Dems in Disarray!!!!: DNC Edition
By 
Are you aware that the Democratic Party is in fact in disarray because the online convention went so smoothly and didn’t allow Beltway reporters to file their usual stories?
The prominence of such voices made a certain amount of strategic sense: if Biden is going to win, he needs to reach voters in the middle. The coronavirus has taken so much away from so many Americans; one goal of the Democratic Convention was to convince the President’s supporters that Trump and his party ought to pay an electoral price. In Arizona, Biden is ahead, and Mark Kelly, the astronaut, is poised to take a Senate seat away from a Republican, Martha McSally—another reason for Trump’s Yuma trip. (Kelly’s wife, the former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting a decade ago, spoke at the Convention; gun control was an area where the Party gave the stage to activists.) Still, Biden’s edge of support over Trump in swing states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida remains fairly narrow. In that context, the brief speaking time allotted to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—she made an appearance to second the nomination of Sanders—was as deliberate as the decision to give Cindy McCain twice as long to recall how much fun Biden and her late husband, Senator John McCain, used to have together.
Yet the Party cannot run so scared of Trump’s smears about “left-wing mobs” that it shies away from its values or its future. Progressive voters can help win elections, too. In this respect, the Convention—with its mixture of recorded and live speeches, actress moderators, musical acts, and a roll call that doubled as a tour of the country—went almost too smoothly. An in-person Convention can expose conflicts, but it can also give a party a chance to address them, in Convention-center hallways. The fractures in the Democratic Party do not always fall neatly along ideological, generational, or cultural lines. Observers of this Convention, though, could sometimes be left with a sense that the choice was between Bush Cabinet secretaries and the Squad. What’s absent in a Zoom D.N.C. is the same thing that’s absent in many virtual communications: the moments and the places in between.
That’s a particular loss for Biden, who thrives in such spaces. Indeed, that people know Joe, and that he knows them, is emerging as a central message of the campaign. Barack Obama, making the case for his Vice-President’s foreign-policy expertise, said, “Joe knows the world and the world knows him,” but most often what people knew is that Biden treated them with respect. A retired Amtrak conductor described how Biden had befriended the train crew during his commute, over the years, between Wilmington and Washington. The former contenders in the Democratic primary joined a Zoom rap session to talk about “the Joe we know.” Sanders, who called for unity in the face of “authoritarianism,” said he knew Joe well enough to trust him.
Focussing on Biden’s real decency, like decrying Trump’s incompetence, was a way for Democrats to blur differences in ideology. That may be enough to win the election, because Trump’s indecency has been so great and the consequences of his pandemic bungling so severe. Biden and his party do know where they are: a lot closer than Donald Trump to winning the election in November. But they also need to figure out who they are—and what they will fight for.
Yeah, if only Democrats were as united as Republicans with their actually nonexistent platform.
One can argue whether Democrats should have pitched their message this way at the convention. Except here’s the thing–despite reporters dying to be able to relive 1968, conventions are not places where these things get hashed out anymore. Hardly anyone actually watches them and those that do are probably either are already definite party voters or relatively well-off independent voters who have the time and mental space for it. Democrats going at each other’s throats in front of national television just after having spent two years in an interminable primary that if nothing else at least did not drag on to the convention would be a…complete disaster.
But hey, you’ve got to love how flexible Dems in Disarray narratives remain! Even in the face of the Calamari Comeback State of Rhode Island.
In conclusion:
I can’t top this one
Did the Democratic National Convention Go Too Smoothly? | The New Yorker https://t.co/p1V0lpqNbX
— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) August 24, 2020
The Pitchbot Twitter thread is a worthy follow.