I was asked what I thought about the Virtual Democratic Party National Convention by someone and when I told them that I hadn't seen it and that I hadn't really intended to either, I think that they were quite surprised. I think that they thought that as someone who openly admits to watching politics like sport, that I would find the DNC and RNC interesting.
While I will admit that the virtual DNC had the sort of lineup who you would expect to see and that they probably displayed skill in oratory, my thoughts about the virtual DNC and RNC are generally in line with what I think about a lot of the political apparatus of American politics. My general opinion is that the conventions may have been useful once upon a time but not now. So, re the virtual DNC:
I think that it is archaic and serves no point any more.
The overarching story of American politics is that it is generally glacially conservative in the way that it does anything.
In fact you can go all the way back to the formation of the nation to see this in action. If we assume that the American Revolution was over by about 1777, then from the end of the revolution to the adoption of the US Constitution was 12 years; with the first election taking place another three years after that. The Congressional Congress which had seven presidents before George "Wooden Teeth" Washington got to be President with a capital P, was more or less explicit designed to be impotent except for the ability to raise armies.
From when Boston Harbour became the world's largest cup of tea, to the day that George Washington took the oath of office, was just under 18 years. To put that in perspective relative to us, that sort of timeframe takes you back to before the Second Gulf War.
The reason why I mention any of this is that the Constitutional Convention which argued out the final form of the US Constitution, actually became the model upon which both the Electoral College and the subsequent political parties' convention systems were based.
The Electoral College as laid out in the US Constitution is a sensible option for 1789 in deliberating the final outcomes of an election. If you are in a vast and unwieldy country like the United States, in a pre-industrial nation with a pre-industrial transportation system, then holding an election and reporting the results to the presiding officers, takes exactly as long as it takes for someone to physically move across the country and if you want a secure result then sending a person is actually safer than sending written instructions and results.
When you further consider that the Democratic Party which was the party of Andrew Jackson began in 1828 and before commercial railway transportation and the Republican Party began in 1854 and in the gathering clouds of the Civil War, it makes sense that they would want to hold a nomination convention. The First Democratic Convention was held in 1832 and the first Republican Convention was held in 1854. That made sense in principle then but not any more.
However, the idea that the delegates would actually bother to listen to the wishes of people who weren't paid up members of the political parties, is an amazingly new development in US political history. Open primaries weren't held until 1976; and this came after the disastrous 1968 Democratic Convention which saw actual brawling and fistfights on the convention floor and after the impeachment and subsequent resignation of Richard Nixon.
It would appear then that holding a nomination convention is more to do with political intertia more than anything else and just like objects in physics, political parties will keep on doing what they are already doing unless acted upon by a very big force. I put it to you that COVID-19 is that very big force which has changed the behaviour of practically every institution.
What does any of this have to do with the virtual DNC Convention and what will be the virtual RNC Convention of 2020? The whole election process is so drawn out and the ability to report is so fast, that the necessity to hold the convention for the original purpose is functionally non-existent. We've already known who the candidates are for months and thanks to the 24 hour news cycle, name recognition, face recognition, and the political platforms, are all known and have been analysed and argued ad nauseum.
At this point in time, the parties' conventions serve no other purpose than political theatre. That's fine if you like that sort of thing but since the media is already organised into echo chambers, then I don't even know what purpose that political theatre serves at this point.
The conventions in 2020 aren't even about laying out policy or a political agenda. It was clear from about March of 2017 that Donald Trump's entire political career was about occupying the seat in the Oval Office and that that was the full extent of why he wanted the job. Even when the Republican Party controlled all three branches of government, there was no actual agenda and the entire administration has been directionless.
In contrast, the Democratic Party which spent 2016 actually having argument and debate about policy, has been forced to arrive at the 2020 election with an equally vapid agenda to the Republican Party.
For everything that Michelle Obama, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocassio-Cortez, Jill Biden, et al might have to say, the even bigger and more pressing mission for the Democratic Party is to unseat Donald Trump. Likewise, the Republican Party Convention will have even less to say but it will do so with an air of authoritarianism.
The 2016 Election Cycle had the Democratic Party discussing actual issues such as a $15/hr minimum wage, and the idea of Medicare for all; ultimately that was all for naught as it became obvious that the superdelegates had already rigged the game. That made Hilary Clinton the nominee. Meanwhile the Republican Party found that it had no answer to pure empty rhetoric and selected a candidate who has been on a Hitlerian style of campaign rallies ever since. The 2016 Republican Party Convention already served no other purpose than the continuation of spectacle.
In contrast, the 2020 Election Cycle ceased to actually be about discussing policy, when the COVID-19 pandemic invaded everything. Sanders suspended his campaign and with it came the end of the discussion of policy for the Democrats. It is simply impossible to wage a campaign of policy against a wall of insane rhetoric. The one thing that Donald Trump has succeeded in doing is getting the politics out of Washington. The two conventions are thus rendered pointless as there basically are no politics any more.
It is a pity because the United States needed universal health care before the pandemic and as deaths exceed 175,000 people, even the very idea of implementing it after the 2020 Election Cycle is over has been taken off the table. On that front, the United States is still yet to join the 1950s. Now that's glacial politics.
In my opinion, both the DNC and RNC Conventions are like HAL's remarks to Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey - This conversation can serve no purpose anymore; Goodbye.
When it comes to me watching the DNC and RNC Conventions, the reasons for me not watching it and never really intending to either (in a country that I don't even live in by the way), are pretty logical. If you want political theatre, go and watch Hamilton on Disney+. If you want the laying out of policy, then do not look here.
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