THE DEMOCRATS ARE almost giddy right now. No, scrap that, they’re actually giddy. “Is this us? Is this really us? I almost don’t recognise us,” one attendee told in the hallway of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago late last night.
Speakers have slagged off Republican politicians from the stage. When Hillary Clinton spoke, the crowd chanted “LOCK HIM UP” about Donald Trump. Usually stiff politicians look – gasp! – like they’re actually having fun.
You could say they’re taking things that the Republicans do all the time and Democrat-ifying them. And last night, the Democrats came for that last stronghold of the Republican party: family values. In a double-header of speeches, Michelle and Barack Obama spoke about the values of the women who raised them (“Honesty and integrity.
Kindness and hard work”), using their personal stories to draw parallels with Kamala Harris and her family. But they also used them to call out Donald Trump and his values. The two directly and strongly criticised Trump by name, something Democratic politicians shied away from in the past, in yet another break from the party’s normal way of doing business.
Barack Obama spoke about – actually, let’s come back to that. Because the big speech of the night, and of the convention so far, was Michelle Obama’s. The former first lady spoke initially about the momentum that the party has seen in recent weeks.
“Hope is making a comeback,” she told the crowd. But she th.