I admit I skipped watching the first night of the Democratic National Convention. I did catch up a bit during the day on Tuesday on some of the speeches, like Michelle Obama’s delivered the previous evening. For some thoughts on that, I recommend our own Doug Clark’s reflection here at iFamNews. I’d also commend to your reading Frank Schubert’s excellent piece on the Democratic Party platform, which steers the Party even further Left and into even more radical territory with regard to abortion and progressive sexual ethics than in 2016: something I would have thought nearly impossible.
I did decide to tune in on Tuesday evening to some of the convention, just so that I’d have some idea of what I might expect the media and Twitter to be buzzing about the next day. It was rough going.
One thing jumped out at me from the very beginning of Tuesday night’s proceedings: how thin and odd is the “diversity” of which the American political Left is so proud.
An early opening sequence on Tuesday featured a crowd of mostly young, fresh faces—I suppose the up-and-coming Bright Young Things of Democratic politics. Interspersed as the montage was with grainy, black and white images of their 78-year-old candidate, the choice seemed a bit odd: it seemed to create more contrast with the candidate than it did relatability. The Washington Post called the segment “the most realistic convention speech ever.” But to me, as I watched, a sense of unreality settled upon me.
It was clear to me that despite the ostensible “diversity” of this crowd of young people—varied in race, ethnicity, creed, class, background—they are all united so much in lock-step and committed to a single ideology that it us hard to imagine a less truly diverse group. In one “on the nose” moment, Philadelphia Representative Malcolm Kenyatta appeared alongside another man, the only one of the group that wasn’t alone in the frame. Of course, the reason for this became obvious immediately: the man is his “husband,” and of course his status as a gay man needed to be foregrounded.
That brought to mind another thing everyone on the screen had in common, in spite of their seeming diversity: all of them trade in identity, status, victimization culture, and “intersectionality,” and all the other buzzwords of progressive politics. They all value diversity in a manner of tokenism merely, not real and authentic diversity, the kind that enriches a close-knit community of faith or a neighborhood of immigrants.
If this claim seems too harsh, one need only consider: amidst all their diversity, their proclamations of “tolerance” and “openness” and “welcome,” and their stated goal of building a “big tent” for their Party and “uniting” the nation, most decidedly unwelcome are all of the following, who need not apply for citizenship in these young leaders’ dreamed-of “diverse” Utopia:
- Anyone who believes that marriage is the union of one man and one woman;
- Anyone who believes that human life begins in the womb (let alone at conception!) and that it merits legal protection;
- Anyone who believes that human life is sacred in spite of age or infirmity, and that the state should not allow unscrupulous doctors to show patients to death’s door rather than comfort them in their afflictions;
- Anyone who believes that sex is biologically determined and binary, and that it cannot be “changed” by manipulative cosmetic surgeries or by chemical mutilations;
- Anyone who believes that anyone in any of the above categories should be treated with respect and listened to rather than shouted down, bullied, and harried into hiding by a mob of “cancel culture.”
Not really so diverse, after all, it seems.
I’m sure at the Democratic Convention there is diversity enough that all 159 “genders” (or whatever the number has reached as of this writing) are represented; but all of those representatives inevitably think exactly alike, and tolerate no dissent, when it comes to questions of “a woman’s right to choose” or whether religious liberty should take a back seat to special interests of sexual radicals in the public square. It’s a kind of “diversity” for which only one historic precursor comes to mind, and it is not a recommendation: the “diversity” witnessed at the Tower of Babble. Yes, in the new Democratic party, “all are welcome” — provided they swap their own mind for the hive mind on their way in the door, and adopt the confused language of proliferating made-up pronouns and euphemisms about the killing of the innocent.
If the Democratic Party really is trying to court moderate or middle-of-the-road voters, they aren’t making a good show of it. On the contrary, it seems from the outside that their project isn’t really to construct a “big tent” at all, but merely to increase the variety of the circus they’re already hosting, under their increasingly drab and monochrome canopy.