This selflessness narrative wasn’t deployed throughout the convention primarily to elevate Kamala Harris and her running-mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, to sainthood. Instead, it was about establishing us vs. them.Kent Nishimura/The Associated Press
In Chicago, the Democrats threw a week-long, made-for TV revival meeting, but the hours of speeches and sizzle reels and special guests all advanced one simple question aimed at American voters: Aren’t you tired of selfishness?
It was a framing that seemed designed all at once to make the case for their presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, to appeal to swing voters and to kneecap Donald Trump.
The Democratic National Convention circled over the idea again and again from different angles, from Ms. Harris’s primetime speech on Thursday through the entire carefully choreographed lineup.
Ms. Harris used her work as a public prosecutor to frame up her approach to the presidency, invoking the first words she said in a courtroom to begin every case: “Kamala Harris for the people.”
“My entire career, I have only had one client: The People,” she told the DNC.
She contrasted that with Mr. Trump’s view of the world as seen in his own mirror, and she underlined how the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity would embolden him.
“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. How he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States? Not to improve your life. Not to strengthen our national security,” she said. “But to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.”
What all of this messaging did was conjure some shared idea of normalcy, and then draw a bright red arrow to Donald Trump, standing way over somewhere else.Brandon Bell/Getty Images
This selflessness narrative wasn’t deployed throughout the convention primarily to elevate Ms. Harris and her running-mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, to sainthood – though given the setting, there was certainly some of that. Instead, it was about establishing us vs. them, or rather a big, collective “us” – everyone in this room, on this stage and watching at home who’s just trying to get by and help people around them too, because that’s what normal people do – and him.
Mothers and the lessons learned at their knees featured prominently.
Ms. Harris’s mother was “a brilliant, five-foot-tall brown woman with an accent,” the presidential nominee said, and she saw how the world sometimes treated her.
“But she never lost her cool. She was tough, courageous,” she said. Her mother had taught Ms. Harris and her sister Maya to never complain about injustice, but – invoking one of the most exuberant call-and-response rituals of the convention – to “Do something.”
“She also taught us: ‘Never do anything half-assed,’” Ms. Harris said, luxuriating in the waves of cheering and laughter she drew. “That’s a direct quote.”
Earlier in the week, Michelle Obama had paid loving tribute to her own mother, Marian Robinson, who died earlier this summer. The former first lady explicitly linked the way she was raised to Ms. Harris’s upbringing and that of so many ordinary Americans.
The DNC casually cracked open a door for swing or disaffected voters – no questions asked or judgment levelled – leaving Donald Trump, his cronies and their selfishness behind, isolated and irrelevant.Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“She was glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that, for generations, has strengthened the fabric of this nation,” Ms. Obama said of her mother.
In his own speech that brought down the house – though not as thoroughly as his wife’s immediately before him – Barack Obama sharpened the selfishness idea through a political lens.
“As we gather here tonight, the people who will decide this election are asking a very simple question: Who will fight for me? Who’s thinking about my future, about my children’s future, about our future together?” he said. “One thing is for certain: Donald Trump is not losing sleep over that question. Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago.”
There was Bill Clinton advising, “In 2024, we have a clear choice: ‘We the People’ versus ‘Me, myself, and I.’ I know which one I like better for our country.” Mr. Clinton’s voice was reedy and his speech rambling – the Teleprompter operator eventually gave up and let him do what he wanted – but he still had the folksy charm to draw appreciative guffaws from the crowd.
When it was Mr. Walz’s turn on the penultimate night of the convention, one of the students he’d coached introduced him. “Tim Walz is the kind of guy you can count on to push you out of a snowbank,” Ben Ingman said, before deadpanning, “I know this because Tim Walz has pushed me out of a snowbank.”
In his speech, Mr. Walz referenced the values he’d absorbed in Butte, Neb., but he reflected those lessons as universal and ordinary – this is just what we all do, right?
“Growing up in a small town like that, you learn how to take care of each other,” he said. “That family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do. But they’re your neighbours, and you look out for them and they look out for you.”
And Mr. Walz lobbed the catchphrase his crowds love more than any other – aside perhaps from the “weird” label he pasted to Mr. Trump so effectively – when he called on Minnesota morals.
“Even if we wouldn’t make those same choices for ourselves, we’ve got a golden rule,” he said, teeing up the United Center masses to yell it with him: “Mind your own damn business.”
Shortly before Mr. Walz appeared, Oprah Winfrey nearly blew the roof off the arena with a surprise appearance, floating onto the stage like a deity come to Earth. She basically hollered at everyone that if they looked under their seats, they were all about to win a President Kamala Harris, and then she, too, called on common sense.
Oprah Winfrey nearly blew the roof off the arena with a surprise appearance, floating onto the stage like a deity come to Earth.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
“When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about the homeowner’s race or religion. We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted,” she said. “No, we just try to do the best we can to save them. And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out, too.”
But with all due respect to Ms. Winfrey’s cashmere-clad magic, it was Ms. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, who delivered the most winsome, effective and humanizing portrait of the week. He made the case that his blended family is very much like yours, and the same woman who brought the Emhoffs a goodness they didn’t know they were missing was now ready to do that for the whole country.
“Now, for generations, people have debated when to call the person you’re being set up with,” he said archly of a client giving him Ms. Harris’s phone number for a blind date a decade ago. “And never in history has anyone suggested 8:30 a.m.”
The crowd roared as Mr. Emhoff imitated his pathetic attempt at an offhand voicemail: “Heyyyy, it’s Doug!” he drawled. “I’m on my way to an early meeting. Again, it’s Doooouuuug.”
And he let them in on some insider trivia: Ms. Harris saved that message and always makes him listen to it on their anniversary – which meant that on Thursday, the same day she accepted her party’s presidential nomination, he was subjected once again to The Voicemail. It was charming and funny and embarrassingly human – a rom-com starring Seth Rogen, not Ryan Gosling.
What all of this messaging did was conjure some shared idea of normalcy, and then draw a bright red arrow to Mr. Trump, standing way over somewhere else. The whole convention was a friendly elbow in the ribs, inviting everyone watching and listening to recognize the agreement deep in their bones.
It felt like the Democrats working to gently sheep-dog the persuadable masses away from Mr. Trump. Perhaps they’d learned from how Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment exploded back on them in 2016. This time, the message was that it was Mr. Trump who was the aberration – the weirdo, if you like – while everyone else just wanted something sane, something their mothers would approve of.
It was a door casually cracked open for swing or disaffected voters – no questions asked or judgment levelled – leaving Mr. Trump, his cronies and their selfishness behind, isolated and irrelevant.
Ms. Harris has been making big strides in the polls, taking a lead in the seven swing states most likely to determine who ends up in the White House. She’s made disproportionate gains with certain key demographics (young, female and non-white voters) but hasn’t budged others (older voters and white men). It remains to be seen if it’s all a honeymoon or a more durable phenomenon.
In their keynote speeches, both Obamas both sounded a stark cautionary note for steadiness and straight-up elbow grease through the homestretch.
“We only have two and a half months, y’all, to get this done,” Ms. Obama said.
“Now, it is up to all of us to fight for the America we believe in – and make no mistake, it will be a fight,” Mr. Obama said. “For all the incredible energy we’ve been able to generate over the last few weeks, for all the rallies and the memes, this will still be a tight race in a closely divided country.”
Political theatre is dazzling, but now that the balloons have dropped and the Teleprompter has gone dark, what happens next will be decided from the ground up.