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The Democrats met, nominated a candidate, and now they’re all going home. Their meeting was not a repeat of the disaster of 1968; it did not end in a divisive confrontation between the factions; there were no thrilling campaigns that went on into the wee hours of the morning. There were a few silly moments, a few star-studded performances, and a few speeches that should have been canceled before they were even scheduled. There were logistical problems and it went on too long at times. The candidates for president and vice president both gave speeches that were well-delivered smash hits by any political standard.
In other words, it was a typical American party convention.
Younger Americans may not remember the days when party conventions were normal political events. Delegates in funny hats introduced themselves with long, silly eulogies about their state: Madam Chairman, the great state of Vermont, the people of the Green Mountains, the home of Ethan Allen, the place where Cal Coolidge was born and which we left because we did not want him here, the home of many cows and mediocre cheddars…
And then they cheered and cast their vote for the candidate, just as everyone expected. They still do that sort of thing today, but it’s not as fun to watch them anymore: Party conventions have become personality shows. They’re superficial, glitzy events designed to elevate the candidate to superhero status, which is always a problem because most politicians, even the best ones, just aren’t that interesting.
This cult trend likely began in earnest at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, when Barack Obama walked onto a stage that looked like a cross between the White House and Mount Olympus — which seemed to fit the theme that the Democrats were nominating President Zeus. In 2012, the Republican National Convention featured Clint Eastwood belittling the incumbent president in absentia by speaking to an empty chair — a banal and stupid stunt. In 2016, Democrats threw balloons that looked like giant, star-studded beach balls at candidates Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. And in 2020, Republicans held their convention in… well, all sorts of places, including Charlotte, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C. They even used the White House, a move eligible for the Hatch Act Violation Hall of Fame. (“Nobody outside the Beltway really cares,” said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, but as a then-federal employee whose career was regulated by the Hatch Act, I was quite interested.)
We should not idealize the old conventions to a lot: Sometimes they were just flashy coronations, but they were still better than what we’ve seen from the parties in the 21st century. The first convention I really followed closely was the Republican convention in Dallas in 1984, when I was in my twenties and already a staunch Ronald Reagan voter. Aside from Jeane Kirkpatrick’s scathing foreign policy speech, in which she castigated the Democrats as the “blame America first” party, it wasn’t particularly substantive, but Reagan and his people knew how to make good television.
The most memorable part of the 1988 Democratic Convention was not the acceptance speech of candidate Mike Dukakis, but the astonishment of a young governor named Bill Clinton – not because Clinton was so good on stage, but because his nomination speech for Dukakis was simply seems to have no end. “The (1988) speech,” according to an ABC News review of Clinton this week, “turned out to be memorable, but in the wrong way. Clinton spoke for 35 minutes, much longer than the planned 15, and bored the crowd.”
The problem, of course, is that “interesting” in political conventions usually means “disastrous.” The 1980 Democratic Convention was interesting because Ted Kennedy came there hoping to take the nomination away from Jimmy Carter. Instead, he gave his famous “The Dream Will Never Die” speech and helped Carter lose. The 1992 Republican Convention was Really interesting because candidate George HW Bush gave time to the inflammatory candidate Pat Buchanan, who then delivered a brutal, ugly culture war speech; the late political writer Molly Ivins quipped that Buchanan’s speech “probably sounded better in the original German.” A battered Bush lost the eventual three-way duel with Bill Clinton and the independent candidate, the swaggering billionaire H. Ross Perot.
This week, the Democrats did something that seems unusual but was actually a return to normalcy: They rallied around a candidate, they gave optimistic speeches about how great everything would be if their candidate was elected, they had a few celebrities march to affirm that the candidate was great but also cool, and then they dropped the balloons and called it a day. That’s all a convention is supposed to do.
The Republican meeting this year, however, was the ultimate expression of the convention as a creepy cult meeting. The Democrats seemed happy, despite currently being the underdogs in the Electoral College. The Republicans seemed angry—and that was before They found that their entire strategy was aimed at a candidate, Joe Biden, who was about to drop out. The RNC was like a beer garden party where all your weirdest neighbors gather around the barbecue pit and talk loudly about how much they hate everyone else on the block.
The Democrats had a standard lineup of former politicians, including former Presidents Clinton and Obama. The Republicans, a party that could draw on several former Cabinet secretaries and another living former president, had almost none of their most prominent former elected officials in attendance. Instead, Republican delegates saw Hulk Hogan rip his shirt off as a prelude to a long, boring, self-pitying version of their usual rally speech by their candidate. (Some Republicans, like former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, gave very good convention speeches this year, but they gave them in Democratically Convention.)
I’m glad the Democrats have returned to their old religion of having conventions. They’re supposed to be big events where the party puts its best face on and reminds Americans that participatory democracy is a wonderful thing — sometimes silly, sometimes serious, but always great.
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Evening reading
It’s Sorkin in America again
By Franklin Foer
As Cory Booker wrapped up the third night of the Democratic National Convention with the handwriting, he told delegates that he wanted to pose for a selfie from the podium. But before he took the photo, he had to ritually end the event. “All those who are for, say ‘yes,'” he yelled. Then he addressed Semisonic in a more playful manner. “Guys, it’s the end of the day. I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here.” Convention is a word generally associated with dutiful boredom, so why this exuberant joy about it?
Read the full article.
More from The Atlantic
Cultural break
See. These photos of the week from around the world show the mud Olympics in Germany, a scene from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, a fat-pole jumping competition in Indonesia, and more.
Watch (or skip). Flash twice (now in theaters), the directorial debut of actress Zoë Kravitz, is a stylish thriller about the intoxication of wealth, writes Shirley Li.
Play our daily crossword puzzle.
PS
Those of you who follow me on social media may have heard the news that we have welcomed a new cat into the Nichols household. We lost our beloved Carla last spring, a truly amazing cat who I wrote about here. My wife and I are grieving the loss of our long-time friend and just couldn’t think about bringing home another cat. If you’ve ever lost a pet, you know what it’s like: Animals aren’t replaceable pieces of furniture that you can trade in or replace when they wear out. They’re family members and you don’t immediately fill the space with another one.
We went to the local shelter about a month ago, and although we wanted to take every cat home, we just couldn’t do it and went home still a little suffocated. This week, however, we felt the time was right. We went back and saw so many wonderful options: little brown tiger twins, some older cats who needed a new home, a pair of young cats named (no joke) Romeo and Juliet who were adopted the day we visited. And then we saw this five-month-old tuxedo cat, black with white paws and a white stripe on her nose. She was jumping up and down: Hey, don’t worry about the tigers, I’m here.
And so we took her home. We thought about names, and because Carla was named after a character from one of my favorite TV shows, Cheerswe have decided to keep this tradition going. Lilith Carla Nichols – Lily for short – now slumbers behind me. She is adorable and already demands head scratches and treats. We will never have another Carla – but we would like to believe that Carla helped choose her for us.
— Tom
Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
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