This is Democracy – Episode 274: Political Conventions

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Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of this is democracy.

Jeremi: This week, we are getting ready for another political convention, the Democratic National Convention, which will occur in the coming days, the precise days for the Democratic National Convention are August 19th through August 22nd. We’re going to talk about why parties have political conventions, why political conventions matter.

Jeremi: We’re going to talk about the history of political conventions and how that history helps us to understand This moment and what we might expect from the democratic convention this august. We’re joined by a good friend And someone well known to most of our listeners. I presume This is Jonathan Alter.

Jeremi: He has been on our podcast before Jonathan is I think one of the most important journalists writing in the united states today He’s an award winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer, and radio host. He has written a number of important books, books I’ve assigned to my students in the past.

Jeremi: Most recently, Jonathan wrote a very, very important biography of Jimmy Carter, his very best Jimmy Carter of life. I encourage everyone to read, um, this book as we’re in one of probably some of the last days of the former president’s life. All right. Jonathan has also written on president Obama. He wrote the center holds Obama and his enemies, which was a New York times bestseller.

Jeremi: He also wrote the promise president Obama year one, really one of the first books to look at the Obama presidency in a serious up close way, also a New York times bestseller. And then I think, uh, Jonathan’s first book or one of his first books was a book on Franklin Roosevelt, the defining moment FDR is a hundred days in the triumph of hope, which is, I, I, I think still.

Jeremi: Uh, the best book to read on FDR’s first hundred days, which are in some sense, the model for any president, uh, really, how do you get started? How do you implement a new agenda? What are the trade offs, uh, and many other political issues? Uh, most recently, Jonathan Alter wrote an op ed, a kind of daily op ed on a Trump’s trial in New York City, which was really fascinating to read because it brought the eye of an experienced journalist and someone with a historical sensibility.

Jeremi: To this, shall we say crazy moment in our recent history? Uh, Jonathan said, thanks so much for joining us.

Jonathan: Hey, thanks so much for having me. Um, and I, you know, you guys have a fantastic podcast. I just wanted to, I hope this isn’t too. Self serving, but since you were going over some of my books and the, um, the trial coverage I did, uh, last spring where I was in the courtroom, not even the overflow room, the courtroom itself, a few feet from Donald Trump, uh, every day for 23 days, uh, I’ve written a new book that is coming out, um, this fall and is available for pre order it’s called American Reckoning.

Jonathan: Inside Trump’s trial and my own and it’s, um, it’s part diary of the trial with a lot of what you were talking about, sort of contextualizing, um, this first criminal trial in American history of a president. And then I also talk about, uh, my interviews with nine of the last 10 American presidents. And then something that just happened in the last really 10 days is that I was able to get into the book just before it went to the printer, an account, uh, with some inside reporting of, uh, how Nancy Pelosi, um, convinced Joe Biden, uh, to stand aside.

Jonathan: Wow. Um, so all of that, uh, comes out, uh, in October, um, uh, in, in this book, American Reckoning. So thank you for letting me plug that.

Jeremi: Absolutely. We will, uh, we’ll hope to have you back on in the fall to talk about this, this important book. I can’t wait to read it myself. Uh, before we get to our discussion of political conventions, however, our topic for today, we have, of course, uh, Mr.

Jeremi: Zachary’s scene setting poem, uh, Zachary, what is the title of your poem today?

Zachary: When They Go Marching in Chicago.

Jeremi: When They Go Marching in Chicago, uh, interesting, interesting. Is that in some ways a reference to Norman Mailer’s famous book on the, uh, marching at the Pentagon in 1967? No. No. It’s a reference to Chicago in 68.

Zachary: Well, sort of, but it’s more a reference to the, the, the protests that we’re expecting at the convention, uh, next week.

Jeremi: Fantastic. Well, let’s hear it.

Zachary: When they go marching in Chicago, will it be for something real or will it be a festival? Of cruel and bitter zeal when they go marching in Chicago, will they smile?

Zachary: Will they laugh or will they cut the flag down? That’s already at half mass when they go marching in Chicago. Will it be another revolution? Or will it be another devolution with food delivered in profusion? When they go marching in Chicago, I hope that they remember as they scream their chants of genocide, there are people still on the other side.

