The “We the People” Democratic National Convention, like the subsequent Republican National Convention, shows us what America has known for years: that conventions are merely infomercials designed to bend reality to political will.
Democrats are bending their reality toward a referendum on President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, but they are bending it away from any mention of rising violence in major American cities run by a liberal Democrat administration.
As I say, when you hear politicians say, pay attention to what is not said. Train your eye to see the negative space between dancers, because that too is often a story.
Urban violence threatens the peace of select suburban Democratic voters, like soccer moms who just installed police scanning apps on their cellphones. Trump exploits it, but he didn’t create it. What America is witnessing in cities like Portland, Seattle, Chicago and New York is a clash between the far left and the liberal Democrat mayors who lead these cities.
And this Democratic ad is all about swing voting, if there is such a thing, in battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Of course, Democrats emphasize the positive.
However, as the DNC ad clearly shows, the recent leftist Democratic Party of 2020 sees only two types: the Oppressed and the Oppressor, a formula that invariably leads to growing conflict and anger that cannot be disguised by virtual kindness and virtual empathy.
Former first lady Michelle Obama was the star of the opening night, one of the most admired women in America, delivering a stylistically brilliant seated speech, addressing the nation as a stern but loving mother, reminding us who has empathy (Democrats) and who she thinks has it (Trump) doesn’t.
The media swooned over her, but did you really expect anything other than the media swooning? Nevertheless, she gave a fantastic speech in which she was full of empathy, and the low evisceration of her opponent, although recorded a few days earlier, was too early for her to mention Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, as Joe Biden’s vice president.
“If you think things can’t get worse, believe me, they can,” Michelle Obama said. “If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we must vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”
How true. I’m sure many in the Obama camp feel this way, especially now. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith has agreed to plead guilty to a charge that he falsified documents to justify continued surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Connecticut State’s Attorney John Durham continues to investigate alleged political espionage by the Obama administration on behalf of Trump.
While much of the Washington Beltway media isn’t all that interested – including journalists who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Democratic Russia collusion theory that ended in failure – the Justice Department seems interested enough.
Senator Bernie Sanders provided the only moment of true clarity. He condemned Trump for authoritarianism, an odd choice for Sanders, who spent his honeymoon in Soviet-controlled Moscow watching state-sponsored puppet shows. But he said his socialist agenda ultimately swayed establishment Democrats to his will.
“Ideas that were considered radical just a few years ago are now considered mainstream,” Sanders said, using quotation marks to refer to the term “radical.”
Ideas like virtually open borders, free college, defunding or “redesigning” the police. It’s all based on the Big Rock Candy Mountain School of Economics, where everything good flows freely, like the lemonade in a Pete Seeger song, without economic consequences.
The challenges facing Democrats at this convention are profound – delivering typically rousing and energizing speeches to empty rooms. The format doesn’t deliver much energy and, aside from Obama and Sanders, feels more like Melatonin TV.
Praising their presidential candidate, Joe Biden, speakers seemed to buzz in circles, from a Google lobbyist to former Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who was filmed standing alone at a national crossroads.
Kasich, a man without a party, seemed lost at a crossroads, like a character from the venerable “Twilight Zone.” I kept waiting for Rod Serling and a cigarette, or for Kasich to ask Satan to teach him how to play this guitar. But Kasich didn’t have a guitar. He just brought himself. And that wasn’t enough.
As you might expect, GOP critics trashed the Democratic convention, but I’m not sure it was as bad as they claimed. The Democrats’ presentations were somber and unenergetic, but they didn’t have to be. Democrats don’t appeal to Trump’s base. Their target is suburban voters in swing states. Their convention aims to provide these voters with a comfortable place to call home as the election approaches. They don’t react well to the Trumptastic bomb, which Trump can’t understand.
My only gripe is that the DNC telethon missed the opportunity to invite one particularly forceful woman of color to address the brutal big city elephant in the room.
Carmen Best just resigned as Seattle’s police chief, another casualty of Democrats’ defunding of the police.
“I’ve had enough,” Best explained as she ended her 28-year career.
At the beginning of the first night of the convention, moderator Eva Longoria, star of “Desperate Housewives,” explained to viewers that “You are us in ‘we the people.’
But if you disagree with Democrats, are you still “of the people”? Or are you some kind of non-human who can be thrown into the abyss or into the basket of deplorables?
We’ll see. That’s what this election is about.
