It Could Happen Here - The DNC Says Farewell to Joe Biden

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Robert gives an update on protest disruptions, Gare reports on Biden’s somber DNC speech, and Sophie attends a Palestinian Human Rights panel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. poetry will explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions,

sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Calls on media. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about how to pronounce the vice president and maybe future president's name, which is Kamala. See, I got it, Sophie. Yeah, but you looked at me for reassurance. No, I looked at you to be like, look at me. I'm doing it. I'm riding a bike with no training wheels. Garrison, how's how's grinder going it's okay i mean it's certainly

better than the rnc yeah but it's it's still slow picking because i mean define better have you have you run into he lives in the south side of chicago a guy named okay all right this is six foot four garrison so this is day two ladies call him tree of the democratic national convention in chicago illinois i'm garrison davis we are here with sophie lichterman and robert evans that's Day two of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. I'm Garrison Davis. We are here with Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. That's right. And I guess let's pick up right where we left off yesterday, because we're recording this

Tuesday morning. Yesterday, we had a full day of protests. There's still some protests today that we'll get to later. But we were also able to spend a decent bit of time in the actual DNC last night. And I think me and Sophie will have certainly much to say about that. But I'm gonna throw it to Robert Evans because Robert Evans went back to protests

after our dinner. And how was that? It was, you know, by the time I got back, the police had mostly knocked everything apart. There was a brief attempt to occupy the park after we left. So right after we left, there was a scuffle over the fence, and some people managed to breach it, largely due to the fact that the kind of fences that they use,

that they put up outside of events like this, are all the same. It's the same style of fence they had up in Portland. And if you remember the fighting over the fence in Portland, part of why there was days of fighting is because it was a pretty short section of fence. They were able to have it reinforced very heavily. Here, it was kind of more of a visual barrier than an actual physical barrier because they just, there was too many, there's probably miles of cumulative fencing and they don't have it all reinforced enough. So when a crowd got close enough, it was surprisingly easy for them to push their way in. Three people, I think, got arrested at the fence breach.

I've heard some folks say it was partly because press crowding in made it impossible for people to get away from the cops. Just given the way the rest of the day worked and what I've seen, I think that's pretty credible. It was one of those things where on the ground, if you were just kind of looking at tweets, I think it would look like it had been a larger part of what happened that day than it was because it really was a few minutes. And then things calmed down relatively quickly.

But it did have an impact on the actual DNC itself. Like if you're looking at the protests outside over gaza as part of their goal to being to disrupt the dnc they succeeded in doing that because once there was a breach in the perimeter the secret service has and i don't know what these are but they said they certainly do have like a checklist of like these are the things we do if there is a breach and one of the things that we know they did and after that breach is they shut down all of the other multiple entrances for media and delegates and attendees into the event and funneled everyone through one entrance which caused a clusterfuck a massive

bottleneck i was gonna say they should they sure did they sure did me and sophie spent quite a while trying to get into the dnc after this because yes all of the entrances on the north east and west side of the convention all got shut down everyone was funneled into one entrance on the south side the line to get in was just just crazy it was so so large i would have to say again if you're looking at the goal of these movements as like causing embarrassment and disruption to the DNC, because fucking up entrance to the DNC fuck stuff up for all of the influencers and media people trying to get in. I saw more anger over how fucked up getting in last night was than anything that had happened. Yeah. Like in terms of like performative social media anger than anything that had actually happened in the streets so i would have to call that a pretty good win for the protest i overheard

numerous dnc goers wearing their their best their best merch complaining that it was the protesters fault yeah that the lines were so long well i mean people are also complaining about just like the level of like the dnc's like organization um and like which is always the case laid out because it was it was a mix it was because of this you know triggered by actions via protesters but also because of how the dnc was handling everything it was a compounding a compounding nightmare for many people yeah and i mean in terms of like other disruptions we we heard from a woman who's staying at our same hotel that she left at 4 p.m. to get to the DNC. She left on one of the DNC shuttles. And it took her four hours to get in.

And part of what happened was that if she left on the DNC shuttle at around 4, she probably got to the area around 4.45. Just because, you know, they're slow. It's traffic. No, no, no, no, no, no. around 445, just because, you know, they're slow, it's traffic. No, no, no, no, no, no. And what happened next is that around 450 is when the fence got breached.

