Dispatch from the Front Line: Slow news week in America
Biden is out. Trump is the new normal. Canada's gonna need to get serious.
Well friends. We at The Line were starting to feel a little bad about putting off the written dispatch until Sunday and — now we're glad we did. Just as we pulled out bedraggled assess back into the informational arena, we saw that Joe Biden has decided to drop out of the 2024 race. He announced his decision via a written statement with promises of more details to come later in the week; a tweet endorsing Kamala Harris, his vice president, was notably absent, but such an endorsement came about a half hour later. A strange delay, but one we won’t dwell on for now.
We're not quite sure how to respond to this except to note that this must, indeed, be the Hail Maryist of all Hail Marys if a sitting president is dropping out four months before the next election with ... no clear plan in place. The announcement means there will almost certainly be an open (openish?) Democratic convention in Chicago in August, even though most of the Democratic Party’s heavies moved quickly to echo the president’s endorsement. The prospect of even an openish convention, is a thing is extremely exciting for political nerds who have not seen anything resembling an open convention in living memory. These are the things of legend; akin to a car nut looking up to see a perfectly restored Ford Model T driving down the lane.
But we'll try not to get ahead of ourselves, because more questions have arisen at this late juncture than answers. Will anyone challenge Harris? How will any challengers be decided? What about the sheer logistical mess of putting new names on the ballots in so many states? Will there be legal challenges? And lastly, does a new candidate have any actual hope of derailing the Trump train?
All we can see from here is a whole pile of steaming messy.
And because we cannot help ourselves — and it's not our country — we can admit that we at The Line love a heap of messy politics.
We're strapped in now, friends. History marches forward.
A quick programming note for those of you who are interested in the intersection of media, business, and culture. Line co-founder Jen Gerson will be on a panel discussion to discuss the changing economics of news media in Canada, including the structure of competitive forces and how that affects the types of media outlets that succeed and fail. The panel will also provide an analysis of Bill C-18 (The Online News Act), among other topics.
The event will be held on Tuesday, August 20, from 4 to 7 p.m., at the Event Centre, University of Calgary Downtown Campus. 906 – 8th Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2P 1H9 Register here!
And if you must get your dose of Gerson right away, check her out, in company with Gurney, in the latest episode of The Line Podcast.
As always, the audio version of the podcast (along with a bunch of ways to subscribe to it) can be found here.
Like, subscribe, share it with your friends, share it with your enemies, leave us glowing reviews, and all that jazz. The Line counts on your support!
And that brings us to the main event....