‘The Chicago DNC shows how centre-left politics can be fun, diverse and dynamic’
“The party is for everyone,” Levar Stoney, mayor of Richmond, Virginia, said on day two of the Democratic National Convention.
I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest of the Progressive Policy Institute to the DNC in Chicago this week. It’s a hard thing to sum up, a gigantic carnival of colour, noise, and politics that sprawls across America’s third largest city.
But that line – the party is for everyone, delivered by the young, confident mayor of Richmond – is the best way to unlock what the DNC meant, or at least what Democrats wanted it to mean.
There’s three distinct ways to understand what Mr Stoney was saying. One, the Democrats have an offer to every voter. Two, Kamala Harris is leader for every wing of the Democrats. Three, there’s a party going on here and everyone’s invited.
Kamala is forming a narrative
From what I saw this week, only the third is unequivocally true.
It’s certainly the case that the offer to voters is coming together. Kamala herself is building a narrative that she is a strong but fair leader that Americans can believe in.
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A well worked-out offer to women, whose rights are menaced by Donald Trump and the shadowy Project 2025, is at the forefront of this convention.
There’s a commendable focus, at least in words, on restoring security to the middle class.
And throughout the convention there was an emphasis on showcasing former Trump voters, and indeed staff, to show it is possible to vote for him in 2016 or 2020 and come back this time.
Why should Trump voters come back?
But all that said, neither in the main hall of the convention or in what roughly equates to a fringe event, there’s no real sense of why those Trump voters should come back.
The argument that Trump is despicable is well developed and Dems can expound on it at length. But when it comes to the positive offer that will entice former Trumpers back there is very little.
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Even more weirdly I found very little discussion or deep understanding of what drove these voters to Trump in the first place.
Nostalgia for a richer, more confident America, and racism, are the two most commonly offered accounts. These are certainly part of the picture, but what to do about them, or how to deal with data that doesn’t fit this narrative – e.g. why Hispanic people seemed to be moving to Trump in 2020 – is not discussed enough.
A show of unity across the party
The other way of looking at this convention is the Party, the Democrats, is under Kamala Harris a viable place for every faction within it.
There was certainly a big performative show of unity in the main hall, not least with Bernie Sanders given a platform (which he largely squandered with a long and droning speech).
Unity is the order of the day but beneath the smiles you can see the outline of issues that might become un-ignorable as the election gets closer.
Several people said to me that Kamala is currently the ‘not Trump’. A cipher who is easy to rally around. One journalist told me: “She is the most famous woman in the world and no one knows who she is.”
Factional cracks may start to emerge
As she defines herself the factional cracks may show.
Remember that very little policy has been announced to disagree over. Centrist Dems are already worried re: the mechanics of the proposed ban on price gouging, and there is a sense the Progressive wing smell a chance to get large parts of their agenda into the platform, though it’s not clear what they want yet.
And of course the crisis is Gaza is bubbling under the surface, occasionally flaring up inside and outside the convention itself.
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Protests were not as large as the organisers were hoping – as shown by large piles of unclaimed placards around the centre – but they were still large.
I saw small verbal fracas occasionally break out in the streets between supporters of either side, and a caucus event I was watching was disrupted in the manner we have become familiar with in the UK. How Kamala navigates the issue will inevitably alienate some powerful people in her party.
There’s a flowering of relief and hope
Finally though, there is no doubt that the small-p party is for everyone. The energy and positive atmosphere is real.
It’s an organic flowering of relief and hope – but one also carefully cultivated by the convention organisers with the deployment of music and celebrities.
Kamala herself has steel, but also clearly a sense of fun. She has been endearing and positive and overall, the convention has challenged the Dems self-hating stereotype.
There might not be a big policy offer yet but purely on vibes the Democrats feel like they’re holding a party that anyone would want to be involved in.
Lessons for Britain
What should we in the UK take from all this? Well the truth is the unity in Chicago probably won’t last. It’s a freak of circumstance that comes from uniting against a common enemy. Perhaps there is a read across from that to our position post-election.
But I’d say the real takeaway is the sense that centre-left politics can be fun, diverse and dynamic is something we need to re-find.
This is very hard to do in government, where seriousness is the order of the day, and I don’t expect to see many rappers or sports stars in Liverpool next month.
But it’s also, never more important than in government if we aspire to stay there.
