(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . David Nir Should Resign [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-30 It is time that someone we all know well here resign. Someone who’s been involved in politics for a long time and has an equally long record of accomplishment. But over the last couple of days, it’s become apparent that he’s just not all there anymore. It’s been trending like that for a while, and we probably should have seen it coming. Maybe the urgency of the moment got to him. Maybe, like so many of us, he’s just terrified of fascism. I admit, it’s not easy to handle and I have my moments where I can’t think out of fear. Maybe he’s just been hanging around colleagues too much who spend their time writing donation emails, sometimes twice a day, but hardly any time at all working to coordinate progressives on the ground to win elections, leaving that up to independent campaigns and community efforts (of which thankfully there are many). Frankly I don’t like writing this and don’t want to contribute to a circular firing squad, but I believe it must be said. And if it’s said now instead of before the election, lives might be saved. I am, of course, talking about Daily Kos political director David Nir, who has somehow managed to load the circular firing squad’s rifles and make the worst possible argument imaginable at the most crucial moment in American history so far since at least the Civil War: he got on a site full of activists, volunteers, and dedicated progressives. And he told them to wait. Not in so many words, of course. He first told the base how they feel: It's not enough to say that the Democratic faithful will still vote for Biden. That alone cannot win a national election. Every winning presidential candidate must have enthusiastic supporters who will donate to them, volunteer for them, convince their friends to vote for them, patiently explain to their family members why that latest Facebook meme is actually nonsense. In short, you need an army. And right now, Biden's army is dejected, deeply dejected. Some are ready to desert camp, or are at least thinking about it. The rest are listless, and many are filled with dread. And then told them why it was really all the president’s fault that they have those assigned feelings and that Biden has to win them back before they can do any work: Reinvigorating his battalions is not enough. Even if he can somehow do so, Biden must then still persuade hesitant voters to cast their ballots for him. But he cannot succeed in that if he cannot first win back the hearts of his troops. This need to win the hearts of the troops and be on the front lines of course is well documented in history. I too remember FDR wheeling himself onto the beaches at Normandy, M1 in hand and pipe clinched between his teeth. FDR’s actually a great basis of comparison for the moment we’re in. Certainly his attitude about his health is the same as the current president’s. His own presidential library (likely to be eliminated if Trump wins this election) put it this way: Of course FDR could have simply chosen to remain in his wheelchair during public events, but he wanted to assure America that he was capable. He never wanted Americans to get the impression that he was helpless, so it was important to him to at least seem as if he could walk. Roosevelt had to deal with a visible and aggressive fascist dictator in a war no one was sure he could win. Roosevelt had to deal with an economy in desperate need of recovery and did so by implementing programs the current administration has modeled many of their economic policies off of. And yet the press treated him differently and the public did as well. Because he was a wartime president. Fact of the matter is, Joe Biden is a wartime president. This country is in the middle of a civil conflict. Everyone here talks about “the stakes” but I’m not sure the people who lead campaigns, or popular websites designed to coordinate campaigns and help win elections, really get what those stakes are. I’m not sure that they actually believe it, to be honest. Which is odd, because the evidence of what Republicans will do if not stopped by any means necessary is everywhere. There are 527 anti-LGBTQ bills in legislatures across the US, that’s almost one hate bill for every electoral vote in our system. There was more than one hate crime a day against them from August 2022 to June 2023. 199 House Republicans (paywall) have endorsed anti-Semitism in one form or another. They want to use the death penalty to go after people they don’t like, and they want to do so in the most inhumane way possible. They want to remove trans kids from their families, and will likely imprison or execute those children if they seize power at the federal level. They’re banning books. They’re trying to bring back child labor. I could go on for days but suffice to say they are well on their way to creating a totalitarian state. But I’m not sure anyone who would tell progressives to wait for some kind of emotional rescue understands what will actually happen. I mean, if they truly did understand, they’d be knowingly condemning people to the grave over a point of campaign strategy. If Trump is elected, just a few of the things at least somewhat likely are: Trans people will start to disappear. Their socials will deactivate, their jobs will fire them for being no-call no-shows. They’ll just vanish. Of course they won’t have vanished. They’ll have been arrested, for being who they are. The same thing will happen to gay people, slowly at first. But gradually, people will notice that they’re just gone. Hauled off in the middle of the night. Groups of marginalized people will suddenly find that they