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The Democrat National Whatsit


"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary" – Henry Mencken


At some point, some bright-eyed and bushytailed reporter will notice that the Democrat National Convention has no clothes on.

The event is being referred to in news stories as “the Democrat National Convention,” although delegates are not convening anywhere because there is no “where” there, no delegates, no contestable nominating speeches, no reporters roaming the convention floor shoving microphones into delegates faces and asking them what they might think about party leaders.

The non-convention this year will be a video presentation, an entirely scripted event featuring a host of speakers including former Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, high-profile black speakers former first lady Michelle Obama and her consort,  former President Barack Obama, firebrand anti-capitalist, New York Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and the twinkling star of the non-convention, Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders, all virtually gathered together to unspool political bumper sticker pleasantries about the incontestable Democrat Presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

The nominations of Biden-Harris are a virtual – pun intended – certainty because no Democrat delegates with be present to offer alternative nominations.

An Associated Press reporter noted some sharp differences with conventions past: “… without the opportunity for the approximately 4,800 Democratic delegates from across the country to gather on the same convention hall floor, as is tradition, the opportunity for a genuine convention debate over the direction of the party has been eliminated.” Sorry about that Bernie. Most US journalists certainly would have preferred a brokered rather than a broken convention. 

Rules Committee member and Sanders confidant Larry Cohen “lamented the loss of an in-person convention, but not because it limits debate.” Actually, it eliminates debate.

“’The key of a convention, really, is the party building that comes with 57 different delegations,’ [Cohen] said, noting the in-person daily meetings that would occur in hotels across a host city. ‘You shape the party in those breakfast meetings, where you argue over what it means to be a Democrat in Wyoming, what does it mean in Georgia.’”

Journalism, this writer has often pointed out, is the art of naming, which involves putting the right names to persons, events and concepts. So then, what shall we call a Democrat Nomination Convention that convenes nowhere, features no convention delegates, is highly scripted, many of the scripts written far in advance of the event by political staff people, and does not allow person to person press interviews with the missing 4,800 Democratic delegates from across the country?

The AP story notes, “The Biden campaign on Friday announced watch parties in all 50 states featuring elected officials and celebrities such as Alyssa Milano, Pete Buttigieg and Valerie Jarrett. The watch parties, like the convention itself, will be online.” So then, state delegates have been replaced by political and Hollywood celebs.

If this is no more a national party convention than an apple is an orange, what is the right name for it?

The sage of Baltimore, Henry Mencken, who covered every national political convention for the Sun Papers during his half century long career in journalism, and who also wrote a dictionary of the American language, might have been able to invent a neologism that would properly describe this new political goblin, but it is obvious there are no Menckens in modern journalism’s database.

Looking forward to modern times from 1924, Mencken, who loved the gaudy bustle of political conventions, saw conventions taking a lamentable turn in the road. “The convention system, at bottom, is certainly not a bad one,” he wrote. “It gives the people of all parts of the country their chance to be heard; it provides for free debate; it insures voting in the open; it is fundamentally fair and honest. But in practice it has become so horribly enmeshed in formulae that two-thirds of the ends that it was designed to achieve are defeated. The delegates spend nearly all their time and energies not in considering the business before them but at the hollow maneuvers of trained animals.”

Virtually – again, pun intended – all of the features commended by Mencken have been eliminated in the Democrats new model convention. People from all parts of the country will not be heard; there will be no free debate, because there will be no delegate debater; voting will not occur because delegate voters on the convention floor will be absent; indeed, there will be no floor; voting will not occur in the open because all issues that might be decided in what Mencken views as a “free debate” will have been decided long before the Hollywood and professional politicians assembled in watch parties open their mouths.

The good news is that the convention delegates will not ape the “hollow maneuvers of trained animals” because they will be at home watching the virtual convention from their Coronavirus cocoons.

Wouldn’t it save a great deal of time and effort if we were to allow the editorial boards of the Washington Post, the New York Times, AP writers and Hollywood celebs to choose our Presidents and Vice Presidents?

Comments

JP said…
Why not cancel both conventions - both of them. We know it’s Trump & Biden - let them at each other and save us the self-aggrandizing speeches and Hollywood set. Better yet, replace the two conventions with 2 presidential debates.

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