And then everyone getting off the shuttles could not. What happened? They did like this, like a mini security lockdown. Everyone was just told they have to stay in the shuttle. She had to stay sitting in the shuttle for an extra 45 minutes. She could not exit because they were not letting people get off the shuttles as the fence was breached. So it's stuff like that that creates these compounding fractures. And this is probably, if something similar were to happen tonight, and the protests, as far as I know, are not planned to be in the same kind of locations as they were,

so I don't think that's likely. I don't think it would have a severe response because a big part of what was going on monday is that both the president and vice president were in the same building so everything that normally exists in terms of security at an event like this was taken up to the the the suitcase that ends the world was in the venue right like so every everything was on and it like, just escalated to the nth degree, which is why never take the fucking buses. It's longer than one of my rules. Yeah, my take is she left at 4 p.m. She didn't get in until about 8 p.m.

Not worth it. Yeah, I would rather die. I would rather die. Sounds like an episode of Black Mirror. Uh-huh. It really does. It was terrible. So I got back to the protest a little later.

My understanding, it sounds like between seven and nine arrests over the course of the day. There had been like three at the fence breach. There were three or four more when people tried to briefly set up an encampment. That really did not last very long. No, Chicago PD was very quick to take that down. And it was the, I had been kind of wondering, and I still think we might see some mace tonight, but it didn't, despite like the kind of Chicago 68

tear gas stories that people keep talking about, that did not seem likely at all during the day. No. Yeah. And I've heard from multiple people on the ground that it seems like Chicago PD is very aware of the optics yes and you know despite being like the police they are they are trying to not immediately bring out the truncheons on everyone's heads now they do have the truncheons on they've all got trying and they've got they have the they have the worn

ass old wooden ones they do have them but they are they are trying to be as hands off physically as they can um of course like relying on the amount of like internal peace policing from these like you know big organized groups but the other thing that they have going for them is when they do have to get go hands on there are so many of them that they do not need to use crowd control what crowd control weapons are things police use when they are outnumbered. That's partly why Portland police are so nuts with it is because there's almost no police in Portland. Like it is literally the least policed city per capita in the country pretty much. Whereas, you know, Chicago, I think the protesters outnumbered the police yesterday, but not by a lot.

Like it was not an overwhelming amount. There is a few differences between, you know, this and the RNC, obviously. And one of the main ones is that most of the cops we have seen have been local. They have been Chicago PD. There's been some Illinois State Troopers. Of course, there's like Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, FBI. But mostly it is just Chicago PD, even around the perimeter. CPD and Illinois State.

Illinois State, yeah. guy that police murdered in milwaukee because it was a couple of days after the rnc that i started seeing the first articles about how there would not be out-of-state police doing patrolling around the city of chicago so it does seem like thankfully somebody over here recognized that like oh if you if we have a bunch of fucking ohio cops wandering around downtown chicago like they're going to murder somebody yeah like they're going to freak out because these hayseed hicks have heard nothing of their entire lives as much as how dangerous Chicago is.

They're just going to start blasting. And I guess I'm just glad that hopefully nobody gets murdered by the cops this week. Well, do you know what we can get murdered by? Yes, Garrison. Wow. Yes, indeed. Services that support this podcast.

That's right. If you enjoy them too much. You know, too much of a good thing is bad. That's what I've heard. Yeah, I mean, that's really why I'm not sure if you should... You don't want to overdose on products. ...meet with Bad Bad Leroy Brown, because he's got a custom Continental. He's got an El Dorado, too, Garrison.

Here's the ads. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, Thank you. and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible.

Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well.

Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Toot, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise.

Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Sophie, I'm a trendsetter. Nobody was talking about bad, bad Leroy Brown, except for the one guy who very famously talked about bad, bad Leroy Brown. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I'm in pain. After getting through that clusterfuck of a security entrance, me and Sophie did eventually

make it inside the DNC, which we will talk about in a sec but as me and robert were were parading around the protests on monday sophie lichterman was infiltrating dempalooza which is the wrong way it should be demapalooza it should be demapalooza but it's not it's dempalooza sophie this is the angriest i've been since corgi con let me just give you some visuals here first of all you're absolutely correct the name is embarrassing and that's generally how i felt about dem palooza what is dem palooza palooza is like a first off only the gen x people are going to remember lala palooza no no chapel roan just performed at lapalooza that doesn't sound right do you i don't know some kind of horse great keep going keep going sophie jesus christ anyways it was like half

trade show half panels by people talking about things that they think that the dnc crowd will care about leaning in too hard on the memes like a there was a booth was it the coconut vibes booth it was i almost thought that was a bored apes thing at first god i wish they just i was like why are we why are we acknowledging it's fine it's fine there was there was like cool coconut vibes here booth and right behind it was a uh seated area with like probably like a hundred chairs and there were two people giving speeches on something and there were two people in the crowd many many such cases such cases and you know there was a lot of cardboard cutouts with vp harris's face on it there was like a vp harris

