Kamala Harris will formally accept the Democratic nomination for president this week at the DNC, the party’s convention in Chicago. As the event gets underway, DNC officials—along with their friends in the media—are keen to show just how joyous Harris’ run will be.
“Harris Used to Worry About Laughing. Now Joy Is Fueling Her Campaign,” read one headline in The New York Times earlier this month.
Unfortunately for her, not everybody feels the same way.
Indeed, it appears as though frustration within the Democratic Party over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war stretches to Harris’s campaign, with around 1,000 pro-Gaza demonstrators marching through downtown Chicago on Sunday night, chanting “Shut down the DNC.” One protester managed to storm the stage of a delegate party where he grabbed a microphone and said “You are funding a genocide,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Harris late last month snubbed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by boycotting his address to the joint U.S. Congress, which is indicative of how U.S.-Israeli relations will stand should she win in November.
The party’s 92-page platform document nowhere mentions the arms embargo on Israel demanded by uncommitted delegates and pro-Palestinian demonstrators alike. According to the Washington Post, the topic of a ceasefire—which has caused a rift between moderates and progressives in the party—was not even discussed during the creation of the document.
Action will take place every day during the convention, with tens of thousands of people expected to join rallies from Monday onward, providing a constant backdrop of anger to Harris’ otherwise joyous coronation. As the first round of protests came to a close, there were the usual chants of “from the river to the sea” on the streets of Chicago.
This, of course, presents somewhat of a problem to Harris’ team, which will be mindful that pandering to those making noise outside the convention could risk alienating a decent number of those sitting inside.
But the team appears to have been less concerned about coming down firmly on one side in relation to particular contentious social issues. On abortion, they’ve gone the whole hog, with Planned Parenthood planted outside the hall offering free medical (non-surgical) abortions. Free vasectomies are on the cards for convention-goers, too—although those interested in having the procedure will have to join a waiting list.
Interesting choice, then, for the convention’s theme today, on August 19th, to be “for the people…”—in light of the push for helping decimate the party’s own electorate, free of charge.
The European Conservative’s economics writer Sven R. Larson will be reporting on the Democratic convention through the week.
