In Chicago, Pa. Democrats are acting like it’s 2008 all over again

CHICAGO — That joyful warrior thing Vice President Kamala Harris has been talking about since announcing her candidacy? It’s real. I’ve spent the last few days walking around the Democratic National Convention, and everywhere I go, that feeling — joy — is palpable. It’s much more than just another campaign slogan. It’s a vibe.

For Pennsylvania State Rep. Tarik Kahn, whose district includes Northwest Philadelphia, Manayunk, Roxborough, and Lower Merion, the Democrats are out here behaving like it’s 2008 all over again — and it’s not just because former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, spoke at the DNC in Chicago Wednesday night.

“It’s pretty much Obama-esque,” Kahn told me as he sat with his delegation near the main stage on the convention floor earlier this week. “And it’s such a difference between Biden and Kamala. There’s enthusiasm. It’s genuine.”

Look, I love me some Joe Biden as much as anybody. But I would have never stood in line to get a custom-made friendship bracelet with his name on it. And it wasn’t just me: Lines and lines of female convention-goers at the DemPalooza gathering waited patiently for their chance to string sparkly red, white, and blue metallic baubles onto a string that gets affixed to their wrists.

“Everybody is so hopeful joyous, energized, organized, and excited for Kamala Harris to be our next president,” Philadelphia City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson told me.

Many people I spoke with said they haven’t felt this excited about anything in politics since before the COVID-19 pandemic. That goes for me, too. I needed this. And in many ways, it feels like America — which has a closer-than-we-expected presidential race heading into the fall — needed it, too.

After Biden’s disastrous debate performance, another Donald Trump presidency had started feeling almost inevitable. Like some other Democratic voters, my husband and I had even started talking about where we could go for an extended vacation to avoid some of the ugliness another Trump administration would bring, including his pledge to be a dictator for a day. He’s also been campaigning on a promise to implement the mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants and exact retribution on his political enemies.

But hubby and I stopped all that talk after Biden graciously stepped out of the race and endorsed Harris, who emerged on the campaign trail looking more confident than I ever remember seeing her.

Harris, who is both Black and South Asian, also seems to bring some of the same transformative energy Obama did as she stands poised to finally — finally — shatter the proverbial glass ceiling that withstood the best efforts of Hillary Clinton, Shirley Chisholm, and so many others, and usher in a new era in American politics.

Democrats are confident that the new era they’re hoping for has already started this week. There have been so many memorable moments from the opening days of the convention: The Obamas’ rousing speeches Tuesday. How the crowd went wild Monday when the vice president made a brief, surprise appearance on the convention stage. When Biden jogged onstage later that same evening quoting the lyrics from the Norah Jones track “American Anthem”: “What shall our legacy be?/ What will our children say? ... Let me know in my heart/ When my days are through/ America, America/ I gave my best to you.”

As the polls have shown, it’s not enough to just be rabidly anti-Trump. Supporters must also be solidly pro-Harris. She and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are the perfect foil to the foreboding energy and everything else that he and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, represent. I mean, really, after the DNC roll call with DJ Cassidy, does anyone in America want to go back to four more years of Trump?

“I think what’s so special, and the big change of pace that you’re feeling, is that for almost 10 years since Donald Trump came down that escalator, he told us that America’s problem was our neighbor,” said Pennsylvania State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who’s running for Pennsylvania auditor general. “What Kamala Harris and Tim Walz say is that our neighbors are how we solve our problems.”

And that feeling of joy?

“The joy is that I can look at my neighbor and not be terrified that they see in me the evil caricature that Donald Trump has tried to make us see in each other,” Kenyatta said. “People are sick of having to be angry at something all the time. We’re ready to change the channel.”

From what I have seen going on in Chicago, for Democrats, the channel has been switched. We’ll have to wait until November to see how much of the rest of the country wants to tune in to this new joyful vision for America, as well.