Zachary: When they go marching in Chicago, I hope that they remember that tearing down is easy, it is harder to assemble. And when they go marching in Chicago. I hope that they remember how hard it is to be the change, how easy but to shout it.

Jeremi: That’s a very moving poem, Zachary, and brings up many, many challenges.

Jeremi: What’s your poem about?

Zachary: Uh, my poem is about what I see, uh, as, um, in, in the protests that are being planned for Chicago, but also in similar protests we’ve seen. Uh, at, uh, Kamala Harris, uh, and other sort of Democratic Party events in, uh, recent weeks, a sort of cynicism and like a deep pessimism, uh, that’s implied, uh, in a lot of these protests.

Zachary: And I think they’re a sort of, uh, symptom of of a kind of pathology that rejects anything sort of current as a compromise and insists on some sort of perfect world where everything is sort of peachy keen instead of really sort of getting down to business and trying to make an actual difference. And I found this particularly frustrating.

Zachary: And I think it’ll be sort of on stark display at the convention next week when we have, um, a sort of very, Pragmatic policy platform, uh, being put forward and sort of serious policy and political speeches. And then, um, sort of a few streets over, um, a very radical and sort of obnoxious and loud protest that.

Zachary: That, that, that sort of doesn’t really pertain to the actual discussion

Jeremi: inside the room. Gotcha, gotcha. It’s, it’s obviously something that we’ve seen before at conventions and might very well see here. It brings back memories, of course, of Chicago, 1968, when the last time the Democrats had their convention in Chicago and, uh, when there were.

Jeremi: Major protests of violence on the streets of the city. Jonathan, why do parties, why does the democratic party and the Republican party, why, why do they subject themselves to this? Why do they do these conventions? The first convention was in 1831, late 1831. Why, why have parties done them ever since?

Jonathan: Well, first of all, before I answer that question, I, I want to, um, say that I think Zachary’s poem is outstanding and, you know, I’ve, I’ve known this for a while.

Jonathan: I’m listening to this podcast, but you’re a fine young poet. And, you know, one of the things I like about your poetry is that it’s, uh, about, you know, Real things and this is a very good example of it. I think you’ve, you’ve done a beautiful job of evoking some of the challenges, um, that, um, when I get to Chicago, uh, you know, I expect to witness some of that.

Jonathan: And I just want to say before talking about, uh, the 1830s and 40s, um, when I was 10 years old, uh, Growing up in Chicago, um, I witnessed, um, some of the, uh, turbulence at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Um, my, this will give you some idea of what, uh, kind of a family I come from. And, you know, um, uh, we’re talking now about, uh, the, uh, Cousins of your wife, Alison, uh, my, my father is, uh, Alison’s father’s, was Alison’s father’s first cousin.

Jonathan: Um, so I grew up in a very, very political family. And in 1968, um, my father, who, um, had seen a lot of action in World War II, flying a B 24 and been shot down, and ever since had been very anti war. Was working for Gene McCarthy and my mother who, um, uh, had family connections, uh, was working for Hubert Humphrey who ended up getting the nomination that year.

Jonathan: And, uh, they both were working at the Conrad Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue, uh, which still exists and which where a lot of delegates will be staying, uh, next week. Large hotel. It had originally been owned by the father of, uh, Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court. It was called the Stevens hotel until his father went to jail.

Jonathan: And in any event, this was. Out in front of the hotel was where most of the violence took place on Michigan Avenue and police were clubbing demonstrators. And it, it, it not only ruined the democratic national convention that year, um, it, um, uh, caused a schism in the democratic party, a very embarrassing.

Jonathan: moment for the Democrats and contributed in a significant way to Humphrey’s loss that fall in a very close election to Richard Nixon. So if it hadn’t been for the disturbances at that convention, um, some of which I witnessed, um, the world would be a different place. We wouldn’t have had Nixon, a lot.

