From impossible, to possible, to real, to ordinary in 25 years

While I didn’t watch the Democratic National Convention live I did watch some of the speeches posted online. Many are worth sharing. This sounds like fun (though I don’t have a video): During the roll call to ceremonially nominate Harris and Walz DJ Cassidy spun a tune appropriate for each state – Bruce Springsteen for New Jersey, Dolly Parton for Tennessee, and so on. Daily Kos staff gathered photos of the various buttons available for delegates to wear. I like: “Make Stupid Embarrassing Again.” Pete Buttigieg: I only have excerpts of the text and this is an excerpt of that:

I'm thinking of dinner time at our house in Michigan when the dog is barking and the air fryer is beeping and the mac and cheese is boiling over and it feels like all the political negotiating experience in the world is not enough for me to get our three year old son and our three year old daughter to just wash their hands and sit at the table. It's the part of our day when politics seems the most distant. And yet the makeup of our kitchen table, the existence of my family is just one example of something that was literally impossible as recently as 25 years ago, when an anxious teenager growing up in Indiana wondered if he would ever find belonging in this world. This kind of life went from impossible to possible, from possible to real, from real to almost ordinary in less than half a lifetime.

Hillary Clinton’s speech, 17 minutes. The ovation when she came to the podium lasted close to two minutes. Dana Nessel, Attorney General of Michigan, spoke for four minutes. Her big line:

For the Republicans and the justices of the United States Supreme Court, you can pry this wedding band from my cold dead gay hands.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost parts of both legs in the Iraq War, does a great defense of IVF in five minutes. Cole Emhoff, stepson of Harris, narrates a two minute video to introduce his father Doug to the convention. It’s a sweet story. Even better, the video was produced by Kerstin Emhoff—Cole’s mother and Doug’s ex-wife. As Ben Wexler tweeted:

Kamala’s husband’s ex-wife is supporting her more enthusiastically than Trump’s current wife is supporting him.

To which Kerstin replied: “Damn right.” Doug Emhoff spoke for 8 minutes telling about how he and Harris met and what she has done for his family, what she has done for the country so far, and what she will do. He didn’t shake the rafters as other speakers did and will. It’s just a sweet story. Michelle Obama, 20 minutes, a tribute to her mother, who died just a few months ago. She talked about how most people she knows don’t get second (or third or fourth) chances.

See, his his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people—who happened to be black. I want to know. I want to know who's going to tell him. Who's going to tell him that the job he's currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?

Barack Obama, 37 minutes. This post includes the transcript. He also talks about Michelle’s mother and his grandmother.

But they knew what was true. They knew what mattered: things like honesty and integrity, kindness, and hard work. They weren’t impressed with braggarts or bullies. They didn’t think putting other people down lifted you up or made you strong. They didn’t spend a lot of time obsessing about what they didn’t have. Instead, they appreciated what they did. They found pleasure in simple things: a card game with friends, a good meal and laughter around the kitchen table, helping others, and, most of all, seeing their children do things and go places that they would’ve never imagined for themselves.

I heard that part about braggarts and bullies and thought that means they ignored the social hierarchy as much as they could and were not impressed with people who thought the hierarchy was of critical importance. One more step: Every speaker I’m highlighting tonight only used language of the hierarchy and supremacy to describe Republicans. When talking about Democrats they talked about the opposite – building community. NHBred of the Kos community posted a story about Tim Walz’ son Gus being neurodivergent and how the family made sure he got the help he needed. They now call his condition his secret power. And the 17 minute acceptance speech by Coach Walz, the VP nominee. He may not have given big speeches before, but he did an excellent job with this one. Some of what he said: In a small town we learned how to take care for each other. Everybody belongs. Everybody contributes. There is a commitment to the common good. A single person can make a difference. While others were banning books, we were banning hunger. I loved his contrast between the way Republicans define freedom and the way Democrats do. Project 2025 is an agenda that nobody wants, an agenda only for the richest and most extreme. And nobody writes a playbook and not use it. In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos exlrrp posted a cartoon of people on a plane with this caption, “Attention, passengers: there will be some moderate turbulence while we pass through the energy field pulsing up from the Democratic National Convention.” I bought a new computer. The current one, which I’m using now, is ten years old and running Windows 7. I’m now getting websites, such as the bank that issued me a credit card, that refuse to talk to it. Others say, please update! So it is time. I don’t know how long setting it up will take. It may go smoothly, it may not. This will also be a time to update all the software, so that will take a chunk of the time. I probably won’t post again until it is done.