The right medicine for a country too sick to hold a convention
This is exactly the right convention for our times.
There are many losses to mourn since the pandemic, and President Donald Trump’s woeful handling of it, shut down our lives — but the demise of the modern political convention is not among them.
Gone, mercifully, are the corporation-financed parties where lobbyists ply their trade and big donors buy access to public figures. Absent, thankfully, are the convention-floor pageantry and theatrics that haven’t meant a thing for decades. Missing, too, are the preening journalists bagging trophy interviews on media row.
As Democrats gather virtually for their 2020 political convention, they don’t have the luxury of a balloon-drop convention spectacle. None of us does. We are living in the worst of times. There is nothing to celebrate.
Instead, Democrats on Monday night gave us the somber moment we deserve: a recognition of the desperate condition Trump has put our country in, and a passionate call to action. Democrats of all variety — socialist and moderate, coastal and heartland, Black and White and Brown — may be geographically dispersed this week but they are uncommonly unified in one existential message.
“We are facing the worst public health crisis in 100 years and worst economic collapse since the Great Depression,” as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put it. “We have a president who is not only incapable of addressing these crises but is leading us down the path of authoritarianism.”
Sanders, once Biden’s most formidable primary opponent, became his most powerful advocate Monday night, demanding “a movement like never before” to fight for his former rival. “During this president’s term the unthinkable has become normal,” Sanders said, with a passion and urgency that eluded him in his 2016 support for the Democratic ticket.
Trump, who has governed by division, hoped for disunity among Democrats. “Great division between the Bernie Sanders crowd and the other Radical Lefties,” he tweeted Monday afternoon.
So he wishes. The Democratic Party — now joined by Republicans of conscience — has never been so unified. They are unified around Biden and his basic human decency. The resounding, reverberating message Monday night, and almost certainly for the rest of the week, is that Democrats are united in determination to end the catastrophe Trump’s presidency has been for the country.
Former first lady Michelle Obama closed the night with a portrait of America’s children seeing “our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening White supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown in cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo op.”
The virtual convention was undoubtedly weird, with actress Eva Longoria playing emcee and occasionally looking into the wrong camera, Biden himself attempting to lead a virtual roundtable, video and audio glitches, several pre-taped speeches and a couple of attempts at crowd applause using Zoom-style boxes.
Will any of it matter? Probably not. Biden already has a lead approaching double digits and can’t possibly get much more of a bounce. And the broadcast networks aired only an hour of the two-hour event — inexcusable stinginess at a time when other means of campaigning are impossible.
But give Democrats credit for capturing the moment — the infuriating reality of a great nation brought to its knees by a president who has botched twin crises and fomented rage and division.
The most biting of all was the senator from Vermont, in front of neatly stacked firewood. “Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs,” Sanders said. In apocalyptic terms, Sanders made the case for his former opponent. “Joe Biden will end the hate and division Trump has created. He will stop the demonization of immigrants, coddling of White nationalists, racist dog-whistling, religious bigotry and the ugly attacks on women . ... The future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our economy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake. ... My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine.”
For a country too sick to hold a political convention, this is the right medicine.