Jandos Rothstein
There is a famous surrealist painting by René Magritte titled The Treachery of Images. The entire painting is composed of the words Ceci n’est pas une pipe (“This is not a pipe”) under a drawing of a pipe. Magritte is of course right. What the painting shows is not a pipe, but an image of a pipe.
Likewise the surreal Democratic National “Convention.” It is not a convention at all, but a surrogate for a convention—a slickly produced TV show, in which all the speeches are orchestrated, vetted, and recorded; and everything is staged down to the second.
A convention, lest we forget, is a gathering of citizens for disputation and democratic conversation. This is a one-way event with watch parties, leavened by some virtual caucuses and Zoom covens of lobbyists and donors.
Fortunately for Biden, his nomination was decided long ago, and even dissenters who are uneasy about his corporate advisers recognize that defeating Donald Trump takes top priority. So there is no real pushback against the unity imagery. Even Bernie Sanders and AOC (despite her shameful one minute that got expanded to 90 seconds) are fully on board with the program.
Given the pandemic and the urgency of ousting Trump, this was the best the Democrats could do for now. Nothing concentrates the mind like incipient neofascism.
The nightly two-hour show has also been pretty good on production values. The roll call of the states was far niftier than its usual live version. There were moments of real wit.
Democrats who had been envying the genius of the Lincoln Project’s dazzling anti-Trump commercials can take some comfort that the Dems can do this too. All it takes is total control.
We’ve seen plenty of live conventions (mainly renominations of incumbents) where there was also no real business to be done and the whole point was a unity fest, with tens of thousands of delegates, alternates, party officials, VIP donors, and press in attendance mainly as props. Yet even at those events, this was an opportunity for live labor caucuses, Latino caucuses, kibitzers, etc. to connect to politicians and network with other parts of the Democratic base.
After this weird year, bracketed by the pandemic and the urgent imperative of ousting Trump, we will need a return to real meetings and real politics. The future of the Democratic Party, and thus the country, is very much up for grabs. It will take political contention, reminiscent of the raucous live conventions of years past, to make sure that Biden is not captured by the usual suspects, and leads an administration as good as his policy papers.
Though the Republicans are generally better than the Democrats at producing canned spectacles, that’s not likely to be the case this year. Biden’s convention planners, though they gave short shrift to the organized left, did well at showcasing the diversity of the party and the diversity of America.
The spotlight was not just on Biden or other party luminaries. It was on our nation’s suffering, and its often heroic regular people. That’s what the Democratic Party should be all about.
Republicans are great at production values, but pity the producers charged with putting on next week’s Republican extravaganza. Trump is an entertainer and Republicans know how to do entertainment. But sharing the limelight is not exactly Trump’s strong suit. Nor is staying on message and sticking to the script.
Trump wants less an American party convention than something like Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies, but without the careful staging and discipline. His own speech is likely to communicate mainly how erratic he is.
Everyone else with a speaking part will be expected to speak mainly about the Great Leader. The RNC is far more likely to come off the rails than this week’s tightly focused Democratic counterpart.
Spectacle versus spectacle—this is political reality in the surreal age of Trump and the pandemic.
Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Alas, this is not a pipe dream.
