Winners of Democrats’ Chicago convention
Read on for The Resistant Grandmother’s take. And stay tuned for the losers’ list in a day or two.
The Resistant Grandmother
The Resistant Grandmother (TRG) joins the chorus of TV viewers, Democratic operatives, and even the grudging admissions of prominent Republicans in saying the four-day DNC event, in a word, rocked.
First of all, all sorts of predicted things didn’t happen — 1968-style protests and police overreaction, bad weather, and internal squabbles, to name just a few. Instead, it was a masterclass in political planning and execution by both the candidate and event planners who were helped by a week of perfect late-summer weather. The 80-ish temperatures and cool Lake Michigan breezes had to please those out-of-towners from places battling hurricanes, droughts, and sweltering heat.
Second, the presentation of the case for Harris and against Trump came off without a hitch, all the more remarkable in that everything had to happen so quickly. Harris had assumed the top of the ticket on July 21 with Joe Biden’s pulling out of the race, immediately followed by his endorsing Harris. Harris’s pick of Tim Walz for VP happened two weeks later.
The 747 analogy
The original convention plan – a homage to Joe Biden – had to be scrapped, a roster of new speakers created, old speeches abandoned for new ones, and Biden’s place in the event changed from four nights to one. Decisions on how best to pay respect to the outgoing president and support the new presidential and vice presidential team had to be remade with the care and speed of an overhaul of the proverbial 747 in flight. So Harris and Walz required a convention plan that seamlessly reflected the party’s new energy and confidence. A disorganized convention would again revive the ghosts of the disastrous DNC of ‘68.
The Fox critics
The result? Rave reviews from everyone…except Fox News whose anchors repeatedly intoned how badly the convocation was going. While Fox host Jesse Waters proclaimed the event a snoozefest (“The most boring thing I have ever seen in my life!”), Fox’s TV director may have thought otherwise, putting up a splitscreen of Waters vs. the opposite of boring: the best convention roll-call ever.
As Waters waxed on, a wide brimmed hatted and blue satin suited D.J. Cassidy shook the rafters with state-specific rock, country-western, and rap music. Crotch-grabbing Lil John kicked off the whole thing descending some stairs while singing “Turn Down for What” to lead into the Georgia delegation’s presentation of votes – a refutation in real time of Waters’ “boring” claim.
Democrats' festival of hope and happiness yielded more than just good vibes. Over the course of the convention, a massive $450M flowed into campaign coffers primarily from new, turned-on voters. A deluge of volunteers signed up to knock on doors and make calls leading to the election. And after a long month or two, Democrats were convincing themselves and the country they could win in November.
As New York Times political writer Shane Goldmacher said: “A month and a day after Democrats made a change, Kamala Harris has the party faithful believing.”
In short, the Chicago event forever changed attitudes about people and things for the better, while also disproving old assumptions. At such a moment, there had to be winners and losers, and TRG feels compelled to share my take on them. Following is TRG’s list of winners. My losers list will appear in a few days.
WINNERS
Winner 1: The City of Chicago: How many times were we subjected to the dire predictions that the shadow of the 1968 Vietnam War protests was destined to reappear this year and ruin the convention? This year’s campus protests erupted over the war in Gaza, and were pegged to spark a replay. The prevailing wisdom: thousands of pro-Palestine students would descend on the city only to be again confronted by Chicago police wielding billy clubs and filling paddy wagons, circa 1968.
But this conventional wisdom fizzled as fast as a hot dog on a sizzling grill at Wrigley. First of all, it helped that those who showed up this year did not weigh in at the numbers expected. In 1968, anti-war protestors totalled about 7,000 - 10,000, with about 600 arrested. This year on Convention Tuesday, the day of the most potentially dangerous confrontation of the four day event at the Israeli consulate, police estimated the crowd at around 3,500. And compared to hundreds of 1968’s arrests, only 45 were apprehended (washingtonpost.8.21.24). The incident garnered headlines, but there were no further major confrontations beyond that.
No more Mayor Daley
Unlike the billy-club wielding police of ‘68, the marked restraint of the Chicago Police this year was no accident. In contrast to the ward boss approach of 1968’s Mayor Richard J. Daley, the offices of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson formed a close alliance. Their more enlightened goal — keeping order within the context of respecting First Amendment freedoms, depriving this year’s TV audiences of the brutal drama that spawned “The whole world is watching!” mantra that forever marked the Chicago Democratic conclave of ‘68.
Maybe too it was the near-perfect summertime weather, sparkling blue lakefront, breath-taking architecture, great bars and restaurants, and delegates’ relief over the shift from Biden to the Harris/Walz ticket that permeated the City and kept spirits high.
Whatever the reason, Chicago shook off its 56-year-old yoke as Democrats’ “problem venue” in exchange for its new image: the home of the best Democratic convention ever. As nbcnews.com described the difference: “The whole world was watching. But this time it liked what it saw.”
Winner 2: The Obamas
It’s a nice thing for a political party and its convention when people debate which party leader’s speech — in this case, that of Barack or Michelle Obama — was best at hitting it out of the park. The nod seems to have gone to Michelle, but with kudos for the former president who came in a close second.
