Democratic Convention Review
By Martin Hittelman
August 24, 2020
The Democratic Convention was held from August 18 through August 21. For the first time a Democratic Convention was held remotely (due to the outbreak of COVID-19). It was a four-day infomercial. Speeches were mostly pre-taped, scripted, and well delivered. It sought to show that Joe Biden was a caring person and President Trump’s presidency was a complete disaster.
The convention agenda was filled with politicians from the center and right of the political spectrum. Republicans like Chuck Hagel, Colin Powell, Cindy McCain, John Kasich, Meg Whitman, and Susan Molinari spoke on the various nights of the convention. Amy Klobuchar, Doug Jones, Andrew Cuomo and other moderate Democrats were given time to address the tv audience. Even Michael Bloomberg was given substantial time to address the TV audience. Progressives were given very limited time to address the issues as they saw them.
One of the most powerful presentations of the convention was delivered by Kristin Uruiza whose father died from Covid after believing Trump that masks did not need to be worn during the pandemic. She stated: My dad, Mark Anthony Urquiza, should be here today. But he isn’t. He had faith in Donald Trump. He voted for him, listened to him, believed him and his mouthpieces when they said that coronavirus was under control and going to disappear. My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump — and for that he paid with his life. I am not alone. Once I told my story, a lot of people reached out to me to share theirs. They asked me to help them keep their communities safe, especially communities of color, which have been disproportionately affected.
“Donald Trump may not have caused the coronavirus, but his dishonesty and his irresponsible actions made it so much worse,” she said. “One of the last things that my father said to me was that he felt betrayed by the likes of Donald Trump,” she added. “And so when I cast my vote for Joe Biden, I will do it for my dad.”
Another moving address was made by 13-year-old Brayden Harrington. Brayden has a stutter that he is working to overcome. He spoke of how Joe Biden helped him with his stuttering. He told me we were members of the same club: we stutter. It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became vice president.
Los Angeles County Supervisor and former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis was one of the Latina’s that spoke at the convention. She has been elected a trustee of the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustee, a member of the California Assembly and Senate, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She is considered to be one of those Californians favored to be selected by Governor Newsome to replace Kamala Harris as a California senator if Harris becomes Vice President. Her words to the convention: The day Vice President Biden swore me in as Secretary of Labor was one of the proudest moments of my life. My parents realized they had achieved their American dream because the daughter of two blue-collar immigrants would make history and give voice to people just like them. American workers need a fighter now more than ever, and Joe Biden is that person because he has done it before, and I’ve seen it firsthand. He and President Obama made it easier for homecare workers to organize. They extended overtime pay to more than four million workers. They saved the automobile industry and a whole lot of good union jobs with it. And when millions of families lost their homes, my friend from California, Senator Kamala Harris, took on the big banks and won. But because of Donald Trump’s failures, we must once again rescue a sinking economy. Millions of Americans are out of work, and communities of color are the hardest hit. Millions of essential workers are putting their lives at risk with little protections, and millions more are just plain tired. That’s why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris actually have a plan not only to recover what we lost, but to improve upon it, to build back better. Creating five million good union jobs by bringing back supply chains to America; that’s building back better. Creating millions of jobs by investing in clean energy; that’s building back better. And making sure that working families can afford child care; that’s how we build back better. So, let me borrow and slightly edit something Joe Biden said at my swearing in. When it comes to expanding the economy for all people, no one, no one is going to be a stronger voice than our next president, Joe Biden.
Joe Biden’s 25-minute acceptance speech was the final speech of the convention. It was a speech which addressed the effects of the Trump administration – failure to address the coronavirus epidemic, increased racism, the failure to address the economic downturn, and climate change. He began with these words of Ella Baker: Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us with this wisdom: “Give people light and they will find a way.”
He then continued: The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long — too much anger, too much fear, too much division. Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I’ll be an ally of the light, not the darkness. This was the essential point of the convention narrative – Biden is a good man; Trump is a bad man; and with Biden’s leadership – the country will overcome this season of darkness in America. We’ll choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.
Bernie Sanders spoke on the first night of the convention and encouraged his supporters to vote for Biden: Our great nation is now living in an unprecedented moment. We’re facing the worst public health crisis in a hundred years and the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. We are confronting systemic racism and the enormous threat to our planet of climate change. And in the midst of all of this, we have a president who is not only incapable of addressing these crises, but is leading us down the path of authoritarianism.
