I am convinced that Sky News Australia does not exist for any Australian audience whatsoever. My suspicion is that Sky News Australia is actually run as a sub-branch of the News Corp offices in the United States and that they take orders from head office, to act as a spokesborg for head office; which is sufficiently different enough in terms of branding and accent, that the average slack-jawed, open-mouthed, smooth-brained joe from Jonesville, Jefferson, will be convinced that they are watching exotica which confirms their beliefs (which they have just had fed to them) and that because the rest of the world thinks this, that they must be right.
While standing in line at the bank to deposit some cheques today (yes, that is still a thing which happens in 2024), we had Blonde Lady #2 and Cranky Man #9 (in a red tie), complain that Joe Biden withdrawing from the 2024 Presidential Election and by default leaving Kamala Harris as the assumed presumptive prospective nominee for the Democratic Party, somehow makes her an "illegitimate candidate". This is directly in spite of her literally being on the nomination ticket and the ballot papers and which is a direct fulfilment of her expected role which would happen in the case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation. In as many words in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America "the Vice President shall become President". This though is not the for office of the President but merely the nomination therein.
All this begs the question: does Sky News Australia think that their audience are stupid? Yes. They do. And just to prove the point, they also treat their audience as stupid. Just like the rest of News Corporation, that think because they know, and repeatedly prove that not only are their audience stupid but they can be moulded and shaped to think literally anything not matter how brainless, is true.
Having said that, it has to be said that the election for arguably the most powerful officer in the world, is itself undemocratic. Not only that, the whole process itself is undemocratic. Not only that, the whole process itself was designed from the outset to be undemocratic.
As part of my ongoing survey of the United States Constitution I shall go through Article II which outlines the Electoral College and the system used to elect the President so you can read that then but all you need to know here is that when people vote for the President, they are not actually voting for the President but for Electors who then vote for the President. People like James Madison thought that democracy is a dangerous idea because people's passions run hot and as such, there should be some expert class who would be in charge of deciding who would take the job at the very top. This sentiment grew there were at least a few people at the Constitutional Conventions who absolutely hated the idea that the people should be able to vote for the President and the whole system defined in Article II, is expressly designed to keep the people out. It wasn't until 1828, that nominally all white men even had the right to vote across the several states of the Union.
What has happened this week, is not for the election of the President though but rather, the nomination of a position in a private organisation which has been set up to put its candidates into political office. In that respect, the idea that the general public should have any say at all, especially when you consider that they vast majority of people are neither members, nor subscribers, nor have any financial interest at all in the running of the political parties, is downright bizarre and strange. Can you imagine the board of BHP opening up its elections for the Chief Executive Officer, to public nomination and voting? Of course you can't because that's absurd. Neither does it really make any logical sense why what is essentially a series of private corporations should even have elections for what is in reality positions for what is still inside their own private internal machinery. Why then do people think that they should have any say at all for who the nomination in a private organisation is for President?
The very idea that there should be open primaries at all is actually kind of new. In 1968 there were riots at the Democratic National Convention, mostly to do with the United States' ongoing involvement in the Vietnam War and the Convention which followed, nominated Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie as the nominees for President and Vice-President, despite the fact that Hubert Humphrey had not won a single primary. In was really only in response to the 1968 electoral embarrassment of the Democratic Party and the election of Richard Nixon as President, that the Democratic Party decided to slightly open the door just a little further to allow the general public in. Having said that, the DNC still very much has its thumb on the scales as the rank and file members and the general caucus of the elected members across various legislatures have an extra bonus say, through the mechanism which are known as 'super-delegates'.
That same 1968 Presidential election is notable as an analogue to 2004 in that prior to the Democratic National Convention, the sitting President Lyndon Baines Johnson, withdrew from the nomination process because he could very much see the writing on the wall and that the war in Vietnam was pretty well much unwinnable. I do not know how LBJ would have fared in the 1968 General Election but if the Humphrey/Muskie ticket is anything to go by, it would have likely also been electoral wipeout.
This is why I found the call from Sky News Australia that Kamala Harris is an "illegitimate candidate" to be so bonkers crazy. Not only is this an internal private nomination process for a private organisation, which has its own set of replaceable rules, but Harris was literally on the ballot paper and has been the Vice-President since 2020. This is literally the process which should be followed if the President withdraws his candidacy. Not only not only that but the Republican Party, which Sky News Australia is actively playing high-school cheerleader for (yay, sports!), has a similar process for nominating is candidate. Not only not only not only that but Sky News Australia has been actively yelling for Joe Biden to withdraw his candidacy and/or resign. They have got their wish. What more do they want?
Including that this is a private process, including that they normal rules are being followed and including when they get their way, they can still spork utter drivel into the minds of American audiences who they think will be convinced because that they are watching exotica which confirms their beliefs. Does Sky News Australia think that their audience are stupid? Yes, they do!
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