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Democracy Now! is Breaking with Convention as we bring you a two-week series covering the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
This past week, Democracy Now! aired in-depth interviews and analysis from activists and scholars whose voices were essential to hear—voices so often ignored by the corporate media.
Catch up on all of our convention coverage here, or check out any of the stories I've highlighted below.
We also broadcast highlights from the main lineup of DNC speakers, including addresses by Joe Biden; Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be nominated for vice president on a major party ticket; Barack Obama; Michelle Obama; Bernie Sanders, whose speech we aired in its entirety; and Ady Barkan, a leading advocate of Medicare for All who is paralyzed and unable to speak due to terminal ALS.
Notably missing from the convention's primetime programming were Muslim and Latinx voices—even as Latinx voters are slated to make up the largest bloc of non-white voters in 2020—in addition to voices from the party's progressive wing, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was allotted just 60 seconds to speak.
Read on for links to interviews with visionaries who are working to change America, and the world.
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On Friday morning, Democracy Now! hosted a discussion between Harvard professor Cornel West and Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former president of the NAACP.
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West and Jealous talked about the Democratic platform, Joe Biden’s vow to fight systemic racism and “overcome this season of darkness in America,” the historic nomination of Kamala Harris, and how the convention was a showcase for a broad anti-Trump coalition, including prominent Republican figures given plum speaking slots, but few voices from the party’s progressive wing.
“At this moment, with the decline and fall of the American empire, it looks as if the system is unable to generate enough energy to seriously reform itself. It remains sanitized, superficial,” said Professor West. “I want fundamental change.”
Jealous asserted that Biden is someone progressives can work with and pressure. “The theme of this convention was really one of unity,” he noted. “This is a time when we have to come together to defeat a president who is the most evil, the most corrupt that any of us have seen.”
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We also spoke with Cori Bush, a nurse and formerly homeless single mother, who joins the growing number of young Black progressives likely headed to Congress this November, after she defeated 10-term incumbent Congressmember William Lacy Clay Jr. in the St. Louis area.
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Bush talked about her stunning primary upset and shared her thoughts on Senator Kamala Harris' nomination for vice president.
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On Monday morning, hours before the convention kicked off, Democracy Now! talked to Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna. “I am very enthusiastic about supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to defeat Donald Trump, but I cannot vote for a platform that does not have universal healthcare as a right,” Khanna asserted.
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Democracy Now! co-host Juan González and I also interviewed Julián Castro, former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and the only Latinx candidate in the race, who talked about mail-in voting and police violence against Black and Brown communities, as well as the lack of Latinx representation at the convention.
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“There were 35 primetime speakers, and only three of them were Latinx, and I raised a concern about that,” said Castro. “I don’t think that represented the beautiful coalition that the Democrats put together.”
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On Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee dropped a pledge to eliminate tax breaks and subsidies for the fossil fuel industry from its party platform, after a DNC spokesperson said the amendment was originally included in “error,” despite both Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris supporting it on the campaign trail.
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For comment, we turned to Varshini Prakash, co-founder and executive director of the Sunrise Movement, which endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. Prakash said it is “disappointing to see” Democrats back away from the pledge, but added that as long as social movements sustain pressure, “it will be a priority for the Biden administration, should they win in November.”
Prakash, whose father comes from the same village in India as Senator Harris' mother, also highlighted Harris' support for a Green New Deal and her historic significance on the ticket, but also expressed concern about the lack of young voices at the DNC.
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Democracy Now! also spoke to economist Darrick Hamilton, a former Bernie Sanders supporter who took part in the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force about where the Democratic Party is headed on economic policy.
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Hamilton said that while Biden’s policies are not as radical as the moment requires, he can be pushed by social movements. “We will make Biden do it,” Hamilton stated, quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt on the need for activists to pressure lawmakers. “But first and foremost, Donald Trump needs to get removed.”
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Derecka Purnell, a human rights lawyer, abolitionist, and columnist for The Guardian, joined us on Democracy Now! to talk about Senator Kamala Harris' historic nomination for vice president of the United States on Wednesday. Harris is the first Indian American and Caribbean American, as well as the first Black woman, to be nominated for vice president on a major party ticket.
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Purnell said many Black progressive women feel torn. On the one hand, Senator Harris has broken major barriers for all people of color, but also, as San Francisco District Attorney—and then as California Attorney General—she often failed to investigate or prosecute police officers.
"If you care about the masses of Black people, the masses of poor people, the masses of immigrants in this country, you know that you have to speak truth and be honest about the record,” Purnell said.
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Senator Kamala Harris is the first Indian American and first Black woman to be nominated for vice president on a major party ticket, but, as many historians have noted, Harris is not the first Black woman to run for vice president. We spoke to Professor Keisha Blain this week about journalist and political activist Charlotta Bass, who was the first woman to run for vice president.
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Bass, who was the editor of The California Eagle for nearly 30 years, one of the country’s oldest Black newspapers, which covered women’s suffrage, police brutality, the Klu Klux Klan, and discriminatory hiring and housing practices.
Blain described Bass as "bold," saying "She confronted the KKK. She addressed police violence and brutality. ... And it’s not surprising that she was surveilled by the FBI, because she was someone who simply did not sit on the sidelines. She confronted every challenge that she saw, and she tried to come up with solutions to fix the problems."
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I hope you'll stay tuned to democracynow.org for our coverage of the Republican National Convention—and much more.
None of our work would be possible without you and the rest of our global audience of listeners and viewers. Thank you so much for tuning in to our daily, independent news hour.
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Democracy Now!
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