This election is the most important in the modern history of this country. In response to the unprecedented crises we face, we need an unprecedented response, a movement like never before of people who are prepared to stand up and fight for democracy and decency, and against greed, oligarchy and bigotry. And we need Joe Biden as our next president.
Let me take this opportunity to say a word to the millions of people who supported my campaign this year and in 2016. My friends, thank you for your trust, your support, and the love you showed Jane, me and our family. Together, we have moved this country in a bold new direction, showing that all of us — Black and white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant — yearn for a nation based on the principles of justice, love and compassion. Our campaign ended several months ago, but our movement continues and is getting stronger every day. Many of the ideas we fought for, that just a few years ago were considered radical, are now mainstream.
But let us be clear: If Donald Trump is reelected, all the progress we have made will be in jeopardy. At its most basic, this election is about preserving our democracy. During this president’s term, the unthinkable has become normal. He has tried to prevent people from voting, undermined the U.S. Postal Service, deployed the military and federal agents against peaceful protesters, threatened to delay the election, and suggested that he will not leave office if he loses. This is not normal, and we must never treat it like it is.
Under this administration, authoritarianism has taken root in our country. I and my family and many of yours know the insidious way authoritarianism destroys democracy, decency and humanity. As long as I am here, I will work with progressives, with moderates, and, yes, with conservatives, to preserve this nation from a threat that so many of our heroes fought and died to defeat.
This president is not just a threat to our democracy, but, by rejecting science, he has put our lives and health in jeopardy. Trump has attacked doctors and scientists trying to protect us from the pandemic, while refusing to take strong action to produce the masks, gowns and gloves our healthcare workers desperately need.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs. His actions fanned this pandemic, resulting in over 170,000 deaths and a nation still unprepared to protect its people.
Furthermore, Trump’s negligence has exacerbated the economic crisis we are now experiencing. Since this pandemic began, over 30 million people have lost their jobs, and many have lost their health insurance. Millions of working families are wondering how they will feed their kids, and they’re worried that they will be evicted from their homes. And how has Trump responded? Instead of maintaining the $600-a-week unemployment supplement that workers were receiving and the $1,200 emergency checks that many of you received, instead of helping small businesses, Trump concocted fraudulent executive orders that do virtually nothing to address the crisis, while threatening the very future of Social Security and Medicare.
But the truth is that even before Trump’s negligent response to this pandemic, too many hard-working families have been caught on an economic treadmill with no hope of ever getting ahead. Together, we must build a nation that is more equitable, more compassionate and more inclusive. I know that Joe Biden will begin that fight on day one.
Let me offer you just a few examples of how Joe will move us forward. Joe supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. This will give 40 million workers a pay raise and push the wage scale up for everyone else. Joe will also make it easier for workers to join unions, create 12 weeks of paid family leave, fund universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, and make child care affordable for millions of families. Joe will rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and fight the threat of climate change by transitioning us to 100% clean electricity over the next 15 years. These initiatives will create millions of good-paying jobs all across our country.
As you know, we are the only industrialized nation not to guarantee healthcare for all people. While Joe and I disagree on the best path to get universal coverage, he has a plan that will greatly expand healthcare and cut the cost of prescription drugs. Further, he will lower the eligibility age of Medicare from 65 down to 60.
To help reform our broken criminal justice system, Joe will end private prisons and detention centers, cash bail and the school-to-prison pipeline. And to heal the soul of our nation, Joe Biden will end the hate and the vision Trump has created. He will stop the demonization of immigrants, the coddling of white nationalists, the racist dog whistling, the religious bigotry and the ugly attacks on women.
My friends, I say to you, to everyone who supported other candidates in the primary and to those who may have voted for Donald Trump in the last election, the future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our economy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake. We must come together, defeat Donald Trump, and elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president. My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine. Thank you.
Elizabeth Warren was another progressive who spoke at the convention. Her speech was one of the few delivered by a progressive. Her address: Tonight we've heard from the people who make America work, people who put their lives on the line to keep our country going, and since COVID-19 hit, they've taken one gut punch after another.
