Running Man, and Other Suggestions for How to Pick a Joe Biden Replacement in a Way That Will Satisfy the Clickthirsty Media

Ratings aren't everything; they're the only thing.

The fervor of the pundit class’s demands for the usurpation of Joe Biden—best president of my lifetime, holder of some $91 million in untransferable campaign money, and the freakin’ incumbent—is exceeded only by the preposterousness of its suggestions for how to do so.

To wit: Semafor got its hands on plans drafted by a law professor and a venture capitalist for a “blitz primary”—so called, I guess, because “let’s invade Poland primary” was too long a name—which imagines the process working like American Idol. Here are the details:

• Biden would step down as the Democratic nominee in mid-July, and announce the new system, with backing from Vice President Kamala Harris.

• Potential candidates would have a few days to throw their respective hats in the ring. The Democratic Party then would begin a primary sprint in which the six candidates who receive the most votes from delegates pledge to run positive-only campaigns in the month leading up to the convention.

• The “blitz primary” would involve weekly forums with each candidate moderated by cultural icons (Michelle Obama, Oprah, and Taylor Swift are among the names floated in the memo) in order to engage voters.

• The nominee would ultimately be chosen by the delegates using ranked choice voting before the start of the Chicago convention on Aug. 19.

• It would be announced with plenty of fanfare on the third day of the gathering. The memo imagines the nominee unveiled on stage with Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Cross my heart and hope to die, this is a real thing that two intelligent people have spent significant effort devising, developing, writing out, and then disseminating to other intelligent people like it’s an actual good idea.

Taylor Swift and Oprah? Why? This sounds like a job for Borat.

In the spirit of the “blitz primary,” I have come up with some other concepts for selecting a Joe Biden replacement that our clickthirsty media will just adore:

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Dancing With the Stars, Season 33: “Primary Colors”

The dozen top candidates—Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, Seth Moulton for some reason, that Dean Philips schmuck no one likes, etc.—would each be paired with a professional dancer, and every Monday night from now until the convention, one couple would be eliminated based on a combination of aggregate judge’s scoring, popular vote, and the collective opinion of the editorial board of the New York Times. The semifinals and finals would take place in Chicago at the DNC—live on ABC!

Jimmy Kimmel would host, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would be the sideline reporters, and the panel of judges would feature Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, Abigail Disney, and Hillary Clinton. There would even be a separate “Manning Cast” broadcast, where Peyton and Eli would provide snarky commentary with special guest QB Aaron Rodgers.

DWTS33 would solve the dual problems of selecting a new Democratic Party nominee and reanimating the legendary dance-off program that appears to be, like Biden’s candidacy, on life support.

Pros: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maksim Chmerkovskiy doing the Argentine tango.

Cons: Too many of the professional dancers are Russian.¹

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Knockout

Knockout is a basketball shooting game the kids played in practice every week when I coached the middle school rec league team. Everyone lines up at the free throw line. The first two people in line—Harris and Newsom—are given basketballs. The game begins when Harris attempts a free throw. If she makes it, she runs to the back of the line and Newsom shoots. If she misses, she has to retrieve the ball and make a shot, from anywhere on the court, before Newsom nails a free throw or puts back his own missed shot. If she can’t do that, she is eliminated. Hence, Knockout. Play continues until only one player is left standing.

To generate more interest, in the weeks leading to the contest, each candidate would work with a professional basketball player to improve his or her shooting stroke. So Harris might be paired with Sabrina Ionescu, Newsom with Steph Curry, Whitmer with Caitlin Clark, and so on.

Color commentary would be provided by Hall of Famer Hubie Brown, who is almost a full decade older than Biden, so we can simultaneously watch a very old man do an excellent job despite his age while we replace a merely old man who is doing an excellent job despite his age.

Pros: We’d have our candidate in half an hour, tops.

Cons: Free throw percentage has no known correlation to good governance.

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Epstein Hotel

Like Paradise Hotel—a reality TV show in which, Wikipedia informs me, a group of single men and women live in a luxurious White Lotus-like hotel resort, competing to see who can remain on the premises the longest—but set on Little St. James. Alan Dershowitz is the host, and the judges are Prince Andrew, Ghislaine Maxwell, Les Wexner, Alex Acosta, and representatives from each of the 17 foreign intelligence services Epstein worked for.

Pros: The media would have to pepper its 24/7 coverage of Biden’s age with a story or two about Epstein’s notorious sex trafficking operation, and Trump’s apparently intimate connection to the same.

