DNC Night 1: I've been following the TPM live blog, Kate Riga, for much of the evening, doing something else, refreshing the page, and crying like an spastically on-off sprinkler: Walz's wife crying over HRC (Breaking news: for Hilary and women this is a very big moment!), Jasmine Crockett, AOC (for potus 2044!), Fein's "Trump is a Scab" t-shirt, Pelosi's "We Love Joe" sign, ay yi yi, you'd think they were choreographing this thing for maximum waterworks. As Kate put it, "The first night of the convention had pathos baked in." Biden was emotional and full SOTU, blowing his horn and throwing his weight behind Kamala and now, all of a sudden, I'm noticing there is this Obama ring in saying Kamala that I hadn't noticed before. Harris/Walz are When We Fight We Win and at the same time a stealth version of Yes We Can, again! And again!
Maybe stuff can get better after all!
I was so excited by it all when Kate signed off I googled the DNC Convention and it was all bored boilerplate, contentless, and skeptical headlines. So I guess you had to be there. I got swept up in Kate reporting all the pathos. At minimum, she made it sound like a really good first night of the convention for all the Democrats in Chicago. Especially for women and those that support women's freedom.
No idea what was happening with the protesters outside, though? Hopefully, no problems with the Chicago police and the Dems find some way to throw them a bone. AOC pointed out how hard Biden is working for a ceasefire but that's not what the protesters want to hear, I know.
I don't blame the protesters but I can get impatient with the protests, nonetheless. For example, I heard Jill Stein's VP pick, Butch Ware, equivocating the two major parties over violence, they're both "war machines," which perhaps has never been very smart but in 2024?! If Trump wins may they rot in hell for eternity.
At any rate, I knew the hot dog question was bound to come up this week. I usually do only mustard and onions, that's it. But that's because I'm lazy. I never say no to Chicago style hot dog should I find one offered, even if this might be as close as they get to a salad in Chicago, a hot dog all dressed up with tomatoes, peppers, a spear of cucumber pickle, and I even like the glow-green relish, but the secret ingredient is celery salt, amirite?
DNC Night 2: Missed this one mostly on the road, although caught some on NPR in the car. Could have heard more but found the between-speech commentary tedious, as I usually do. Eventually got home and caught some speeches on youtube. What a Black power couple the Obamas have become. Michelle is a super professional mom, sister, a friend to lovers of freedom and uplift, and punctuates her clear, plainspoken speeches by dropping into the homie vernacular; "my girl"s and "yeah"s, etc. Her bearing alone fires up the crowd, roaring their support and breaking into one chant after another. One punchline, "Who is going to tell him the job he is currently seeking might be one of those 'Black jobs,'" brings down the house. The Obamas greet on stage before Barack's speech, and reaffirm immediately, iconically, where they first made their national impression in 2008: they are the most telegenically loving first couple of the modern TV era. The obvious peer respect between them is a political superpower. It probably makes some men, certainly Trump and his chauvinist bros, nervous but women and men who love women recognize it as a model of relationship strength right off. And as if to burnish this brand Barack makes a comparison of Michelle's recently deceased Black mother and his white Irish grandmother central to his speech. Otherwise, his performance is that old mesmerizingly meandering folksy eloquence of Obama, like the generational and professorial and secular progeny of MLK that he is. It's a comforting style, and to the consternation of racists, quintessentially American, making founding democratic values feel personal and inclusive, but maybe at points a bit of a yawner too, or there were moments where I was wondering where this was going. And then about two-thirds way in you notice this awesome quiet has overtaken the crowd, in that big arena rocking the rafters minutes before you could hear a pin drop. Everyone was listening to Obama telling us who we are, what binds us together, what we want and how with hard work and perseverance we can build a better future for all and we nod along to the obvious wisdom of his hopefulness. Yes we can, again! Why not?
Obama was not a perfect president, by any stretch. But one of if not the best in my lifetime at translating traditional American ideals into inspiring contemporary speech. And Jon Favreau probably deserves a big assist.
DNC Night 3:
"Full hearts, clear minds, can't lose." Public school teacher, high school, and social studies. Democratic candidate for Vice President. Represent, Mr. Walz! Coach. Veteran. Hunter. Rural small town roots. In other words, telegenic Republican identities but he's a dyed-in-the-flannel liberal public educator. And he doesn't mince his words. It's weird and wrong to deny women reproductive freedom. It's weird and wrong, and unneighborly, to persecute people over racial or religious or sexual differences. It's weird and wrong to always be punching down at those that are weaker, LGBTQ+ Americans, immigrants, homeless people. Instead of banning books and going on crusades against CRT, in Minnesota where Walz is Governor, all the kids in public schools get free breakfasts and lunches. In other words, he's obviously a godless communist and attacks will begin, if they haven't already, shortly. This is Trump's "radical Left" but of course it isn't radical at all (maybe echoes of an older prairie populism, or at least the midwestern roots of the Clintons and Obamas Big Tent we-the-people are all in this together). But there is a claim of sorts one can infer from Walz's candidacy: Public education is an essential government service, and a crucial investment in the future of our country. Attacking government is miserly elite panic and hateful bigotry, and it threatens the economic security of the middle classes and poor and, moreover, the very environmental sustainability of the planet.
