What Went Down On Day Three Of The Democratic Convention

Biden seemed desperate in his speech to take the crowd away from chants and sloganeering — he seemed bashful when some of the words in his speech were turned into a “not a clue” chant. He seemed to want the crowd to stop and contemplate the utter absurdity of Trump, of his unprecedented tenor as a candidate of a major American party. This is the Joe Biden of moral authority — the video that introduced him focused on his work in the Senate against genocide, domestic violence and the gun lobby. He lowered his voice and asked the crowd to hear him out — they did.

And that was a speech where the raucous energy of the crowd tonight really played to the speaker’s advantage.

I wonder how many people are looking up “malarkey” right now. When Joe Biden used it on national television four years ago, it led to a spike in searches at Merriam-Webster, and they named it one of their 2012 words of the year.