What Went Down On The First Night Of The Democratic National Convention

Please clap.

The delayed applause is not working. They should stop doing that.

It’s also worth noting that Sanders simply has less power now. He performed quite poorly in the final head-to-head matchup against Biden.

Yeah, Julia, that’s where my instinct is as well. There is was a certain amount of taking the election for granted in 2016 that isn’t there this time around.

We’ve seen in lots of public opinion data that anger at Trump is doing more to unite Democrats than anything Biden or Sanders says or does.

Well, as Geoffrey pointed out with Cruz telling delegates to “vote their conscience” in 2016, the fact that Sanders doesn’t have a live audience to react this year means there really isn’t any possibility of seeing tension. So it’s possible that to some extent Sanders supporters are no more enthused about the nominee this time around than they were in 2016, although there does seem to be genuinely more support for Biden.

In response to what Clare and Nate have said, we’ll probably never quite know what explains the difference. Biden and Sanders reportedly have a good relationship. People have pointed to gender dynamics and the controversial “Bernie bro” phenomenon. But I think the fact that Trump is actually president makes a huge difference in how both Sanders and his supporters think about this alliance with mainstream, more centrist Democrats.

Yeah, in the room, the 2016 speech was tense. Clinton delegates in some cases were chanting to drown out Sanders’s delegates chanting. I don’t think you could hear it on TV, but in the hall it was tense and strange.

Recall that Sanders dropped out on April 8, making Biden the presumptive nominee. That was far earlier than in 2016, when he fought until the end of primary season. One factor may have been the fact that Biden generally performed better than Clinton in the March primaries and also won some turf Sanders carried in 2016, making it tough for the Vermont senator to have a path to the nomination.

Although it’s also worth noting that Sanders’s speech so far is much about Trump than it is about Biden.

My memory might be faulty, but I remember Sanders’s 2016 speech not being as urgent or supportive of the nominee. The change this year is probably partly because Sanders doesn’t want to be blamed for spoiling the election again, but also partly because Sanders genuinely seems to like Biden better than Clinton.

Sanders: “Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs.”

Yeah, I agree with that, Nate. I don’t remember Sanders’s 2016 speech being this wholehearted or insistent.

I honestly don’t remember Sanders’s convention speech in 2016, but I remember there being a lot of tension in the convention hall — more tension than really made it onto TV — with some of his delegates being less than thrilled about Clinton. I wonder how that would have gone over at a non-virtual convention this year. But this feels like much less of an arraigned marriage than 2016 did.

Sanders is framing the election of Biden as the continuation of his movement, noting that many of his once-radical policy proposals have made it into the mainstream (and even into Biden’s platform!).

Sanders is doing … the same thing he did at the 2016 convention. Saying he’s backing the nominee and wants his supporters to do so too. I think the medicine goes down easier this time around for many, many reasons. But it is striking to watch him doing basically the same thing he did four years ago.

Sanders appears to have taken up wood chopping since dropping out of the primaries.

“Let me take this opportunity to speak to the millions of people who supported my campaign this year and in 2016.” Sanders is making the subtext text and directly asking his supporters to vote for Biden.

This is obviously not the most important observation of the evening, but in broadcast, as you count down to go live you stop speaking at four, so three, two and one are silent. And you certainly don’t yell “go,” which is what keeps happening this evening before the speakers begin.

Sanders says this election is “the most important in the modern history of this country.” This is a claim that politicians make every election.

Can I get in on the unity parade commentary? I think in the TV convention era, we usually have nominations in which the competition dies down pretty early and is mostly forgotten by the time of the convention. That’s started to change in recent years as more distinct factions have started to reemerge between the two parties. But people were genuinely surprised — and worried — when the Clinton and Obama contest looked like it would actually play out all through the primary season.

Julia, considering that Martin Van Buren is one of the only vice presidents who became president, I think he’d be supportive of this particular candidacy.

That’s a good point, Geoffrey. And something that you could easily avoid in a Zoom format! But it does mean we’re less likely to see active disagreement in the party this year, which as Julia Azari wrote for the site, has, at times, helped to define the party and move it in a different direction.

(For those who don’t know, Biden’s wife died in a car crash shortly after he was first elected to the Senate, so he had to commute between Delaware and Washington, D.C., to take care of his sons. The habit stuck, and Biden became known for taking the train back home every day in the Senate. He even took the train home on the weekends as vice president.)

Well, Sarah, there’ve never been this many candidates running in one party’s nomination contest before! But I don’t recall seeing this sort of unity parade at the 2016 GOP convention, which followed the previous record holder for most candidates running in a party primary. Recall that Ted Cruz actually said Republicans should vote their conscience and got booed.

I can’t be the only one wondering what Martin Van Buren, an early architect of conventions and national parties, would make of this.

Because you can’t nominate Joe Biden for president without a video about Amtrak.

Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana is a co-chairman of Biden’s campaign. He is also a hell of a baseball player.

I wish I could get all these former candidates to debate bookshelves.

This montage of the entire 2020 field is … just wild. I mean, has there ever been such an intentional attempt to get the support from all (or nearly all) former contenders. No, right?

I just want to know about O’Rourke’s vinyl collection. I assume a lot of Fugazi.

For all those lingering Booker voters who weren’t ready to back Biden, Micah?

Remember how many people ran for president? Jesus H. Christ.

I recognized all the people in that video (pats self on back) but I forgot that a couple of them ran for president.

It really seems to capture the rallying, unifying spirit of an in-person convention.

Galen, for my piece today I was kinda trying to argue that discord can be good!

This seems pretty effective, no?

A compilation video of defeated rival candidates praising the nominee and noting all the policies of theirs that he adopted is novel.

I’ve been saying for a long time that parties don’t have great mechanisms for reconciling intra-party differences that come out in primaries, but I had not thought, precisely, about group Zoom videos.

This virtual convention may leave plenty to be desired, but one thing it definitely accomplishes for the party is it avoids any potential discord. If you remember Day 1 of the DNC in 2016, there was anti-Clinton chanting on the floor and cameras trained on protesters like these outside the hall. This is all very tightly controlled.

Is that a … portrait of Lincoln on O’Rourke’s wall?

I don’t know how Moulton made the cut for this, Geoffrey, while fan favorite Marianne Williamson apparently did not!

My claim to fame from the primary season was being able to differentiate Moulton and Bennet in photos.

Where are the Gravel teens in this video?

I think Seth Moulton gets the honor of being the most unknown 2020 presidential candidate who appears in this segment.

I’m taking notes for my eventual grade book, Micah.

This is some smart unifying work by the DNC right here.

Klobuchar’s segment ends with strong “struggling to find the ‘leave meeting’ button” energy.

This video is basically the Bachelor “Candidates Tell All” episode of the 2020 season.