"The gloves are off": Democrats face post-convention challenge to keep their fight "cheerful"

Eight weeks ago, the Democratic Party was basically holding a political funeral for itself after Joe Biden’s disastrous performance against Donald Trump in their first and only debate. The polls, the public mood, the news media and the party’s senior members and base voters had turned against the president. Defeat in the 2024 election and, at least potentially, the end of America’s experiment with multiracial pluralistic democracy seemed a fait accompli. Matters almost instantaneously changed when Biden made the wise, difficult and selfless decision to step aside as the party’s 2024 nominee and hand the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. Less than two months later, Democrats were celebrating at their exuberant Chicago convention.

Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, formally accepted their nominations. Democrats, no longer on the perpetual defense, embrace the themes of joy and being happy warriors in defense of democracy against the meanness, fascism, cruelty and, yes, evil, of Donald Trump, the MAGAfied Republicans and the larger neofascist movement. 

But embracing “joy” and calling Trump and the Republicans “weird” is not a political strategy. Either alone or together such words and emotions will not defeat the MAGA movement. But as John Blake articulates in an essay at CNN, using the emotion of hope to power a resistance campaign in the tradition of America's Black freedom struggle will be essential to defending or redeeming democracy in the face of the neofascist, racial authoritarian tide. 

In a recent email describing its new ad campaign, the Lincoln Project (founded by anti-Trump conservatives and former Republicans) describes the momentum and energy coming out of the Democratic National Convention this way:

Like all old stars, Trump's fading into oblivion with even Fox News hanging up on him. Meanwhile, Vice President Harris is clearly the stronger candidate since she's crushing him in the ratings, the polls, and the money. She's burning bright and capturing attention while Trump struggles for relevancy.

Polls released after last week’s convention suggest that Harris is leading Trump by a significant margin, but we must remember that a post-convention bump is the norm and that Harris is still enjoying a honeymoon period in terms of news media coverage while Trump and his agents are groping for an effective counterattack. One crucial fact has not changed: This election will be decided by a relatively small number of voters in the key battleground states.

With those qualifiers (and others having been noted), these last eight weeks have been some of the most eventful in recent American political history. Something has changed. On Election Day, the American people and the world will find out what it all means for their collective future and their shared freedom.

To make better sense of last week’s Democratic National Convention, how to understand the current political terrain, our emotions in this tumultuous time and what may happen next, I recently spoke to a range of experts. You can read the first part of these conversations here.

Cheri Jacobus, a former Republican, is a political strategist, writer and host of the podcast "Politics With Cheri Jacobus."

This was the best convention by either party that I've ever seen. I've been to four in my lifetime, so I can be a hard sell and a bit cynical. MAGA Republicans long ago left patriotism, freedom, American exceptionalism, and Reaganesque optimism on the table. Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and the Democrats scooped it up, cleaned it up, found a lot of Joe Biden in it, and repurposed it for the shiny new Democratic Party coalition to make history and to lead us safely out of this nightmare era of Trump.

The production value was top shelf, but the content, speakers, authenticity, hope and, yes, "joy" were most welcome and needed. It began with Biden, who led as the most consequential president of our times, and doing it while the MAGA fascist movement was in full swing — no easy task.  His vice president incorporated Biden's pragmatic competency into her own vision for the next leg of healing our nation and restoring our position on the world stage. That she had the stellar judgment to name Gov. Tim Walz as a somewhat out-of-the-box choice for her vice-presidential running mate has rightfully earned Kamala Harris high praise. Biden and Harris seem to be turning the traditional assumption that vice presidents don't much matter on its ear, with both making VP running mate choices to indeed be important. Kamala Harris seems to know us better than we know ourselves. She knew we needed Tim Walz before we knew we needed Tim Walz!

The race is still close, and there are voter groups that Harris-Walz need to focus on in the coming weeks to fill those gaps. The barnstorming of the past few weeks covered almost all of it, and now the campaign can be more surgical and strategic closing in on early voting and Election Day.

But one thing is clear from this Democratic National Convention — the gloves are off. Democrats showed they can hit convicted felon Donald Trump hard, while still presenting a cheerful vision of a future that is a modern day "Morning in America." The experienced prosecutor is showing us how it's done, and Trump appears to have noticed, as he executes and documents his meltdown on social media for all to see.

There is still a long way to go, and a lot of work to be done to win this race. This campaign is no longer "just" about defeating Trump. We are still smarting over the inelegant manner in which President Biden was pushed out of the campaign. But his grace and leadership, and Harris' respectful, energetic and brilliant acceptance of the torch passed to her, give us something to embrace beyond just defeating Trump. That is what made this Democratic convention likely the most impactful and successful in history.

