DNC DAY ONE.

My fellow Democrats are less interesting to me than the gibbering freaks and glowering goombahs of the GOP, but what the hell, let's have a look in. At 9 p.m. I've been watching an hour of second bananas, some better than others (Bob Casey was earnest but not refreshingly earnest; Arizona state senator Pat Spearman was sharp and righteous; Al Franken should have woodshedded that routine, but there were some laughs).  I note that it's late and we haven't had our first primetime speaker yet -- and that's one of the charming things about this party -- every night is open mike night and nothing's on time! Not like Il Douche, who kept the disembraining running on time.

UPDATE. I like Sarah Silverman I don't care if J.D. Vance and Rod Dreher think that means I'm looking down on them. (By the way, I was born poor and it's not a sin nor treason to my class to enjoy words of more than one syllable and laughing at idiots.) And Franken's come in to turn it into Burns and Allen, or maybe Sacco and Vanzetti. (I wonder if the chanting multitudes are even listening.) And then they bring in Paul Simon! Who seems pissed that he almost walked into the guitar player's instrument. (Yeah, well, I hear he's an asshole. But for the Left!) He sounds like shit singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water." I bet Art Garfunkel is laughing his goddamn ass off. He's probably manically calling for coke and whores, screaming into the ceiling mirror, "THIS IS IT! THIS IS MY PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION!"

UPDATE 2. Eva Longoria accuses Trump of insulting her Mexican mother, and she sounds like she can back that up. Eat that, pendejo!

UPDATE 3. I like Cory Booker, but someone has to tell him that yelling isn't a signifier for sincerity. He's right, though: "Rugged individualism didn't map the human genome." It isn't the only worthy effort in our nation, but after Trump's convention and the conservative pandering to the most resentful, anti-education Americans, it's a breath of fresh air.

That was a great reading of "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" too -- as a call to love one another. "When we are indivisible, we are invincible." And now that he's smacking up Trump for mocking the disabled, veterans, and immigrants, his screaming suddenly seems absolutely appropriate. And "I'm from Jersey, and we've seem how [Trump] 'leads' in Atlantic City" is dynamite -- calling Trump out as part of "a handful of people growing rich... in a nation descending into crisis" is too. Booker is a big Christian -- not the hypocritical, shitheel kind we've been forced by experience to associate with the term, but the real kind that's comfortable talking about love as a force for public good. "We are not a zero-sum nation, it  is not one America against another America, it is you and I... when we respect each, other, stand up for each other work for each other against our challenge... when we show compassion and grace, then we are the United States of America, one nation, indivisible, that is when we are stronger..." Even the we -- will -- rise refrain is kicking. "From Seneca Falls to those who stood at Stonewall Inn..."

OK, bud -- you can shout if you want.

UPDATE 3. I've always thought Michelle Obama was kind of a pain in the ass. I mean, you've seen her looking tough at Barack, right? And, I admit, that led me to believe she wasn't thoughtful. But after a minute or so of this speech, when it became clear that in talking about her daughters and how she told them to deal with the cynicism and slander (including birtherism) that came with their father's Presidency -- "when they go low, we go high" -- that she wasn't just sharing a Mommy moment, she was really talking about Trumpism and the Democratic alternative to it. And when Mrs. Obama talked about how Hillary had been "picked apart for how she looks or how she talks or even how she laughed" and "never buckled," I saw how brilliant a feminist argument she was laying down -- especially when she talked about how someone with the nuclear codes can't be "thin-skinned," and everyone knew what pissy little macho-bitch of a quasi-billionaire she was referring to, and how overmatched he was by this nominee.

"Don't let anyone tell you this country isn't great -- that we need someone to keep it great again." Amazing, for those of us who remember when the wingnuts tried to tie her to a fanciful "whitey tape" eight years ago, to portray her as someone who didn't love her country -- and then nominated a presidential candidate who fit their own fantasy perfectly.

These guys are smarter than I thought.

