‘The Democratic convention was an explosion of that Republican-detested word, diversity’ | Opinion
Who would have thought – five weeks ago – that the Democratic Party would produce a stunningly inspiring, decisive, organized, unifying and mobilizing national convention. Who would have thought – ever – that Democrats could pull off a week like last week.
I am, as always, a sucker for the speeches. Michelle Obama challenging the “affirmative action of generational wealth” and wondering who is “going to tell” the other party’s nominee “the job he is currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?’
Or Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gestures while describing Donald Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd size” and his warning that “we all know the sequel is usually worse.”
And Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s reminder that while other states (like North Carolina) “were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours” and living out their “golden rule... mind your own damn business.”
Who would have guessed that NBA and Olympic gold medal basketball coach Steve Kerr’s simple assertion that “leaders must display dignity, tell the truth, and care for and love the people they are leading” would be so uniformly understood as a devastating bash of Donald Trump — without ever mentioning the former president’s name. “Night, night.”
There were the great and impressive Tar Heels (though it’s never acceptable to bounce James Taylor). The endless array of Republicans speaking of their venomous and dangerous former leader. And the magic of the Democratic nominees’ families and extended families — “doing” family values rather than talking them. And every father in the land gushing uncontrollably at the sight of Gus Walz exclamation: “That’s my dad.” Is he ever.
For many millions, including me, to now have Kamala Harris carry their banner as “heirs of the greatest democracy in the history of the world” — recognizing “it is now our turn to do what generations before have done to fight for the country we love” — is an infusion of pride and purpose and possibility we could not have sensibly expected.
The Democratic convention was an explosion of that Republican-detested word, diversity — a rising front in this century’s greatest battle between the promises of pluralistic, multiracial, constitutional democracy and a burgeoning, racialized autocracy. (The Milwaukee Journal reported that 3% of delegates at the Republican national convention were Black.)
Harris described November’s election as “not only the most important of our lives (but) one of the most important in the life of our nation.”
There was, of course, much necessary talk of the rough and uphill road ahead. But the struggle for the meaning of America is crushing in an even broader sense. President Obama reminded: “No nation, no society has ever tried to build a democracy as big and as diverse as ours. One that includes people that, over decades, have come from every corner of the globe. One where our allegiances are defined not by race or blood but by a common creed.”
Deeply diverse societies, perhaps unsurprisingly, often founder, brutalizing their most vulnerable members in ways that demolish the humanity of all. But none of us can actually welcome that. Or tolerate it.
That’s why my favorite promise of the week was Harris’ closing one: “I will never waver in the defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and where the United States belongs.”
Where the United States belongs.
Contributing columnist Gene Nichol is a professor of law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
