The Democrats, Chicago-Born

At the DNC

The difference between the 2024 Democratic National Convention and the 2016 Democratic National Convention is that the insurgents don’t get inside now. The protesters march and chant beyond the United Center, and that’s where they will be all week. A few Democrats in the arena may be sympathetic to their cause and the 35-odd Uncommitted delegates could try to speechify, but this Chicago convention belongs, in every way, to the Democratic establishment. It is Kamala Harris’ coronation. It is Tim Walz’s debutante ball. Just as the Republicans, in July, were genuflecting to Donald Trump, their near-martyred icon, Democrats are now reveling in their ticket. Joe Biden is a ghost only permitted to haunt the convention hall tonight. After that, he will dutifully vanish.

So what is it like to be here, to be credentialed, to sit in the upper tier and take in the spectacle? Chicago is a wonderful city, but too sprawling and transit-deprived to guarantee convenience. Milwaukee, where the Republicans were, is a lesser city but a great convention town. A downtown hotel was next to a downtown basketball arena, and all you needed was in short walking distance. This week, I’ll be living in taxis and Ubers.

The Republican convention was a Trump Comic-Con, a Trump Super Bowl, the delegates festooned and costumed in glittering and wild-eyed merch. The Democrats are more professional. The Kamala tees don’t quite pop. Steve Kerr isn’t quite Hulk Hogan. Since I’m from New York, and New York sends a tremendous number of delegates to the convention, I will see plenty of familiar faces—the rising stars and fading hacks and all that lies between. This is the politics Olympics. Everyone wants to be seen here, and if they make the rounds at enough hotel breakfasts, they will.

Everyone asks me about the protests. Inordinately large? Disappointingly small? Is it 1968 out here?