Dear Democrats: call Doug Ford.

Doug, in case you are unfamiliar with him, is the Premier of Canada’s most populous province, Ontario. He’s a populist in the true sense of the word, too: he believes politics is for, by and about people. He believes that, to be a successful politician, you have to love people and you have to love the place you represent.

And he does. He does. Ford has a folksy, regular-guy persona that is entirely authentic. He obliterated his main opponent in his first general election at the provincial level, and he mostly has not looked back. Through the pandemic, through what has felt like a recession, through controversies, Ford has maintained his popularity and a very significant lead over all of his political opponents.

He became leader of his party during very unusual circumstances. And this is where you need to be paying attention, Democrats.

The job he now has, as Progressive Conservative leader, abruptly became available in January 2018. Despite having never run for anything outside of the municipal level, Ford threw his hat in the ring.

Just 156 days later, he was Premier – the equivalent of your Governors – of the most powerful province in Canada, and head of one of the most significant governments in North America. From no job to the top job in 156 days. Not bad.

This is why you need to call Doug, Democrats. As you ponder whether you have enough time – time to secure Joe Biden’s pledge to resign, time to have an open convention in Chicago, time to select a new presidential candidate, and time to win on the evening of November 5, 2024 – rest assured. The answer is yes. You do. You’ve got time. It’s possible. It’s doable.

But, you say, there hasn’t been a presidential candidate selected in this way – that is, without having been through months of primaries – since 1968. True: in that year, Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic Party presidential nomination without having gone through the primaries. That was the last time that happened. Doing things the same old way is important, you say.

But is it? You live in extraordinary times, Democrats. There ain’t a playbook for this. Joe Biden – who I have proudly worked for, and who I have great affection for – is going to lose, badly, to Donald Trump. As of this morning, the gap is six points nationally, which amounts to a massacre up and down the ticket. The gap among independent voters is even worse.

So, Joe has to go. You know it.

If you have an open convention, it will be the most exciting political event of a lifetime. It will attract more attention than the moon landing. It will generate a ton of publicity for your party and your policies and your people. It is the thing that Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans fear the most.

It will be messy, sure. But democracy always is. And nothing could be messier than your current predicament, from which you need to quickly extricate yourself.

Consider: at first, you suggested that Joe Biden’s debate performance was fine and people should stop complaining. When that didn’t work, you said that he was tired because of international travel – travel that had taken place nearly two weeks earlier.

When that didn’t work, you suggested that he had a cold, which was apparently serious enough to affect his debate performance – but not so serious that you’ve actually had him see a doctor since the debate.

Now, today, your latest excuse is that if Joe Biden goes to bed early, and doesn’t do anything past 8 o’clock in the evening, it will all be fine. Gotcha. (Memo to Vladimir Putin: make sure to fire your nuclear warheads after 8 PM – because the leader of the free world will be asleep.)

See? None of your attempts to spin Biden’s cataclysmic debate performance are working. And Donald Trump is getting stronger by the day. There is no time to waste. No dilly should be dallied. No sticks should be fiddled. You need to do these things, pronto.

One, secure Joe Biden’s agreement to relinquish the presidency when a new one is sworn in, come January next year. Get him to agree to release all of his delegates at the Chicago convention. Three, finally, call Doug Ford, who knows how to pull one of these things off. He knows how to win, and win big, in a very compressed timeframe.

It can be done, Democrats. It has been done.

Pick up the phone, and call Doug Ford. You’ll be glad you did.

Sincerely,

Warren

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“Jewish power.”

At the dark centre of all antisemitism – with all of its conspiracy-theorized manifestations, like “Zionist Occupation Government,” and “international bankers,” and “globalists” – is envy. Envy about imagined Jewish wealth, Jewish media, Jewish Hollywood. Envy about illusions of Jewish achievement and power.

With envy always comes its more-murderous twin, resentment. Every political hack knows that resentment is the most powerful force in any campaign. For that, Jews have been hated – and even targeted with pogroms – for millennia. Simply because of that: envy, then resentment.

If the unspooling of sanity since October 7 has shown anything, however, it’s that Jews have less power, not more. If Jews were truly as powerful as the antisemites claim, they wouldn’t be seeing their schools shot up, their synagogues firebombed and their voices serially disregarded by police, prosecutors, politicians and the public.

But Jews are fighting back. They are scoring some wins.

