Letter from Wicker Park

Speech is power, wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. Speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. We’ve lost sight of that in recent years, because speech, despite that hyped power, is also ubiquitous. So much so that we’re reminded of the words of another great thinker, whose name is lost to history: talk is cheap.

A good political convention is unified around compelling arguments, and beneath them grand tectonic themes. Are we moving forward? Do we feel good about who we are? Can a candidate still knit a huge and fractious country together with gossamer words? America, more than any other democracy, makes its elections personality contests. If there’s a gnawing distrust of politics generally, this country is still given over to a specific and foolish hope — that singular leadership can turn things around.

We are who we are. A culture that worships individualism and celebrity requires more than political platforms. There’s some cosplay involved, but we like stars with moving narratives. Not all presidents are distinguished in this regard, but think of the ones we revere. Only a few of them have been great orators, but we remember their sound bites far better than their policy wins. Joe Biden is not running for reëlection, because beyond his successes and failures, he could not find the words.

Trump is disruptive and incoherent, but he vigorously presses for attention. To an extent that may be politically unique, persona overwhelms prose. There has been a sense in recent years that a digitally fractured audience has lost the great narrative thread, that trying to speak eloquently to the whole American people is outmoded. At the Republican National Convention, there was meme-inflected choppiness —cheap talk between jolts. (What is a well-turned phrase next to Hulk Hogan tearing off his shirt?) Only one speaker truly mattered, but the rhetoric is never the point for Trump’s audience. His pronouncements are in a code meant for members of the club— all catchphrases, nicknames, and inside jokes.

The Democratic National Convention, reinvented on a dime after a shuffle at the top, was an imperfect production. There were too many speakers, often pushing headliners out of prime time. But there was a touching, Emersonian commitment to the idea that words can still persuade. Millions of people watched the speeches in Chicago; how many of them were crucial swing voters is a mystery. But in terms of speechifying (and with it, dreaded optics and vibes) it was a great success.