Muscular patriotism, the DNC in Chicago, and more memes

In today’s NYT e-newsletter David Leonhardt explores the theme of “muscular patriotism” looking towards the Democratic National Convention which opens tonight in Chicago. (Memories of the 1968 DNC, one of the most tempestuous in American history,  have some people concerned about potential violence.) Leonhardt writes:

At her first rally with Tim Walz, Kamala Harris delivered a riff about their quintessentially American backgrounds. She grew up in Oakland, Calif., raised by a working mother, while he grew up on the Nebraska plains, she explained. They were “two middle-class kids,” she said, now trying to make it to the White House together. “Only in America,” Harris said, as the Philadelphia crowd burst into a chant of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

This sort of unabashed patriotism doesn’t always come naturally to today’s Democratic Party. But it has been central to Harris’s presidential campaign. In her ads and speeches, she portrays herself as a tough, populist, progressive patriot.

It has made a difference, too. Harris has persuaded — for now, at least — a meaningful slice of swing voters that she is not the out-of-touch California liberal who Republicans claim she is. In Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, she has surged ahead of Donald Trump partly because she is performing better with working-class voters and rural voters than President Biden was (even before his disastrous debate), according to Times/Siena College polls. Across both the Midwest and Sun Belt swing states, she is faring better with independents.

My, oh my, how the American political landscape has shifted in just a few weeks. The tensions remain, so speeches and articulated policies must respond tangibly and believably to widespread social angst, especially centred around the economy, immigration, women’s reproductive rights, and the use, or abuse of power. The stakes are so very high for Americans, and frankly, the world. See what happens.

I wanted to get a last batch of images on the record as the approach of pundits and content creators will soon change. We can only stick it to pet-hater J D Vance for so long. And Trump’s self-aggrandizing rants are running thin. We need new content please. New possibilities will shortly appear. Watch this space.