The party needs to seem energetic and appealing to reassure voters that the chance they have taken on us is paying off through this parliament and make them feel positive about voting Labour again next time.
It would be difficult to run out of superlatives to describe the mood in the United Center this past week in Chicago (broken down by segment by C-Span here). Were I to prepare a word cloud after attending all four days of the DNC, these would be my more prominent words and phrases: We are not going back!
When we fight, we win! Incidentally, the use of “we” twice is seen as key to a collective call to arms.
Joy
Hope
Unity – together
Do something!
Neighbors
Freedom – plenty more on this below.
For the people
Country over party
That’s my dad!
USA
Let me pause on this last one for a moment. I have come to cringe when thinking about the chant “USA,” as I associate it with Trump rallies. The beauty though of both the messaging from countless speakers, as well as the placards and flags that were waived seemingly by everyone at the United Center (which seats 23,500; Thursday night entry was denied after 7:00 pm due to capacity concerns), is that Democrats in myriad ways have found their voice on patriotism and service to country.
Themes in Kamala’s Acceptance Speech
Patriotism and service to country were two of a number of examples of the ways in which Convention speakers, and the Vice President in particular in her acceptance speech, repeatedly flipped the script and took control of messaging intended to reach voters in the middle. My favorites: “I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a President for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.”
“My entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.”
“I believe everyone has a right to safety, to dignity, and to justice.”
“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences, the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”
“The future is always worth fighting for. And that’s the fight we are in right now – a fight for America’s future.”
We will create an “opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed.”
“… in unity, there is strength. You know, our opponents in this race are out there every day denigrating America, talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach: Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are. America, let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for: freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness, and endless possibilities.”
Defining Values
In digesting the themes across the four days, it was fascinating to track both what was said, and what was not said.
Harris defined herself by setting out a core set of values and her vision for the future of the country, and in doing so set out not only her priorities, but at every turn presented sharp contrasts with Trump. She was disciplined.
Suffragette white was evident across the women delegates on the floor, but in a departure from 2016, Harris (dressed in a dark suit) did not dwell directly on breaking the glass ceiling. Katie Glueck, writing in the New York Times, makes the point that in contrast to 2016, while trying to elect another barrier-breaking Democrat, the message to American women today is of necessity far more sober and urgent. In 2016, it was unimaginable that Trump would win and equally unimaginable that Roe would be overturned. Harris could not have been clearer in referring to the potentially even more devastating effect on reproduction health of a second Trump term – “Simply put, they are out of their minds.” Glueck quotes Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, “it does not matter that [Harris] is a woman, to be honest. It matters that she’s a fighter. And it’s just great that she also happens to be a woman.”
Moreover, while Harris’ story was deeply imbedded in her speech, there was no fanfare about becoming the first woman president, the first Black woman president or the first South Asian American woman president. And instead of dwelling on race per se and dignifying Trump’s race-baiting messaging (blatant and direct, rather than dog-whistle), she let others challenge Trump and instead reminded Americans of her family’s immigrant story and ties to the civil rights movement (themes most Americans should agree on). She did this while pledging to be a “president for all Americans.”
There was no hint of the “radical California liberal.” Her speech was remarkable in leaving no doubt that she would pursue and, if given Democratic control of the Senate and House, would achieve, an agenda that Democrats would be proud of (themes that animated so many of the speeches of those who came before her), while at the same time reaching across partisan divides to the voters she needs to win and reminding them, as former Rep. Adam Kinzinger did so forcefully, that the Democratic Party could be a safe home for independents and moderate Republicans turned off by Trump. These echoed similar themes posited by President Obama (“we, the people” includes everyone. … if we talk to our friends, if we listen to our neighbors, if we work like we’ve never worked before, if we hold firm to our convictions, we will elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States and Tim Walz as the next Vice President of the United States. We will elect leaders up and down the ballot who will fight for the hopeful, forward-looking America we all believe in.”) and President Clinton (“So, talk to your neighbors. Meet people where they are. Don’t demean them. Ask them for their help.”).
In fact, as Ezra Klein noted in his Friday podcast, in setting out to bolster her weaknesses, many of her themes were conservative (little “c”) – while she highlighted codifying Roe, there was little or nothing about climate change, healthcare, universal child care, pre-K education, Medicare expansion, cancellation of student debt. The immigration policy promise was not comprehensive immigration reform, but strengthening border security:
“I refuse to play politics with our security, and here is my pledge to you. As President, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that [Trump] killed and I will sign it into law. I know, I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.”
