Originally published at: Highlights from Kamala Harris's speech to the DNC - Boing Boing
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This is sadly true. I generally liked Harris’s speech, but I will admit I am starting to develop an uneasy feeling in my gut. Not that I think she’s going to lose, because I don’t. But that she is not going to continue to progressiveness of the Biden administration and instead return to the days of Clinton and Obama. The overt displays of patriotism last night bordered on nationalism. The insistence on passing the border deal negotiated with Republicans rather than talk about passing a better immigration reform package. The focus on her record as a prosecutor. In spite of her slogan that “we are not going back”, that speech felt like a promise to go back. I hope it was just a calculated appeal to centrists and independents, but I didn’t love it.
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The dream of “Clinton in the late 90s but without Newt Gingrich bullying him around” is the hidden singularity at the center of that universe. They orbit it, everything is being inexorably drawn into it, and it can be past and future all at once.
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Remember, nobody expected Biden to be as progressive as he is.
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I’m well aware. I’ve said that many times here. I’m just saying, the speech made me a little uneasy. It’s definitely not changing my vote or enthusiasm. It just added a note of concern, which I don’t think is an unhealthy attitude.
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I didn’t watch most of Bill Clinton’s speech at the convention, but I’ve heard that it went on way too long (running double the allocated time) and that a lot of the attendees and organizers were pissed off about that because it delayed the start of Tim Walz’ speech, which was much better received and obviously more relevant.
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He may be as progressive as he is because he needed to be in order to slough off the stodgy, old man vibes and try for a 2nd term. Now that he’s a lame duck, maybe he will continue that trend until Kamala takes over.
Unfortunately, she probably has to play this more centrist game for the same but reverse reason as Biden.
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If you’re disappointed by the lack of movement on Gaza, remember that even a millimeter would have animated a week of negative commentary in U.S. media.
I dunno, man. The pragmatic in my says you’re 100% right. The truth is the Israeli government pours in a lot of cash into our elections, and upsetting them could be detrimental to their campaign. The human in me is pretty upset we are just supporting a bombing campaign on civilians in the hopes it might hit a member of Hamas.
It would be nice if November 7th they announce halting all weapons sales to Israel. They still have a shit ton to defend themselves, and still have the capability to assault Gaza. But it at least would give them some pause and remove our complicity in the situation.
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Hmmm. I’d hope that a Dem nominee’s being praised by Fox News would make most Dems pause for a think.
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Apparently giving Trump a platform to respond to Harris’ speech in real time didn’t work out as well as the network had been hoping.
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Pretty brutal that they cut him short in order to go to the Gutfeld show, which apparently hasn’t been cancelled yet. I thought I’d heard that that attempt at conservative comedy was so bad that even Fox News audiences didn’t like it.
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I thought the whole convention went really well. I felt they emphasized diversity and really drew a hard distinction between the two paths and what America is / can be.
Yes, it was very nationalistic (if America became what they were selling, I’d be much more proud of this nation) but it was also very contemporary and energetic, which I worried would make middle-America a bit uneasy. IMO, this is the first time I’ve seen so many hard lines drawn in the sand on stances that seemed to always be lip-service in the past. There was a real passion to make these changes head-on (at least they did a great job presenting that and, yes, I bought it). I think it did the job to fire everyone up for the sprint to the finish.
I felt that Harris nailed her speech with passion and authenticity. The whole event achieved the almost impossible task of threading the needle between centrist republicans, Dems, young voters, progressives, fence-sitters, etc.
I thought she even threaded the needle with the Israeli and Palestinian conflict even though they wouldn’t let a Palestinian speak, which was a missed opportunity.
Not bad for a 4 week campaign thus far. I have not doubt she can and will win. It’s the post election shenanigans that we need to worry about.
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Honestly that was the end of my enthusiasm. Don’t get me wrong, the world basically depends on her winning, and it is reassuring that she looks like she will. But it was nice to imagine there might be a president with enough humanity in them to actually care about genocide, and to me Harris loudly declaring you don’t have to worry about that from her makes her the smart chess move instead of a half-decent person.
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Good!
And she doesn’t seem to be power and/or money hungry, which is nice for a change.
As for Walz, well… every football coach I’ve ever dealt with weren’t the type to take much shit off anybody, and since Walz dealt extensively with high-schoolers, Vance should be a piece of cake.
Too bad she didn’t refer to him only as “My opponent, the convicted felon…”.
I wouldn’t expect any until after the electoin.
And a source of ammo, as well.
Fucking couches is bad enough, but at least he’s doing it in private.
Just look what this guy is doing!
In public!
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He ain’t nothing but a pretend flag-humper.
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I thought Harris’ speech was really good last night - though I could have done without the low level saber rattling - Same with the whole “God bless America and God bless our troops”, etc…
That gets an eye roll from me, but I understand why it’s in there.
Let’s hope that Trump completely falls apart when they have their debate. That will help with the undecided people, IMO.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if he demonstrates lust for flags in private, just not that flag.
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“… finally we’re really in the center” 
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… not the best speech of the convention though
In the future, maybe parties should have their conventions before the primaries instead of afterwards
oh wait that’s what the debates are for
I guess maybe the debates should be more like the conventions somehow 
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