can’t get hired anywhere in a growing number of states across the country, and they’ll be denied unemployment and not know why. Authors will be dragged before Congress and put on camera for show hearings before they’re arrested. Protest will not only become effectively outlawed in many places but protestors themselves will start mysteriously disappearing at a much higher rate. And I doubt I’ll be able to escape that myself. Resistance will become much harder. I’ll continue to resist for as long as I’m around, but that will become a finite time period. Knowing that the stakes are that high and supposedly believing it, the leadership of this website wants the people making the phone calls, doing the canvass shifts, sending out the postcards, and all the rest to sit around and wait for a signal from Joe Biden so what? They feel inspired enough to save their friends and families from institutionalized murder? Maybe some of these leaders have tickets to Canada ready, so they’re not so concerned. But they want to talk about reality, so here’s the reality: it doesn’t matter if a desert salamander is running against Donald Trump. Keep Joe Biden or replace him, a political director should know that it’s a question entirely outside of the control of the people doing work on the ground. A political director with experience should be able to educate people regarding Trump’s abusive tactics. Trump is not good at many things, but if there’s one thing he’s an Olympic gold medalist at, it’s shifting blame from himself to another target and making them look like the problem. And all prevarication now will do is paralyze the campaign at its most crucial moment. We on this site can’t do anything about Joe Biden and what he decides, but we can destroy our chances at winning the election and possibly condemn several million people to death if we try hard enough. But regardless, discussing what to do about Biden is not the greatest sin here, not to me. It’s painful, and while I think Biden is perfectly competent and has competent people around him even if he isn’t (as opposed to Trump who’s incompetent and hateful and has mini-Trumps around him), it’s a point of strategy that needs to be addressed. In private or at least with great respect, where it won’t tear through our campaign like grapeshot and where we can all get on the same message. The sin is telling activists to hold their fire, to turn the whole thing into something that divides us instead of a meaningful discussion. To stop while we think about it. To consider the hitjobs in the press about it like they’re serious journalism instead of pre-planned pieces written by people who have been trending far right ever since they saw the Occupy protests outside of their office windows and realized that the protesters might make them late to their three thousand dollar a plate Sierra Club fundraisers. To feed the myth that people have to be inspired to do their duty and save the country. I don’t know how clearly I can put this: this is not an “election.” This is complete and total war. This is a struggle for our literal survival. How dare anyone on this site suggest that it’s up to some politician of any persuasion to save us. How dare they try to take our agency when it’s the only defense we have. Whether Joe Biden leaves or stays, this election will one hundred percent be a field win. A field win is defined as any election where the margin is close enough that the field campaign—the people making phone calls, knocking on doors, talking to their neighbors—make the difference. That margin is usually anywhere up to three percent. There is zero doubt in my mind and from what I can tell in anyone else’s that this election will be that close. And yet a trusted leader in this site, the individual who manages elections, is effectively telling the people who do that field work to wait for Joe Biden to wow them before busting their asses. Since David wants to use so many military analogies, getting on the radio and telling the troops who are under fire to stand down and let the fascists shoot them because the general’s in his office smacking a punching bag with the word “Medicare” written on it and no one knows why is a court-martial offense. FDR died in office. We still won the last total war against a fascist enemy. If FDR had left voluntarily we probably would have won, too. But if millions of GIs just listed to Colonel David and stopped fighting because FDR had to stand up in the meantime and deliver a speech to prove he was healthy, we’d all be living The Man in the High Castle right now. Telling us to stop fighting for our lives when so many of us are at risk of having our existence literally ended is unacceptable. Feeding into a narrative that divides the Democratic base at the eve of the most important battle in our history is unacceptable. David Nir should consider his position, and if he can’t or won’t apologize and throw himself into the work of getting Democrats across the country to win elections, he should step aside for someone who will. In the meantime, I’ll be using every waking moment I have to win this election and defend my marginalized friends and neighbors even if I have to lay down my life to do it, because nothing matters more to me than the safety and freedom of my fellow Americans. I’m editing to add that I think running against a fascist with an unelected replacement would be incredibly stupid from a strategy perspective and undercut the whole “saving democracy” thing, but I’m not going to condemn those who have respectful and well-thought out plans to the contrary because I am definitely not the smartest person in the room (that’s the wife’s job). 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