From a surprise appearance by party nominee Kamala Harris to a heartfelt speech by President Biden, the first night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention offered viewers a rare combination of genuine emotion, kindness, joy, and real excitement about the prospects for our future.
The Democratic National Committee today released a platform that lays out the history of the last four years and explains how and why the Biden-Harris administration has oriented the United States government toward ordinary Americans. It is in many ways a snapshot of the United States of America in this moment. At the most basic level, it shows how rapidly the political world is changing. Approved on July 16, five days before President Joe Biden announced he would not accept the nomination, it refers to Biden, and not to Vice President Kamala Harris, as the party’s nominee.
The platform lists the landmark legislation the Democrats have passed since 2021 and explains how they designed those measures to address both economic inequality and the historic racial and gender discrimination that has held back women as well as racial and gender minorities. The central theme of the platform is fairness: some version of that word appears in the document 58 times. The nation’s government, and the globe, have been skewed toward a few rich people. The Democratic platform says that they should pay their fair share and that those Americans who have been held back by systemic discrimination should have a fair shot at success.
--Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 8/19/24
- The Democratic Platform:
democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform - Democratic National Convention: demconvention.com
- Axios: Convention nightly themes
- AP: Biden gets a rousing ovation as he gives Harris an enthusiastic endorsement
- ABC News: Live Convention coverage roundup
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