Democratic Unconventional: Ally of the Light

On paper, the lineup for the final night of the Democratic Unconventional looked prettty conventional.  But it started and ended with surprising emotion, with plenty of moments in between.

Many speakers this night as well as the preceding nights referred to this moment of historic multiple crises. None dramatized it more than Governor Newsom of California, standing in front of what looked like a redwood, a mile from a major forest fire.  He spoke rapidly and eloquently--without his usual tech-speak--as if he could feel the flames (he could certainly smell the smoke, and we almost could, too.)

 The emphasis would quickly move to the future, when the producers asked speakers from tonight and earlier to speculate on what they'd like to see one year from today.  This was the theme of the night, of the event: the present crises laid bare, but real and determined hope for how to address them and get beyond them.

Then the newly minted Chicks sang the national anthem in three part harmony, and that's what embraced the present and the future: the faith borne of the past, of the founding, and of crises met.

There were moments to come: 13 year old Brayden Harrington bravely told of Joe Biden's help in working through his stutter, something Biden had also suffered from as a child.  And my biased highlight: Steph and Ayesha Curry and their two daughters.  An informal discussion among Biden's presidential rivals was a humanizing moment rare in official politics.  And there was more.

But everything built to the major moment: Joe Biden's acceptance address.  For those who had watched what came before, a real sense of Biden as a human being provided a context for his words, and they heard those words flowing naturally from all that he is and has been.

"Here and now I give you my word. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness. It is time for us, for we, the people, to come together. And make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America."

Biden spoke with passion about what he would specifically do as President.

"As president, the first step I will take will be to get control of the virus that’s ruined so many lives. Because I understand something this president doesn’t.
We will never get our economy back on track, we will never get our kids safely back to school, we will never have our lives back, until we deal with this virus..."

"I will do what we should have done from the very beginning. Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to this nation. He failed to protect us. He failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable."

He outlined an economic plan focused on jobs, and later related this plan to confronting the climate crisis.  He addressed the crisis and the opportunity to confront racial and environmental injustice. "America’s history tells us that it has been in our darkest moments that we’ve made our greatest progress. That we’ve found the light. And in this dark moment, I believe we are poised to make great progress again. That we can find the light once more."

In the course of his speech he did what the current White House occupant could never do: offer recognition and solace to the survivors of those 171,000 and counting Americans who have died officially from Covid so far.  And early in the speech--harking back, as other themes did, to President Obama the night before--he made a pledge that Trump could never credibly utter:  that he would work just as hard as President for those who didn't vote for him as those who did; that he would be President of the entire United States.

The rhetoric was not soaring, the rhythms were punchy, as the content was a series of punches.  But the speech received almost universal praise.  Steve Schmidt of the Lincoln Project called it the most important speech of his 49 years in politics.

So after months of media quiet, Joe Biden emerged and met the moment.  Now it's Joe time.

As for the Unconventional, it ended, not with dancing and drunken throngs yelling and beating each other with placards, but a huge fireworks display, which the candidates and their spouses watched in a parking lot, along with people in lines of cars who had been watching a drive-in movie which was the Unconventional.  Like the roll call and a lot else, it worked even better than what it replaced.