The Democratic convention in Chicago could have turned out much worse for Kamala Harris. A previous such convention went extremely badly for Hubert Humphrey, the 1968 candidate, when the party met in the same city. The televised violence outside the convention and the infighting within it were so intense that the candidate was forced to begin his nomination acceptance speech with a condemnation of the troublemakers and a quote from St. Francis of Assisi.
Listen to this immortal saint, Humphrey, addressing the assembled delegates in his televised address: “Where there is hate, let me know love. Where there is hurt, forgiveness. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light.”
Humphrey continued, “These are the words of a saint. And may those of us who are less pure listen well to them, and may America resolve tonight that we will never, ever see again what we have seen.”
What a contrast to last week’s events in Chicago, where any fears Democrats had that they would be overrun by pro-Gaza protesters and far-leftists proved unfounded. The protests were small and easily controlled by police, while on stage everything went smoothly. The Harris campaign’s central anti-Trump message is that this election is about freedom – at home, but also abroad. The message was well received.
If you watch the highlights, the best speech looks like it was given by TV personality Oprah Winfrey. The Obamas’ speeches seemed very off to me, especially Michelle Obama’s angry speech. Isn’t the Democrats’ argument against Trump that they want the country to calmly and unifiedly emerge from the Trump era?
Michelle Obama’s lecture – her net worth is said to be $70 million, she owns three houses, etc. – about not trusting other rich people was somehow irritating.
As for Harris herself, one can only admire how successfully the party machine has turned a poorly polling vice president who will inevitably be associated with the outgoing president into the “candidate of change.” As an organizational coup and as a feat, it is impressive. Party machinery is a tough old game that involves an extraordinary amount of chicanery. And that chicanery was top-notch.
Yet, am I the only one who feels uneasy about the highly manipulative manner in which the Democrats have operated and the shameless manner in which blatant falsehoods are now being spread about what we all just saw happen?
Joe Biden did not pass the torch to the next generation, as they said in Chicago. He got the torch from his shaking hands and only reluctantly relinquished it after party elders launched a campaign to force him out of the race.
All of this was visible in real time. We could see the cards being dealt from a rigged deck of cards. The operation was described in minute detail, day by day, as the Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney and big donors set about taking him out of the game.
Biden is no hero either. His egoism, which kept him in office for so long, deprived his party of an open contest in which excellent candidates could have been tested in a primary last year. Perhaps Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro would have emerged victorious rather than Harris. Both would have been strong candidates and potentially effective presidents.
Meanwhile, Tim Walz, the vice presidential candidate we all have to love as a “good old guy” despite his record in government in Minnesota being ultra-progressive, is railing against the spread of “misinformation.” Note how misinformation on both sides of the Atlantic has come to be equated with hate speech, a sinister rhetorical trick reminiscent of the populism that Democrats deride.
“I think we have to fight against that,” Walz said on MSNBC. “There is no guarantee of free speech when it comes to misinformation or hate speech, especially as it relates to our democracy.”
Wait a minute, who gets to define what is misinformation when it comes to politics and democracy? If it’s politicians, we’re in big trouble, and the freedom Harris advocates for in other contexts is at risk.
Just six months ago, any well-researched report suggesting that Joe Biden was mentally deteriorating and unable to remain in office for another four years was branded as malicious misinformation by the Democratic Party machine and large sections of the media. Media outlets such as the New York Times and CNN analyzed the information with great seriousness and supposedly checked its veracity.
It wasn’t misinformation. It was clearly true then and has since been proven true, and so has the rest, so much so that Biden actually retracted it. The alleged “misinformation” was absolutely correct. Imagine if there had been sanctions or penalties at the time to punish those who reported what turned out to be true.
Play this game with any scandal we know of – like Watergate or Bill Clinton’s problems with the truth – and consider how dangerous it would be for our fundamental freedoms if politicians could in future suppress anything they didn’t like by branding it misinformation, imposing fines and closing outlets.
The Democrats’ behavior can be defended by saying they are in a desperate hurry and that this election is an epic power struggle. When there is a binary alternative and the other is to return Donald Trump to the Oval Office, party manipulators can say that the boundaries must be expanded and lies must be invented.
Well, maybe. But recognize it for what it is, and spare us the hypocrisy along the way.
As it stands, Kamala Harris’ lead in the polls is still too small to guarantee victory. There are seventy days left in the campaign, and Harris will come under heavy fire from the Republican Party machine, which is portraying her as a far-left, tax-raising candidate.
There could be another one of those famous October surprises. And on the economic front, the slowdown or normalization of the US economy will be a battleground, as Irwin Stelzer pointed out in his column in the Sunday Times.
“Harris advocates price controls to put an end to corporate greed, as well as massive subsidies for favored sectors and groups,” he says.
He also pointed out that Trump deserves a C in economics because he supports drastic tariffs that would boost inflation and offers other unaffordable tax cuts.
As a reminder, borrowing has been America’s fastest-growing national endeavor over the past quarter century. The U.S. national debt is now $35.2 trillion. In 2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, it was just $9 trillion.
Labour faces trouble
There is something wrong with the new Labour government’s approach. Huge pay deals for unions without any productivity increases in return is a terrible idea, especially for a government that has promised to stimulate economic growth.
Raising productivity is the only way to increase growth. In the NHS, productivity appears to have fallen as money and staff have been pumped into the country since the pandemic – a terrible omen for what lies ahead on the railways and elsewhere. Apparently inspired by this failure under the Tories, the new Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer are introducing more such measures that will have the opposite effect to what they intended.
Dominic Lawson wrote this week that he was beginning to wonder whether the Prime Minister knows what he is doing. We are really sick of the new Prime Minister being questioned by a TV interviewer on economic issues in a really constructive way: what does he think about economics? How does he understand the concepts involved? Where does he want to take the British economy beyond the buzzwords?
The situation will create a paradoxical autumn. On the one hand, the party congress next month will be an incredible congratulatory event with loud shouting. On the other hand, the media will come up with many questions and the unrest of big business will permeate the event. For the government, everything will be much harder and put to the test.