Jonathan: would be different. Humphrey would have been a very different president. Um, so in my situation, um, my parents, um, it’s kind of funny. They, they met, um, for, um, breakfast or lunch one day early in the convention at a restaurant in the hotel called the Haymarket restaurant, which if any of you have seen the Aaron Sorkin movie, There’s a scene that takes place in the Haymarket restaurant because the windows of that restaurant on Michigan Avenue were shattered and some of the, um, biggest clashes, uh, took place right at that restaurant.

Jonathan: But before the clashes, my parents had, uh, breakfast or lunch there. And when my dad got back to the. Uh, McCarthy headquarters, uh, where interestingly, uh, Seymour Hirsch, the famous investigative reporter was McCarthy’s press secretary. And he was accused by a McCarthy stepper. We saw you, somebody saw you having, uh, lunch with a Humphrey woman operative.

Jonathan: He said, that’s my wife. In any event, I was running around. I was 10 years old, very interested in politics. And I was running between the McCarthy and Humphrey headquarters, spending a little more time, uh, with, uh, Humphrey, but flirting with McGovern, who was seen when Ted Kennedy wasn’t going to get in, which became clear, On the Sunday before the election, before the convention, there was a kind of a McGovern boomlet.

Jonathan: And I remember putting on a McGovern button. That was who I was for. And then, uh, late in the afternoon, there were, um, it was clear that there were There was a lot of tension and that, that something was happening. There had been violence earlier in the week in Lincoln park. And so my mother grabbed me and she said, we’re out of here.

Jonathan: And we go, we hurry to the parking lot. We get the car and we drive through this. The mayhem was really just beginning. We, we, it didn’t really start until after dark, but we kind of saw the beginning of it then through Grand Park and home. Um, and then amazingly, and this is something I didn’t realize until, uh, I was writing this book.

Jonathan: Uh, I have a very short account of this in, uh, in, uh, In American Reckoning, uh, amazingly, my parents let me go back to the Conrad Hilton the next day, even though there had been all this violence. And that’s how much they were willing to kind of expose us to things. And I remember distinctly, uh, Seeing the kind of glint of the, uh, bayonets of the national guardsmen and, uh, smelling, I can still smell it, a stink bomb that a protester threw into the lobby of the, of the hotel.

Jonathan: Um, anyway, I’m sorry to bore you with that story, but

Jeremi: not at all.

Jonathan: Not a lot of people who, uh, are still around who were, We’re at that convention, uh, you know,

Jeremi: Jonathan, just explain from your point of view as a, as a 10 year old, as a precocious 10 year old boy. Uh, what, what did you think was happening? Why, why at this meeting of political leaders to choose a presidential candidate?

Jeremi: This is the moment in 1968, the democratic party chooses Hubert Humphrey vice president to be its presidential candidate. Even though he had not been in a single, uh, Primary. Why did you think there was so much violence and anger? What was this about?

Jonathan: It was the nature of the year. It was just one of those wild years like 2024.

Jonathan: You know, which we can talk about where, um, black swan events are happening throughout the year. So 1968 began with the Tet Offensive and this was when even Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, you know, went to Vietnam, South Vietnam, came back and said, this war is not winnable. And the whole country was turning against the war.

Jonathan: On March 30th, Lyndon Johnson withdrew the incumbent president quite a bit earlier than Joe Biden did, which is one of the striking things about Biden’s decision is that, you know, the only real modern precedent was many months earlier. And then, um, in April, uh, Martin Luther King is. is killed in Memphis.

Jonathan: And this left a huge, huge impression on me because two years earlier, almost exactly two years earlier, when King was living in Chicago in a slum on the West side to draw attention to the housing problems in the North, uh, he held a fundraiser for a big rally at Soldier Field where the Bears now play.

Jonathan: And, um, It was held at my parents house. And so as a, at that point, eight year old, I got King’s autograph and, you know, and then, so when he was killed, it was a, a very, very big deal in my 10 year old life, and then a couple of months later in, in June of 1968, Bobby Kennedy was killed, uh, and. Meanwhile, demonstrations are beginning on campuses.

