You must agree it's true
A coup is still a coup
Brutus hides behind Pelosi's smile;
The fundamental things apply
As Biden goes bye-bye ...
(with apologies to 'As Time Goes By,' Sam, Rick, Ilsa, and even Ugarte)

Just how much "joy" will Democrats display at their national convention in Chicago? And how hard will the Protection Racket Media work to amplify it? Politico's Jonathan Martin gives an indication with his curtain-raiser on tonight's festivities:

Democrats arrive here, a city that’s played host to so many drama-filled political conventions, as a party lacking in drama. They are disciplined, orderly and united around Vice President Kamala Harris and, more to the point, thwarting former President Donald Trump’s restoration.

This new era of good feelings for Democrats is a far cry from last month, when they faced their most existential crisis since Trump’s initial election, their leaders staring one another down in a sort of political version of nuclear brinksmanship. And it differs from so many previous conventions when there was often intra-party tension over policy, politics, personnel, or all three, looming above the proceedings.

Disciplined, eh? Orderly, you say? United around ... who, exactly?

The official DNC platform has been released and it makes at least five mentions of “Biden’s second term.”

Tough look for the Democrat copy editors. pic.twitter.com/6iiiE62fNS

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 19, 2024

Another sign of how hurried this handoff has been: the DNC party platform, which will be voted on tonight, still references President Biden's second term *19* times. https://t.co/ND6amAO5Cb https://t.co/WBwpqiThRv

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 19, 2024

Worth noting: it has been four weeks and a day since Joe Biden withdrew from the nomination. No one thought to review the party's platform? 

Anyway, not everyone's been fooled by the Reunited And It Feels So Good narrative of the past month. Over the weekend, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd uncorked a broadside at the Democrat Party and its leadership over the "coup" -- her term -- that removed an incumbent president from his renomination against his wishes. It may not have been "Julius Caesar at Rehoboth," Dowd argues, but everyone knows it was an undemocratic attempt to appoint someone who couldn't have won the spot on her own. 

And whether or not they admit it this week, Dowd insists, they're all mad at each other over the "coup":

It’s going to be a glorious coronation — except that everyone’s mad at one another.

Top Democrats are bristling with resentments even as they are about to try to put on a united front at the United Center in the Windy City.

A coterie of powerful Democrats maneuvered behind the scenes to push an incumbent president out of the race.

And that's not even really the worst aspect of the "coup," although Dowd studiously avoids the true betrayal. Dowd offers her sympathies for the plot because it became clear that Biden no longer has the capacity for the job, and Biden refused to acknowledge it. However, once Biden got pushed out, Democrats -- who claim to be "defending democracy" in this election against Trump -- could have held an open convention to select their nominee. It could have been messy, and it might have rained on the Joy-Joy Parade, but it would have modeled the kind of representative democracy that Democrats claim to be defending.

Instead, the "coup" resulted in a hasty anointing of Kamala Harris, who might have been the least likely of the contenders to succeed in an open convention. That is the real "coup" that took place, but all Dowd can do is lament how Kamala feels about those Democrats deluded enough to actually expect democracy:

Kamala can’t be thrilled that Obama, Pelosi and Schumer hesitated to endorse her because they wanted more moderate rivals to compete in an open mini-primary. And Biden and Harris staffs are also tetchy, as Kamala layers on her own people.

So the worst aspect of the "coup" -- as Dowd terms it -- are all the bad vibes. 

As for me, I'm not a fan of the term in this usage. Biden hasn't been removed from power nor has any government official been removed or replaced. Biden nominally cooperated (eventually) with the Dump Biden leadership voluntarily. If he chose to remain the nominee, Democrats would have been stuck with him unless the DNC got the delegates to vote to change the rules and open up the first ballot. (Even then, I'd bet Biden would have won on the first round.) His removal from the ticket is only that, not a change of government in an illegitimate manner.

But. The manner in which Democrats voided Biden's nomination after basically cooking their primary processes to prevent any real competition, and then anointing its nominee rather than using the convention for its actual purpose, reveals a party that at least is coup-curious, if not coup-adjacent. And the way the media is playing into this by barely questioning this sequence of events and covering the convention as totally normal shows them to be just as coup-curious and coup-adjacent as Democrat leadership.

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