THE ONLY REASON COULD BE RACISM: WaPo columnist: If Biden retires and Harris doesn’t get nominated, watch out.

The choice of Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s bid to paper over anger among Democrats over nominating another old white man in a cycle where their activists wanted a “diversity” ticket. Harris was supposed to carry that effort herself, but proved so inept and incompetent that Tulsi Gabbard demolished her in the early debates. Harris couldn’t even make it to Thanksgiving, let alone an actual primary contest, and yet Biden picked her anyway expressly as the future of the party.

In the three years since, Harris has proven even worse at politics. She manages to make Biden look coherent, no easy feat. As the party’s presidential nominee, Harris would prove utterly disastrous, and at least some Democrats know this.

But if Biden retires and the party doesn’t nominate Harris, all of the bad blood over the diversity promises of 2020 will explode. That will be especially true if the party nominates Gavin Newsom instead, who notably angered the black and female activists in the party by appointing Alex Padilla to fill out the rest of Harris’ term in the Senate rather than another black woman. This won’t be a Kennedy-Carter contest but an explosion of identity-politics grudges and fury, much more 1968 than 1980.

I mean, sure, she’s totally unqualified. But so was Biden, and the establishment carried him across the finish line.