Reece Peck is an associate professor at the Department of Media Culture at the College of Staten Island and author of the book "Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class."

The conventional wisdom is that conservatives are effective at creating universal narratives and Democrats, having a more diverse coalition, appeal to specific issues and various group interests. Where broad ideological principles draw in conservatives, Democrats are known for supporting their arguments with numbers and policy minutiae to attract their wonky, college-educated base. The most significant difference I see between the 2016 DNC and the 2024 DNC is the party has largely abandoned this technocratic approach and has instead decided to fight fire with fire, wielding the weapons of narrative and style against the Republican opposition.

One could not draw a starker contrast than the one between the Republican National Convention’s dry, procedural roll call in Milwaukee and the DNC’s DJ-led, Coachella-esque roll call in Chicago. Just imagine a split screen with the dour, puritanical face of House Speaker Mike Johnson on one side and Atlanta rapper Lil Jon blasting “Turn Down for What” on the other. At least, at this juncture of the race, Democrats seem to be winning on the terrain of narrative and “vibes,” political fronts that usually favor the Republican Party’s tabloid leader. More interestingly, the Harris campaign has taken the rhetoric of freedom and patriotism, narrative themes that have historically defined conservatives. I can’t recall when a DNC convention crowd chanted “USA” more than at this convention.

The “freedom” trope is powerful, especially when attached to the issue of reproductive rights. Still, by itself, it is not enough to combat the MAGA movement’s white working-class identity politics. One of the greatest threats to the Democratic Party is allowing the Trump-Vance ticket to depict itself as the one who will stand up to corporate power and the military-industrial complex. In my opinion, day one was the most effective at thwarting the Trump-Vance playbook as it featured union leaders like UAW president Shawn Fain, who attacked Trump as a “scab,” and Democratic politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Raphael Warnock, who folded an economic populist message into the larger “freedom” narrative about gender and minority rights and peace for Israelis and Palestinians.

However, with each passing day, the convention seemed to slip back into its old ways, prioritizing speakers with high rank in the party but with little narrative power (e.g., Leon Panetta in prime time — really?) and appeasing group interests that are ultimately irreconcilable (e.g., big business vs. labor, “bear hugging” Netanyahu while “hearing” protesters). And like always, the DNC flaunted its A-list celebrities, a move that can do more to paint Democrats as aligned with America’s overdogs, not its underdogs. This incoherence offered comedic fodder for "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, who lampooned Democrats, saying, “At their convention, they had union leaders and CEOs. …They had a guy yelling 'Screw the billionaires' [Bernie Sanders] followed immediately by a very happy billionaire [Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker].” These contradictions do not exist in the Harris-Walz ticket itself, with Harris being a biracial daughter of middle-class Oakland and Walz a white, working-class Midwesterner. I just wish the Harris-Walz team had had more influence over the DNC’s speaker selection and the convention themes. On the campaign trail, the ticket has exuded far better populist messaging and a more strategic use of younger, non-middlebrow celebrities.

I suppose independents and non-politically engaged Americans only tuned in to hear Harris and Walz’s speeches. In that case, the DNC convention probably helped the Democratic cause (though I wish Harris would not have backed away from her anti-price-gouging proposal). What keeps me up at night is white working-class voters in Pennsylvania, antiwar Arab-American voters in Michigan and Gen Z men of all ethnicities in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Judging by the speakers and themes of the DNC convention — notably the Obamas and former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s speeches on bipartisan unity — it seems Democrats are making a play to disaffected, suburban Republicans over the aforementioned voting demographics I’m worried about.

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Trump did, in fact, underperform with middle-class, educated Republicans in the primary against Nikki Haley. Yet in a politically polarized country where partisan loyalties are nearly impossible to dislodge, I find the strategy to turn Republicans into Democrats a more herculean task than persuading a small but critically significant amount of working-class voters in the swing states. Repeating Hillary Clinton’s anemic numbers with non-college-educated voters will repeat an automatic Trump victory. The Harris and Walz campaign must do more to bridge the diploma divide. I’d recommend they stick to their pre-convention messaging strategy of reproductive freedom and labor populism and disregard the Democratic Party’s usual “please everyone and say nothing” approach to politics.   

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters." His website is Enough Already.

The Democratic National Convention was brilliant, and Kamala Harris delivered a speech worthy of America. I prepared for four days of liberal-porn nonsense, and what I got was a four-part documentary explaining how and why the Democrats are ready for this moment. And it’s about time the party started leaning on patriotism. I have been writing about this relentlessly: Republicans can’t pretend to love this country by literally attacking it, and our fundamental right to vote. 

Harris punched down on the traitor Trump, and stood up for America. It was a fearless, hopeful speech. 

