Unfortunately for the Democrats, we now know that relentless juggernaut existed solely in the imagination. Because after watching last night’s DNC, we are left with an uncomfortable question: “Is that it?”
Don’t get us wrong, it wasn’t like anything embarrassingly bad happened. That would require something to happen, in the first place. And if anything can be said about the 2024 DNC, it is that the people there very clearly want nothing to happen, because they are desperately afraid of the presidential race being upended and the whole country waking up to discover their “joyful” “brat” idol has feet of clay. They fear losing the lead, presumably because they know any situation in which their “ticket” is forced to actually campaign and make themselves more visible will only make the situation worse. If nothing else, the DNC was an education as to why: because this is a party out of ideas, with no consistent message, no accomplishments, no vision, and no real rationale for its ticket beyond hatred of Donald Trump.
In short, the DNC is something arguably worse than bad: it’s dull. Deadly dull. Flat as a board, and often just as wooden. If anything, the few flashes of enthusiasm – like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s (D-NY) demagogic but effective address Monday night – only make the problem worse, because they’re like seeing the photonegative version of what an on-message, forthrightly radical Democratic party would actually look like, only to be thrust back into the snoozeworthy quagmire that is the Democratic party as it actually is.
Where to begin? Well, for starters, it’s not really clear what it is that the Democrats actually like about their candidate. In fact, at times, we weren’t even sure which candidate they were describing – some of the speeches sounded like the drafters had hastily hit the “Find and Replace” key and replaced “Biden” with “Harris.” In fact, according to some reports, they can’t even name a single thing Kamala Harris accomplished. And yeah, watching their speeches? We can tell.
Moreover, it’s not particularly clear what they don’t like about Donald Trump, either. Oh, yes, we can point to individual complaints, but the overall anti-Trump message felt like a muddled, awkward fusion of President Biden’s tired old “threat to democracy” rhetoric with class warfare speechifying that sounded as if it had been transplanted from the anti-Romney playbook, plus a lot of fearmongering about abortion.
In fact, if we can glean anything from the convention so far, it’s that the Democrats appear to still be running on abortion and nothing else, since that was the one issue they could be troubled to carry the same message about. That probably works to juice their numbers with female voters, but again, “is that it?” What are they offering to the working-class voters in the rust belt? Or the Hispanic voters (of whom there were a suspicious absence in the convention hall) in the Sun Belt? Granted, most people who tried to watch this probably fell asleep midway, but still, you’d think there’d be some attempt to say something to them. Honestly, despite their campaign being allegedly built on “joy,” the whole thing feels suspiciously…well, joyless. As Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec put it succinctly on X: I don't see how anyone feels inspired by this.
So yeah, the DNC was dull, uninspiring, and plodding to the point of being almost surreal. Granted, this need not necessarily be fatal; the Democratic National Convention in 2020, which took place entirely on Zoom, was dull as powder, yet Joe Biden still managed to win. But the trouble is, unlike a Zoom convention, the media has other options for where to look for stories this time. More specifically, they can look for stories on the streets outside. And this year, the stories they find on those streets are utterly catastrophic for the Democrats, thanks to the presence of the pro-Hamas protest movement.
And that movement is already doing its damnedest to grab the spotlight. As early as Monday afternoon, before any officially scheduled protests were even announced, pro-Hamas demonstrators had already breached the DNC’s security perimeter. 13 people were arrested, and the fence has reportedly been fortified, but as this is the land of no cash bail, those arrests are likely to reduce the Chicago jails to a series of revolving doors. And again, this is before anything was even planned. One can only imagine what will happen when actual planned protests such as the one planned for today actually start happening.
What’s more, the Democrats are clearly terrified of these protests and their honeymoon-wrecking potential, which may account for their almost groveling rhetorical appeasement of their pro-Hamas wing. Yet if they’re so terrified, one can’t help but think of an obvious solution to the problem. That is, if you don’t want reporters covering the crazy people marching in the streets, just make sure the proceedings inside the DNC itself are so electric that they’re forced to spend all their time inside.
Seriously. All the Democrats had to do was make the stuff happening inside the convention too interesting and exciting for anyone to care about the protesters. Instead, they accomplished the opposite. No one can ignore the protesters, because the alternative is the rhetorical equivalent of drinking beer that's been sitting open on your dresser for a week. Their desire to play it safe, in other words, has suffocated their ability to message or excite so completely that they’ve forced the media to look elsewhere for a story worth telling, just when the one story they don’t want told is happening outside in the most embarrassing possible way.
So once again, we ask, “is that it?” And we suspect we aren’t the only ones. Reporters will be asking “is that it,” too, which will only lead to the exposure of the worst of the Democratic base. Voters will be asking “is that it” as they watch, which will lead them to think back on President Trump’s RNC – which, whatever else you say about it, was exciting – with fondness. Which is why, ultimately, if the Democrats keep this disappointing, milquetoast attempt at spectacle up, they will ultimately be asking “is that it” with crestfallen disbelief when they look at the vote totals for Kamala Harris on election night.
