Defectors, Dance Parties and Dragons

The themes from Day Two of the DNC have Democrats thrilled and motivated.

AP Photo/Erin Hooley

Sticking with my three themes to describe another stellar night at the Democratic National Convention, last night began with a strong theme: defectors. Republicans, including former Trump White House staff, stood before the crowd in Chicago to publicly denounce their candidate while supporting Harris/Walz. 

If GOP voters needed a permission structure to defect, these principled Republican officials provided it.

The second theme was “Dance Party.” The GOP’s roll call of states honestly felt something like a mayo sandwich bingo hour at the retirement center. By very sharp contrast, the DNC last night lit up like a concert, with a DJ spinning a state-by-state playlist and Lil Jon performing “Turn Down For What” when Georgia was called. 

Meanwhile, to really rub it in the GOP’s face, Harris and Walz held a second packed rally over in Milwaukee. It was in the same arena used by the GOP for their convention back in July. That is some masterful trolling. 

The third theme, if we are to credit the memes, was dragons. The Democrats brought two of theirs out to fire up the crowd and produce some sick burns. Paraphrasing commentator Dan Pfeiffer, former president Barack Obama proved he’s the best speaker in the Democratic party and the second best in his family. He had the tough job of following Michelle Obama, who took the stage to show she didn’t want to go high any more against such a small man as Trump.

Today I’ll elaborate on these themes and let us all take a collective and well-deserved victory lap on this second banger day of the DNC.

Theme One: Defectors

As I discussed yesterday, a key feature of the DNC—and one we didn’t see with Republicans at their convention—is the platforming of members of the other party willing to throw their support to the other side. 

Last night continued that theme. Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham was the highest profile defector. She told the crowd about her journey from being a “true believer” to being the first senior staff to quit after Trump supporters assaulted the Capitol building on January 6.

Grisham gave a first-hand account of what Trump was like in private. “I saw him when the cameras were off,” she said about the ex-president. “Behind closed doors, Trump mocks his supporters. He calls them ‘basement dwellers.’ ... He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth.”

Here is a clip of that moment:

Also prominently featured was Republican Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Arizona, a critical swing state that could decide the balance of power in the Senate. Giles honored the late Sen. John McCain, who was known for reaching across the aisle.

“I’m a lifelong Republican, so I feel a little out of place tonight. But I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican Party,” Giles said. “The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult. The cult of Donald Trump. Trump doesn’t know the first thing about public service. Like a child he acts purely out of self-interest.”

“I have an urgent message for the majority of Americans who, like me, are in the political middle,” Giles said. “John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.”

Here is a video of that brief but powerful speech:

And former Republican Ana Navarro-Cárdenas ripped into Trump’s labeling of Kamala Harris as a “communist,” saying she fled true communism in Nicaragua at age eight, and that she knows about communism. 

“They put their unqualified relatives in cushy government jobs so they can get rich off their positions like the Castros do in Cuba and they refuse to accept legitimate elections when they lose and call for violence to stay in power like Maduro is doing right now in Venezuela. Now you tell me something. Do any of those things sound familiar? Is there anybody running for president who reminds you of that?”

Here is a clip of that speech:

Permission structure activated! It remains to be seen how many GOP voters the Democrats can peel away in November. But remember that if 2022 is any indication, it was Republicans refusing to vote for extremists in the battleground states that gave Democrats key wins across those states. The same could happen here with influential voices like Grisham, Giles and Navarro-Cárdenas.

Theme Two: Dance Party

Okay, it wasn’t just me looking for another “D” word to describe last night. The DNC really did turn into a dance party when the roll call of states began.

If you don’t remember what the roll call is, it’s not your fault. At political conventions, this is perhaps the cheesiest moment in the whole week, when state delegations approach the mic, say something nice or quirky about their states, then cast their votes for the nominee. It’s a participation trophy moment, but for adults.

At the GOP convention, it went about as painfully as you can imagine. An older lady with a deep southern drawl and zero stage presence led the delegates through a 50-state political root canal. Here’s a taste of what it was like:

Meanwhile, the Democrats turned the moment into a high energy celebration. Each state had picked out a song for the playlist, spun by a DJ on stage. The energy levels were through the roof and everyone was having a blast, no state more than Georgia. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two roll calls compiled and aired by MSNBC on Morning Joe:

And it wasn’t just one stadium rocking with energy. Over in Milwaukee, Harris and Walz shared the stage at yet another sold out venue where the RNC had convened over a month before. You can see the size of the crowd and impact she had here:

Tim Walz reveled in the contrast: “Not only do we have massive energy in our convention, we’ve got a hell of a lot more energy at where they had their convention, right here. That one guy is going to be so sad tonight. So sad, so sad.”