Jonathan: They got bigger the following year 1968, they had them at Columbia and you had, um, a kind of, uh, unrest on campuses that makes what’s been going on this year seems small by comparison. Uh, and you had a, you know, a real radicalism that was developing. Um, and this was a year after what’s called the summer of love when, when hippies really, uh, emerged as a big deal in American culture.

Jonathan: And by the 68 convention, the hippies had created a political party, which they called the yippie party, the youth party. And it was members of the yippie party who were making up a lot of the demonstrators in, in the streets. Uh, a couple of whom I, I got to know in later years, uh, of the Chicago, uh, Eight, the original Chicago Eight, especially Tom Hayden.

Jonathan: I became very friendly with Tom. And then I interviewed Bobby Seale and I, I, I’m sorry, guys, I’m rambling here, but it’s just, this is all, uh, kind of fresh in my mind because, you know, Donald Trump was held in contempt of court. Uh, uh, and fined by judge Rashan in his felony trial. And he was threatened with jail time, uh, if he, um, reoffended.

Jonathan: And at that point, Trump got the message and, uh, didn’t want it. and Murshan was very clear that that’s where he would send them. And so he shut up. He stopped attacking jurors and witnesses in violation of the gag order. So I think all of you remember that. But what that brought me back to was that In 1969, the government brought a case against what were originally called the Chicago Eight, and it was a very, very famous trial.

Jonathan: And some of you have probably seen the Aaron Sorkin movie. And, um, Bobby Seale, uh, one of the founders of the Black Panthers, he was completely innocent of any conspiracy charges. He, he only came to Chicago for like a Day or two, there was zero evidence of him planning any disruptive demonstrations or anything of that, anything of that kind.

Jonathan: But he was, um, put on trial with Tom Hayden, Abby Hoffman, David Dellinger, the other defense, John Friends, the other defendants. And, um, he did not have a, um, his lawyer was hospitalized. During the trial and the judge, Julius Hoffman, one of the worst federal judges in the United States, a bigot, uh, right wing, horrible judge, uh, when, um, Seale spoke up and said, you know, I’m not being represented by counsel.

Jonathan: My, uh, my counsel is in the hospital. He said, sit down. And Seale said, You know, protested my counsel, my lawyers in the hospital. I, I need representation. And, um, what, what the judge did, this is a year after the convention, uh, is almost unimaginable. He had seal bound and gagged. In the courtroom with a, a, uh, cloth in his mouth, so he couldn’t speak and his arms and legs shackled to the chair in the courtroom.

Jonathan: And, uh, I thought of all this when, when Trump was held in contempt, he was obviously treated a little bit differently than Bobby Seale was. And years later, uh, on the 30th anniversary of the trial, I interviewed Seale for the Today Show and he was remarkably, uh, unbitter, um, and, uh, Really just seemed like a really terrific person.

Jonathan: Um, and, um, in any event, his case was severed from the others and it became the Chicago seven trial and that all grew out of this convention. So just to get back, I’m sorry to wander on, but to get back to the original. Question. So starting in 1840, which was the first time that we really had what we would see as a, as a political convention, uh, for the, the Whig party and they nominated, uh, uh, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler.

Jonathan: Tip a canoe and Tyler too. Harrison caught, caught a cold, was giving his inaugural address, died a month after taking office and Tyler served out his term. But that was the first, the torchlight parades, a real convention. And it became clear even then that these conventions were not just about selecting the nominees.

Jonathan: They were about party building. Building enthusiasm, momentum, and, and that’s what this convention next week is, is going to be about, since the nominee, nominees have already been selected.

Zachary: Zachary? How do you think, uh, the events you described in 1968, and particularly the political context for the convention, uh, and the, the sort of burgeoning anti war movement at that time, are different from,

Jonathan: So I think most of the comparisons to 1968 are facile and almost useless, um, other than the fact that there are protesters, which there have been at many conventions, and that this is in the city of Chicago. The two events don’t have a lot in common. Now I say that before the convention’s taking place, if there’s a lot of violence, you know, it’ll be a different story.

Jonathan: But in 1968, the Democratic Party was terribly divided, as I indicated, over a war that wasn’t being fought by other people, like this war in Gaza was being fought by Americans. You know, in, in 1965, Lyndon Johnson sent 500, 000 troops to Vietnam. And, and so, and, and, you know, we ended up losing 50, 000 soldiers in Vietnam.

