Democratic convention takeaways: Make history, pound Donald Trump

There has been one persistent theme in the Democratic National Convention so far: to portray President Donald Trump in highly personal ways as one unsuited for the White House both in skills and temperament. And no one, not even former President Barack Obama, has been holding back.

Here are some key takeaways from the third night of the convention.

OBAMA, GLOVES

OFF

Former President Barack Obama came to power on the airy notions of “hope and change.” He governed with a largely calm and cerebral air, and continued that in his post

White House years.

On Wednesday, Obama dispensed with decorum and delivered a direct hit on Trump, a striking condemnation and a call to Americans, particularly young ones, to not let democracy be taken from them.

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said. “And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”

The former president spoke from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, a calculated venue for his warning that his successor is a threat to democracy in the United States. He talked about how flawed the country’s founding documents were, but how its residents have never given up trying to make them live up to their ideals.

And Obama urged the country to keep doing so this election. “Do not let them take away your power,” he said. “Do not let them take away your democracy.”

Obama has long been known as an oratorical virtuoso. This speech, a somber address, was as powerful as any of them, and stands as a grim bookend to his hopeful paean to American unity that launched him during the 2004 convention.

HARRIS ABSORBS HISTORY, TELLS HER STORY

Kamala Harris made history under historic circumstances. She became the first Black woman to be nominated as vice president on a major-party ticket. But she had to make her acceptance speech, an American classic big-room affair, to a largely empty ballroom due to the pandemic.

Her speech had a lower-key tenor than Obama’s. She used the moment to talk more about the issues that will play out in the campaign while also making surgical appeals to constituencies that she and Joe Biden will need to win in November.