From the moment that the perimeter opened at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday morning, a huge difference between it and its GOP counterpart became apparent, and it profoundly speaks to the state of the two parties.
On entering the RNC in Milwaukee, one was greeted almost by a street festival atmosphere of outdoor seating, refreshments and even cornhole courts set up for the attendees. For four days, it was the people, not just the power players on stage, who were the life and soul of the party.
At the United Center, here in Chicago, there is none of this carnival atmosphere. Instead, there is mostly just the arena itself. If not for the long security lines and massive pictures of Kamala Harris, one could almost be attending a Blackhawks game.
It is a telling distinction for two parties that have diverged so enormously regarding how much control the voters have versus the bosses.
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Polls show that most Democrats are happy about the Biden-Harris switcheroo. That is mainly what I’ve found talking to them across the country. But the fact remains that Harris was installed with no votes and Biden was only pushed out when major donors threatened to shut down the electoral trust fund.
It is almost impossible to believe that Republican voters, who have rebelled against the elites and donors twice in two decades, first with the Tea Party, then with Trump, would swallow being cut out of the process in such a way.
The lack of festive gathering spaces at the DNC speaks to another key difference between our nation’s parties: the Democrats have good reason to fear that such spaces could be used by their own for an embarrassing protest against Israel, or the police, or any number of leftist bugaboos. The GOP does not have any such worry.
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Indeed, just blocks away from the convention, such protesters in their thousands were making their displeasure with Harris and the Democrats known in a vibrant display of sights, sounds, and smells. The only "Republicans" who protest Donald Trump do so from MSNBC TV studios, not by taking over the streets.
In an image that might be a perfect metaphor for the modern American left, I saw an enormous line of people waiting to use the six porta-potties on site. As the saying goes, under communism, you will be provided with everything, but you won’t get very much of it.
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The protesters I spoke to, none of whom would share their names, some of them not even their faces, were mixed as to whether they would vote for Harris, but none of them liked her or any of the other power brokers with "Ds" after their names at the convention down the road.
And that is a problem for Harris, because she needs them.
What we can tell about the state of the Democrats and Republicans from the style of their conventions is striking. In Milwaukee, the people were the show. It was like a small town celebrating a fair. In Chicago, Democrats have constructed a very directed experience. Basically, it’s just this: do as you are told.
Make no mistake, there will be parties for delegates around the city, and other fun events, but the Democratic National Convention itself is a buttoned-up, top-down affair, befitting the current iteration of the party of Jefferson and Jackson.
In the Republican Party, it is consistently the voters who frustrate and confound the professionals and money men. Such is the nature of populism. And those same voters have shown they are willing to lose rather than return to a GOP that ignores their priorities.
For Democrats, it is a different story. For them, it is much more about getting in line, even if that line is for a party that isn’t very fun.
