Admittedly it sounds far-fetched, that the Democrat Party would cancel their presidential primaries in deference to a selection committee of party leaders.  But given the praise being heaped on Senator Cory Booker for his recent interview with MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell, I don’t think it’s quite as absurd as some would pretend.

If you missed it, here was the exchange: 

.@Lawrence: "Could you run on a ticket with Joe Biden?"

Sen. Cory Booker: "I do not think there should be two men on a ticket...we should have tickets that have racial and gender diversity in them" pic.twitter.com/HTU1Uab5m4

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 21, 2019

First of all, it’s a silly question from O’Donnell.  Of course Booker would accept the VP position if Biden offered it to him.  Cory Booker is an ambitious politician and that would be a significant step up for him in terms of exposure, influence, and future prospects.  It’s impossible to imagine a scenario where Booker (or any of the current Democrat candidates) are offered the #2 spot by Biden (or any of the current Democrat candidates) and the answer be no.  So again, it was a silly question. 

But the answer was even worse.  To say you aren’t thinking about being anyone’s Vice President, but instead, “thinking about how we can best move our country forward,” is the logical thing to say.  You demur so you don’t look desperate, but at the same time you don’t offend a guy who is polling much better than you at the moment. 

Instead, Booker floats the proposition that the two highest positions in the land be determined on the basis of some kind of ethno-gender diversification test.  Not who is most qualified, not who has a skill set best suited to the country’s most immediate needs, not wisdom and experience, not integrity and character, not policy and ideas – who’s a girl, who’s a boy, who’s black, Hispanic, biracial, or white.

First, I guess I have to ask why Booker stops with just gender and racial diversity?  What about sexual orientation diversity?  What about religious or faith diversity?  What about socioeconomic diversity?  What about geographic diversity?  What about educational diversity?  If it’s not right to have two men on the ticket, then why is it fair to have two people from the northeast?  Or two wealthy, college educated people?

O’Donnell, unsurprisingly, didn’t ask that.

Nor did he point out that Booker’s underlying premise is a frightening one when you think about it – that a white man cannot possibly govern in a way that treats black and Hispanic citizens as fairly as a black or Hispanic man; that a female would necessarily – simply by her chromosomal makeup not her ideas – be better for the country’s women than a man could be regardless of his policies.   

If O’Donnell was a legitimate journalist he would have shot back, “Wait, are you suggesting that your policy ideas would somehow treat women worse than Kamala Harris’s or Kristen Gillibrand’s?  Women should not be comfortable voting for you since you’re not a woman?”

This is a dangerous and stupid game we’re playing, but it’s one that the progressives have committed to with their overemphasis on intersectionality politics.  It’ll be interesting to see how long until their party has to take corrective action to ensure voters don’t “mess up” and fail to select candidates across the ballot that “speak to who we are as a country.” 

What a sorry state of affairs.