Why not an all-female ticket? This barrier needs to fall.

Democrats could help the country make history if their presumptive nominee, Vice President Harris, gets elected and becomes the first female president. Harris would also be the first president who is both Black and Asian American.

That’s a lot of “firsts” for one candidate. And that would be good for America. Each time a barrier is broken, future generations of women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community see new opportunities that were not there before. Republicans can try as hard as they want to make DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) their new boogeyman, but most Americans know progress is not the enemy.

Yet, apparently, progress has its limits. It seems that – as Harris goes about choosing a running mate, in time to announce her choice before Aug. 7 – Democrats have missed an opportunity to break another barrier that really needs to be broken. Note that there are no women on the short list for Harris’s running mate.

Why not? No one can explain “why not” other than to lazily fall back on tradition, which as we know is often steeped in sexism or racism.

In a political climate as charged as this one, candidates and the political parties need to go big or go home. And this should have been the year that Democrats went big by putting forth something that America has never seen before: an all-female ticket.

That possibility seems more remote than ever now that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has quietly taken herself out of the running. She announced this week during an interview on “CBS Mornings” that she is “going to stay as governor until the end of my term, at the end of 2026.”

That’s just as well. Whitmer never had a serious shot at being Harris’s running mate.

And that’s the odd part. As the popular and likable governor of a battleground state, her name was mentioned often in recent weeks as a possible replacement for President Biden if he decided not to run. Then, all of a sudden, when Biden dropped out and endorsed his vice president, Whitmer’s name seemed to fall off most lists of possible running mates for Harris. Pundits stopped talking about her, and her name was no longer included in public opinion polls of whom voters thought Harris should select. She just disappeared.

In recent days, most of the attention has been on the two apparent front-runners: Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

What changed? If Whitmer was thought to be qualified to be president just a few weeks ago, are we supposed to believe she is not up to the job of being vice president?

Enough with the games. Americans know what’s going on here. Whitmer was essentially disqualified from being the running mate for Harris because having two women on the ticket was seen by many as a non-starter. That’s why her decision to take herself out of the running wasn’t just gracious but also politically astute. In pulling out of the running, she revealed that she had not even been “vetted” as a possible running mate. So Whitmer did Harris a favor by sparing her the trouble of having to explain why her short list of possible running mates appears to be made up entirely of White men.

Some political observers – most of whom, it’s worth noting, are men – consider the very idea to be unfathomable. In the past, they’ve said America isn’t ready to have two women in the top two positions in the U.S. government, one serving as the leader of the free world and the other a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. This year, they’re adding a new twist. Now they say that – with Americans already poised to make history, in more ways than one, if they elect Harris – it would be too much to ask them to break another barrier.

“How much history are Americans expected to make in one election?” asked SiriusXM radio host Michael Smerconish.

Baloney. Who makes these dumb rules? Both parties have nominated all-male tickets in all but four elections (1984, 2008, 2016 and 2020). About this, no one raised an eyebrow. That was considered normal. But a two-woman ticket is somehow unthinkable?

Why is that exactly? I have yet to hear a good explanation.

The next time someone asks for an example of male privilege, feel free to point to that double standard. And then ask the person to explain why it exists. I wish them a lot of luck.

Navarrette’s email address is crimscribe@icloud.com. His podcast, “Ruben in the Center,” is available through every podcast app.