The 2020 Democratic National Convention climaxed Thursday night with the most important speech of Joe Biden’s long political career — and without the cheers, sign-waving, confetti and balloon-drops he’d have had in any other election year.
Biden accepted the party’s nomination for president in an online appearance from an auditorium in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware.
Early in Biden’s forceful, well-received speech, he acknowledged the importance of character for all American leaders — implicitly saying that that quality is sorely lacking in the “current occupant” of the White House. Biden never spoke the president’s name.
“Character is on the ballot,” he said. “Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy — they’re all on the ballot.” (Note: For more on Biden’s speech, see a separate article here on News & Guts.)
Another speaker called Trump the “coward-in-chief.”
The night’s theme was “America’s Promise,” and before Biden spoke, Democratic luminaries speaking from all parts of the country took turns lavishing praise on him as an American of proven character and decency, leadership and courage, compassion and empathy.
Such qualities, they emphasized, are sorely lacking in Donald Trump.
And throughout the evening, virtually every speaker called on every American to do one thing above all: VOTE.
In a section that focused on the U.S. military, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Army helicopter pilot who lost both legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq, said American troops deserve a leader “who understands the risks they face and who would actually protect them by doing his job as commander-in-chief.”
Instead, she said, “they have a coward-in-chief who won’t stand up to Vladimir Putin, read his daily intelligence briefings or even publicly admonish adversaries for reportedly putting bounties on our troops’ heads.”
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey pointed to the economic and unemployment crises brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic and inflamed by Trump’s inaction.
“Working people are under attack, the wealth gap grows, our middle class shrinks and poverty persists. Last week, Donald Trump said ‘our economy is doing good,’ while 40 million Americans are at risk of losing their homes.” Booker said, adding:
“He has failed us.”
One of the most moving moments of the night was a video of a Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old from New Hampshire who talked of how Joe Biden helped him with stuttering.
Other speakers included Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Deb Haaland of New Mexico; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg; Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and Biden’s son, Hunter, and daughter, Ashley.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus was the night’s television emcee.