UPDATE 4. YEAH LIZ TELL THAT FUCKING RICH CUNT.  The BernieBros -- Christ, I voted for Sanders and I hate these sanctimonious pieces of shit -- are trying to throw her. But I've seen her speak in person and she don't throw.  Elizabeth Warren is not roaring like Senator Booker; she's reason itself, she doesn't wait for the crowd, she just invites them to catch up as she lays out Trump's many moral failings -- "the great Trump hot air machine" --  and sums up, "what kind of a man does that?... I'll tell you what kind of a man: A man who must never be President of the United States." She's so right than I'm going to take a break now, confident she'll continue being right. Back soon!

UPDATE 5. The crowd is roaring over Bernie's intro, and there's some tension over whether it will stop. Sanders tries to ride the wave, raising his arms, thanking the crowd, trying to start his speech, raising arms again... Finally he presses on, thanks Warren, thanks Mrs. Obama, and thanks his volunteers -- mere enough, after all they did! -- and thanks the "two and a half million Americans" who kicked in money (and he got the crowd to cry out the average contribution: $27!) -- and the "13 million Americans who voted for the political revolution!" There's a bit of cheer turmoil before he mentions tomorrow's roll call -- that seems to discharge their energy (maybe they think they'll win!) and they settle down. He addresses their disappointment -- and rushes so as not to be overtaken again -- assuring them "our revolution continues." And I'm thinking: Bernie -- you better give them something more.

He mentions "all of us and not just the 1%," and says he looks forward to being "part of the revolution, but emphasizes this is not about the candidates, nor about strategies, nor about things "the media spends so much time discussing" (HUGE cheer!), but about "the needs of the American people and the kind of future we create for our children and our grandchildren... ending the 40-year decline of the middle class." (He also refers to the poor -- "the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality today" -- but his is an old-fashioned, post-Nixon Democratic message; the middle-class is still the centerpiece.)

Sanders mentions the devastation of the 2008 recession -- when "the world's financial system was on the verge of collapse" -- and he acknowledges that Obama took good care of that, and thanks him, but adds that "much more needs to be done." That's splitting the difference! Now comes the next step, and that's the revolution. But first, 2016: Compared to Trump, "Hillary Clinton must become the next President of the United States.. the choice..." The crowd is making it hard for him to finish. "...this election is about a single mother I saw in Nevada with tears in her eyes told me she was scared about the future because she and her daughter couldn't make it..." This was a working mother, Sanders says, and he has faith that Clinton knows this woman shouldn't feel scared. Again, this is a mainstream Democratic pitch, and once you accept that, you can't be too pissed about Hillary.

Otherwise Sanders is hot on his usual topics. He stops after the words "Koch Brothers" to make room for the boos; he repeats "Citizens United" several times; says "brothers and sisters" and "oligarchy" and a bunch of the words that distinguished him from the neoliberals and have excited his followers, including me.

Then he does the hard sell -- "The Supreme Court justices that Donald Trump would nominate" -- and gently leads his listeners to understand that despite his and Clinton's "different approaches," they now have a deal: "83% of our population will be able to go to a public university, tuition-free!" Also, on climate change, "Hillary Clinton is listening to the scientists" and we can create "hundreds of thousands of jobs transforming our energy system." And she wants an "opt in to Medicare," etc. Negotiations were had; Sanders is satisfied. It ain't Jerusalem, but maybe next year.

Every so often he brings up Trump -- he describes Trump's policies, such as they are, with the same contempt that he's always used on the retrograde thinking he's been fighting within the party. And in fact Trump -- not only a literal friend to the rich and enemy to labor, but also an authoritarian and self-centered scumbag -- is, despite his alleged innovations in working-class appeal, a better avatar than Clinton or any other Democratic trimmer for everything Sanders, and indeed every decent American, has been fighting against.

Sanders wants to go further, and he's being given some room for it -- he wants to break up Wall Street institutions, he wants to stop the TPP! But he's willing, at least for the moment, to work within the system for it. "Our job is to see a strong platform implemented by a Democratic Senate, and Democratic House, and a Hillary Clinton Presidency! And I am going to do all that I can to make that happen!"

OK -- you have to be a total fucking asshole to say, screw this, I'll vote for Jill Stein and heighten the contradictions. Thanks for making that clear, Bernie. I'm glad I voted for you.