Jonathan: So this was way more intense. Then what’s going on right now. And, uh, now that’s not to say that the feelings of the protesters are less intense now than they were then. They’re, they’re very intense as they were like at the 2004 protests at the Republican convention, very strong, you know, uh, protests that year.

Jonathan: And we’ve had other examples of big, uh, protests. Um, so. And today’s Democratic Party is amazingly, uh, unified. Now, it’s kind of a miracle that it worked out that way, but all of the fears of a party being, uh, riven with these very damaging divisions are, have evaporated. Um, so, uh, Almost by definition, if you have a unified party, you’re going to have a, uh, a good successful convention and another, uh, thing that I would just indicate in terms of trying to get a sense of how big a deal this is going to be next week.

Jonathan: Um, my daughter, Charlotte Alter, who, um, has a cover story this week in Time Magazine about Kamala Harris, um, she went to the announcement of Tim Walz in Philadelphia. for tuning in. Big, boisterous rally for the Harris Walls ticket. Uh, the governor spoke, you know, it was, I’m sure many of you saw it on video.

Jonathan: It was a terrific event. And she said that when she came out, there were, uh, protesters, but they were, um, Really marginalized. I mean, they were not, there were not very many of them and, um, the, uh, they were kind of out of sync with the enthusiasm around them. And I think if Biden had been the nominee. The protests would be much, a much bigger deal.

Jonathan: And I’m not saying that Harris’s nomination has taken the air out of all of the protests, but I think it, um, has put the protests in a little bit of a different political context. And if the Chicago police do their job and keep the protesters in their designated areas, which is perfectly legal and appropriate thing for them to do.

Jonathan: I don’t think you’re going to see major disruptions. Now there was a story in the New York times that said, but you know, there are members of the, uh, 11 members of the Minnesota delegation, uh, who, um, you know, were elected as, uh, uncommitted on this issue of, uh, Gaza. And then there’s some, a few from Michigan as well.

Jonathan: You know, this was, I didn’t think it was a very good story to tell you the truth because it neglected to point out that, you know, the vice presidential candidate is from the Minnesota delegation.

Jeremi: Right.

Jonathan: The chances of 11 of their delegates in a huge arena, the United Center, being able to cause a disruption that anybody would notice are very small.

Jonathan: Um, and so I’m, you know, I’m reminded in, in, uh, 2016 in Philadelphia, there were, uh, the Democratic Party wasn’t nearly as. Unified. I mean, there was a huge anti Hillary demonstration on the Sunday before, uh, the convention opened that I attended with thousands of people who hated Hillary Clinton. They were Bernie supporters.

Jonathan: And even though Bernie had endorsed Hillary, it wasn’t good enough for them. And both Charlotte and I realized, uh, when we covered that demonstration together that, uh, this was going to be a real problem for Hillary in the fall. So in this case, in that case, they had about. You know, there were a certain number of Bernie delegates who tried to heckle speakers, uh, including when Hillary was giving her acceptance speech and the arena in Philadelphia was so big that you couldn’t hear them on TV.

Jonathan: You know, so the idea of people, and then the same thing at, at Trump’s convention in Cleveland, there were, um, some, uh, uh, Cruz supporters who Who tried to make noise and I was actually sitting in the press area, not far from them. There were about maybe 75 of them in the, uh, uh, spectator section and they tried to make noise.

Jonathan: Nobody heard it. So the chances of the, um, Uh, convention hall itself being disrupted, I think are very small. There will obviously be big demonstrations in the streets, and it’s just a question of how Chicago police handle it, but I have every reason to believe we’ll handle it, handle it better than Mayor Daley’s police did in 1968.

Jeremi: Well, they couldn’t handle it worse. I don’t think, uh, Jonathan, what happens at a convention? Most of our listeners have not been to one. I hope they will, they will go at some point, but, uh, what happens, uh, uh, we no longer really choose the nominee at the convention. In fact, the Democrats have already done this virtually.

Jeremi: So, so what happens at the convention over four days?

