good plan and you've got good people who can execute that plan, who can flex and improvise when needed, sergeants and foot soldiers who will stay the course, well, you can win. You will win, if you've got the courage to stay the course and hold the line.
But you got to have a plan.
Which is why we in the US military spend so much time and energy on planning. I know, I used to be a military war planner, amongst other things.
We're all in this fight together you tell me. Great. What's your plan?
We dump Biden. Then what?
Tell me how you spin up a full blown, fifty state, national campaign for an as-yet undetermined candidate in four months. Fully funded, fully staffed, organized, on the ground, on the air, on message, on target, in the ballots, in the debates, websites, pamphlets, buttons, slogans, yard signs, hats, bumper stickers, grassroots, in Trump's face and toe-to-toe.
Show me your plan for that.
Come on, let's see it.
Who's the candidate? Because liberals, lefties, progressives, democrats, can't even agree on what they already agree on -- see my aforementioned social media mentions for examples.
Where is that candidate? Where is that plan? The one we all agree on and are ready to fully support?
Because if you don't have that, and if you don't have that right fucking now, then you don't have a plan and you don't have a chance in hell.
All the children say
We don't need another hero
We don't need to know the way home
All we want is life beyond Thunderdome
Who's your candidate? Tell me.
Kamala Harris?
Is it? And we're all agreed on that, right? There's not going to be any fighting. We're all going to fall in line behind Kamala Harris, are we?
Heh, heh. Sure.
I like Harris. I'd vote for her. In fact, I liked her a lot better than Biden. Biden wasn't even in my top three, back in the day. I'd to love to see a woman of color as president, though that's not the reason I'd vote for her. That said, is Harris who we all agree on? Is she?
No, of course not.
No, we don't agree.
No, instead we're going to argue. We're going to argue bitterly even though we don't have the time for it. And we're going to argue and argue and argue some more while Trump is out there campaigning and mocking Democrats in disarray -- and he won't be wrong.
Some of us are not going to accept the results no matter who ends up the candidate.
And don't tell me you will, because you won't.
And you won't because you don't get to choose Biden's replacement.
The primaries are over.
The delegates are already pledged.
You had your vote.
Didn't think of that, did you?
There's no time. There's no mechanism for a do-over primary. If we're going to replace Biden, we have to do it now and democracy just isn't fast enough, even if liberals could actually agree on anything.
So, any replacement will perforce be selected by the party and you are not going to get any say in it.
You good with that?
Are you really?
Those of you still seething about the "anointment" of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders? You're going to be good with the Democratic National Committee picking your candidate for you? Really? And the rest of you? Are you really going to be good with the party apparatus telling you who you're going to vote for in the general election?
Don't blow smoke up my ass and call it beef jerky.
We'll lose right there.
Some of you will be madder about that than you are about Trump taking away your rights. And you'll stay home, just like you did last time and we'll lose right there.
Might as well just hand the keys over to King Trump and hidey ho yourself down to the nearest concentration camp.
So, what do we do with our lives
We leave only a mark
Will our story shine like a light or end in the dark?
Give it all or nothing
And then there's the rest of it.
The practical aspects of changing horses midstream without drowning.
And the legal aspects. And the political ones.
As I noted up above, there is no national campaign for any other candidate. You'll have to create one from scratch, overnight, in fifty states. It's not just a matter of changing the names, there are legal aspects to it. Campaign finance law for one. Campaign filings with the state, ballot issues, and so on. And not every campaign staffer who supports Biden is going to support the new candidate -- for whatever reason. So you're going to need to hire at least some new people.
Where are you going to get the money?
No. No. Don't look away. Don't roll your eyes. Where you gonna get the money?
See, while it's possible that Biden's campaign war chest, those millions and millions of dollars, could be legally transferred to Harris, because she's already on the ticket with him, it's never been done before. There will most certainly be legal challenges -- by the Trump campaign if not various Democrats -- tying up that money for some period of time, maybe a long period of time.
And if the candidate is not Harris, well, then that money very likely can't be transferred and a new non-Harris candidate would have raise all new money themselves. Which takes us right back to the previous paragraph: How are you going to spin up a nationwide campaign across fifty states fast enough and powerful enough to challenge Trump without any money at first and when you can't just change the names on the Biden Campaign offices?
PACs?
Well, about that, Political Action Committees that accept money for one candidate can't just use it for another without certain legal issues. Now, a PAC can become a multicandidate PAC, but the rules for doing so are complex and have to meet pretty specific federal and state election requirements. You think you can do that in a couple of days? Fast enough to spin up a campaign in time? Across fifty states? Well enough to avoid legal challenges? Do you really?
Show me that plan.
No money. No campaign.
Yes, I see you. Rolling your eyes. In the back there.
You can wave your hands all you like, but you still have to answer the question. You still have to adhere to campaign finance law. You still have to have money to get elected. And you have to do it in such a manner that the other side, the one infamous for suing people and trying to overthrow elections, can't legally challenge you on it and de facto kill your campaign before you even start.
You have to have a plan to address all the legal requirements. Where is it?
States are already printing ballots and programming election equipment. It's a process. It's a long legal process and it has to be in order to prevent election fraud -- and to be able to withstand scrutiny when someone like Trump accuses the process of fraud in court.
There may not be time to swap out candidates.
Particularly in red states run by Trump supporters who don't want there to be time and who would love nothing better than Trump running unopposed in their state.
There are thousands of details like this, some legal, some practical, some political.
Some are solvable in time.
Many are not -- even if you did have a plan, and you don't.
Folks, we're on a runaway train, barreling through the wasteland, chased by mutants, ass backwards into the unknown. This isn't the time to throw the Engineer over the side. Yes, in this metaphor, Max was without doubt the far better driver and Pigkiller was crippled by a hole blown through his thigh. But you don't change the hand on the wheel in the middle of an escape and you need to remember that when it was all going to hell and they were neck deep in manure, it was Pigkiller who fired up the engine and got them all the hell out of bondage. No, this isn't the time to replace the Engineer. This is the time when you grit your teeth, put the hammer down all the way to the goddamn floor, cock your pistol, and ride full throttle for the horizon.
Biden may or may not win. That's up to you.
But you pull Biden off the ballot now, and Trump most certainly will.
See you around, Soldier.
And, I wonder when we are ever gonna change, change
Living under the fear, 'til nothing else remains
All the children say
We don't need another hero
We don't need to know the way home
All we want is life beyond Thunderdome
-- Tina Turner, We Don't Need Another Hero