The historic Toronto St. Paul’s by-election, for example. That Midtown Toronto riding has been one of the safest Liberal seats in Canada for decades. No longer. Outraged that Justin Trudeau has disregarded and disrespected them, St. Paul’s Jewish voters came together in sufficient numbers to drive the Grits’ hapless candidate to defeat. They changed the outcome. That is power – the democratic kind.

So, too, the Trudeau government’s recent appointment of the Chief Commissioner of its Human Rights Commission. Their choice, Birju Dattani, has said things like: “Palestinians are Warsaw ghetto prisoners of today.” And: “Workers should boycott Israel.” And: “Israel [has an] ideology of racial supremacy” and is “a colonial project.”

Dattani has also shared platforms with Islamic extremist groups; attended rallies with chants that “Zionism is terrorism” – and is reported to have compared Zionism to Naziism. Jews saw all that, came together to object, and have stalled – and likely stopped – Dattani’s appointment. That’s political power, expressed democratically.

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Shit.

I supported Barack Obama. I worked for Hillary Clinton in three different states, including at her Brooklyn headquarters. I worked the phones for Joe Biden in 2020.

If there is any political party that I still support, it is the Democratic Party. Four years ago, right about now, I was working the phones for Biden, from New York to California. Four years later, for months, I kept asking myself why I wasn’t doing so again. Something was holding me back.

I couldn’t put my finger on it.

The 2024 presidential “debate” between Joe Biden and Donald Trump gave me the answer. I wasn’t rushing to help the Democrats, for the first time, because I silently wondered if the critics were right. I wondered if Joe Biden – after so many amazing achievements, after so many amazing years in public life – was too old.

No, not that. Not too old. Up to the job: that’s what I worried about. That’s what I wondered. Is he?

For six years, since he decided to pursue the presidency and remove the stain that is Donald Trump from our lives, I have completely and fundamentally believed in Joe Biden. I believed that he was up to the job.

The reason? Because, for many years, I campaigned for a guy who was also older than his opponents, also regularly mangled grammar and syntax, who everyone also said would never win. That guy, of course, was Jean Chretien. Biden reminded me of him. He really did. And both men won when everyone said they wouldn’t.

Well, that was then and this is now. With that execrable “debate” now over, I believe that Joe Biden is going to lose, and he is going to lose badly.

And don’t get me wrong: it was the worst fucking political debate in the history of political debates. Trump looked and sounded like he was on meth. He lied, he was insane. But Biden – my guy – looked and sounded like something was terribly, terribly wrong. Everyone noticed.

Last weekend, a smart guy came to film me for a documentary he is making. We talked about my affection for Biden, whose 2020 campaign sign still hangs on the wall of my house. The smart guy said to me that his wife is a physician and she thinks that Biden is stricken with something. Maybe Parkinson’s, maybe something else.

I gave him my talking points about Chretien and Biden, which are a few paragraphs up above. He seemed unconvinced. I felt unsure.

After watching what CNN called a debate, I felt sad and unsettled. And I felt and feel – because I owe you guys the truth – that Biden lost, badly. And that Biden needs to go.

So, as I sit here in the dark contemplating all of this, five parting observations.

One, there is only one Canadian who is pleased, tonight. And it is Justin Trudeau. Because Justin Trudeau will now argue, over and over, that Pierre Poilievre is the wrong guy to lead Canada through another Trump White House. Conservatives may not want to hear it, but many Canadians are going to agree with that.

Two, I am not the only guy kind of freaking out tonight. The leaders of the European Union, NATO, and all of America’s allies are all wondering, tonight, if the end is drawing a bit nearer. That should worry all of us, not just them.

Three, anyone thinking that Joe Biden can step aside, and that civilization can be saved by someone like Gavin Newsom stepping in, are dreaming in Technicolor. In the United States, there is this thing called the 25th Amendment. You should read it. If Joe Biden steps aside, Kamala Harris becomes president. Period. And she’s even more unpopular than Joe, these days.

Four, I am so angry at the White House staff and the Democratic establishment – some of whom I know, and I have relied upon for advice – who clearly lied to all of us about Joe’s fitness for another term. The FDR deception is nothing compared to this.

Fifth and finally: thank God I’m a Canadian, and thank God I live here.

Because things, which definitely have not been good?

They’re about to get a lot worse.

Shit.

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