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In early July, as more and more Democrats called on President Biden to end his reelection campaign, I Issue warnings on these pages “The panicked pundits and frightened elected officials have failed to consider the downside of success. It’s pretty serious: It would be a nightmare, worse than the political nightmare they’re living through now.” I added that the process of selecting a new candidate could leave the party “deeply divided”: “Democrats will be preparing for a convention in August that will make their infamous 1968 convention look like a White House picnic.”
I have never been happier than I am right now because I was wrong.
Even those who pushed for Biden to withdraw—whether As early as last fall or After the disastrous debate with Trump The Democratic National Convention in June — there was no way to predict what we saw this week in Chicago. Just a month ago, the Democratic Party was truly divided (about the Biden candidacy) and united only by the fear of a possible loss to Trump. Today, Democrats look surprisingly happy — yes, unusually united. There was no infighting, no generational divide along party ideologies, and no bloody floor fights. What could have been a contentious convention, both figuratively and literally, turned into a pure celebration of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Just watch highlights from Tuesday night’s roll call, as each state’s delegation formally nominated Harris for president. Democrats cheered and danced to hometown songs like Atlanta native Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What”This is in stark contrast to the Republican National Convention, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Being booed Harris happened to be across the border in Milwaukee when the roll call was called. A packed stadium The Republican National Committee held its convention there in July.
Or consider Wednesday night’s third debate. The growing likelihood that Trump would lose the election emboldened and excited the speakers, mocking the former president in between entertaining the crowd. Oprah Winfrey and singer John Legend. Former President Bill Clinton said of Trump: “Don’t count the lies, just count the ‘I.’ ” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was welcomed, as were prospective candidates for the job Harris is seeking, as being surprised to find “Trump spouting law and order — as if he weren’t a criminal running against prosecutors.”
Democrats could have had a lot of trouble this summer, as they were prone to self-harming politics, but almost everything went right for them and Harris. I warned that Biden’s departure “would set off a public fight between different Democratic factions over who should succeed him,” and that even if Harris became the obvious choice, “don’t expect her to breathe a sigh of relief and sail smoothly into the general election campaign against Trump.”
What happened was like a political strategist’s fairy tale: Biden immediately endorsed Harris, and Democratic leaders followed suit. Rank-and-file Democrats also rallied around her and contributed to her cause. Over $300 million July (and A staggering $500 million Her campaign said this week that it was her first full month in office. Polls both nationally and in battleground states were moving in her favor, and one prominent forecaster said that North Carolina in a ‘tough race’ Status. The right calls Harris a “DEI employee,” while Democrats gleefully impose all forms of diversity on the other side. Countless Zoom fundraisers are a brazen nod to identity politics: white people for Harris, cat women for Harris, diehards for Harris—and worse, Republicans for Harris. Even the Gaza protests, which Democrats feared would Turning the conference into a replica of 1968 Relatively speaking, it is quite mild.
“Things are a little chaotic,” Eric Schultz, a Democratic consultant and Obama White House veteran, told me. “We still have a lot of work to do because this is a very tight race, but we’re all pulling in the same direction, and that helps.”
Democrats are notorious for infighting. The left openly challenges the establishment, sometimes to the detriment of the overall mission (e.g., blocking a bipartisan infrastructure bill). Want more generous social spending and climate change packages— slowed Biden’s legislative momentum and ultimately cut spending bills). The establishment’s rejection of the left sometimes undermines sound politics and policy (e.g. reject Even the Democratic presidential nominating process encourages brutal fights. Unlike the Republicans’ winner-take-all system in most primaries, the Democrats allocate delegates proportionally. In 2008, Republicans finalized their picks after Super Tuesday; Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vied for the Democratic nomination. Until June of the same year.
Biden’s dramatic exit from the race could have exacerbated divisions and bickering within the party. But faced with the threat of another Trump presidency, Democrats moved quickly. The unity was not limited to the commitment to Harris. At this week’s convention, the entire party turned its ideological and generational diversity to its advantage.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – 2020 lament New York Magazine “In other countries, Joe Biden and I wouldn’t be in the same party, but in America, we are” — she said in a rousing speech on Monday that praised Biden, slammed Trump, the “union-buster who doesn’t deserve a word,” and praised Harris. Not long after, Hillary Clinton followed Ocasio-Cortez — more than twice the age of the squad leader and from the center of the party — with the same message.
“The fact that we had such a seamless transition from AOC to HRC — both to great applause — showed that we had put aside our differences,” Matt Bennett, executive vice president of the center-left group Third Way, told me. “If we had won this election, we would have reunited with them. But Trump is the unifier of the Democratic Party.”
In a show of unity Tuesday night, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders harshly criticized corporate greed and declared that billionaires from both parties should not buy the election results. He was followed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who noted that he is a “real billionaire” and mocked Trump for being “rich for only one thing – stupidity.”
On Wednesday night, Harris’s vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz, Inspiring words from Hollywood scripts About a struggling sports team, made up of an eccentric group of players with varying personalities and abilities, that somehow wins a championship. “Leaders don’t spend their days insulting and blaming others,” he said, as signs reading “Coach Walz” were held aloft in the audience. His calls for education and health care as basic rights, for government to stay out of people’s bedrooms and doctors’ offices, for children to be freed from hunger and school shootings, might have sounded like another candidate’s left-wing tirade. But as a man who looks like he’s been pulled from central casting to play the saintly, Midwestern schoolteacher, Walz has brought the party’s competing elements together into a unifying force.
“Progressives have long accused Democrats of acting too much like Republicans,” Bill Cunningham, a veteran New York political consultant, told me, referring to criticism that Democrats are too hard-line on issues like immigration. But when it comes to party unity, “maybe, in this case, that’s not such a bad thing.”
The smooth transition from Biden to Harris highlights the new discipline of the Democratic Party. It happened because Harris never joined the chorus of Democrats calling for Biden to drop out of the race, but when Biden dropped out and endorsed her, she quickly went into top campaign mode. She has proven to be a stronger candidate than she was during the 2020 campaign, when she was fighting for the nomination. Failed quicklyHer role as vice president, with far more responsibilities than public interest, allowed her to hone her skills without being under such intense scrutiny. Visit a university campus, represent The United States Munich Security Conference, And serve as Reproductive Rights ContactBut now, with the spotlight on her, that experience has made her more confident in her campaign.
Far from hindering her, the shortened campaign (just three months until November) has (so far) worked in Harris’ favor. Every event, from the massive rallies to the announcement of Waltz as her running mate to this week’s convention, has brought her Democratic enthusiasm and fundraising. The September debate with Trump could have the same effect. And the Democratic Party has had little time to fret as usual.
“We can’t be our own worst enemy,” former first lady Michelle Obama told a raucous crowd Tuesday night in what may have been the best speech of the convention so far. This year, Democrats may have learned that lesson. Republican strategist Karl Rove noted on Fox News that Republicans play by the rules and Democrats fall in love, repeating an old political adage. This year, he explainDemocrats are “doing both at the same time.”
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