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AUGUST

**19, 2020**

Harold Meyerson' s
National Convention Report

**Unconventional: The Democrats, Day Two**

If the first night of this year's Democratic National Sort-Of
Convention was all about Donald Trump's disgraceful and aberrant
presidency, night two was all about Joe Biden's rooted normality.

Those roots were white working class-now a term almost interchangeable
with Trump's base, and tinged with assumptions of white tribalism and
racism. Not so the Biden version of white working class-ness, however,
and this more benign identity was a theme that was artfully woven
through the night's session.

The theme also expanded to include Biden's embrace of the universal
working class, with Joe talking with and sharing the concerns of a cross
section of Americans fearful of losing their health insurance, which yet
may prove his most potent point of contrast with Trump and the
Republicans come November (as it was for Democrats in 2018). But looking
at Hillary Clinton's devastating and decisive failure to carry
Bidenland in 2016-Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, home of a
multiracial working class, of which the white section largely voted for
Trump-Biden's advisers made the obvious but still smart decision to
plunk him down where he came from. On Tuesday night, he was the kid from
Scranton who's suffered more than his share of tragedy but always kept
on punching (or as Jill Biden said, squaring his shoulders and going out
to meet the world).

And it wasn't just Biden. The roll call of the states, which was far
better than its convention-hall predecessors, not only because of the
visuals but because it wasn't dominated by bloviating mid-level pols,
featured more than a smattering of working-class Americans. There was
the woman who worked in a Nebraska meatpacking plant who noted that she
and her co-workers weren't afforded paid sick leave, and asserted,
"We're human beings; we're not robots; we're not disposable."
There was the Missouri bricklayer and the Ohio worker wearing his IBEW
union T-shirt who flatly declared, "Under Trump, working people end up
getting screwed."

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The roll-call participants were anything but monochromatic; those from
Maryland positioned themselves by an oversized bust of Frederick
Douglass. But the contrast with Hillary Clinton's 2016 convention
couldn't have been clearer. I remember noting it at the time but
failed to realize how it portended her coming defeat, but that
convention lacked any speakers who were working-class whites.
Clinton's convention showcased Democratic social liberalism;
Biden's, so far, has showcased a more class-based economic liberalism.

Yes, Monday's session affirmed its support for Black Lives Matter, but
both nights have highlighted the economic contrasts with contemporary
Republicanism, of which Trump is merely the reductio ad absurdum. And it
emphasized the access-to-health-care contrast, which runs along the race
and class lines, and in a time of pandemic is the kind of contrast that
can decide an election.

The foreign-policy section, with notables rightly pointing out that
Trump's policy, to the limited extent he has one, basically amounts to
his expressions of admiration for leaders even more thuggish than he,
was obligatory, but isn't going to change many votes. What will change
or solidify some votes is the image of Biden as a normal, decent,
hard-working guy-three qualities no one has ever invoked to describe
Donald Trump. What will change or solidify some votes is the knowledge
that Biden respects and works within established democratic norms, as
Trump does not. And these are all among the reasons that not only
Republicans but also Bernie leftists are going to vote for Biden,
because the left knows its vision depends on a functioning, and
flourishing, democracy.

Indeed, if my fellow leftists really (and rightly) believe that Trump is
an authoritarian with neofascistic politics, they should welcome the
involvement of the John Kasichs (and, apparently, the late John McCain,
who somehow all but endorsed Biden from the Great Beyond) in an
anti-fascist popular front, just as the Communists welcomed all and
sundry in the anti-fascist front of the 1930s.

We Can't Do This Without You

Given what Trump represents, and what a Trump second term would look
like, the Biden campaign has effectively become our generation's
anti-fascist popular front, which is in no position to turn away anyone
at the door.

For that reason, I'm fine with the airtime given to Republicans; I
just wish there were more given to the left pole of the front. The
millennials and Gen Zers who are transforming the Democratic Party into
a more social democratic party have been underrepresented at this
convention, and the 17 youngish keynoters who whizzed through the
speed-dating version of a keynote address on Tuesday night lacked the
time to establish their own generation's politics, or, in fact,
whether they actually identified with it. (As none of the keynoters had
endorsed Bernie Sanders for president, there's some question as to
just how representative they are.) So the task of representing the new
left fell to AOC and a dying Ady Barkan, but there are lots more where
those two stalwarts come from, if the Biden folks just go looking. (The
ever remarkable Barkan managed to endorse Medicare for All without
actually saying the words.)

That said, the thematic emphasis the convention has put on matters of
race and class is not only smart positioning but lays down markers that
the young left and their elders should endeavor to hold Biden to, should
he be elected. Biden's long career has been marked by draconian crime
legislation, solicitude to banks, and other normal political stances of
the Reagan years, but Biden understands that those days are done, and
the party's ascendant left must ensure that they're dead and buried.
The Normal Joe persona is a valuable asset in this doctrinal
transformation; it recasts the party's newfound (or newly re-found)
progressivism as Normal Joe's concern for the average guy and gal.

I must close with my favorite moment of the night, a combination of
convention hokum, the roll call's remote locations, and, yes, average
folks' normality. It came when the roll call reached Rhode Island, and
we were transported to a shot of two guys standing by the seashore, one
of them holding a plate or dish of something tan with something red on
top of it. The speaker, as is the custom, extolled the state and its
Democratic governor and its favorite products, among which he mentioned
calamari. At which point it became clear that what the other guy was
holding was a platter of fried calamari topped with dip.

How better to symbolize a convention yearning for normality, marketing
its nominee as Mr. Normal, than to promise us a bright future filled
with fried calamari?

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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Democrats' Ridiculous Celebrity Fixation

Biden desperately needs youth support. The DNC's solution? More
celebrities! BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

Climate Activists Expect Harris to Champion Environmental Justice

Her historic nomination may elevate climate and environmental-justice
issues on the Democrats' agenda. BY GABRIELLE GURLEY

Biden's Immigration Agenda Must Not Just Repudiate Trump's,
Progressives Say

It must go well beyond Obama's to meet the challenges of today. BY
MARCIA BROWN

Securing the Right to Vote Cannot Be Achieved Individually

Democratic officials highlight individual responsibility to vote, when
they should be demanding government action. BY BRITTANY GIBSON

Sanders's Continuing Influence: The Party Rules Stay Reformed

The new rules mandating a far more open Democratic Party and nominating
process are intact for 2024. BY ROBERT KUTTNER

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