John Kass, Democratic Convention Ignores the Elephant in the Virtual Room: Urban Violence
John Kass
The “We the People”-themed Democratic National Convention, like the
Republican one to follow, shows us what America has known for years:
that conventions are only infomercials designed to bend reality to
political will.
The Democrats bend their reality toward a referendum on President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, but they bend it away from any mention of growing violence in American big cities run by liberal Democratic administrations.
The Democrats bend their reality toward a referendum on President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, but they bend it away from any mention of growing violence in American big cities run by liberal Democratic administrations.
And this Democratic infomercial is all about the swing vote, if there is such a thing, in battleground states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Naturally, Democrats accentuate the positive.
Yet as the DNC infomercial makes plain, this new left Democratic Party of 2020 sees only two types: The Oppressed and The Oppressors, a formula that invariably leads to rising conflict and anger that can’t be covered over with virtual kindness and virtual empathy.
Former first lady Michelle Obama was the star of the first night, one of the most admired women in America, delivering a stylistically superb speech while sitting down, addressing the nation as a stern yet loving mom, reminding us who has empathy (Democrats) and who in her mind does not (Trump).
The media swooned over her, but then, did you really expect anything other than media swooning? Nevertheless, she gave a fantastic speech, going high on empathy and going low with evisceration of the opponent, though it was taped days before, too early for her to mention Sen. Kamala Harris, the California Democrat, as Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate.
“If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can,” Michelle Obama said. “If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”
“Ideas that were once considered radical only a few years ago are now considered mainstream,” Sanders said, applying air quotes around “radical.”
Ideas like virtually open borders, free college, the defunding or “reimagining” of police. All of it is predicated on The Big Rock Candy Mountain School of Economics, where all good things flow freely, like the lemonade springs in the Pete Seeger song, without economic consequence.
The challenges for the Democrats in this convention are profound, delivering what are usually rousing, galvanizing speeches to empty rooms. The format provides for little energy, and except for Obama and Sanders, seemed rather like Melatonin TV.
In praising their presidential candidate, Joe Biden, the speakers appeared to drone on and on, from the Google lobbyist to former Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, filmed while standing at a country crossroads, alone.
Kasich, the man without a party, seemed lost at the crossroads, like a character in the old “Twilight Zone.” I kept waiting for Rod Serling and a cigarette, or Kasich asking Satan to teach him to play this here guitar. But Kasich didn’t have a guitar. He just brought himself. And that wasn’t enough.
Republican critics predictably ripped the Democratic convention, but I’m not so sure it was as bad as they said. The Democratic presentations were somber, not packed with energy, but they didn’t have to be. The Democrats aren’t appealing to Trump’s base. They’re targeting suburban voters in swing states. Their convention is designed to give those voters a comfortable place to call home in what is shaping up to be a close election. They don’t respond well to Trumptastic bombast, something Trump can’t grasp.
Eva Longoria hosted the first night of the DNC. Source: Democratic National Convention via AP
My only quibble is that the DNC telethon missed a chance to invite one particularly strong woman of color to address the violent big-city elephant in the room.Carmen Best just resigned as police chief in Seattle, another casualty of the Democratic defunding of police.
“I’m done,” Best explained, as she ended her 28-year career.
At the outset of the first night of the convention, moderator Eva Longoria, star of “Desperate Housewives,” explained to viewers that, “You are the we, in ‘we the people.'”
But if you disagree with the Democrats, are you still of “the people”? Or are you some nonhuman, to be tossed into limbo or the basket of deplorables?
We’ll see. That’s what this election is about.
Please follow and like us:
No comments:
Post a Comment