The Dems’ Third Night

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The Dems’ third night of their virtual convention differed from the first two. The first two celebrated America, its history, its diversity, its promise, and its potential for unity even today. Testimonials of Republicans fed up with Trump showed how good people still can come together for the nation’s sake.

The third night darkened the mood considerably. It brought us back from America’s promise to the nightmare we are living today. It gave us images and tales of domestic abuse, the tragic results of gun violence, devastation from climate change, businesses and farms struggling and dying from Trump’s misrule and the pandemic, and people suffering terrible ailments while fighting a health “care” system that, until Obamacare, wouldn’t pay for their care.

The climax of the evening was President Obama himself. For the first time ever in my memory, he really took off the gloves. During his campaign and for much of his presidency, the strongest thing he had said was that an adversary’s lies were “inaccurate.”

But last night he told it like it is:

“For close to four years now, [Trump has] shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe.”

Strong men anger slowly. So it’s taken Obama nearly four years, or nine if you count from Trump’s first “birther” lie. And he didn’t get angry for himself, but for us. With the mien of a “tough love” uncle, he told us we could lose everything unless we stand up to the bully now.

Obama didn’t just give us that avuncular advice. He put it in historical context. Starting from a Constitution that validated slavery, he traced our slow, painful march toward equality through Emancipation, Women’s Suffrage, Jim Crow, the civil and voting rights acts, John Lewis’ “good trouble,” and the multiracial uprising after George Floyd’s police murder, following so many other needless killings. He told us, in effect, that all we have to do now to deserve the sacrifices of so many who came before us—and those of all the youngsters who fell on the beaches at Normandy—is to vote. If we fail, we’ll devalue all their sacrifices and our heritage, not to mention lose our democracy.

Obama’s speech was filled with historical perspective and deep insight. It was one for the ages, well worth watching or reading. If the Dems win and begin the transformation of our nation that now lies within our grasp, that speech may go down in history with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, or his Second Inaugural engraved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial.

No doubt Obama’s speech made everyone who heard it long for his steady hand as president. But unfortunately it overshadowed those of the night’s three leading ladies: Hillary Clinton, New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Kamala Harris herself.

Harris did a good job of telling the story of her strong and loving family, her upbringing as a first-generation American (born in Oakland, CA!), and her circuitous path to her present position. She presented well as a kind, concerned and caring pol. She did what she had to do to humanize and define herself before Trump’s and Fox’ propagandists get a crack at her. But her speech was too long, and her mostly successful attempt at sweetness and light just couldn’t compete with President Obama’s ringing warning of existential danger.

So all in all, night three was a little schizophrenic. It called out our Trumpocalypse in all its menace, at the same time as it tried to introduce VP-Candidate Harris as a caring, nurturing moderate, not a bomb-throwing socialist. These were hard messages to make coherent. What most viewers will remember, as no doubt will history, is Obama’s powerfully ominous warning. Perhaps that’s for the best.

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