Tension lurks, but unity prevails at the DNC
Tension lurks, but unity prevails at the DNC
A report live from Chicago
This week I’m at the DNC, and have a piece out in The UnPopulist about the experience of being there. Check it out!
I went to Chicago looking for strife and division.
That’s the host city for this year’s Democratic National Convention, the multi-day political spectacle the Democratic Party convenes every four years to formally adopt its platform and officially select its nominee ahead of a presidential election. (Its Republican counterpart, which ran from July 15-18, was held at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, less than a two hour drive from Chicago’s United Center, the site of this year’s DNC.) The Democratic convention, which began on Monday and wraps up tonight, will culminate in Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepting her party’s nomination for president.
Expecting strife and division at the 2024 DNC was certainly justified. Just a month ago, the party had an altogether different presumptive nominee for president. It seemed a tall order to expect effusive—and immediate—cohesiveness from a party containing members who variously wanted the winner of this year’s Democratic primaries to remain the nominee, members who wanted an open convention to decide who the next nominee should be, members supportive of Kamala Harris, but also members more critical of the current vice president. Making matters worse, fears abounded that a not insignificant part of the story this week would be driven by ample visual documentation of the jarring disconnect that exists between leftist critics of the Biden administration’s policy toward Israel during its war in Gaza and the party’s liberal base.
But as I walked the convention floor, looking for signs of division and trouble, all I found was a Democratic Party riding high on a wave of enthusiasm…