What a turnaround

I'm talking about the Democratic Convention, where it seems absolutely everything went spectacularly right.  (Well, save for the mystery of who started the rumour of Beyonce or Swift turning up at the end to sing the crowd out.)   

They talked about it in glowing terms on Planet America's Fireside Chat last night, and to be honest, I haven't personally watched any of the highlight speeches in full length yet. (I'll probably watch Harris and maybe the Obamas later.)  But from all of the clips I've seen on news shows or elsewhere, I got the impression it went better than anyone expected:  no disruptive riots on the street outside, a picture of optimism and racial inclusiveness inside, and (perhaps?) a swing to the culture war centre where the party often mentioned respect for "diversity", but didn't seem to heavily emphasise the more controversial and polarising side of it (no bald non binary person in a dress who is a secret kleptomaniac featured on stage, for example.)  

And it drew out the embarrassing and shameful poison on the MAGA side - I thought it was clear as soon as I saw Walz's son's emotional reaction to his Dad on stage that it looked like he had developmental issues (and I quickly read that he did.)   I actually said to my son "I don't think even MAGA idiots would be game to mock this".  My son disagreed, and he was right!   (My God, there are many tweets by mouthbreathing idiots who now troll on Musk's cesspit that he's probably been sexually abused - or given brain damage by being beaten - by his pedo dad as a child.)    The most high profile person who "went there" (although not to that extreme) was Ann Coulter, who then deleted the "weird" tweet when she read about his health issues.  (To its ever so slight credit, the Hot Air conservative blog also criticised the attacks, and pointed out that even Ben Shapiro tweeted positively about it.)   

Anyhow, I guess I should still say that I'm not the biggest fan of Kamala's intonation when she speaks (but then again, Bill Clinton's accent has always grated a bit too), but this is just a trivial parochialism on my part.  Before Obama was elected, I really wasn't confident that he had the experience and qualities to be a good President, but I was happily proved very wrong.   

As lots of people are saying everywhere, the amazing thing is how well those in the Kamala campaign team have recognized that under Trump, the Republicans have reached the pinnacle of where decades  of bad faith catastrophising about Democrats in power* could take them - to be the party of such insane and overblown pessimism that they are now actually the anti-patriotic party.   Patriotism implies optimism, and Republicans have overplayed the "we are on the edge of catastrophe" card so many times, their version of optimism (only We can Make American Great Again) is now playing amongst independents as fake and insincere and anti-American.

Which is great! 

One other thing:  the success of the convention has given a real boost to the arm of the late night talk shows too - or at least, Colbert's show, which went to Chicago and has been held in a massive theatre to wildly enthusiastic audiences.   Have a look at this clip of his talking to very smart and very attractive AOC, to see what I mean:

  

Of course, there is still time for things to go wrong for a Harris/Walz win:  in America, you're always only one bullet away from drama with unpredictable consequences.

But I am feeling pretty confident that, in their heart of hearts, most conservative commentators can tell their side is definitely on a losing path, and might even secretly feel that Harris is performing well. But it's hard to tell - the Right has become expert at self-gaslighting for so long, you never can tell how many are beyond returning to reality and anything approaching a generosity of spirit. 

*  it will be the end of America - and they're literally evil!