Democratic Unconventional: Not Alone

Perhaps more than the first two nights, the third night of the Unconventional was often geared to young voters.  It related major issues of immigration, climate crisis and racism viscerally and particularly from the point of view of the young.  It had at least one mesmerizing musical performance by Billie Eilish.  And apart from introducing herself and telling her story, vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris spoke especially (I thought) to a younger audience.

But major moments belonged to all, and especially to those who have had to numb themselves during these past four years.  There were more cathartic video moments, including outrages already forgotten because of the unremitting onslaught of new ones.  An absolute highlight was the appearance of Gabby Giffords, the centerpiece of a segment on gun violence.  She was a gun victim--a political assassin's victim--we shared, and we saw again the tragedy and her courage and resilience and determination.

We try to avoid the overload, but there are a range of benefits to realizing that we share these reactions to the past four years.  Kamala Harris expressed it this way: "The constant chaos leaves us adrift.  The incompetence makes us feel afraid.  The callousness makes us feel alone."

But it was President Barack Obama who embodied and expressed what we see and have concluded, but which we don't often hear from our leaders, or the media or the institutions that cannot operate unless they maintain some sense of normality, or at least aren't used to doing anything else.

The first part of his riveting 18 minute speech set the context for the paragraphs that will be the chief soundbites.  (Several outlets have the text, including this one.)

"The one Constitutional office elected by all of the people is the presidency. So at minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us – regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have – or who we voted for.

But we should also expect a president to be the custodian of this democracy. We should expect that regardless of ego, ambition, or political beliefs, the president will preserve, protect, and defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for; fought for and died for.

I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.

But he never did. For close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before."

As Hillary Clinton reminded us earlier in the evening,  she told us so, and too many voters didn't hear or believe or take the possibility seriously.  They didn't vote, or they threw away their vote.  Without saying so exactly, President Obama spoke to them, shamed them and anyone who won't vote Trump out of office this year, in for me the even more powerful part of his speech, so genuinely delivered.

He addressed those who were disenchanted with democratic government, warning that this cynicism is the chief weapon of the autocrat in the White House. He began with a story.

"Last month, we lost a giant of American democracy in John Lewis. Some years ago, I sat down with John and the few remaining leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement. One of them told me he never imagined he'd walk into the White House and see a president who looked like his grandson. Then he told me that he'd looked it up, and it turned out that on the very day that I was born, he was marching into a jail cell, trying to end Jim Crow segregation in the South.

What we do echoes through the generations.

Whatever our backgrounds, we are all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. Great grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped. Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote.

If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life."

The words are powerful, but the way he delivered them makes you listen, really listen to them.  Maybe at last some will really hear the linkages: The "Irish and Italians" of my grandparent's generation, "and Asians and Latinos" of more recent generations, all "told to go back where they came from."  Not just the "Muslims and Sikhs" of today, but the "Jews and Catholics" of generations within living and especially family memory, "made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped."

The words went on to, again, today's young people who can "take our country to a better place."  But not inevitably--for they are "the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed."  And then the conclusion, the final fierce urgency of now:

"That work will continue long after this election. But any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win. So we have to get busy building it up – by pouring all our effort into these 76 days, and by voting like never before – for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for – today and for all our days to come."

Historians are already on record saying that no ex-President have ever spoken like this before.  That it is this President, whose words and style many of us heard and saw for eight years or more, adds to their weight.  Yes, it's scary.  But it's out in the open now.  If you realized this before, now you're not alone.  Now there are things to do, even if it's just voting, and making sure those we know also vote.  It may take more than that, but saying it out loud is a start.