I feel oddly hopeful, and less worried than I have in eight years. To quote Joe Biden: “No kiddin’.” I wasn’t crazy about dumping Biden because while it was easy for everybody to holler for change, nobody seemed to know what that change looked like. An open convention would have been a complete disaster. Turns out, Democrats’ Plan B was an A-plus. 

Nobody will ever know exactly what happened to ultimately change Joe’s mind, but Nancy Pelosi’s fingerprints were all over the scene of the switch. The most powerful politician in the world the past 20 years made it as clear as mud following the infamous debate that she didn't think Biden was our best bet to beat the despicable Trump. Well, there might be people who respect Pelosi’s political craft as much as I do, but nobody respects it more, so her tepid support for Biden was telling. 

Sure, it was messy for a few weeks there. And sure, it would have been nice if Pelosi had joined Biden for tea on the patio of the Rose Garden and he came around to her thinking. Then they could have had a tight little press conference announcing to the world that after a sweet chat they were total buds now, and Joe would be stepping aside for the good of the party. Politics are not a smooth roll in the best of times, and certainly not when democracy and the future of America are hanging in the balance.

So Pelosi ran cover for presidents Obama and Clinton, who were also muted in their support for Joe. Either one of those men could have weighed in and given Biden the rousing endorsement that would have slammed the door shut on any talk of replacing him. They didn’t.

I had sources close to Obama telling me he wanted Biden out. Pelosi injected herself into the fray, and did what she has always done: She handled this.

My No. 1 fear going forward is our bought-off Supreme Court, which decided they are OK with kings and queens. It terrifies me every other minute. Everybody knows Trump will literally do anything — I mean anything — to avoid losing and going to jail. There was a time, many years ago, when I would have expected our working press to expose warn of this kind of pathetic, dangerous behavior, but everybody knows that won’t happen either. 

I fully expect the mainstream media to do everything in its power to keep this race close. There’s just too damn much money in it for them not to. When you throw in the fact that they are completely incompetent and incapable of pointing out the glaring differences in what this country would be like under an authoritarian Trump presidency, and a democratic Harris presidency, I expect the next 70-plus days to be far more turbulent than they need to be.

Democrats undeniably have all the momentum. If the next two months are anything like the past month, I believe they will roll. Then it invariably starts going to the courts, and the majority of America begins holding its breath. It is just so terrible we've gotten to this place. 

And a bouquet of flowers to Harris’ communications team. They have been positively knocking it out of the park, by doing what our media should be doing — fact-checking the hell out of Trump and posting about how unhinged (weird) he is in real time. 

Matthew Dallek is a professor at George Washington's Graduate School of Political Management and author, most recently, of “Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.”

This Democratic National Convention was arguably one of the boldest, more inspiring political events that many Americans are likely to witness in their lifetimes. The speeches, music and nonstop dance party felt interspersed with serious ideas and memorable messages, from Michelle Obama’s powerful call to arms to the wild state-by-state, song-by-song roll call, demonstrating that modern conventions aren’t dead. They can matter and they do matter. This one did many things at once. It featured a tribute to the power of mothers to instill values that live on in the life of the nation. The convention emphasized ideals such as hard work, community and opportunity, along with an updated vision of American freedom that speaks to threats in our current politics. And with the appearance of varied voices and diverse individuals that amounted less to a crass exercise in identity politics than tapping the best in a pluralistic America, the convention offered a vision of uplift, tolerance and unity. The specifics were bold, patriotic and, in the word of our time, “joyous.”

The Harris-Walz presidential campaign sounded as if it had a clear idea of what it wanted to say to the country and how it wanted to convey its ideas, and it effectively balanced the power of pop culture with moments of policy discussions and somber intonations about the election’s stakes.

I’ve attended two conventions. I’ve watched others on television. It’s hard to recall any as dynamic and riveting as 2024 Chicago. And yet its end poses an obvious, vexing question: Did this event sway voters in seven battleground states still unsure who they will support or whether they will even bother to vote? In the last 24 hours, the New York Times featured a handful of “swing” voters who mostly were unmoved by the reintroduction of Harris to the country, and sounded as if they were still sitting on the fence. In contrast, CNN held one of those focus groups of undecided voters who raised their hands to show their newfound support for Harris.

Whether the appearance of celebrities (Oprah!) drew working-class skeptics to Harris' side or turned off the kinds of voters she needs to win is hard to say. Perhaps the party should have focused more on the economy and attacking inflation in their policy and messaging. There’s only one way to judge this event's impact: A Harris victory will probably seal the convention as a moment that helped introduce her to the electorate and vault her to the White House. Defeat will generate endless amounts of second-guessing. The proof of its success will be on Election Day.