When all is said and done, I do think we’ll have to give props to the DNC team and the Biden campaign for how they put together this year’s virtual convention. I haven’t watched much of it live, but just from the videos I’ve watched the morning after, things seem to be running smoothly, and the videos seem to be well-produced, with an eye on interesting backgrounds and highlighting different parts of America and American life. I say this because my prediction is that next week’s RNC is going to be a trainwreck for a million different reasons, and I doubt the GOP will have this level of detail.
All that being said, I’m second-guessing the choice to have Senator Kamala Harris speak in a mostly empty convention hall. Kamala is a charismatic public speaker, but I think the mostly empty hall threw her off a bit, especially in the first few minutes. But she recovered and she gave a nice speech:
I love the personal narrative – it was a lovely way to introduce Kamala’s background, from her own mouth, and for her to describe her pride and ownership of all sides of her background, the Indian side, the Jamaican side, the American side. Just her existence on the ticket is groundbreaking, but the story of a first-generation Black-Indian American woman with a multicultural family, graduate of an HBCU, with the drive and ambition to succeed and to serve…I love it. I love everything about it. Also: did everyone notice that Kamala said which Oakland hospital she was born in? That one was for all the Nu Birthers. Anyway, what an amazing moment for Indian-American women and Black women.
I literally have tears in my eyes. @KamalaHarris just said “chithis” which means auntie. My heart is so full right now
— Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) August 20, 2020
As someone who has a deceased Indian mother and scientist who was my best friend, I can’t believe this is our candidate for Vice President. How in my lifetime? How? @SenKamalaHarris
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) August 20, 2020
Chittis for America!!!!!
— Meena Harris (@meenaharris) August 20, 2020
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Great. Now vote everyone.
Vote.
I was so happy for her.
I was so happy for all the cheering women and girls they showed who look like her.
I was so happy for all of us.
Let’s do this!
I’ve been watching the speeches the day after too, the convention feels like its been starting later this year than in past years? I haven’t seen this yet but I’ll watch it in a bit.
In general though I feel the same way now that I felt in 2016, which makes me nervous – I watched the RNC and the DNC and I could not figure out how people could watch both, and then think, “RNC is the America I want” with all the lock her up and yelling and that stupid Christie fake courtroom set up – the DNC was so full of hope and optimism and it was the America I wanted to live in. So now I’m nervous that people are going to make the same choice they made 4 years ago.
I made this exact comment last night to friends in a group chat, that he contrast between the Ds and the Rs has never been more stark. The Trump Republicans are utterly devoid of soul and substance. The fact that the POTUS and the Secretary of State were trolling on Twitter during the speeches tells you everything there is to know about the wretched state of the country. Yet somehow people have been convinced by right wing media that Trump is the better choice. It’s depressing and demoralizing.
Kamala was amazing. I can’t wait to see her debate Pence.
Racism is a helluva disease. It twists the mind to work against its bests interests all the time. It clouds the vision so you can’t see the truth and reality staring right back at you. And the GOP has spent decades using racism to divide this country and its people for political gain. It’s like climate change….we’re at the tipping point…the point of no return. We can either rise up together and embrace democracy for all or fall into the abyss of fascism and tyranny of white supremacy.
One of the saddest things about racism is that it’s insidious; people don’t even seem to see it, and most people, when it’s pointed out to them just double down on it (Dolly Parton seeming to be the exception here).
I’ll again signal my big conspiratorial belief, which is that Donald Trump did not actually win in 2016. Far, far too many people voted for him making it close enough to that Russia was able to change the votes to give him the states he absolutely needed.
But I think enough people see the horror of Donald Trump. I think when we vote in huge enough numbers, they can’t do it again. Let’s crush the traitor GOP. Let’s show the world that we stand for acknowledging our problems and fixing them. Let’s do this!
Something I keep telling myself is that we do not need to convince the republican base. we just need to convince more people in PA, WI, Michigan, NC, Florida, etc. His electoral victory seemed significant, but I think he won PA, WI and MI by something like 80k votes total? I cant remember the exact number now. We can do this.
Yep, he “won” by just a shade under 80K votes. If I understood her correctly, Rachel Bitecofer argues that there really aren’t swing voters, it’s just about motivating your party’s turnout.
I think the motivation is there for the Democrats, but we face a serious uphill battle: gerrymandering, ID laws, closed polls, the mail being attacked, treason by the GOP, etc. I think we have the numbers.
@Becks1 something we in PA have going for us this time around is that we no longer have the heavily gerrymandered districts we has in 2016, so we’re hoping that and some of the white women who left us in a lurch the last time because decades of GOP BS worked so well those women “couldn’t vote for Clinton” because they “have always just hated Hillary Clinton for some reason” will vote for Biden.
@pup, YES! I love Hillary but I know many women who say they can’t stand her. And when I say why? They literally can’t give me an answer
It feels late but I distinctly remember 2008 convention in denver started the first day of my fall semester in college and I missed using my tickets so its not more than 2 weeks later than then
I mean late at night! I don’t think the speeches start until 9 and I’m basically done by that point (I go to bed by 10 lol.)