Jonathan: Well, um, one thing that will not happen this year is what’s happened in every prior, uh, convention except for the virtual ones in, in 2020, uh, and that is balloting for the presidential and vice presidential nominees where every state gets, you know, they stand up, they go to the microphone, the great state of Wyoming casts its, you know, votes for the next president of the United States.

Jonathan: So that’s a tradition that goes back a very long way. No longer exists, at least not this year. Uh, the other thing that happens is that the party builds on its glorious past. And so, um, they have former presidents speaking, uh, from that party. Um, and so in this case, that’ll be the current president. Uh, Joe Biden and, um, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton will give speeches early in the week.

Jonathan: Um, and, uh, on a Monday and Tuesday night, and then on Wednesday night, um, Tim Walsh, uh, will speak. And on Thursday night, Kamala Harris will give her acceptance speech, which is the climax and close of the convention. And in between there’s party business to be done. Most. Most important, the adoption of a platform.

Jonathan: So in, um, Recent weeks, um, the, uh, platform committee has been meeting and pounding out a platform and at some conventions, including the one in 1968 that I mentioned, there are big platform fights. Uh, and that, that year there was a big fight over the Vietnam war plank in the platform. Uh, this year, um, I don’t think people are expecting any big fights, but there could be some kind of a, um, Uh, of floor fight conceivably over, um, the part of the platform on, uh, the Middle East.

Jonathan: But I think that, you know, now that Biden and Harris are basically for ceasefire, they’ve said lead story in the New York Times today is that the United States believes that it’s time for hostilities to end in, In Gaza and that, you know, Israel shouldn’t continue its war. I don’t think there’s going to be a, a, uh, fight over that.

Jonathan: I think they’ll work out some language that is acceptable to everybody, almost all the delegates. So I think it will mostly be an effort. To pound Donald Trump and J. D. Vance and promote and tell the life story of Kamala Harris. So a very important part of the convention going back to, um, uh, the first time this was important was in 1964 is the film.

Jonathan: About the candidate, uh, and for a long time, the networks ran the film in its entirety. Now, they won’t do that. And so you have to kind of watch it online, but it’s, it’s often, uh, a very, uh, useful, uh, bit of propaganda, uh, where the, The nominee, um, and there’s a shorter one for the vice presidential nominee, um, gets a kind of a, uh, a bio, uh, video, um, um, where in this case, it’ll talk about how Kamala Harris worked at McDonald’s, you know, she knows the problems of the middle class and, um, you know, she, um, Put a lot of violent criminals in jail, including those coming over the border when she was a prosecutor and, um, and so forth.

Jonathan: And so this is the aim of these conventions now is to create an elaborate ad for, um, the nominee and the party. And I remember I used to cover media at Newsweek and I remember at the 1988 convention and I was in the Newsweek workspace near the Convention Hall. And, um, my, they didn’t have cell phones. I don’t know how, I guess he was returning my call to a kind of a standard phone in the workspace.

Jonathan: And it was Rune Arledge on the phone, who was the president of ABC News and somebody that I was covering a lot. And, uh, he said, I, I’ve had it with these people. We’re going to go back, you know, I’ve been talking to the network. Um, they, they’re deferring to me, um, on how much of this to carry in prime time.

Jonathan: I’d tell them, go back to regular pro programming. This whole thing is just an ad for the Democrats. I’m not going to do it. I’m going to take a little bit of Jesse Jackson’s speech, you know, half an hour of Jesse Jackson’s speech. The rest of it goes back to the network. And, you know, so they can run sitcoms or whatever they were running in that period.

Jonathan: And that’s when the tradition of only carrying one hour on the network, uh, 10 to 11, or in case of the Midwest in Chicago, nine to 10. Uh, and that’s all that the ABC, NBC and CBS. Will carry and for all of the rise of cable television and, and internet platforms, most Americans are still watching these dinosaur broadcast networks, right?

Jonathan: And they used to in the old days until 1988, they had gavel to gavel coverage. And, and since that time, they basically only had an hour of, of live coverage. Um, so people can watch their heart’s delight on, on cable, but it’s right.

