This piece will be appearing on Tuesday as a newspaper op/ed in my very red congressional district (VA-06).
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I’m writing the morning after the culmination of the Democratic National Convention, which I watched on TV over its four nights.
I had been concerned that a Covid-19 convention – with no one actually convening, without hundreds of enthusiastic delegates milling around, with no band playing “Happy Days Are Here Again” – would be a let-down, that the Party’s one shot at a nationally broadcast Infomercial to sell their candidate, their platform, their Party, would be a dud.
I shouldn’t have worried.
It was really an amazing production. In spirit and in message more powerful than any political convention in my lifetime (and I’ve been following conventions since 1956).
But then, never before have we had an election in which Americans would be choosing between paths so starkly different and at a level so profound.
I kept on thinking, “Who could watch this and not be inspired to choose the path being offered here?”
I imagined some of the many decent conservatives I’ve known over the decades – in places ranging from Minnesota, to Arizona, to Virginia – and I knew that every one of them, if they were in their right mind, would embrace the panorama of American goodness on display.
The convention made brilliantly creative use of the video possibilities of such a virtual convention to introduce us to a huge variety of Americans united in wanting to protect what’s best about our nation, and wanting it to become the best it can be.
(Including a substantial group of Republican leaders – like John Kasich, Chuck Hagel, Colin Powell – along with various lifelong Republican voters who recognize that the issue in today’s election is not liberal vs. conservative but about redeeming “the soul of America.”)
By the time of the convention’s climactic moment -- the acceptance speech by Joe Biden, the Party’s presidential nominee – the viewer had every reason to recognize the rightness of Biden’s characterization of this moment. I.e. that in this election, we are called upon to prove that in our America:
- “love is more powerful than hate.
- Hope is more powerful than fear.
- Light is more powerful than dark.”
(And, by the time Biden spoke those words, the convention had shown -- using credible testimony from literally dozens of people, from elevator operators to former colleagues to family members and random Americans who had experienced Biden’s remarkable love of people – that, when Joe Biden expressed his intention to assure that our nation is ruled by the best within us, and not the worst, that expressed his true character.)
One aspect of the Democrats’ presentation made me uneasy, however, as I looked at the Democrats’ presentation through the eyes of my Trump-supporting fellow Americans: the proportion of white faces among the many hundreds of American faces we were presented seemed less than I feared they’d be comfortable with.
In those white Americans who still might or might not vote for Trump, might the sight so many people from other ethnicities and races evoke whatever uneasiness they might feel about how America’s demographic evolution is requiring white Americans to share more power than before with people not like themselves? Might that uneasiness drive them into the arms of Trump, who continually fans their prejudices, racial and otherwise?
But then I thought I understood the decision the Democrats had made and, eventually, I figured their decision was probably right.
What they’d decided, I concluded, was that the main goal of the convention would be to energize all those already disposed to support the Democratic; instilling confidence in that diverse swath of Americans that the Democrats had their legitimate concerns and values at heart; inspiring every component of the electorate that feels betrayed by Trump to bring passion to the effort to turn our nation back toward love and hope and light.
And ultimately I came to appreciate that the decision to “rally the troops,” rather than to “persuade the unpersuaded,” was probably right because the potential Trump supporters I wanted won over were likely unreachable.
For starters, they probably wouldn’t be watching. (When Fox News broadcast Michelle Obama’s extraordinary speech, a big chunk of the Fox audience turned it off.)
But even if they watched, what could any convention show them that would move them to choose a change in course-- if all the hate and fear and darkness Trump has shown so blatantly has left them unmoved?
(Trump has already – figuratively -- “shot” dozens of people “on Fifth Avenue” without losing their votes, committing it seems every sin a President can commit:
- Repeatedly sacrificing the nation’s interest for his own personal enrichment and political advantage;
- Consistently dividing, never uniting, the people;
- Failing to take seriously his duty to protect the people from a deadly global pandemic,
- Lying to the people many thousands of times.)
Darkness seems still to appeal to some.
