Is it finally happening? The breakthrough? The transition to what comes next? What I’ve been waiting to see my entire adult life? Watching the Democratic National Convention had me wondering. This one felt different. The euphoria wasn’t forced. It didn’t feel entirely scripted and choreographed. It felt more authentic, exuberant, unleashed.
The speeches were remarkable — eloquent and uplifting — like they all tapped the same wellspring, the same gusher. Not oil. Something cleaner, clearer: Joy and optimism, America’s living water. So beautifully articulating our foundational values that we felt tantalizingly closer to realizing them. Facing an existential threat to our democracy seems to have concentrated our minds wonderfully, uniting behind a shared vision of a better future. An achievable future. The real thing.
Ah yes, the caveats. Don’t get swept away. Anything can and probably will happen. We still have a long way to go. There will be setbacks. Don’t get your hopes up. We’ve been disappointed before.
Yes, we have been thoroughly programmed not to expect “too much.” We live in an imperfect world. We’re only human. Over-confidence is always fatal.
The voices of caution are coming in loud and clear.
None … the … less …
As columnist Will Bunch wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “A lot will happen this fall, but right now, I wouldn’t bet against the party that’s dancing in the aisles.”
I wouldn’t either. Speakers spoke truth and listeners recognized it, the quiet nodding of heads more impressive than the bellowing roars. The whole truth and nothing but the truth? Let’s not get carried away. But close enough for government work, as the old saying goes.
And close enough to see the future from here — a brighter future. A new and improved American Dream.
As Amanda Gorman, who is fast becoming the poet laureate of democracy, put it last Wednesday night:
We gather at this hallowed place / because we believe in the American dream.
We face a race that tests if this country we cherish / shall perish from the Earth / and if our Earth shall perish from this country.
It falls to us to ensure that we do not fall, / for a people who cannot stand together / cannot stand at all.
We are one family / regardless of religion, class or color.
For what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty / but our love of one another.
This is loud in our country’s call because while we all love freedom, / it is love that frees us all.
Empathy emancipates, / making us greater than hate or vanity, / that is the American promise.
Powerful and pure, / divided we cannot endure / but united, we can endeavor to humanize our democracy / and endear democracy to humanity.
And make no mistake, / cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote.
Yet tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship / but by the audacity of our hope, / by the vitality of our vote.
Only now approaching this rare air / are we aware / that perhaps the American dream is no dream at all / but instead a dare / to dream together.
Like a million roots tethered, / branching up humbly, / making one tree, this is our country / from many, one, / from battles, won, / our freedoms sung, / our kingdom come has just begun.
We redeem this sacred scene / ready for our journey from it together.
We must birth this early republic / and achieve an unearthly summit / let us not just believe in the American dream, / let us be worthy of it.
What will make us worthy of it? The first step is defeating extremism by actualizing the better angels of our nature and outvoting the lesser angels of our nature. After that? Ah, let’s dream a little …
Over the past 50 years, the Democratic Party has been evolving, whereas the Republicans have been devolving, turning too many Americans against their government.
The Democratic Party has slowly become more open and diverse, the party of we the people. As former President Bill Clinton pointed out last Wednesday, since the end of the Cold War in 1989, our economy has added 51 million jobs — 50 million during Democratic administrations, 1 million during Republican administrations. That’s because Democrats believe in government. Republicans don’t. And that makes all the difference.
Democrats are a functioning, and talent-rich, political party. Republicans are a personality cult, whose personality is long past his expiration date. If American voters deliver the White House and a large enough majority in Congress, Democrats can pass reforms that will protect our democracy from authoritarianism; remove barriers to equality for women and people of color; make health care a right; legalize reproductive rights; regulate guns to make all of us safer, especially our kids; make the necessary progress on climate change that will save the planet for those same kids, and their kids; and create a stronger economy, based on clean energy, that will reduce economic inequality.
We can, at last, make dramatic progress on transforming the planet. We’re not talking revolution here. We’re talking accelerated evolution.
It’s not a pipe dream.
It’s the New American Dream, the one that had people dancing in the aisles last week in Chicago.