CHICAGO — During Barack Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention last Tuesday night, I witnessed a spirited discussion between an elderly woman in the Illinois delegation and one of the fluorescent-jacketed young volunteers known as ushers, who more strongly resemble pep-squad captains. That young man wanted to retrieve a vertical cardboard sign reading “VOTE!” — if you watched the convention at all, you saw those all week: “JILL,” “WE [heart] JOE,” “COACH WALZ,” “KAMALA” — which the woman insisted on hoisting aloft at unauthorized moments. To paraphrase the delegate’s argument, she was going to do her part to encourage people to vote whenever she damn well pleased, and was disinclined to submit to scripted choreography dictated by some whippersnapper.
I felt at the time that the encounter symbolized something, but I still don’t know what. For the most part, the Democratic Party’s propaganda exercise in the City of Broad Shoulders was expertly choreographed. Tiny bands of pro-Palestinian protesters, many blocks away from the United Center, had little or no impact on the proceedings, and there can no longer be any doubt that the abrupt emergence and anointment of Kamala Harris — who now looks less like an accidental candidate than a decisive twist of fate — has fundamentally transformed the dynamics of the 2024 presidential contest.
