Make a Joyful Noise

The Democrats took the advice from Psalm 98:4 to heart, being nosily joyful not just onto the Lord but to the people, celebrating their diversity and their patriotism throughout the 2024 Democratic convention in Chicago.  It was a far cry from the complaints that the country sucked and was in decline that come from an earlier national political convention.  

The 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee? No, the 1984 Democratic convention in San Francisco. I remember that convention Jesse Jackson was dismissive, Gary Hart was sour, and Ted Kennedy was just plain mean, saying that President Reagan was the only senior citizen who didn't have to worry bout health care because all he had to do when he didn't feel well was press a button in the Oval Office to call a doctor, and then Kennedy added, "Next time, I hope he presses the right button." The only speaker who struck the right balance between hope and despair and between patriotic pride and righteous outrage was keynote speaker and New York governor Mario Cuomo, who was so inspiring he left delegates wonder why Walter Mondale was to be the presidential nominee. Trump's GOP convention in Milwaukee, by contrast, offered nothing but righteous indignation without the righteousness.

So now the GOP says our nation is in decline, and for all the wrong reasons, while the Democrats say, for all the right reasons, that the United States' best days don't just lie head, they're just beginning. But the Democrats re going to have to do more than express joy and optimism, because the rub is that MAGA is still ascendant and Trump has been campaigning for President for all the time since losing his bid for a second term in 2020 . . . and he's backed by a base seeking retribution against not only their perceived adversaries - people of color, feminists, socialists, immigrants, soccer fans - but punitive action against turncoat Republicans and Trump-hating Democrats for having the damn gall to do something as unforgivable as nominating a black woman with a Jewish husband to oppose Trump for the Presidency. The cruelty Trump directed toward Hillary Clinton and anyone who had supported her presidential campaign was bad enough, but this will be ten times worse.

Fortunately, the Harris campaign already aware that it can't take anything for granted just because Donald Trump has been diminished on a regular basis for the past month. Vice President Harris and Tim Walz are already reaching out to voters in Georgia, and they'll be revisiting other swing states in the near future. Expect them to do what Hillary never did - campaign in Michigan. (Expect them not to do what Hillary did do - campaign in Ohio, because if Hillary's failure to win the Buckeye State didn't convince people that Ohio had gone totally MAGA gaga, then James David Vance's success in writing and arranging Tim Ryan's political death song in the state's 2022 U.S. Senate election did.) The Harris-Walz ticket will continue to define themselves, lay out their agenda for the next four years, and welcome anyone and everyone to join them. and they'll do it joyfully.