Jeremi: Right.

Jonathan: You know, you, you talk, this is something I think a lot of people don’t understand.

Jonathan: So there are going to be about 130 million people voting in this election, maybe more because enthusiasm is now high on both sides. So it could go higher than that. Uh, and, uh, it could conceivably go to 140 million, 135 million. Um, you know, if you add up all of the cable networks on their best nights, you know, you’re talking about 10 million people.

Jonathan: Right. So, so most, most viewers are still there. They’ve got busy lives. There may be tuning in a little bit on MSNBC, Fox, CNN. A lot of them are watching whatever’s on primetime television. And then Watching one hour, uh, between 10 and 11 and that’s that makes the TV show that conventions have become a little bit different and they have to program it a little bit differently than they used to and they have to be very careful to keep time wasting boring stuff, um, out of the, uh, prime time portion.

Jonathan: So a lot of that is now pushed to the afternoon where they’ll, they’ll have, um, you know, people give speeches at like You know, they’ll convene early to get some of the dutiful stuff out of the way.

Jeremi: Zachary, your question?

Zachary: Yes. Um, I wanted to ask, how do you think the tone of the democratic convention in particular is going to differ or contrast with the tone that we saw at the Republican convention, uh, about a month ago at this point?

Jonathan: So, um. Well, I mean, there, there are a couple of differences just to go back to your, um, question about the protesters. I was kind of, you know, and your poem, you know, where you talk about the lack of logic, like, why should there be like, I would ask a protester this, a Gaza protester. Tell me again, like, why is the protest in Chicago so much bigger than the one in Milwaukee?

Jonathan: You know, that doesn’t really make any sense, but, um, you know, almost nobody noticed any protests in Milwaukee. And then, um, you saw a convention that was taking place in the wake of this. assassination attempt and what had already become cult

Jonathan: became an even bigger cult to the point that people, delegates were wearing little white bandages on their ears. That’s the kind of thing they would do in North Korea. Right. And, um, so, you know, the stigmata or whatever. And, and then, but I thought that, um, Trump did, um, One thing that was very smart, um, he really understands television.

Jonathan: You know, Donald Trump, when he was elected, people said, Oh, he has no experience in 2016. He was experienced in the single most important area for getting elected president. And that’s the media, right? So he’s always understood the media really well, and he’s always been willing to break tradition. So his decision to come in and sit in a box, uh, At his convention and be there the whole time rather than being in his hotel room, which is where the nominee is traditionally, uh, seen, um, until they make a grand entrance on Thursday night, they’re usually in the hotel room.

Jonathan: And I remember as a 10 year old, when I was watching the convention at night after I got back from the Conrad Hilton, and there was a shot of Hubert Humphrey, His wife Muriel had gone to the amphitheater where the convention was taking place, and he gets up out of his chair in his hotel room, and the TV cameras have him see him go over and kiss the TV screen.

Jonathan: And even as a 10 year old, how stupid is that? He’s kissing the TV, right? But other times it could be used to real effect. So in 1984, when the Republicans Uh, uh, nominated Reagan for reelection Reagan. Uh, and it was a coronation Reagan, uh, was in, uh, his hotel room. And, uh, Nancy Reagan was giving her speech.

Jonathan: She actually, unlike Muriel Humphrey addressed the convention, which has become, uh, a, uh, A common thing now, uh, Melania broke tradition when she didn’t address this year’s Republican convention. But normally as you remember, Michelle Obama addressed the convention then in 2016, Melania literally plagiarized, uh, Michelle Obama’s speech.

Jonathan: So, uh, when Nancy Reagan was giving her speech, they had an image of Ronald Reagan in the hotel room that they put on the jumbotron. In the convention hall and they waved to each other. She waved to the huge screen of her husband and it was a little 1984 ish, but it was the most powerful image coming out of that entire convention and it really, uh, you know, we ran a big picture of it in Newsweek.

Jonathan: It was very memorable. Um, but this year Trump changed the tradition. He said, why, why stay in the hotel room? So he went in the convention hall the first night and he sat next to different people, sometimes it would be JD Vance, sometimes it would be his grandchildren and it was very effective. And I think if, if, if the planners of the democratic convention are smart, they’ll have Harris do the same thing.

