David Samuels
Unherd, Aug. 26, 2024
“All told, the Chicago Miracle, as it will doubtlessly be known, was a reality-fracturing magic act.”
Making an elephant disappear is a notoriously difficult test of the magician’s art. Turning a flower girl into a duchess might be even harder to pull off. Convincing the world’s most powerful man to agree to give up his job and his house to a younger rival without any visible use of force is, most people would agree, a trick that surpasses them both. In the space of the past month, culminating in their week-long party Convention in Chicago last week, the behind-the-scenes wizards who run the Democratic Party pulled off all three.
The challenge the Democrats face now is whether the public will ultimately be beguiled by their razzle-dazzle, or whether the effect of making so many audacious, hard-to-swallow moves in so short a period of time will be that none of them are ultimately believable. But that is a problem for another day. With Donald Trump looking like a bona fide hero, and their own candidate looking like a corpse, the Democrats had their backs up against the wall. They left Chicago with a spring in their step, their heads held high, and a new Queen.
Once the nets slung across the ceiling of the United Center were finally empty, after burying the likely next President of the United States, Kamala Harris, her running mate Tim Walz, and their respective families beneath a giant pile of red, white and blue balloons, it was clear to everyone in the arena that they had witnessed political magic. It wasn’t Harris’s acceptance speech, which was a solid B or B+, with most of that grade being awarded for simply fulfilling its purpose. By not being an obvious failure, the speech plausibly established Harris as a fresh character who might, maybe, if everyone closes their eyes all together and wishes on a star, transcend the scorched-earth narratives spun by Joe Biden and Donald Trump — two ancient political dinosaurs who probably remember the birth of the sun. … [To read the full article, click here]
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