Cons: No way the winner of this competition beats Donald, who already won Epstein’s Island IRL, as he was Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime friend, wingman, and (alleged) fellow traveler in the abominable world of child rape—not that the media is interested in talking about that…not after they’ve realized that Biden is not only old but—get this!—getting even older every day!

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The Conclave

Rather than going through the charade of a transparent primary process, we just let the Leonard Leo Supreme Court determine Biden’s replacement. The decision would be released on a random Friday afternoon, once the radical Catholic faction was safely aboard Harlan Crow’s PJ bound for Sochi.

Pros: SCOTUS is going to decide the 2024 election anyway; why not eliminate the middleman?

Cons: The decision will not be televised.

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Running Man

Based on the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, which is based on the pseudonymous Stephen King novel, in which convicted criminal “runners” are hunted down by “stalkers” hellbent on their extermination, for the entertainment of the broadcast audience.

The candidates would be set loose in the ruins of a gigantic abandoned shopping mall, where all the stores went out of business because of Republican economic policies, and chased down by media members and Never Trumpers with paint guns: Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, Katy Tur, Andrea Mitchell, Bill Kristol, Tim Miller, Kaitlan Collins—basically, anyone with a platform who was among the first to demand Biden step down. The nomination is given to the last candidate to be splattered with paint.

Pros: Might convince 2A types to vote blue.

Cons: A concept inspired by punishing convicted felons would not include the convicted felon running for president.

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Shadow State

Punxsutawney Phil, celebrity groundhog, comes out the last day of the DNC. If he sees his shadow, it’s four more years of Biden!

Pros: Cute.

Cons: Bill Murray is too old to headline a major motion picture.

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Who Wants to Be A President?

The candidates must match wits with the Sphinx—played by an AI hologram of the late Regis Philbin—by solving this riddle: “What has four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?” For our purposes in 2024, the correct answer is: “Man…although it should be noted that Joe Biden doesn’t need a cane and in fact is an avid cyclist.”

The runner-up receives two gold bars given to Robert Menendez by the government of Egypt and subsequently seized by the FBI.

Pros: Trump would post unintentionally hilarious incorrect answers on Truth Social.

Cons: Boring.

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WrestleMania 2024 Battle Royale

The candidates, all wearing trunks, kneepads, and wrestling boots, enter the arena—along with robot likenesses of deceased professional wrestlers Bruno Sammartino, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper—and vie to physically throw each other out of the ring. The last Democrat standing wins the nomination.

But wait! What’s this?!? A mysterious figure with flashing red eyes has descended from the rafters and is on the top of the turnbuckle! And has leapt into the ring like Superfly! Could it be? It is! It’s Dark Brandon, come to defend his title! Will the exhausted finalist defeat the old-but-still-fit incumbent? Or will Joe Biden retain his belt? The grand finale can only be viewed on Peacock, so sign up for an account today!

Pros: Mattel can make action figures.

Cons: Trumper Linda McMahon would never allow it.

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Okay, that’s it for the satirical portion of the piece. I trust I made my point. Back to reality.

Here’s the deal:

Biden won the primary. We all voted for him, and were well aware of his age when we did so. He has spent every day since the disastrous debate campaigning, sitting for interviews, speaking at churches, and calling into live morning shows, while Trump has retracted into his orange shell like a syphilitic tortoise. When the desperate New York Times, which should really fuck off into the sun at this point, wrote an innuendo-laden story suggesting Biden has Parkinson’s, his doctor, Kevin O’Connor, shot it down.

And even if the President does decide to punch out—even if the pundits and the chickenshit donors and the “Pod Save America” dickheads get their way—he will be immediately replaced by Kamala Harris, for the simple reason that she is the only one who can legally use the $91 million in the Biden/Harris war chest. Whereupon the clickwhores at the NYeT and CNN will concoct stories about how Kamala “covered up” Joe being old, or is a cop, or slept her way to the top, or isn’t eligible to be president because of some bullshit birth certificate technicality, or is a “DEI”—that is, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; that is, Black—candidate who only got the job because of the color of her skin and her lack of male sexual organs. Think I’m exaggerating? Rupert Murdoch’s attack dogs at the New York Post are already doing this.

Or maybe—and I know this is a radical thought, but please indulge me—we just dance with the man that done brung us. Biden doesn’t have to win the DWTS Mirrorball Trophy. He just has to beat the Project 2025 candidate, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, the Epstein buddy. And he will, if we stand by him, and turn the spotlight away from him and onto Donald. It’s time to cut the malarkey and unite behind the president.

Democracy isn’t a game show. If we do not win in November, we lose more than money and prizes. Once we’re voted off the island of We The People, there’s no coming back.

1. Maks isn’t. He’s Ukrainian.