If this presidential campaign was the movie “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” Kamala Harris would be the Mexican bandit leader informing Humphrey Bogart’s character how things would be. “I’m Kamala,” she would say, “I don’t need your stinkin’ press conferences, and I don’t give no stinkin’ interviews. You want to know my plans? You’ll find out when I’m elected. Now, hand over those votes.”
This would be fine with the Democrats who gathered in Chicago the week of Aug. 19. In an orgy of anti-Trumpism, they put their faculties on hold. It didn’t matter who the candidate was, how the candidate reached the nomination, or what the candidate might do in office. All that mattered was that the candidate was someone new who might save the party from the predations of Donald Trump, the most frightening apparition Democrats have ever encountered in their worst nightmares.
Trump is so far into Democrats’ heads that they can’t think straight. They’re convinced he’s an evil genius, the Devil in drag, long red tie, orange complexion and all. Let him near power again, and he’ll put all the liberals in a gulag somewhere in Texas, or refurbish Guantanamo for his political enemies.
Actually, Trump himself is increasingly having trouble thinking straight as he ages. Never smart and disciplined enough to really be an effective autocrat, he’s less so now. A future Trump administration would heavily depend on the Donald’s subordinates. As for the much-referenced Project 2025, he’s probably never read it and would likely disown its proposals at the slightest hint of unpopularity.
Still and all, the Democrats paranoically fear his return so much that they’ve raised to leadership someone who’s never won a presidential-primary election or caucus, simply in hopes that a newer, younger, different face can magically succeed and prevent the apocalypse. They’ve wrapped themselves in smiley faced ebullience, reinforced with balloons, rock music, dancing, and general mass delirium: With Kamala, we’ll win, win, win and be happy, happy, happy! The euphoric momentum generated, a kind of psychic levitation, only has to last two more months to election day.
If the popular Jerry Seinfeld TV show of yesteryear was about nothing, the Democrats of 2024 put on a political convention about nothing. Except for Bernie Sanders, who reiterated his dogged pitch for universal health insurance and for long overdue dental, hearing and vision coverage under Medicare, speaker after speaker whispered (or shouted) sweet nothings to the gathered delegates.
Sanders, in fact, gave the only substantive speech worth hearing. The rest either trashed Trump, or urged upon the assembled the need to understand and love their neighbors, reach across partisan lines, and broaden still further the already flapping big tent that is the amorphous Democratic Party.
Sanders also issued the only major prime-time condemnation of the travesty in Gaza, the convention’s untouchable subject, other than the nominee herself, who made a brief, passing mention of it in her acceptance speech. Harris acknowledged the suffering of the Palestinians and their need for self determination, but diluted the impact by prefacing her statement with the usual reference to Israel’s “right to defend itself.”
The Democrats celebrated their diversity — racial, ethnic, gender — as if that were an end in itself. In so doing, they pinpointed the party’s real problem: It stands for little or nothing, ideologically speaking; it’s become a party of platitudes, so that a likeable personality is now all that matters in the people it offers up to the electorate. The main qualification for its candidates, personified by the selection of centrist Kamala Harris, is to be infinitely flexible and adaptable, with no set beliefs that can’t be traded off when convenient. Those in Chicago had just one thing in common, one message to deliver: they were anti-Trump.
If the Chicago Democratic convention meant anything, it meant generational change — out with the old, in with the new. An emerging generation of youngish politicians has arrived on the scene. They want power, and an older generation, the much-maligned gerontocracy, is standing in their way. That’s an unspoken reason why Joe Biden had to go. There’s an element of ageism, conscious or subconscious, involved here.
Older White guys, in particular, are out of fashion in a Democratic Party increasingly weighted toward women and “people of color,” and they’re being turfed out. It’s not that their successors will be smarter, morally superior, or more idealistic; often, the reverse may well be true. It’s all a matter of demographics; people prefer to be led by those like themselves. As Biden learned, energy, appearance and cultural relevance are more important than wisdom and experience. In Chicago, this truth was expressed with a cynicism that was almost comic: “Thank you, Joe,” was the refrain. (Pay no attention to the knives sticking out of your back.)
In keeping with the generational theme, the Chicago convention, having no real business to transact, became a made-for-television show-biz production aimed particularly at younger voters who, Democrats fear, might stay home in 2024 unless sufficiently excited and motivated. (Kamala worked at McDonald’s; she can relate!)
And if we’re going to put on a show, kids, let’s not do it half way; let’s have a bogus roll-call vote. (“The great state of North Cupcake casts all of its votes for the next president of the United States, Kamala Harris.”) Even Vladimir Putin allows Russia’s election losers 8% or 10% just for appearances sake, but not the Democrats; their pre-selected candidate got 100% across the board — except for the missing uncommitted pro-Palestinian delegates, who walked out because they were permitted no speakers liable to spoil the festivities by mentioning Gaza.
The show ended with Kamala Harris sashaying across the stage to be received by the adoring multitude and deliver an acceptance speech in which she said — precisely nothing. The only thing lacking was the late Bert Parks crooning, “Here she comes, Miss America … “
Sequel: Ten days later came the Dana Bash softball interview on CNN eliciting more sweet nothings. Harris declined to answer questions about her chronic flip-flopping on issues (yes, then no, on the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, decriminalizing illegal immigration, and fracking). But, the candidate said, her “values” had not changed, only her policies, and what, after all, have policies to do with values? There was no follow-up by a compliant Bash.
Nothing was revealed about Kamala’s stance on Gaza or climate change, the elephants in the room, but we learned lots about “the baby nieces.” She’s an opportunist, admitted Harris supporter David Brooks on PBS, but she’s our opportunist.
The convention about nothing thereby transitioned seamlessly into the campaign about nothing.
Wayne O’Leary is a writer in Orono, Maine, specializing in political economy. He holds a doctorate in American history and is the author of two prizewinning books.
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2024
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