Well, the Democratic Convention has me feeling a lot better about the Democrats’ chances in the November election and Kamala Harris’ chances to be the first woman — and woman of color — to become president of the United States. To says she has surprised me with her sheer focused magnificence is the understatement of the year.
Did the first couple of nights run long? Sure, but then it’s always prime time somewhere in the world. Do some politicians love the sounds of their own voices? Always.
At the convention, though, we got not only joy — in short supply in the “American carnage” years — but the sorrow of officers assaulted in the Jan. 6 insurrection, parents waiting for the American hostages of Hamas to be released and women whose health was risked by abortions denied. And we got the sobriety of what we’re up against — the autocracy of the Republicans’ Project 2025 and the lunacy of former President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs. As former President Bill Clinton — still as shrewd a pol as they come — said, we underestimate the opposition at our own peril.
And as Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries said,of Trump, “Bro, there’s a reason we broke up with you.” (Jeffries was one of many speakers who illustrated just how deep the Dems’ bench is.)
As for that opposition, well, Trump’s been busy concentrating on Hannibal Lecter and beauty. Really, his antipathy to veterans, his fear of Harris’ attractiveness, his obsession with popular fictional characters is not about dementia. It’s not about sexism or racism or weirdness or anything else that’s being thrown around.
Rather, it’s all about one thing — narcissism. A narcissist has no identity — none. The narcissist’s “me-ness” is a desperate search for “I.” Each day, he — it’s usually a man but sometimes a woman — must be created by sycophants, enablers and the mob, by the daily fix of adulation that is entirely a one-way street.
A narcissist fixates on looks, because when you have no identity all you have is a surface that is no match for time and death. That is why Trump is not good with soldiers, veterans and old people, for whom death is a constant companion.
The narcissist looks to strongmen real, like Vladimir Putin, and imagined, like a Hannibal Lecter, not because he himself is strong but because being identity-less makes him weak and insecure. So he mistakes cruelty for power.
But St. Paul quotes Jesus as saying that power — in his case, Jesus’ power — is made perfect in our weakness. It’s why President Joe Biden is truly a powerful figure.
What happened to him was cruel. The sacrifice of the one for the many is always cruel. But in the end it was Biden’s decision, however forced, and it is Biden’s legacy.
When I think of him now, when I think about the convention, I think about past conventions that were dominated by the Kennedys — not the loopy, lost Robert F. Kennedy Jr. but the Kennedys who believed in an America that leads the way at home and abroad. One of their favorite poems was Alfred Lord Tennyson’s "Ulysses,” which has a lot to say about those who may feel they’ve been marginalized but who still have much to give:
"...Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Thanks, Joe, for keeping the faith. And now, as I’ve written before, it's up to Harris and the rest of us to spread it.