On a superficial, My Gad Senator Harris looked fantastic while accepting her nomination.
*goes to research plum suits to wear around the house*
She is a truly beautiful woman. She just glows. She is the light to Pence’s darkness.
I couldn’t help but think that of every woman who spoke last night; they looked uniformly amazing. I think it comes in part from being on the side of the angels. The Republican women all look like they’ve lost a light inside themselves.
And I loved Warren’s BLM hint over her shoulder. Rock on, Elizabeth!
When she said that the first words she ever uttered in a court room as a young lawyer were “Kamala Harris, FOR THE PEOPLE”, it just made me so happy and so sad at the same time. Remember when US had presidents that served the people, not themselves? Sigh.
I love that, I have her shirt that says that from her Presidential campaign. The best words.
I cried watching her introduction. Such a momentous moment. She was my choice for President and seeing her up there accepting the VP nomination was amazing.
Has anyone brought up Willie Brown’s influence in her life? Might be worth discussing. Just saying here. I would be interested what others think of their relationship and how it influenced her future.
@BETS…stay out of a GROWN WOMAN’S PRIVATE LIFE…and focus on her public policy…
Ok, I though was an open discussion
By the way, it will be brought up sooner or later. It wasn’t so private, by the way.
They dated and now they don’t. There is your damn discussion.
@Tiffany…THANK YOU❣
Ok, I will drop it. Did not expect to get this type of response but thanks.
@Bets, the problem is that the R’s are saying that she “slept her way to the top” because she dated Brown. Now we can’t even talk about their connection and his mentorship because they sullied their association!
To be clear Willie Brown is a bad ass politician. They passed term limits in the state of California just to get him out. In addition he has a Masters in Social Work. So he knew how to manage legislation and have maximum impact on his constituents. San Francisco is still a very small town and the SF Democratic Machine is even smaller. Republicans want to frame her as sleeping her way to the top. She got elected because the people voted her in. You should google her state Attorney General election. It was super contentious and she was running against a white man from LA. National GOP operatives were deployed. It was ugly. Finally, sometimes you get to date in the pool around you which makes it slim pickings for a Black woman of her caliber. As far as her ability to pick em, she found a great friend and mentor. I’m not mad.
This. Only misogynists are still invested in that and trying to reduce her to that at this point. I mean, within the past 25 years two of this country’s married male presidents have slept with women who aren’t their wives, and worse. So neither republicans nor democrats (because yeah, some of our own are doing it too) have any business playing this game.
You wanna talk about someone she dated for a short while when she was 29? Also lets not pretend it isn’t brought up. Every right winger does and calls her misogynistic vitriolic names. Not sure what you want to discuss, given brown has been a mentor to most politicians from San Francisco from pelosi to gavin newsome.
This party cannot spend the next two months focusing solely on trashing Trump. This is what cost us the election four years ago. It’s not a message that sways the undecided. People want to hear a very clear message from the Dems that defines what exactly they plan to do to make everyone’s lives better, pandemic notwithstanding. Last night I didn’t hear much about policy. I hope that’s not a sign of things to come.
I call bullshit. Warren’s entire speech was about policy. Kamala didn’t even mention him. Hillary spoke about voting, not trump. The only one who spoke about the horrors under the trump admin was Pres Obama and it was very well done and quite necessary.
The whole first hour of the presentation was about policy: gun control, the environment, education, and healthcare. And most of the speeches afterwards touched on those themes. Did you miss Gabby Giffords?
If the undecided are still on the fence, then I don’t know what else will sway their votes. Because we have been through hell as a nation. Kids are being ripped from their parents, housed like farm animals in cages, abused by law enforcement, threatened and shipped back to their countries. Racists are running around thinking they can say and do anything to people of color with the full support of the WH. Our country is in the midst of a pandemic and the GOP doesn’t care if we are sick and dying. They want to end our healthcare, privatize everything so they can make a buck. If the undecided are still undecided at this point, they suck.
I cried. I am so proud of her. Happy for the representation. When she was selected, I felt hope for the first time since Nov. 2016. I can’t wait to vote for Biden/Harris.
Same.
Congratulations, Kamala!! And thank goodness we have such an inspired and intelligent woman at the helm now. I have vivid memories of watching Geraldine Ferraro’s Dem VP acceptance speech in 1984–it’s up on youtube for anyone who would like to see it. I was struck when my partner and I watched that speech again earlier this week–the roaring adulation from the crowd, Geraldine’s grace and humility, the hopes and dreams of us 20-something feminists in the early 80s… I so wish Kamala could have had those cheers last night! Though I know we were all cheering from home. It’s a long time coming, but it is here. We will finally have a woman Vice President!!!
I am so excited to have Kamala on this ticket. I just hope her inclusion will incite people who didn’t vote in 2016 to get out there this time. I know things are touch right now but if you can’t vote in person please look into your states mail-in balloting. I don’t believe that it’s fraudulent and all the crap Trump says but I am nervous about what the implications will be this year for those that can’t go. What if they just don’t vote at all? This is very concerning to me.