Her foreign policy message, to borrow a phrase from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, showed true grit:
“I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump. Who are rooting for Trump. And as president, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs.”
A Different Way of Talking About the Threat to Democracy
Harris used “freedom” 12 times in her speech, yet another example of flipping the script. “Freedom” is far more potent than “democracy” (a phrase used by President Biden ten times, which she only mentioned twice). And importantly she employed both freedom “to” and freedom “from” – freedom to make reproductive decisions, freedom from gun violence, freedom to love who you love openly, freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, freedom from pollution, and the freedom “that unlocks all the other” – the freedom to vote. As CNN remarked, it was also hard not to also hear the prospect of freedom “from the anger and divisions, both fundamental and petty, that have defined much of the past decade of American life.”
In his acceptance speech, Governor Walz used the terms “free” and “freedom” 12 times.
“I’m letting you in on how we started a family because this is a big part about what this election is about. Freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. Corporations — free to pollute your air and water. And banks — free to take advantage of customers. But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love. Freedom to make your own health care decisions. And yeah, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”
And Governor Josh Shapiro talked of “real freedom” flowing from investment in schools, infrastructure and communities.”
The campaign aired a new ad We believe in freedom at the Convention.
The use of the term freedom is intended as a pivot away from terminology, though by no means the substance, of President Biden’s messaging about Trump’s extreme ideology” and the threat he and his enablers pose to the “very foundation of our republic.” Her definition of what is at stake in this election is far broader – it is both a far more positive appeal to Americans of all political stripes, but also a bold effort to reclaim values long appropriated by Republicans.
Service to Country
Speaking of which, what better way to call attention to Trump’s views of the military than to hear directly from veterans. Arizona congressman, candidate for US Senate and former Marine Ruben Gallego brought out to the stage dozens of his House and Senate colleagues who had served in the military, after remarking “We have a duty to care for our patriots who serve our nation.” “We understand what service means, because we put country over politics.” “We stand united as veterans, Democrats and patriots to fight for everyone who serves.” Closing eloquently, “veterans who defended this country are not just the reason we can sleep at night. They’re the reason we can dream.”
Former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta excoriated Trump, reminding all that “Trump would abandon our allies and isolate America. We tried that in the 1930s. It was foolish and dangerous then and it is foolish and dangerous now,” “Trump tells tyrants like Putin, they can do whatever the hell they want. Kamala Harris tells tyrants the hell you can, not on my watch.” “Trump does not understand the world and he does not understand the service and sacrifice of our military.”
Senator Mark Kelly, Senator Tammy Duckworth, Rep. Jason Crow and candidate for US Senate Rep. Elissa Slotkin – all military veterans, spoke of national security being on the ballot. Slotkin, urged both viewers and attendees to “proudly claim your patriotism.” “Do not give an inch to pretenders who wrap themselves in the flag but spit in the face of the freedoms it represents.”
Change
While Harris never used the term “change,” the speech was all about change – a change from the dark, divisive and chaotic agenda that Trump and his enablers would usher in, but also a change from the Biden vision (and this was no mean feat since she is the current Vice President). “So, fellow Americans. Fellow Americans. I — I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go — everywhere I go, in everyone I meet, I see a nation that is ready to move forward. Ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.”
In a nuanced change from Biden administration positions since October 7th, Harris did attempt to thread the needle on Gaza. On Wednesday and Thursday, Democrats addressed the suffering caused by the war in Gaza, including the poignant speech by the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli hostage held by Hamas, with a combination of pleas for a ceasefire deal to end the “suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza” with bringing the hostages home. In an acceptance speech largely devoid of specific policy pronouncements, Harris devoted more time on Gaza than on any other policy issue. She spoke eloquently of the devastation of Gaza and the imperative of enabling “the Palestinian people [to] realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination,” while reaffirming a commitment to the defense of Israel and ensuring that Israel has the ability to defend itself. Klein described the nuanced change succinctly: “She announced no break with administration policy here, and it felt like a complete break with the administration. And I think it actually is.”
