The Democrats Speak
Our look at Night One of the convention.
With the convention here, we’re off our regular schedule for the week, starting with this one from all three of us. We’ll have more as the week goes on.
[Here’s Julia]
Two observations for tonight: 1. By convention standards, there was real content tonight. Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow talked about Project 2025. Hillary Clinton walked through the history of women who have sought the Oval Office. The women who shared their experiences with abortion (or lack of access to it) made for one of the rawest moments I’ve seen at a national convention. Rafael Warnock talked about the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden spoke in probably too much detail, or maybe I am just tired. Compared with past conventions – from either party – I felt like there was a lot to think about and a great deal of emotion.
2. Gender, gender, gender (also follow experts like Christina Wolbrecht, Nadia Brown, and Meredith Conroy with her recently launched Substack). The beginning of the night heavily featured women active in state politics, then AOC with a well-received speech. Hillary Clinton took the stage to her campaign song from 2016 and spoke compellingly about the glass ceiling, illustrating the deeper stakes and reminding the audience what they lost eight years ago. And a group of women talked frankly about experiences often shrouded in secrecy and shame – pregnancy loss, sexual violence. Hearing women talk about these awful experiences – and the policies that can make them worse – departed dramatically from the usual convention fare. It’s not entirely unheard of to have powerful personal testimony – the Mothers of the Movement participated in the 2016 convention – but perhaps because the issue is so new, or the topics so intimate, this felt like a much more intense piece of political theater.
Bonus: Biden did his Biden thing. I’ll have more to say about Biden another time, probably.
[David]
The old and new guard of the Democratic Party sparred back and forth Monday evening, in a volley of impressive oratory on night one of the convention.
A handoff between generations is not uncommon for these affairs, although this one came about in an unusual way that highlighted age and transition.
But the old guard came ready to bring it. In this one night we got a tribute to one retired aging pol (Jesse Jackson), a top-notch speech from another (Hillary Clinton), and a barn-burner from the one heading into retirement (Joe Biden)—plus a pretty good speech from still-active octogenarian Maxine Waters.
But the youngsters fired right back. Lauren Underwood, Mallory McMorrow, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jasmine Crockett, all born after 1980, were excellent, as were just slightly older Laphonza Butler and Andy Beshear.
Less impressive—even downright forgettable—were the ones in between—the ones around Kamala Harris’s age, who should be at their career apex. Gina Raimondo, Kathy Hochul, Jamie Raskin, and Chris Coons all took the stage and left without making an impact. The exception in that age group was Raphael Warnock, providing a spark of life.
Delegates were appropriately enthusiastic toward both the legends and the up-and-comers. They should be: the party has a load of talent these days, almost all of them pitching in for the team. Viewers at home might have been impressed as well.
After all, the contrast with the Republican gathering last month was stark. Their old guard is dead, ostracized, or unwilling to participate; nobody who has appeared on a national GOP ticket spoke at the party convention, excepting the current third-time candidate. The young guard is hucksters and attention-seekers—a large percentage of whom share the candidate’s surname.
[And Jonathan]
I asked the question yesterday about how the Democrats would handle the challenge of how many targets Donald Trump (and JD Vance) give them. The answer on the first night of the Democratic convention was to put as many of his weaknesses as possible under the general theme that Trump only cares about himself.
That’s certainly a plausible argument to make, with plenty of evidence – really, an overwhelming amount of evidence – to back it up. Whether it will resonate outside the convention hall with the people who need persuading is anyone’s guess, but I do think that along with “we’re not going back” it can cover quite a lot of ground.
Beyond that, the most striking thing to me was the total lack of bitterness from two politicians, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, who are entitled to a fair amount of it. Both gave generous and upbeat speeches (well, Biden was angry with Trump, but not bitter, and certainly not with the Democrats). Clinton in particular reminded me of Ted Kennedy’s post-1980 convention speeches, and frankly I didn’t think she was anywhere close to his level as speaker until Monday night.
The night did go on too long, despite the pacing being very good I thought (except for the celebrity host, which didn’t really work on Monday); they either tried to fit too much into too small a space, or they were perfectly fine with going long. In the old days, parties would deliberately run long in order to get extra network coverage; perhaps that was what happened. Or maybe they just went long. Within the arena, it sure looked (from C-SPAN at least) as if no one minded.
Meanwhile, there was little or no whiz-bang tech in the production. The highlight as far as staging is concerned was a simple prop: An oversized “book” representing Project 2025 for a speaker to “read” from. Highly effective! And, yes, the sign swap-outs that were missing from the GOP convention were there for the Democrats. But really what the Democrats deployed Monday night were quite a few very effective traditional speeches, with only a few real duds sprinkled in.
Good post. Another big thing I noticed: the protests seem a bit deflated so far, or at least aren't materializing in the major numbers that were being hyped. A lot of pundits where predicting something like Chicago in 1968, which always seemed pretty silly to me, but I suppose big 2004 NYC protests were possible. But outside of a few scuffles outside United Center they don't seem to be not a major thing, at least so far.
I saw one picture that I thought summed it up: big piles of signs saying something like "Victory to the Palestinian Resistance" at Union Park (one of the main sites of demonstrations that's close to United Center) that nobody showed up to carry as the organizers only were able to muster a few thousand people not the 30 to 40,000 some people had predicted. Likewise the phrasing struck me as probably being off putting to broad swaths of middle America who might seem them on TV compared to something like "Give Peace A Chance" or whatever. Meanwhile inside the convention a lot of the "uncommitted" delegates seem to be trying to work the system, at least for now, rather than cause a ruckus like the Bernie or Bust people in 2016, let alone something like 1968 with fist fights breaking out on the floor.
This is such a great overview of the right. David's cut list is SPOT on -- as is his last paragraph comparison with the RNC and how parties can build on past leadership rather than bow to a leader who insists on being the only one in the spotlight. Julia's insight into the emotional presentation of the three stories of reproductive health and choice is very important. That moment was non-exploitative, serious, (as she says raw). The pols talked about choice -- but these 4 people made it much clearer and real. I agree with Jonathan that "Trump cares about himself" can do a lot of good work to capture the self-indulgence (and perhaps the need to be president to protect himself from future law suits). GREAT piece and everyone should mirror Julia's generosity of recommending other great voices.