Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic nominee -- what this means for DU [View all]

This year, we did what we always do on Democratic Underground during a presidential election year. While the presidential nomination was still up for grabs, we were in Primary Season. Since Joe Biden had no serious opposition this year and essentially ran unopposed, we called an end to Primary Season on March 6, immediately after Super Tuesday. At that point, we switched to General Election Season.

The difference between the two seasons is subtle but significant. DU's "Don't bash Democratic public figures" rule states, in part, "Do not post anything that could be construed as bashing, trashing, undermining, or depressing turnout for any Democratic general election candidate."

When we are in Primary Season, Democratic candidates for office are not considered "general election candidates" -- they are still fighting to win that honor -- and so DU members have lots of leeway to advocate for their own candidates and criticize their opponents as part of the primary campaign. Once the primaries are over, the winners become "Democratic general election candidates" and as such, receive a lot more protection under the rules. They cannot be bashed, trashed, or undermined once Primary Season is over.

We've done things this way for 20 years on DU because allowing people to continue to oppose Democratic nominees once the primaries are over is counterproductive, provides an obvious entry point for trolls, and is contrary to DU's Core Principles ("...to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of American government" ).

I don't regret sticking to the policy this year. For as long as Joe Biden remained the Democratic nominee, it would not have been right to abandon the policy, and doing so would have set a confusing precedent. For as long as he was in the race, Biden was the Democratic nominee, and he deserved to be protected in the same way that previous nominees had been protected before him. I know some people disagreed with this decision, but I believe it was the right thing to do.

As soon as Joe Biden dropped out of the race, however, we were in unprecedented territory. The logical thing to do seemed to be to return to Primary Season, since the Democratic Party no longer had an official nominee, so that's what we did on Sunday.

48 hours later, Kamala Harris has already secured enough pledged delegates to become the presumptive nominee. Therefore I see no reason at this time to remain in Primary Season. The vast majority of the Party has lined up behind the Vice President, and with enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination, it is now highly unlikely that anyone but Kamala Harris will be declared the official Democratic nominee when all is said and done.

And so, we are now returning to General Election Season with Kamala Harris as our nominee and we're ready to move forward. Thank you all for your patience while we navigated these tricky waters. Hopefully we are now ready to unite and move on to the next goal which is the most important of all -- to defeat Donald Trump this November, take control of Congress, and put MAGA out of business for good.

Thank you for reading!

EarlG, on behalf of Elad -- The DU Administrators