"The Republicans are the party that says the government doesn't work and then get elected and prove it," quips P.J. O'Rourke. Harris/Walz, like Biden, are Democrats, despite Republican obstruction, trying to make government work for families and workers and consumers and not just Billionaires and racists.
Also of note I'm in awe of Walz's productive energies. As a retired high school teacher myself, who taught history and humanities in classrooms for 23 years, regularly putting in 60 hour work weeks during the school year and usually unable to get to anything else, Walz's family and community building industriousness is a wonder and obviously something we need more of in Democratic leadership.
We need Democrats that will work in government to help solve problems for regular people and workers, women's rights, good jobs, costs of living, affordable health care, etc. And Walz's energy, the raucous energy of the DNC, reminds why I was never any good for those big music festivals. I don't have the energy and stamina. I need a nap.
DNC Night 4: Maybe the Dems first misstep, or that's the way it's being reported anyway. The DNC rejected a request by a representative of Palestinian Americans to speak at the convention. It's hard to know from here what the decision making was. Inside and outside the convention there were calls for a "ceasefire" but outside also loud calls for an "arms embargo," Rep Ilhan Omar made this point to press outside the convention with more than a little attitude. This appears to be the line of unity inside the convention that the DNC and Harris were not willing to cross: i.e., no calls for an arms embargo on Israel. But, meanwhile, Netanyahu and Israel's right wing continue to abuse this support. Not two, three months past blocking an Iranian retaliatory strike of over 200 missiles, Israel is executing bombing campaigns again in Lebanon and Iran, forcing the US to commit more weapons and missile defense to Israel, and acting as a cover for Israel's genocidal bombing campaign in GAZA and anti-Palestinian pogroms in the West Bank. It's the chickens coming home to roost on over two decades of Israeli bad faith towards a two-state solution and Palestinian claims for self-determination. And it creates a dilemma for the U.S. and the Western democracies, to say the least: How to defend Israel's right to exist without empowering Israel to greater extremes of militarized belligerence? Arms embargoes are off the table for now, apparently, but I hope backchannels are talking to Iran. Regime change in Israel would appear to be the most fervent wish, if spoken out loud cautiously. But, all the while, war criminal Netanyahu increasingly threatens a wider war and deepens the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Not good.
Also, meanwhile, Kamala Harris gave her big nomination speech, calling again for a ceasefire in Gaza and affirming Palestinian rights to self-determination. Most impressive so far has been her unwavering commitment to the spirit of Bidenomics and a bottom-up hopefulness for the basic rights and opportunities of all Americans and democratic freedoms around the world against the top-down dumpster-fire bigot crazy that elements of entrenched elites would rather entertain and will haze her for until the election.
"When we fight we win!" That sounds right to me and, if nothing else, the determined and triumphant energy at the DNC sustained for four days would indicate the Democratic party is ready to bring that fight. For now, I need another nap.
Sifting through journalist accounts of what seemed like one of the best DNCs in memory (admittedly a low bar for me), more highlights from the DNC:
Democratic VP Candidate Tim Walz:
"Freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. Corporations—free to pollute your air and water. And banks—free to take advantage of customers. But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love. Freedom to make your own health care decisions. And yeah, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall."
Former national security official Leon Panetta and respected Hawk itemizes Trump's serious threats to national security:
James Fallows, Jimmy Carter's speechwriter, and longtime top-notch journalist, from his Breaking The News:
"Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth," Kamala Harris
The privilege and pride of being an American.
I’ve never heard it put just that way before. But this is exactly right — I say as someone who has lived through some of America’s darkest chapters, and has spent a dozen years living outside its borders.
Trump’s GOP portrays the United States as a shithole-country in waiting. Harris’s convention portrayed it as the country we love, and want to improve.
On Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the economy than Republicans, to bed.
We can still dream.
Her [Harris] plan to combat price gouging features an aggressive role for the F.T.C [where Lina Khan is taking on the monopolists]. At the Democratic convention, especially on the opening night, “corporate greed” was a scourge, and speaker after speaker sought to link “freedom,” the central theme of Harris’s campaign, to programs that protect the middle class from the depredations of concentrated wealth. Even the ordinarily pro-business secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo, blasted “monopolies that crush workers and small businesses and start-ups.” And as Lauren Feiner pointed out in The Verge, the Democratic platform mentions “competition” 18 times, twice as often as it did four years ago, and emphasized policies that Khan has been closely involved with. Suddenly, Khan seems more likely to be a linchpin of a potential Harris presidency than a casualty of it.
Harris may or may not disappoint AOC on Gaza. She will first have to defeat Trump, and the election remains close. But on Monday night, at least, her Democratic Party looked like a juggernaut of joy, enraptured with the prospect of a leader who has spent more than a third of her life in the 21st century. On a night organized as a send-off for the Clinton–Biden generation of Democratic leaders, it was tellingly poignant that Hillary Clinton’s most powerful note—framed within one of the most emotionally powerful speeches of the evening—was an overture to the future: “I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here at this moment, that we were here.”
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