Because, as National Review’s Jim Geraghty observes, democracy teeters in the balance.

The Florida Democratic Party — which is likely full of people who would tell you that the future of democracy is at stake in 2024 — just decided that it doesn’t need to hold a primary and will automatically award all the state’s delegates to the president.https://t.co/dyENsM4QuH

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) December 1, 2023

The man from Istanbul is similarly unamused.

Florida Democrats pulled the slimiest and dumbest political hatchet job. They kept me, @marwilliamson and @deanbphillips off the ballot. Which then canceled the whole primary election. I guess they think Biden is that weak. It's tragic that this is normal for Democratic Party.

— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) December 1, 2023

But the prize for Most Thoroughly Outraged Outsider goes to Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, who seeks assistance “to rectify this absolute nonsense.”

The Florida Democratic Party is gifting all 250 state delegates to Joe Biden without a single vote. We won’t stand for it.

Help support our efforts to pursue legal channels to rectify this absolute nonsense: https://t.co/9HToQNkmvK pic.twitter.com/9yMcpsGgMn

— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) December 1, 2023

Florida Democrats reply that they’re simply following well-established rules. At state party convention, held just before Halloween (the jokes write themselves), only one candidate was nominated, that being the incumbent octogenarian. Every other hopeful, the joltingly youthful, dynamic and springy-stepped Phillips included, missed the boat.

That’s the way it goes, the chief of Florida’s compassionate party shrugged.

“If you’re running for president of the United States, you need to be a little more sophisticated. Don’t you have an obligation to follow the process and learn the rules?” Fried said. “We have a state convention every presidential cycle for a reason: to put presidential primary candidates’ names on the ballot. That’s the point of a convention. It’s not some secret.”

In other words, per Fried, you snooze, you lose. It was ever thus.

From Marc Caputo at TheMessenger.com: 

Phillips, a Minnesota congressman, had a timing problem with his campaign: He launched on Oct. 27, the day the Florida Democratic Party convention began, giving him relatively little time to get up to speed on Florida’s rules, Politico noted.

“Americans would expect the absence of democracy in Tehran, not Tallahassee,” Phillips said in a written statement promising legal action. “The intentional disenfranchisement of voters runs counter to everything for which our Democratic Party and country stand. Our mission as Democrats is to defeat authoritarians, not become them. In America, we the people choose those who represent us, not a handful of Party insiders seeking a coronation while preventing competition. That’s why I call on President Biden and Americans of all political affiliations to condemn and immediately address this blatant act of electoral corruption.”

Phillips has at least a wee bit of a point. Despite the wagging of fingers at rival campaigns, Florida Democrats failed to issue guidelines for the 2024 campaign — including the state convention wrinkle — until Nov. 1, after the convention had ended.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Regarding the Phillips campaign, party spokeswoman Eden Giagnorio first claimed the candidate failed to provide sufficient time before the state deadline to convene the state executive committee to vote on his inclusion.

Not so fast, notes Politico.

However, Giagnorio acknowledged, “There’s no requirement for presidential candidates to do anything to get on the ballot.”

So, all the claims above regarding procedure and tradition and whatnot amount to a whole bunch of hooey. As Phillips and the rest pursue their legal options, that would seem to be a salient admission.

It seems odd, too, that Florida Democrats, still flailing for energy and identity after their pasting in the 2022 midterms, would quash a springtime opportunity to rally voters looking for alternatives to Republican infighting. Month-by-month, Democrats keep losing the voter-registration race, and now trail the GOP by nearly 700,000 enrollees.

Now you’re telling persuadables, with a closed presidential primary looming, there’s no reason to sign onto the Florida Democratic Party cause? What’s going on here?

If I thought Fried and Co. were capable of such clever subterfuge, I’d suspect — when the no-primary hubbub dies down, sometime after the holidays — there will be hints about Democrat voters switching parties just long enough to cause mischief in the Florida GOP presidential showdown.

Florida Republicans will vote their preference after Super Tuesday, at which time 31 states, including California and Texas, will have held primaries and/or caucuses. By then, there may be no more than three GOP candidates still standing, giving Florida an outsized role in deciding the nomination.

If it’s just two, and one of them is Ron DeSantis, Democrats’ loathing for the Florida governor — especially after he waxed Fried-prepped California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the Fox News debate — would be no small motivator for switching parties and voting for the Other Guy, in hopes of taking DeSantis out.

If the Other Guy remains embattled in federal court, so much the better for Democrats.

Too three-dimensional chess? Maybe. But when the left-wing governor of California coached by the boss of Florida Democrats mimics talking points from Donald Trump and Nikki Haley in a debate with his Florida counterpart, we have to concede that, in our times, the potential for subterfuge is thick and wide.