For anyone with a pulse it was a deeply emotional, tear-inducing melding of old and new on the first two nights of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. As torches were passed by the biggest names in the Democratic Party and rising stars spoke, there was a sense of excitement and promise and perhaps some bittersweet sense of loss as speakers like Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama and President Joe Biden himself spoke of what was and the hopes of the past that each carried and the promise of the future that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz represent.
In an arena filled with all the diversity the most diverse democracy on earth has to offer, the enthusiasm was palpable. It was apparent in Tuesday night’s roll call that formally nominated Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz, who she affectionately calls “coach.” It was apparent in the myriad of speeches and the passion with which they were delivered. And it was clear from this data outside the arena that underscores what Democratic voters are feeling about the revitalized ticket: Kamala Harris raised an unprecedented half billion dollars in the first month of her candidacy, smashing all previous fundraising records.
It’s been eight years since Democrats last convened in person to nominate a ticket. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 Democratic National Convention was virtual. Like this DNC, the 2016 convention in Philadelphia was also historic, as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the first female nominee of a major party. Therefore, it was fitting she speak to that history and to what she had termed the “million cracks in the glass ceiling” of the presidency that she had begun with her own historic run.
“This is when we stand up. This is when we break through. The future is here, it’s in our grasp, let’s go win it,” Clinton said.
Clinton received a two-minute standing ovation and later, a chant of “lock him up” brought a much-needed coda to the Electoral College loss Clinton suffered in 2016, despite winning the popular vote by more than three million votes. Clinton’s support for, endorsement of and promise to work for Harris was a critical passing of the feminist torch—the first woman nominee determined that the second not be shut out by misogyny or by the criminality of Donald Trump that she referenced repeatedly in her speech.
Clinton led the Aug. 19 primetime roster and Biden ended it with a combination defense of his presidency and bittersweet retrospective of his 50 years in American politics. It was at times powerful, at others a keen reminder of why it was so necessary he step out of the race and pass the torch to his vice president. Biden saying, “America, I gave my best to you,” wasn’t plaintive, merely a reminder. And as such, a deeply moving moment.
On Aug. 20, the two other biggest names in the Democratic party spoke: Former First Lady Michelle Obama and in the keynote address, former President Barack Obama.
These were two starkly different speeches. Mrs. Obama, who famously said in 2016 that “when they go low, we go high,” revamped her messaging to tell Democrats that they must not let the lies told by the right to aggregate, but must fight back with truth and facts and saying “small is petty.”
Like Clinton’s speech, Mrs. Obama’s was passionate, fiery and powerful and had people cheering and crying. Mrs. Obama made a not-so-subtle jab at Trump’s claims about “Black jobs” last month, noting, “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs?’”
She also noted that for Black politicians like her husband or Harris, there is no fall back for failure: “We don’t have the benefit of the affirmative action of generational wealth”—a not-so-subtle jab at Trump’s inherited wealth.
For his part, Barack Obama was the president we remember: cerebral, philosophical, at times pedantic and at others jocular. If Clinton delivered a feminist coda, Obama delivered a salutatory one about the status of the Democratic party he led, versus the one about to be led by Harris. It was a profoundly deep dive into what he first began when he spoke about red states and blue states at the DNC in 2004, looking ever-so-much younger.
Obama made the case yet again for us as a nation, re-learning to listen to one another and forgo the politics of divisiveness and cruelty, trolling and meanness that Trump and the MAGA party have fostered over the past eight years.
The intellectual connect-the-dots clarity of thought that Obama delivered in that speech was a reminder of that breadth of acuity, depth and tincture of philosophizing that set him apart from other presidents. He was smart, mesmerizing and real. And at one point, bawdy, as he made a veiled comment with a hand gesture about Trump’s obsession with crowd size that was very much about something else.
But as crucial as these speeches from the old guard were, speeches from the rising stars of the Democratic party were themselves barn burners. For years, since her surprise win in 2018 as the youngest member of Congress, critics in both parties have under sold and diminished the impact and work of New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez—known as AOC. Her speech on Aug. 19 was nothing short of breathtaking.
That Monday night showcased the party’s elders, but AOC demonstrated that she is their Democratic future. Republicans have always underestimated her—that, it was obvious, is an error.
Also Monday night, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett gave a speech that solidified her place as a rising star in the party. It will be surprising if she is not tapped to be in the Harris-Walz administration. Crockett has been targeted by Marjorie Taylor Greene and others and her attacks on Trump from the floor of the House have gone viral.
And on Tuesday night, Philadelphia’s own up-and-coming Democratic star, Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta spoke at the convention, highlighting the impact of Project 2025 and quipping that “usually Republicans want to ban books, but they want to shove this one down our throats.”
One of the most devastating and moving points on Aug. 19 was the testimony of three women—and the husband of one of them—speaking about the impact of Donald Trump’s abortion ban on their lives. Two women nearly died from not being able to get medical care for miscarriages because of doctors’ fears they would be arrested for an abortion crime.
The third woman, Hadley Duvall, recounted how at 12 she discovered she was pregnant as a result of her stepfather’s raping her. Duvall recalled Trump’s praise for abortion bans as a “beautiful thing” and asked, “What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parent’s child?”
There were a multiplicity of other moments of emotional impact, not the least of which was Kamala Harris running up on stage after Biden’s speech and saying, “I love you,” as she hugged him. Or a short film made by Harris’s stepson about her and husband Doug Emhoff’s love story. Or Bernie Sanders giving the endorsement speech he should have given in 2016. Or a raft of Republicans breaking with their party over Trump and speaking at the DNC in support of Harris to put “country over party,” as Mesa, Arizona’s GOP Mayor John Giles said.
On Aug. 20, Trump had claimed while campaigning that Biden stepping out of the race was the “violent overthrow of a president.” And Republicans had predicted a bloodbath in Chicago with the Bidens rejecting Harris and trying to reclaim their ascendancy. Fox News had promoted this theory for days leading into the convention. But that never materialized. Biden himself said, “All this talk about how I am angry at the people who said I should step down, it is not true. I love my country more.”
This was a show of unity and respect and reverence for Biden’s sacrifice and the energy from attendees proved he made the right choice.
But perhaps nothing was as powerful as cameras panning over the attendees and seeing America reflected back. No sea of whiteness like the Republican Convention in Milwaukee last month, but rather a diverse group of cat ladies and veterans and Wisconsin cheeseheads, a panoply of races and ages and genders. The Democratic Party claims to be a Big Tent. And in Chicago, after a tumultuous few weeks of soul-searching and Biden putting country above his own ego, there was a breathtaking level of optimism that could very well carry through to November.