In fairness, we have to check in with how the Trump campaign was doing. Trump chose the town of Howell, Michigan to give a prepared “law and order” speech with law enforcement standing behind him. The choice of Howell was no doubt deliberate and contemptible. As Hayes Brown of MSNBC writes, 

“In the 1970s and ’80s, at the peak of the city’s links to the white supremacist movement, Robert Miles, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, had a Howell mailing address and was known to hold rallies on a nearby farm property. Black residents of nearby Detroit knew full well not to set foot in the town, a belief that — if it hasn’t expired — lasted at minimum deep into the early 2000s.”

Trump’s speech was very low energy, and he appeared to be standing among blank staring cops in some kind of parking lot. I’m telling you, he needs to fire his advance team now. Here’s a clip of that speech.

Theme Three: Dragons

It’s a bit unfair to have both Obamas on your side. It’s even more unfair to stack them one after the other. Both brought the fire and the devastation to the Trump campaign. 

Michelle Obama appeared to have no interest in going high this time, except perhaps to gain enough altitude to do this.

As the Associated Press put it, “Playing off her famous line about Republicans going low, Michelle Obama suggested that Trump was going ‘small’ and that ‘it’s unhealthy, and quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.’”

“Let me tell you this,” she said. “Going small is never the answer. Going small is the opposite of what we teach our kids.”

She blasted Trump’s “same old con” of  “ugly, misogynistic racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.”

Americans like Kamala Harris understand “that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” she said, recalling Trump’s many bankruptcies. She flipped the script and noted that most Americans do not grow up with “the affirmative action of generational wealth.” And she added, “If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top,” summoning Trump’s golden escalator moment. “No, we put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something.”

This was a masterclass, by the way, in how to take Trump’s most iconic moments and recast them as negative.

She also warned of the attacks to come against Harris, and spoke from her own personal experience. “For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us,” she said, adding that “his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.”

And then this zinger: “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?” 

She also gave a deeply personal account with strong relevance to Harris’s own personal story and guidance from her own mother. “The last time I was here in my hometown was to memorialize my mother, the woman who showed me the meaning of hard work and humility and decency, the woman who set my moral compass high and showed me the power of my own voice,” she said.

“She was glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation, the belief that if you do unto others, if you love thy neighbor, if you work and scrape and sacrifice, it will pay off. If not for you, then maybe for your children or your grandchildren.”

That notion of service and sacrifice as the highest form of patriotism, by the way, continued yesterday’s poignant theme and tone, set by Joe Biden in his address to the delegates. Michelle Obama made it feel personal and deep within our genetic coding.

Here is the entirety of her speech if you missed it:

By the time her husband took the stage, the hearts of the attendees were already near to bursting. But if there’s one thing the former president knows how to do, it is to harness that passion, describe what we’re feeling so it makes sense, then deliver it as political fuel.

This moment hit home for so many: “We live in a culture that puts a premium on things that don’t last,” he said, “Money, fame, status, likes. We chase the approval of strangers on our phones. We build all manner of walls and fences around ourselves, and then we wonder why we feel so alone.”

“The vast majority of us don’t want to live in a country that’s bitter and divided. We want something better. And the joy and excitement we’re seeing around the Harris-Walz campaign tells us we’re not alone,” he said, giving voice to hope, excitement and community all at once.

Obama put our collective frustration into plain words and common relatable experiences, saying, “We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse.” 

The crowd roared back in approval.

“America is ready for a new chapter. America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”  

The most memorable moment arrived as one of epic comedy, recalling the first time Obama destroyed Trump publicly at the White House Correspondents Dinner. If anything, this was even more of a takedown, judging from how my phone lit up when he did it. You really have to watch the moment to see why:

The right is clearly worried about the power of the Obamas to tip the battle for the White House in favor of the Democrats. Over on Fox, Jesse Watters, who believes Barack Obama is the OG destroyer of the GOP, even demanded a new investigation into Obama’s birth certificate, which is about as appalling and desperate a move as I can imagine.

Sorry, Jesse. It’s going to take more than your whining to take down these dragons.