The Jackboot Convention

Plus: Joe Biden Does Not Throw Away His Shot

It can’t happen here.

The era in which I watched every evening of the national political conventions has passed, partly because I’m too old for this, partly because most of it is empty political theater—but mostly, this time around, because the two major party candidates are such thoroughly known quantities that there is nothing new to be learned about them. That’s why I have saved my commentary on last week’s Republican convention until the very end. But I’ve got a big conclusion, and it has everything to do with the signs in the photo above.

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But first, well, it looks like the Democratic Party convention will turn out to be a lot more interesting, after all, because some known quantities just got scrambled.

I was just sitting down to write about growing rumors that Joe Biden could withdraw from the race—and then he just did it. I have been advocating for this, and I think he just guaranteed that his name will be in the history books for a long time to come.

Having watched him a little more closely since his terrible performance in the first debate, I can’t conclude all that much about Biden’s mental fitness—let’s face it, he was no genius to begin with—but it became very clear that his physical fitness has significantly declined. Watching him walk or climb stairs is almost painful, and that palpable sense of physical weakness produces an impression that he does not have the necessary vigor in other respects. A lot of other people drew the same conclusion, to the point where his exit was almost inevitable.

Being the Man in the Middle, Biden typically does things in cautious half-measures. The bold, rip-off-the-bandaid move would have been to withdraw from the race and resign the presidency. If Biden is not in shape to run his campaign, it’s hard to argue that he’s in shape to run the presidency. The rumors about Biden’s withdrawal also indicated that he might not endorse his own vice-president, Kamala Harris, which would be another timid half-measure—but it seems he has done that. So this is more like a two-thirds-measure.

I’m watching on social media right now as Democrats rapidly coalesce behind Harris, so I don’t expect there will actually be a wild scramble for the Democratic nomination, just a wild scramble for the position of her vice-presidential running mate. (Obviously, it should be an articulate, moderate swing-state governor.) Kamala Harris is not my favorite person, for a whole host of reasons—but I am used to choosing among bad options in national politics. Look, I have a dream in which the Democrats ditch Harris and spontaneously coalesce around Colorado Governor Jared Polis (my favorite Democrat at the moment). But I also know that’s not going to happen. Democrats made a series of bad decisions that got them here, and we’re all stuck with the results.

Speaking of a series of bad decisions and their results, this is a good opportunity to return to the Republican convention and draw the lessons from it before this election contest completely resets itself.

There was a brief period, particularly after surviving last week’s assassination attempt, when Donald Trump talked about taking a new tone, presenting a unifying message, and using the convention to present himself as a moderate—and some people in the press lapped it up. (In other news, that girl you know with an abusive boyfriend thinks maybe he has really changed this time.) I think we could all draw our own conclusions about how realistic this was.

Look, any discussion about Trump has to start and end with January 6. The riot at the Capitol was not a product just of some intemperate rhetoric from Trump at a rally. It was part of a protracted conspiracy to send fake electors to Congress in order to overturn the results of an election and remain in power against the wishes of the American people. This is a fundamental sin against life in a free society, and there can be no second chance after that.

I mention this because the natural bias of commentators and reporters is to get stuck in the short term—to begin every discussion in midstream, reacting to what happened yesterday or last week, and to lose sight of the big picture. That’s how we got where we are now, where a guy who tried to overturn our entire system of government is now favored to win re-election. This is insane, when you think about it, so it’s important to reassert a sane perspective.

But let’s get back to this idea that, having made everyone forget about January 6, Donald Trump was going to settle down to be a moderate unifier and an ordinary politician. We all know that’s not Donald Trump, and the convention confirmed this.