Though each night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention has carried its own specific theme, the real throughline of this year’s event has been comedy — demonstrated by the tendency of most speakers to poke fun at the competition.
We’ve heard about the Black jobs, the narcissism, the fake wealth. And each time, with each reference to some ridiculous sound bite gone ridiculously viral, a wave of laughter lifted from the United Center seats and a camera panned to someone in the audience so tickled by the joke they could barely contain themselves.
Those jokes weren’t reserved for former President Donald Trump. Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance got his share of the action, including from Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.
Walz is a candidate who is, by many accounts, as solid a VP choice as one could hope for − what with his small-town charm and progressive, big-city values; his sports background and locker room-style speeches; his daughter Hope and neurodivergent son Gus conceived by fertility treatments.
Yet for some reason, despite his broad appeal, Walz jumped into the pit with Vance on Wednesday evening, inexplicably expecting to sling mud yet somehow come out clean. There were only 24 people in his graduating class, Walz announced from the DNC stage, and “none of them went to Yale.”
The line followed a path well-trod during this convention, a tactic that Democratic speechwriters have deployed again … and again … and again. As such, I can only assume that Dems may not be all that comfortable standing on their own accord. They must believe their best hope of swaying voters is to constantly compare and contrast (however condescendingly).
But it shouldn’t be this way. It should be enough to say that, as California’s Attorney General, Vice President Kamala Harris stood up for victims of sexual abuse and faced off against big banks in the years of the Great Recession, that should she be elected president, she’s going to increase the possibility of homeownership for many Americans.
Walz, meanwhile, should be able to campaign on his record as a 24-year U.S. Army National Guard veteran, turned high school teacher, turned Minnesota governor. During his tenure as the state’s highest elected official, he extended abortion rights − a fact that should endear him to voters concerned about the GOP’s encroachment on women’s reproductive rights.
If Democrats are wiser then Republicans, they should stop acting like hypocrites
I’m not arguing that Trump and Vance don’t “deserve” all the smoke wafting from 1901 West Madison Street in Chicago. My point, instead, is that the repeated verbal jabs lobbed by Walz and crew have done scarcely little to separate the left from the right, which should be the goal in any presidential race, but especially one as close as this.
No matter the pretty packaging, the well-crafted remarks, the articulate and engaging delivery, participation in the very behaviors that have come to define Trump’s ignominious political career can only cloud the lens through which undecided voters view this election. Suddenly, there is no red and blue but, instead, a murky swirl of bleeding edges, where one is nearly indistinguishable from the next.
Put differently, in the words of Jay-Z (from the apropos “Takeover”): “A wise man told me don’t argue with fools/’Cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who.”
There’s also this: After a night of assertions meant to positions Dems as the party that will finally pull this country back together again, closing the political and social chasms that have grown only wider since 2016, this behavior is an exercise in hypocrisy.
It is absolutely disgraceful that Ann Coulter posted an article highlighting the emotional response of Walz’s son Gus on Wednesday night, adding the caption, “Talk about weird …” But that specific language wasn't coincidental. It has been repeatedly used to criticize Republicans, by Walz himself.
Republicans and Independents are part of the America that the next president must serve
If “everybody belongs,” as Walz also said on Wednesday, doesn’t that likewise apply to Vance and Trump and the millions of people who are currently planning to vote for them? What about the millions more who are yet undecided − the voters who, when presented with vastly different options, still feel torn between them.
Don’t those Americans qualify as the neighbors who may not think like Democrats, or pray like Democrats, or love like Democrats? Isn’t the point that they, too, comprise the fabric of our nation? That the cultivation of a united American will require their inclusion?
I believe the answer is yes.
And in that case, I don’t see the point of the endless ribbing, the berating and the poking fun, the beating of a long-dead horse to the tune of laughter from thousands in the DNC audience and millions more at home.
The left has repeatedly made the point that Harris is better than Trump, regarding policy as well as persona, that the moral high ground can only be found through the Democratic ticket.
Perhaps it’s time they act accordingly.
Andrea Williams is an opinion columnist for The Tennessean and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative. She has an extensive background covering country music, sports, race and society. Email her atadwilliams@tennessean.comor follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) at@AndreaWillWrite.
