Democrat big beast Barack Obama delivers distorted narrative

At last the Democrats had a big beast on the platform and allowed him to perform. It wasn’t Joe Biden.

At last the Democrats had a big beast on the platform and allowed him to perform.

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton carry the aura of former presidents but they are also just infinitely ­superior politicians to Joe Biden or anyone else in the contemporary Democratic firmament. So Obama certainly made the most effective speech of anyone at the Democratic conference to date.

It was, in that characteristic Obama way, perfect in its grammar and syntax, flawless in delivery, measured, almost professorial, in tone. But in substance it was like all the other Democrat speeches: Donald Trump is a beast, he’s not fit to be president, his character is a disgrace, he’s not capable of being president. The Democrats’ meta-narrative is that Trump is odious and that’s why COVID-19 is so bad.

Of course, Obama was allowed to look so much better than everybody else partly because he was the only person, apart from vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris who was allowed to speak for much more than a sound-bite, tweet-length period of time.

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks during the third day of the Democratic National Convention. Picture: AFP

The third night of the Democratic National Convention looked even more like the longest infomercial you have ever endured. ­Bewildering video clips, some cheerful some morose, followed one after another at high speed, interspersed with dirgeful musical interludes designed apparently to make you feel sad about the state of America under Trump. And every other speaker read out the number you had to dial to join the Democrats’ voting effort.

Obama, of course, soared rhetorically above all that. But his speech, like that of Harris, had one really odd and disturbing feature — a settled hostility to America.

Obama at one point read off a long list of groups who have suffered terrible discrimination in America and therefore had every right to think the US could and would never live up to its ideals. But, because of their innate heroism and struggle and good efforts, they sometimes got a decent result after all.

Former US President Barack Obama speaking from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the third day of the Democratic National Convention. Picture: AFP

One of the problems with basing your political strategy on victimology is that you need a lot of victims to make up a majority. So at one point Obama even cited “Irish, Italians and Asians” told to go back where you came from. What? Is there anyone on God’s green earth who really thinks that America was anything other than the promised land for Irish, Italian and Asian immigrants — many of whom have gone on to become some of America’s most successful citizens?

I am proud of my own Irish heritage and part of me would ­always be willing to see anti-Irish prejudice, except that to do so would be patently absurd. Some Irish, Italians and Asians no doubt have on occasion in US history suffered some odd incidents of discrimination, but to try to pretend that this is the preponderance of their experience is insane. America was surely the most welcoming country in the world — with the exception only of Australia — to waves and waves of immigrants.

But Democrats, from Obama to Harris, are trying to peddle a new and ugly version of US history — that it is predominantly a story of persecution, racism, injustice and exploitation, but its institutions had some minor saving elements, and heroic minorities have struggled to reverse the persecution, racism, injustice etc. This is an inaccurate view, although history surely has its blemishes and its shameful episodes.

Obama, like his wife and many other speakers, finished with the words: “God bless”. In this case, it seems to be a way of avoiding saying God bless America. God is not the problem here, America is. If they say that, it might imply that they think America stands for something good. Harris herself did finally say God bless America at the end of her speech and you can bet that all these micro-symbolisms were carefully calibrated.

Her speech was mostly boilerplate. The daughter of a doctor and an academic, she nonetheless had to craft her own log cabin to White House story.

And of course the Democrats are obsessed with race, gender, sexual orientation and identity. Nancy Pelosi naturally boasted about the Democratic House of Representatives delegation being “more than 60 per cent women, people of colour and LGBTQ”.

This re-racialising of society is intensely dangerous and regressive. Harris naturally condemned the “structural racism” which she says pervades America. And of course no one at any point mentioned the violent riots still happening in major American cities.

There was a lot of good sensible talk about extending healthcare and the like, the traditional social democratic agenda of the Democrats. But most of this strange convention bears only a glancing connection at best with US realities.