http://www.nationalreview.com/node/438508/print The Hillary Mystique
The weakest part of the Democratic Convention was its presidential nominee.
By Matthew Continetti — July 30, 2016
The weakest part of the 2016 Democratic National Convention was the speech delivered by the party’s nominee for president. Four nights of impressive stagecraft and at times moving rhetoric preceded Hillary Clinton’s paint-by-numbers, plodding address. It lacked the passion of Michelle Obama’s or Bernie Sanders’s speeches, had nothing of Joe Biden’s instinctual feel for middle-class language and anxieties, did not achieve the valedictory heights of Barack Obama’s appearance. Clinton did not speak from the political center, as Michael Bloomberg did, nor has she experienced loss like that of the Khan family, whose son was killed in battle in Iraq. Like many of the speakers at the convention, Clinton attacked Donald Trump. But her criticisms of the Republican nominee were not novel, or funny, or memorable.
He never appeared on stage, but Trump had a starring role at the DNC. Not only because the election has become a referendum on his personality, his issues, his methods, his supporters, his connections, but also because fear of Trump unifies a divided coalition. The 2016 primary exposed a fissure in the Democratic party between liberalism and radicalism. It was clear from the boos and tears of the convention that the chasm has not been bridged. As long as the central question in American politics is the future of Donald Trump, Democrats will be able to minimize their differences in pursuit of a common goal. But what happens after the Trump question is decided?
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