Jonathan: Lover sitting with Doug Hamoff some of the time and, and, uh, with, uh, Um, you know, with, uh, Tim Walls, some of the time and, and other people, you know, representatives of various important democratic constituency groups. So I think that that would be a very smart thing, um, for the Democrats to do this year.

Jonathan: Uh, and I’m not sure, um, You know, whether they will, um, stagecraft, uh, provide the kind of stagecraft that will optimize their advantages and their momentum. But I actually think they probably will. And the reason I think they’re going to do well in this stagecraft part of the job is that there’s a longtime Democratic operative named Stephanie Cutter.

Jonathan: She worked for Obama. And she was in charge of the 2020 convention, which she turned into a television show because it was a COVID convention. There was no actual convention, and I thought she did a terrific job, uh, presenting that, um, uh, Democratic convention, um, the last time. Very imaginative in television terms.

Jonathan: So, I think they’re going to do well. I think they’ll do something. Exciting on a, um, uh, you know, on Thursday night, um, um, a lot of people are saying Taylor Swift, or, you know, it’s going to show up or Beyonce. I’m not sure they’re going to do that, but I do think they’ll have some musical acts that are a little better than Kid Rock, who performed, uh, you know, it’s, uh, it’s going to be a celebration and, and a, you know, A happy occasion for Democrats who just a month ago were in the depths of despair.

Jonathan: You know, when you think about the combination of Biden’s debate performance, those Supreme Court decisions, the sense that the polls were showing Biden losing steam in democratic states like Minnesota and Virginia and New Mexico. And the change in just the last few weeks has been almost unprecedented in the history of American politics, the rapidity of the vibe shift.

Jonathan: And I think a lot of this convention will be devoted to trying to keep that sense of, uh, excitement going.

Jeremi: Jonathan, this has been super insightful, uh, from your personal experience as a 10 year old, to your career as a journalist and a historian covering this, and your personal perspective. I wanted to close with a question for Zachary.

Jeremi: As a younger person watching all of this, do you think that Conventions matter for young viewers like you?

Zachary: I think they matter in that they provide a lot of the sort of inspirational moments, um, That can sort of go right, go viral and really make their way to young people, um, through traditional and non, non traditional media.

Zachary: Um, I think they also, um, as, uh, Jonathan said, uh, regarding sort of Trump and his convention, they can serve the purpose of trying to sort of humanize the candidate, right? Having, uh, having them sit with their grandchildren or, or sort of seeing them in an environment, uh, Sort of warm environment surrounded by their family and supporters.

Zachary: Um, I think that that can sort of only bring out, um, positive emotions and someone who’s sort of encountering that candidate, um, for the first time. Uh, so I think they can be very helpful in that regard. I do think that. Today, at least, and especially for young people, what the candidates exactly say at the convention matters less.

Zachary: I think it’s, it’s, it’s probably even more of a media show, uh, today than it, than it was, uh, than it was in the past.

Jeremi: That makes, that makes a lot of sense. Well, I hope that all of our listeners will be watching at least parts of the convention. Uh, these are important moments in our politics, and as Jonathan said so well, we’re experiencing, uh, such a shift.

Jeremi: In the way we think about candidates and the way we think about this election, a shift that in the last few weeks has turned this race around. We don’t know where this will end, uh, but this convention, this historic democratic convention, uh, on the 56th anniversary of a very Historic democratic convention in Chicago.

Jeremi: Uh, this one will certainly matter to where this election goes from here. And, uh, democracies are about elections. And so we do hope everyone will watch. Jonathan Alter, uh, thank you for sharing your wisdom and insights with us. And, uh, we certainly encourage all of our listeners to read your books and your new book coming out very soon, uh, that seems to straddle both the Trump.

Jeremi: Trial and our current political moment, Zachary. Thank you as always for your thoughtful poem and your wonderful questions. Thank you to our loyal listeners, uh, for subscribing to our sub stack for listening to our podcast and for joining us on this episode of this is.

Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio

Outro: and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini.

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