Two political conventions, two worlds presented to Americans

Photo: Photos Charly Triballeau and Brendan Smialowski Agence France-Presse From the staging to the image strategy, from the tone of the speeches to the identity of the guests, the Democratic and Republican national conventions reveal significant political divergences.

Fabien Deglise in Chicago

Published yesterday at 6:45 p.m. Analysis

• United States

The deep political divisions in the United States are not only visible in the words of politicians. They are also embodied in the structure, the form, the tone of the national conventions of the two major parties—one being played out this week in Chicago for the Democrats, the other held in Milwaukee in July for the Republicans. Two events that tell the story of two distant worlds confronting each other in close combat on the same electoral stage.

Coconut Team c. broken ears

In the corridors of the United Center in Chicago, it has not been uncommon since Monday to come across delegates, most of them young, wearing a coconut-shaped badge or a t-shirt affirming their membership in the Coconut Team, the coconut team.

The tropical fruit has become a rallying symbol behind Kamala Harris' candidacy, drawn from a past statement by the vice-president. It was May 10, 2023 at the White House. The Democratic candidate spoke about her mother and the criticisms that the latter sometimes made about the impatient and often unreasonable youth of her time. “She was like, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you kids. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree ?” said Kamala Harris, letting out a characteristic laugh. “Yet you exist in the context of everything that came before you.” »

A call for respect and reason to consider the future which now accompanies the spectacular rise of the first black woman presidential candidate for a major party.

The symbol was quite different in July in Milwaukee, where several Republican activists quickly showed up at the convention site with a bandaged ear, in support of their charismatic leader who had been injured a few days earlier—in the ear, as it were—during an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The subject had occupied the discussions of the week in Milwaukee, presenting the Republican candidate as both a victim of political violence (which his statements have fueled for years) and a survivor protected by an occult force.

With the key to a call for resistance and revenge, but also to the strengthening of Donald Trump's hold on his party following this tragedy.

Establishment c. radicals

The Chicago political high mass is not only an opportunity to celebrate Kamala Harris' candidacy. It also honors the great figures present and past of the Democratic Party, several of whom were greeted with ecstasy and warm ovations from activists.

This was the case on Monday for Joe Biden, who symbolically handed over the baton to his vice-president to lead the charge against Donald Trump at the polls in November. On Tuesday, Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, captivated the audience by hailing the wind of change and the “contagious hope” induced by Mrs. Harris’s arrival in the race. Other former presidents, in person or in spirit, took to the stage one after the other, including Bill Clinton on Wednesday evening, but also Jimmy Carter, represented by his grandson Jason, and John F. Kennedy, whose memory was briefly recalled by his grandson Jack Schlossberg.

Photo: Charly Triballeau Agence France-Presse Former First Lady Michelle Obama during her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Tuesday, in Chicago

Among the Republicans, in July, the convention was notable for the absence of big names from the establishment and historical figures of the party. Donald Trump is one of the rare presidential candidates not to have received the support of his vice president, Mike Pence. No George W. Bush or Dick Cheney on the schedule either.

Instead, the party paraded a lineup of radicals on stage, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, the voice of Trumpism and the conspiracy theories that fuel it, and Kari Lake, the failed candidate for governor of Arizona in 2022 (and aspiring senator from her state in 2024) who came to rekindle the flames of the unfounded accusations of electoral fraud of which Trump constantly claims to be a victim. The latter had also denounced the presence of the major television networks in the room, with the exception of Fox News, calling them “liars.”

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite Associated Press American wrestler Hulk Hogan tore his straitjacket during the final evening of the Republican National Convention, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee, revealing a second red straitjacket on which one can read the names of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.

Among the speakers who were greeted with thunderous applause was Peter Navarro, who took to the stage at the Republican convention fresh from being released from prison in Florida that same day. The former White House adviser, a key player in Donald Trump and his entourage’s attempted theft of the 2020 election, spent two months there for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify and turn over documents to lawmakers investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection against the Capitol.

Read also

• Analysis | Trump refuses to live in the shadow of the Democratic convention
• “Yes, she can!”: Michelle and Barack Obama hail Harris as “hope” found
• Tim Walz takes the stage at the Democratic convention in Chicago

Joy vs. bitterness

The roll-call vote to confirm Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate, held Tuesday night, gave rise to a series of statements from the delegations of 50 states and 7 American territories, delighted by this new electoral equation. Several recalled the causes they intend to defend between now and November: the right to abortion, the fight against inequalities, the improvement of living conditions for the middle class, the defense of the public education system, access to health care… but also the diversity which contributes to the wealth of the country.

Massachusetts remembered its contribution to American history as the first state to celebrate Thanksgiving, in Plymouth, and the first state to establish public schools. It also produced the first public library — “where we don’t ban books,” said Stephen Kerrigan, the state party chairman — was the first to end slavery, was the first to provide universal health care and fired the first “shots in our revolution,” Kerrigan said. “And we are proud, as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to make history once again.”

The spirit of “joyful warriors”—as Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, call themselves—is felt throughout Chicago’s United Center. It’s a far cry from the vengeful spirit that permeated the halls of the Republican convention in Milwaukee. There, the vote confirming Donald Trump as the nominee served primarily to celebrate his image, to fuel the cult of his personality.

On this Republican stage, it was the fear that had been exposed all week by guests who regularly brandished the threat of a massive invasion of immigrants, who spoke of an explosion in crime — in contradiction with the statistics and the facts —, who rehash the tragedy of an electoral defeat that they continue to wrongly attribute to electoral fraud, or who warned against the manipulation of justice by the Democrats. The convictions and charges brought against Donald Trump for fraud and his attempted coup d'état are seen as political attacks, even if the verdicts were rendered by citizen juries and the cases were assembled by independent judges. of executive power. And, paradoxically, it is this same system of justice that many (starting with Trump) have called for to be used against their political opponents if they are elected in November.

“One party offers us a dark vision of the world and invites us to turn back the clock; the other offers us an optimistic path to continue moving forward,” summarized Jacob Heydemann, a Democratic delegate from Texas who came to Chicago this week to endorse Kamala Harris’s choice as candidate. “We are entering an incredible period for Democrats. She finds herself facing a Republican Party that is now nothing more than the party of Donald Trump. And the choice is clear: it’s democracy or him.”

This report was funded with support from the Transat International Journalism Fund- Le Devoir .