The 44th president’s put down of Trump’s obsession with crowd size offered up an historic parody of his 45th president successor. A gesture reminiscent of Trump’s accordion-style hand movement while adjusting the space between his hands to suggest the varying size of a male body part marked Obama’s cool taunt and immediately emerged as one of the best Trump put-downs ever. As evidence — a tumultuous, knowing reaction from the convention crowd.
Showing her Shogun
But prior to President Obama’s crowd-pleasing speech came his strikingly dressed and articulate wife Michelle, ready to bring her gift for both an elegant turn-of-phrase and South Side swagger to throw some serious shade on her husband’s successor.
Dressed in a sleek, navy blue pantsuit sporting Ninja warrior vibes with its military-looking doublet, flaring capped sleeves, grommets, cropped pants, and belt, the former First Lady gave Trump-weary Democrats the red meat they were looking for by bringing her verbal martial arts to the moment.
Shaking off her 2020 pledge, “When they go low, we go high” Obama stressed the seriousness of the Trump threat with new, sharp edges. The revised tone updated 2020’s origin phrase to now, something like,“When they go low, we get back at them.” And the “they” and “them” clearly referred to Donald Trump.
Obama recounted how a decade and a half of Trump’s lies and racial slurs were more than any one person or family should put up with. “For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to make people fear us.“ She attributed Trump’s efforts to a “limited, narrow view of the world that made him feel threatened by two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happened to be Black.”
Although “hope was making a comeback” with the Harris/Walz ticket, she said the nation was still in danger — facing an “uphill battle” against an unprincipled opponent who would do and say anything to wrap himself within the protective cocoon of an authoritarian presidency.
She stated that Trump again seeks the nation’s highest office not because he deserves a second chance, but because he is used to screwing up and getting away with it. Damningly, she said:
“Most of us have never been afforded the grace of falling forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth where bankrupting a business or choking in a crisis presents a second, third, or fourth chance to recover and the luxury of whining and cheating others to get ahead.”
In contrast, the former First Lady separated the 45th president from “the majority of Americans who have never enjoyed Trump’s wealth and privilege,” yet do not live their lives blaming others, as Trump does.
The former First Lady’s indictment thus flipped the “righteous anger” script Trump has perfected since 2015 when he descended Trump Tower’s golden escalator and then began targeting immigrants as “other.” In a deft twist of Trump’s grievance trope, the born and raised Chicago Southsider embodied a change from taking what Trump dishes out to now going after him, gloves off, between now and November 5.
She finished with a call to action – “do something” – to go beyond the good feelings of the moment and do the hard work on the ground to ensure a Harris/Walz victory and defeat Donald Trump.
Winner 3: Diversity
A multicultural America is a dangerous thing, Donald Trump would have us believe. He’s said it many times: Brown people coming across the border or Black people in big cities equate to crime and danger. Beginning with his racially discriminating real estate business, push to execute the innocent Central Park Five; evaluation of the violent Charlottesville rally as having “good people on both slides;” and his jaw-dropping July 31 performance at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference where, among his many assaults on Black journalists and Black people in general, he asserted that Democratic presidential candidate Harris only recently admitted she was Black — a lie.
So, Donald Trump has shown his true colors about color: he doesn’t like it. The virtually all-white Republican National Committee Convention in Milwaukee last month only underscored what we’ve known all along: that Trump believes, as do his followers, America was better off and will be if it's predominantly white.
C’mon in, the water’s fine
But the Democratic Convention presented a different vision: a diverse America where people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, genders, social and economic status, and political persuasions can actually get along.
Here were Black women, Black men, brown women, brown men, white women, white men, and Asian and Pacific Islander men women and men all having a good time and working together for a common purpose.
The specifics of the 108 voting delegates attending the convention support this. There were 16 people under the age of 36, 31 aged 65 or older, 54 self-identified as Black, nine as Latino, five as Asian-American Pacific Isslander, one Native American, and one Arab.
They listened respectfully to speakers, spoke themselves, and had fun during the roll call — arms wrapped around each other, proudly shouting the number of delegates they were pledging to Harris, and gleefully taking turns spinning the various features and qualities of their home states. They wore cowboy and cheesehead hats, waved American flags and state-shaped foam fingers, and adopted Springsteen swagger to announce the glories of the Garden State.
They even made Republican defectors like Mike Pence staffer Olivia Troye, Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan, and Jan. 6 select committeeman Adam Kinzinger feel at home, often underscoring their valor with shouts of “USA, USA!” Polar opposites like United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and Ken Chanault, former Chairman and CEO of American Express, coexisted peacefully in shared purpose: urging America to defeat Donald Trump.
At the DNC, diversity was no longer an abstract theory but a hard-working, collegial, and fun-loving reality. Americans could observe and think, “These people look nice. I don’t see what the problem is.”
In a way, seeing a transition to a different America that took place in the City of Big Shoulders produced for me the same feeling I had when Tiger Woods slipped into the green Master’s jacket for the first of five times on April 3, 1997. Something important was happening. And it felt right.
**************
Come back in a few days for TRG’s DNC Convention “Loser’s List.” Spoiler Alert: Donald Trump tops the chart.
—trg
Who I write for
…