Eight weeks ago, the Democratic Party was basically holding a political funeral for itself after Joe Biden’s disastrous performance against Donald Trump in their first and only debate. The polls, the public mood, the news media and the party’s senior members and base voters had turned against the president. Defeat in the 2024 election and, at least potentially, the end of America’s experiment with multiracial pluralistic democracy seemed a fait accompli. Matters almost instantaneously changed when Biden made the wise, difficult and selfless decision to step aside as the party’s 2024 nominee and hand the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. Less than two months later, Democrats were celebrating at their exuberant Chicago convention.
Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, formally accepted their nominations. Democrats, no longer on the perpetual defense, embrace the themes of joy and being happy warriors in defense of democracy against the meanness, fascism, cruelty and, yes, evil, of Donald Trump, the MAGAfied Republicans and the larger neofascist movement.
