CHICAGO — On Monday, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party kicked off Day 1 of her nominating convention in Illinois, with just over two months left to go before the country is supposed to find out whether she or former President Donald Trump will be the next leader of the free world. But for much of the party’s upper crust who are gathering in Chicago this week, this isn’t the start of just any Democratic National Convention. These conventions, after all, are typically four-day-long parties, littered with glitzy sponsored late-night festivities, Hollywood celebs, and (rather importantly) geysers of free alcohol.
This year, things are different — or more dramatic. This convention marks the official starting line of the general-election battle against Trump and — as one Democratic Capitol Hill lawmaker headed to Chicago describes to Rolling Stone — “the fight of our fucking lives.” “I was at an event in my district a couple of days or so after President [Joe] Biden dropped out of the race, and I was with precinct delegates, volunteers, and organizers.
And there was this one organizer who told me: ‘A few days ago, I was ready to do the work, but I was sad about it. But now I’m ready to run through a fucking wall,’” recalls Democratic Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow, who is in Chicago for the convention. “It’s a vibe shift.
” Among the liberal operatives and luminaries working to keep Trump out of the Oval Office and put Harris in it, the term “fight of our lives” is indeed a popular one, especially in the month since Biden dropped out of the 2024 race. It is, unfortunately, a maddening cliché in political and media circles to call every U.S.
presidential election the “Most Important Election Of Our Lifetimes.” Yet this time around, the stakes are immeasurably, uniquely high. Trump and Republicans have been vowing, again and again, that they will swiftly move to implement a rabidly nativist, authoritarian, and openly vengeful agenda, should the twice-impeached former president and convicted felon return to power.
Before Biden bowed out, due to a deluge of intra-party concern over his age and mental acuity, the national and battleground-state polling consistently foreshadowed doom for Democrats. Editor’s picks Every Awful Thing Trump Has Promised to Do in a Second Term The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time The 50 Worst Decisions in Movie History In the months leading up to the Chicago convention, Rolling Stone spoke with various senior Democratic officials, donors, and activists about how they were feeling about the then-upcoming Chicago gathering. Words like “funeral,” “depressing,” “despair,” and “nightmare” were common.
With Biden at the top of the ticket, some had all but resigned themselves to yet another Trump era. But then, Biden was out. He quickly endorsed Vice President Harris, and other Democratic bigwigs, almost just as quickly, consolidated behind her as the new presumptive nominee.
The polls are still tight, though Harris has experienced an upswing of support and enthusiasm that has gotten under Trump’s skin and freaked out some of his previously overconfident allies. It’s also given the Democratic elite a sudden jolt of hope that a Trump restoration is not, in fact, inevitable. Whatever happens in November, the mood among both the party’s commanding heights and its rank and file at this week’s Chicago convention couldn’t be further removed from the once-expected morgue.
With the advent of the Harris-Walz campaign, sentiment among the Democratic Party and the vice president’s lieutenants is that they are now in an intensely protracted bar brawl against Trump and his MAGA hordes. Both sides are prepared to fight extremely dirty and unload everything they’ve got. Or, as one Democratic operative phrased it recently , the party is collectively “shaking off the stink of .
.. ‘when they go low, we go high,’” a liberal rallying cry in 2016 that, well, didn’t work out for them.
Related Conservative Legal Scholar Endorses Kamala Harris, Citing Jan. 6 Trump’s RNC Is Backing Georgia Republicans’ Voter Purge in Court Trump Doubles Down on Medal of Honor Dig Despite Backlash From Vets “It finally feels like we are doing what Republicans in Michigan have always done — fall in line, and recognize the mission. It feels very different from past elections.
.. It’s an existential crisis now, in ways that Democrats recognize that we cannot afford to not get in line and go full speed ahead in unison,” adds McMorrow, the state senator from a crucial battleground.
“In this moment, people know what is at stake, and we don’t need the party to tell us what’s at stake...
but we have to be energized and passionate about it. People want to feel like you’re winners and that we’re on the winning team.” As for what’s at stake in this election, for Trump, he is not only fighting for his political legacy.
Due to an array of criminal charges and multiple trials awaiting him on the other side of this election year, the odds of him seeing actual prison time will go up considerably if he loses to Harris. And if Harris loses, the chances that prominent Democrats are criminally investigated or prosecuted by Trump’s government, as part of explicitly corrupt acts of spite and revenge, also go up markedly . Trending Trump Is Worried About the TV Ratings for Harris’ DNC Speech Democrats Taunt Trump At Trump Tower Chicago Ahead of Convention People Are Trying Magic Mushrooms for Depression — and Accidentally Meeting God Alain Delon Was More Than Just the Single Most Beautiful Movie Star Ever “I think I sometimes sound like an alarmist when I say democracy is on the line — but I truly do believe that.
.. because you have a man who I believe wants to reshape our government to bend to his will, and he would lead like an authoritarian,” says Sarah Matthews, who was one of Trump’s deputy White House press secretaries.
“I am someone who has worked in Republican politics my whole career and grew up in a really conservative household, but for me, I think that this election is so much bigger than policy,” she says. “So even if I disagree with Vice President Harris on policy, I’m willing to set that aside [and vote for her] because of what a threat I believe that a second Donald Trump term would mean ..
. Someone like that should be as far away as possible from the Oval Office.”.