Despite concerns that there could be a repeat of 1968, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations were largely peaceful. In one sense protesters outside the United Center managed to achieve what uncommitted delegates inside were unable to do, to get a Palestinian American included in the speaker line-up (a request incidentally supported by the United Auto Workers). That said, as Tessa Stuart writing in Rolling Stone noted, the fact that Harris used her speech, with 29 million viewers watching, to call attention to the suffering of the Palestinians and call for self-determination was “remarkable.” The applause when she did was momentous, what Stuart described as “one of the most forceful reactions from the crowd.” Stuart quotes a DNC official who said that Palestine had only been mentioned twice at any DNC in the past 40 years.
Wrap-up
Back to my word cloud – I should probably have added “imagine where we were six weeks ago” and multiple variations on that theme. We all came away with a new appreciation of the Vice President and an introduction to a man largely unknown outside of his home state, Governor Tim Walz. We were treated to slick programming, celebrity appearances and four days of stunning speeches that compelled many to remain transfixed on the stage. Incidentally, in perhaps the most devastating news out of Chicago for Trump (forever fixated on crowd sizes and television ratings), Nielsen data (across 15 networks) show average viewership at 21.8 million for the DNC compared to 19.1 million for the RNC. The fourth night attracted 26.2 million viewers, compared to 25.4 million who tuned into the fourth night of the RNC. Audience levels tend to spike for acceptance speeches: Harris had 28.9 million viewers, compared to 28.4 million for Trump (based on Nielsen data). Note that Nielsen does not count streaming services or public access channels.
Let me add another phrase, not heard but certainly felt by the capacity-crowd in the United Center – “proud to be a Democrat.” Proud:that the Party pivoted in four weeks to line up solidly behind Harris following President Biden’s announcement on July 21, and that the DNC pulled off a stunning, flawless four-day program in the United Center – the positive adjectives for which know few bounds.
that the Party, contrary to the criticisms of many (often framed in the context of the argument that President Biden was too old to run again), has an unbelievably talented deep bench (consider just Pete Buttigieg, Jasmine Crockett, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Gina Raimondo, Gretchen Whitmer).
to have witnessed, in the words of Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun Times, the “oratorical perfection” of Michelle and Barack Obama.” Michelle “laid out the qualifications of Harris and defended the principle of everyone being included in our national story: ‘No one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one.’”
to see the Veep contenders all delivering remarks, in yet another demonstration of unity, and to see two stalwarts of the Party assumed to have played pivotal roles in persuading President Biden to step aside — President Obama and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi – speaking at the Convention.
that Harris chose a running mate who in deeds as much as in words represents normalcy, service, decency.
that the Convention could elevate both Ken Chenault, the former CEO of American Express, and Shawn Fain, UAW President, highlighting in the words of E.J. Dionne Jr. an economic story that can connect the worlds of both – in essence, a recognition that markets alone (underpinned by lower taxes and less regulation) are not the answer, and that “the unions and the government supports offering child care, elder care, education, training and public investment are also essential to a good and functioning society.”
that the Convention featured a number of Republican speakers, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former White House official Olivia Troye, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan and Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles.
of the voices calling out the darkness that underpins why a Harris presidency is a must – gun violence survivors, members of the “Exonerated Five,” victims of state abortion bans, the family of US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
Concluding Thoughts
For David Brooks, speaking on PBS NewsHour, the contrast between the RNC and DNC came down to this: while the Republicans doubled down on their core story (the elites betrayed us, we are going to build a working-class army to overthrow the system; JD Vance compounds the story), the Democrats expanded their story (Democrats overturned conventional wisdom and stereotypes – video clips of Tim Walz hunting, football players and veterans on stage, patriotism on full display, Harris embracing a hawkish foreign policy).
The voters for whom the Republicans have doubled down represent 46%. We will get a sense of the post-Convention polling later this week. Every demographic that shifts to Harris will be critically important, but one thing the polling is showing is that the gender gap is unprecedented, and it is unprecedented in part because it is present in every demographic imaginable. Of all the changes we have seen, perhaps the most important is the permission given to independent and moderate Republican women, including unmarried women, to shift to Harris. As Philip Bump noted in his Washington Post column, the surge in support for Harris is being driven heavily by women and younger voters. “The question is whether the change from Biden to Harris marks Democrats coming home or if it is the start of a trend of Harris pulling away”. If it’s the former, 2024 will again be a close contest that comes down to narrow margins in some or all of the six states above. If it’s the latter?
The election would be something else entirely.
