DNC Convention

Eh, I can cry incredibly easily, regardless of the emotions.  Most often because I feeling proud, happy, or just overcome with emotion (not as much with sadness).  I am sure I would have been crying at some point being in that environment, even if it wasn't someone that I knew personally.  Heck, there were times that I started to tear up when I was watching at home. I don't think it is that weird. 

I teared up too.  When Pete was talking about his family, I have close family members similar to his.  It breaks my heart to think about how not so long ago my family wouldn’t exist the way it does now if it were up to people who think like Trump.  Thinking about marriage equality and IVF being taken away scares me.  
‘The stories being shared touched me, so I cried.  If that makes me weird so be it.
I sobbed hearing the stories told by the teacher from Sandy Hook and the mother who lost her daughter at Uvalde. 

I thought this wan an interesting comparison, too

www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/20/opinion/thepoint#democratic-convention-tshirts

Because I’m an idiot I traveled to Milwaukee for the Republican convention last month with only one T-shirt. After going to the gym I had to get another, and I was stuck within the convention security zone so my challenge was to buy a shirt at the MAGA merch stand that would not get me exiled from my Washington neighborhood — or cause my wife to issue divorce papers.

This turned out to be a serious problem. The available T-shirts had messages like “Ban Idiots, Not Guns,” “These Colors Don’t Run, They Reload” and “If This Flag Offends You, I’ll Help You Pack.”

I felt I was staring straight into the deep MAGA unconscious — the angry defiance, the tough guy machismo, the ethos of pissed-off indignation. Guns have become an all-purpose symbol for: The elites have betrayed us; I’m taking care of myself.

I finally found a T-shirt I could agree with. It said, “America’s Heroes: Corrections, Dispatch, EMS, Nurse, Firefighter, Police, Military.” I can buy into public respect for the proletariat.

But then in Chicago I decided to check out the Democratic merch stands. The T-shirts were more cheerful, if less creative: “Trust Democratic Women,” “Harris: Together We Can Win This,” “Make History Again!” It’s as if somebody laid down an edict: Be peppy! Aspirational! Sell hope!

If you want to get a sense of the emotional tenor of each convention all you have to do is look at the T-shirt stands. Both conventions were happy, but deep down one party thinks the tide of history is running against it and the other thinks the tide of history bends toward justice. You can see it on their chests.

There are people there who want to speak who are Americans and have family in Gaza as well. I’m not sure that this is the right place for them to speak (although I do agree with their statements about what is happening jn Gaza being a crossroads of issues that democrats claim to care about) but having the Goldberg’s speak muddied the waters imo.

Sorry, one more comparison. The conventions really highlight the significant differences between the 2 parties and their vastly different visions for the future.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/22/tim-walz-democratic-convention-speech/

The most important passage in Vance’s convention speech last month was the one where he described the country as something physical, rather than an abstraction. “America is not just an idea,” Vance said. “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is in short, a nation.”

Literally speaking, this is not debatable; America exists, it is a nation and it has a history. But Vance isn’t being literal. He is articulating the central idea that animates all forms of nationalism (including the white variety), as well as the Trump movement. He is arguing that there is such thing as a common American culture, with its own language (English), its own religious ethos (Judeo-Christian) and its own concept of family (heterosexual, with naturally conceived children).
Of course there’s room for immigration and racial diversity in Vance’s worldview; his own wife is of Indian descent. But in his view of America, the outsider becomes American by adopting a set of cultural norms — living here “on our terms,” as he put it in his speech. In this way, he sees America as no different, really, from France or Russia or any other country with common ethnic heritage. The price of admission is cultural conformity.

What Walz articulates — about as clearly as anyone has in the party since Barack Obama arrived on the scene 20 years ago — is a competing view that says, no, actually America is very much an idea. Alone among nations, we have from the very start been a collection of immigrants and outsiders, bound together not by any common origin or culture, but rather by a common set of laws and values and institutions — what Abraham Lincoln called our “political religion.” (This is the liberal version of “American Exceptionalism” — the thing that makes us different from everyplace else.)

In the America Walz described in his convention speech, it doesn’t matter what language you speak at home or what god (if any) you worship, or whether you have kids (naturally or otherwise). Because as long as you believe in the American promise of liberty and adhere to its laws, you’re just as American as anyone else, and anybody who doesn’t like it should “mind their own damn business.”
Community, in Walz’s telling, isn’t defined by somebody’s idea of cultural norms, but rather by your connection to your neighbors. If you’re willing to help out with a stranded car or a bake sale, then he doesn’t care if you’re an atheist or a cat-owner (or, God forbid, both).

In a campaign season that may already feel small and shallow, this is a very big disagreement, and I would argue that it’s more important than any one policy having to do with the price of groceries or the tax code. It is an argument that will shape the way we govern ourselves for years to come — whether we conceive of American liberty as something that exists chiefly to protect White, Christian Americans from having their culture trampled, or whether we understand liberty to mean the freedom to choose whatever culture you like, as long as you respect the Constitution while you do it.

Kamala is amazing. I wish we could fast forward to November right now. I want to vote right this minute.

She was outstanding. My hope is that there are persuadable Republicans out there. It feels like this team/campaign could bring them in.

He's just having a rough time fighting his phone...


x.com/American_Bridge/status/1826823911591284943

x.com/brianstelter/status/1826823566056103993

I am so optimistic right now!

Watching Trump melt down is the best.

I'm hopeful, but honestly I STILL cannot forget that awful searing moment in Nov 2016 when it became clear that trump was going to become president. i had hoped he would grow up and out of himself, but he got worse as the years went on. He's gone from insulting a POW (unforgivable) to insulting anyone except himself. He is responsible for many Covid deaths, the Dobbs decision, and so much more. All why he enriched his pockets.

yet this POS is tied in the polls. There is a sickness in our society. he pulled away the curtain and gave it sunlight. Obama once said that he thought his presidency helped Trump get elected because it fueled a sense of grievance in many white people. I think he was right.

So yes I'm hopeful, but very worried. This last month has been 100% positive for Harris. That won't last.