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Sunday, July 21, 2024

Aaron Sorkin out-Aaron Sorkins Aaron Sorkin (Several Update)

Update: This aged well. See if the Romney-for-VP thing catches on. (Further Update: To be clear, I do not expect it to catch on. I find interesting the prospect of a Harris/Shapiro ticket, under which the First Gentleman, VP, and Second Lady would be Jewish--sparking complaints about the power behind the throne).

I have written about the insufferability of Aaron Sorkin. But we find ourselves in a Sorkinian moment, as a successful Democratic president wrestles with whether, in light of recently exposed health concerns, he should leave the election and not seek a second term. One can imagine Joe Biden--also a devout Catholic--wandering the National Cathedral shouting at God in Latin and telling him "You get Harris!" In fact, some have urged a Sorkinian solution by proposing that Harris select a Republican as VP--names include Mitt Romney (who, by the way, is 77) or Adam Kitzinger, a former GOP congressman who twice voted to impeach Trump.

Realizing that everyone is stealing his insipid thunder, Sorkin outdoes himself in today's Times by descending to outright stupidity: The Democrats should nominate Romney as President. Never mind that Romney is 77, so you are offering a super-annuated person to replace a candidate who is struggling because of his age. Never mind that Romney disagrees with just about every meaningful position in the Democratic Party platform and every ideal that the mean liberal Democratic voter (to say nothing of the progressives) believes in. Policy does not matter; only politics and getting to 270. Of course, I am not sure why Sorkin (or anyone else) believes Romney can get to 270. There are not so many Never-Trump Republicans (to whom Romney appeals as a policy matter), especially to overcome the many Democrats who would stay home.* And why is Romney better than any non-Biden Democrat--except in his appeal to Republicans. In other words, Sorkin's proposal reduces to "Democrats must sacrifice everything to bail out the Republicans who went off the rails."

[*] And perhaps not wrongly. It is one thing to tell young progressives to show up for Biden (or any non-hard-left Democrat) because he will get you some of what you want on some timeline, even if not everything or as fast. It also is one thing to tell Republicans to show up for a Democrat when their party has abandoned them. It is something entirely different to tell Democrats to surrender any policy preferences by choosing a less-offensive Republican over another Republican.

Although, I guess if a well-known playwright was going to go off the rails, it could be worse.

Posted by Howard Wasserman on July 21, 2024 at 01:24 PM in Howard Wasserman, Law and Politics | Permalink

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