Same Old, Same Old For Dems

The Republicans are having a good convention. There is less red meat (though still plenty of it) to excite the base and more attempts (some pretty disingenuous) to win over the small, but crucial, number of independent voters.

Last night we saw Black speakers talk about crime (it’s down, but you’d think it was rampant) and Hispanic speakers talk about immigration (immigrants commit fewer crimes, but you’d think they’re all mass murderers) and two women talk about how supportive of women Trump is (never mind what happened in a changing room at a department store in New York).

On the other side, the Democrats are taking the opportunity created by the focus on the GOP to — as quietly as possible — end the internal fight over nominating Joe Biden. The DNC is trying to move up his official nomination to as early as next Monday, July 21st. They had already been using the excuse of an Ohio ballot deadline to move up the roll call to August 6th, well ahead of the actual convention. But the idea now is to get it done just before the focus switches back to Biden.

Biden may have been the biggest beneficiary not only of the Republican convention but of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life. That took the wind out of the sails of those who wanted to replace him on the ticket. Now Biden’s people are moving in to seal the deal.

Sticking with Biden is a mistake because there is simply no reason to think that his anemic polling numbers of the last three years will change. Trump is riding high and there is nothing in the tea leaves to suggest that Biden can turn the tables. The Democrats’ best shot was a new team.

But now, since that seems out of reach, their only real hope is to try to deemphasize Biden and attempt to make the election a referendum on reproductive rights and nothing else.

The Republicans have given them ample ammunition to do that. Trump, of course, made the SCOTUS appointments that enabled the Dobbs decision. J.D. Vance has said that he’s against abortion even in cases of rape and incest and he supported a national 15 week abortion ban. And the infamous Project 2025 report, covered with the fingerprints of close Trump associates, calls for the FDA to ban the abortion drug and it suggests that the mailing of the drug also be banned even within states where abortion is fully legal. If I were the Democrats I’d just hammer away at those things for the next four months. I’d also light a lot of prayer candles.

If the Republicans can keep this up for two more days, they’ll come out of Milwaukee with more than just the traditional bump for their candidate. They will have gone a long way in transforming the image of their party from a collection of xenophobes and conspiracy mongers to something more akin to a new, coherent blue collar populist party (with an ample supply of xenophobes and conspiracy mongers).

And where would that leave the Democrats? They run the risk of shuffling into Chicago, uninspired by their candidate and divided over Biden, the war in the Middle East and more. And they would need to explain why the Teamsters’ boss showed up at the other guys’ party to say nice things about the host. Voters will likely see another parade of the oppressed with various identity groups lining up at the podium to celebrate their victimhood.

The DNC no doubt had planned a Trump-bludgeoning fest, which now will come off as inappropriate given the shooting in Pennsylvania and also too negative given the somewhat upbeat GOP show. But my guess is that enough time will have passed by the time of the Chicago convention that they’ll decide to move ahead with the attacks on Trump. It’s not that those attacks aren’t richly deserved, but as a political matter I’ve long felt that the public doesn’t need to be reminded of just how bad a guy Trump is. If they care, they care and if they don’t, they don’t.

While the Republicans have now completed their transition to a clearly defined blue collar populist party, they’ve stolen that mantle from the Democrats. So, what do the Democrats have left? Who are they? What does the party stand for?

The first job in Chicago is to give voters some answers to those questions.