And what has the COVID fallout done to our babies? I'm here at the Early Childhood Education Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, which has been closed for months. Childcare was already hard to find before the pandemic. And now, parents are stuck—no idea when schools can safely reopen and even fewer childcare options.
The devastation is enormous. And the way I see it: big problems demand big solutions.
I love a good plan, and Joe Biden has some really good plans—plans to bring back union jobs in manufacturing and create new union jobs in clean energy. Plans to increase Social Security benefits, cancel billions in student loan debt, and make our bankruptcy laws work for families instead of the creditors who cheat them.
These plans reflect a central truth: our economic system has been rigged to give bailouts to billionaires and kick dirt in the face of everyone else. But we can build a thriving economy by investing in families and fixing what's broken. Joe's plan to "build back better" includes making the wealthy pay their fair share, holding corporations accountable, repairing racial inequities, and fighting corruption in Washington.
Let me tell you about one of Joe's plans that's especially close to my heart: child care.
As a little girl growing up in Oklahoma, what I wanted most in the world was to be a teacher. I loved teaching. When I had babies and was juggling my first big teaching job down in Texas, it was hard. But I could do hard. The thing that almost sank me? Child care.
One night my Aunt Bee called to check in. I thought I was fine, but then I just broke down and started to cry. I had tried holding it all together, but without reliable childcare, working was nearly impossible. And when I told Aunt Bee I was going to quit my job, I thought my heart would break.
Then she said the words that changed my life: "I can't get there tomorrow, but I'll come on Thursday." She arrived with seven suitcases and a Pekingese named Buddy and stayed for 16 years. I get to be here tonight because of my Aunt Bee.
I learned a fundamental truth: nobody makes it on their own.
And yet, two generations of working parents later, if you have a baby and don't have an Aunt Bee, you're on your own.
And here's why that's wrong: We build infrastructure like roads, bridges and communications systems so that people can work. That infrastructure helps us all because it keeps our economy going. It's time to recognize that childcare is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation—it's infrastructure for families.
Joe and Kamala will make high-quality child care affordable for every family, make preschool universal, and raise the wages for every child care worker.
That's just one plan, but it gives you an idea of how we get this country working for everyone.
Donald Trump's ignorance and incompetence have always been a danger to our country. COVID-19 was Trump's biggest test. He failed miserably. Today, America has the most COVID deaths in the world and an economic collapse—and both crises are falling hardest on Black and Brown families.
Millions out of work. Millions more trapped in cycles of poverty. Millions on the brink of losing their homes. Millions of restaurants and stores hanging by a thread.
This crisis is bad—and didn't have to be this way. This crisis is on Donald Trump and the Republicans who enable him. On November 3, we hold them all accountable.
Progressive House of Representatives member Alexandria Occasion-Cortez was given 90 seconds to speak in nomination of Bernie Sanders. She spoke as one of the few progressives given the chance: Good evening, bienvenidos and thank you to everyone here today endeavoring towards a better, more just future for our country and our world. In fidelity and gratitude to a mass people’s movement working to establish 21st century social, economic and human rights, including guaranteed healthcare, higher education, living wages and labor rights for all people in the United States; a movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny and homophobia and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past; a movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many, and who organized a historic grassroots campaign to reclaim our democracy, in a time when millions of people in the United States are looking for deep, systemic solutions to our crises of mass evictions, unemployment, and lack of healthcare — en el espíritu del pueblo and out of a love for all people, I hereby second the nomination of Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont for president of the United States of America.
Stacey Abrams, in casting her state’s votes, stated that America faces a triple threat: a public health catastrophe, an economic collapse and a reckoning with racial justice and inequality. So, our choice is clear: a steady, experienced public servant who can lead us out of this crisis, just like he’s done before, or a man who only knows how to deny and distract; a leader who cares about our families or a president who only cares about himself. We know Joe Biden. America, we need Joe Biden. …
Faced with a president of cowardice, Joe Biden is a man of proven courage. He will restore our moral compass by confronting our challenges, not by hiding from them or undermining our elections to keep his job. In a time of voter suppression at home and authoritarians abroad, Joe Biden will be a champion for free and fair elections, for a public health system that keeps us safe, for an economy that we build back better than before, and for accountability and integrity in our system of justice.
Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris addressed the history of women, and especially Black women’s, fight for the right to vote. She spoke of her father coming from Jamaica to study and her mother coming from India to fight cancer. In order to confront the birthers, Harris noted that she was born at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California.
Her message was: A country where we may not agree on every detail, but we are united by the fundamental belief that every human being is of infinite worth, deserving of compassion, dignity and respect.
A country where we look out for one another, where we rise and fall as one, where we face our challenges and celebrate our triumphs — together.
She addressed structural racism: And while this virus touches us all, let’s be honest, it is not an equal opportunity offender. Black, Latino and Indigenous people are suffering and dying disproportionately.
This is not a coincidence. It is the effect of structural racism.
Of inequities in education and technology, health care and housing, job security and transportation.
The injustice in reproductive and maternal health care. In the excessive use of force by police. And in our broader criminal justice system.
She called on us to elect a president who will bring something different, something better and do the important work. A president who will bring all of us together — Black, White, Latino, Asian, Indigenous — to achieve the future we collectively want.
We must elect Joe Biden.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton spoke at the convention. They gave their usual presentations.
Michelle Obama gave her usual charming address to the tv audience in a pre-taped presentation. She called out those who had not voted: As I’ve said before, being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are. Well, a presidential election can reveal who we are, too. And four years ago, too many people chose to believe that their votes didn’t matter. Maybe they were fed up. Maybe they thought the outcome wouldn’t be close. Maybe the barriers felt too steep. Whatever the reason, in the end, those choices sent someone to the Oval Office who lost the national popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes.
In one of the states that determined the outcome, the winning margin averaged out to just two votes per precinct — two votes. And we’ve all been living with the consequences.
She spoke to the harm that the Trump Regime has dealt: Four years later, the state of this nation is very different. More than 150,000 people have died, and our economy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we’ve turned our back, not just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower.
And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black life matters is still met with derision from the nation’s highest office
They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo-op.
Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.
She ended her address with: And if we want to keep the possibility of progress alive in our time, if we want to be able to look our children in the eye after this election, we have got to reassert our place in American history. And we have got to do everything we can to elect my friend, Joe Biden, as the next president of the United States.
Educator Jill Biden gave a tribute to her husband as a good father and husband. How do you make a broken family whole? The same way you make a nation whole,” she said. With love and understanding – and with small acts of kindness. With bravery. With unwavering faith. We just need leadership worthy of our nation… to recover from this pandemic and prepare for whatever else is next…. That’s Joe.
On the third day of the Convention Barack Obama gave his speech. He directly attacked President Trump. He began by noting that the Constitution was not a perfect document: It allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women — and even men who didn’t own property — the right to participate in the political process. But embedded in this document was a North Star that would guide future generations; a system of representative government — a democracy — through which we could better realize our highest ideals. Through civil war and bitter struggles, we improved this Constitution to include the voices of those who’d once been left out. And gradually, we made this country more just, more equal and more free.
Obama pointed out that Trump did not show an interest in taking the job of governing seriously. That Trump had no reverence for United States democracy. Trump showed no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
Whatever our backgrounds, we’re all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. Great-grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshiped. Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote.
If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life.
Obama said that Biden was a person with empathy, decency, and a belief that everyone counts. This was a major point of the Democratic script.
Obama concluded his address with these words: You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You’re the missing ingredient — the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.
That work will continue long after this election. But any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win. So we have to get busy building it up — by pouring all our effort into these 76 days, and by voting like never before — for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country we love stands for — today and for all our days to come.
Here are the full speeches:
Biden Speech: https://youtu.be/pnmQr0WfSvo
Hilda Solis Speech: https://youtu.be/UJq8UDo4yg4
Elizabeth Warren Speech: https://youtu.be/lQQXJn3jRBI
Michelle Obama Speech: https://youtu.be/uKy3iiWjhVI
Barack Obama Speech: https://youtu.be/bps3m4eFTuE
Jill Biden Speech: https://youtu.be/_sT9lolkVaU
Bill Clinton Speech: https://youtu.be/Hy--KNOFFbI
Hillary Clinton Speech: https://youtu.be/fRCxGhbAT-Y
Brayden Harrington speech: https://youtu.be/3lZbOiktAh4