as wonder woman section and then there was a section with shirts glad they're all having fun just so that people have an understanding of like the level of embarrassing there was a one booth while i was waiting in the very unorganized line to get into the panels area of dempalooza that had shirts for sale for 28 featuring one that said beware of the uptidy whiteys what does that mean i uptide white people i'm guessing i believe i believe so but also sure why 28 ban dictionaries at your own pearl oh god okay make stupid embarrassing again you get you get the picture we get it all right you get the picture sophie what panels did you attend at dempalusa the first panel i went to was a panel that was like how to talk to your relatives about project 2025 a great thanksgiving dinner talk yeah yeah and it was very unorganized

and so i i was 30 minutes late getting into it because not a single volunteer had been trained on how to get people into panels and they had a circle around the building several times until I found a very nice security guard who actually worked for the building that was like you go that way thank you sir and I walk into this panel there are seats for maybe 300 people there is one man at the front of the stage and about 15 people listening and I sat there for about five minutes and got up because it was basically, the sum of it was, if your relatives that you disagree with are trying to tell you something,

don't yell at them. Listen to them first, which is not terrible advice. Which is wrong. Look, if your relatives want to start talking politics at the dinner table this year, handgun, drop it on the table, and then just sit down. Put your legs up, stare at them. This is going to be terrible. Handgun. Drop it on the table and then just sit down. Put your legs up.

Stare at them. Just like the Portland Police Union. I learned everything about negotiations from the Portland Police Union. This is interesting though, because every night at the DNC, they're going to be reading from Project 2025 on the main stage. Yesterday, they were reading about

all of the plans within that document to basically make trump a de facto dictator tonight they're going to be reading on sections about how project 25 will affect the economy and your pocketbook so they they have this plan to to every night actually talk about and read from the actual document you know framing this is like this is basically like trump's plan for once he gets into office or this is like Republicans plan for Trump once he gets into office. And, you know, this this type of like scaremongering fear of rhetoric around what Trump would do was semi successful in 2020. And I think they're trying to, you know, use this similarly now.

I also think it's smart because there's two big threats here. One of them is, does the election, you know, go badly for Trump, which is an open question. And then the other is, if it does, he's not going to concede. Do the Republicans have shit together to actually steal the election, to do another Brooks Brothers riot, to refuse certification, to try and kick up enough uncertainty that they can take it to the Supreme Court for a steal. And the only way ultimately, if it's a narrow enough election, the Republicans go for that the only real way to fight back is to get an overwhelming number of people out and angry in the streets, like enough that it frightens, you know, the Supreme Court and everyone else who would be required to actually put in, like sweat equity to carry off that steel.

And one of the ways you do that is by making the stakes really clear. And I, so I think this is a, it's a good idea and responsible that they're focusing on project 2025 as much as they are. And probably what's necessary to, I'm hoping that the dims don't fold. If that happens,

I guess we'll fucking see, you know, it's not 2000. So what was the second panel you went to at Dempalooza? So I walked around and looked into a bunch of different rooms to see if panels had a big crowd or not. And it was definitely or not. And then I went to the Voices for Justice Democrats for Palestinian Human Rights panel that was

packed. It sounds like the most popular panel of the day. Packed, no seats available, standing room. And just the energy was very respectful. Everyone in there was earnestly excited that this was happening. But also it was mentioned many times that this was a step, but obviously not the step that they wanted. And it was filled with media, but also just people that were there for Dempalooza wanting to hear what people had to say. It was a very diverse group of people. And the panel featured, you know, several activists, former members of the House of Representatives. Someone from the Uncommitted Committee, I think it's called.

I believe they were part of organizing this panel. Although this panel was a official campaign approved panel, which was brought up many times by each person who spoke as a thing they that it was a first of its kind approved campaign panel in regards to the people of of palestine and it's it's part of the dance the dnc has been trying to do where they it is such a popular issue like giving a shit about the genocide wanting a ceasefire that they can't not signal to it but also there's absolutely no willingness at the top to actually hold israel accountable so they like they hold this event they approve it and it becomes the most popular one at the dnc biden makes a very mild line in support of light basically saying there was a line during a speech last night that like the protesters outside of a point

Right, which is not taking meaningful action, but it is like it gets one of the largest reactions from the crowd that night I mean you guys were in the room, but at least from where I was watching at the bar it sounded like a pretty sizable response and that's i guess the the juggling act that they're still trying to do is like can we continue not actually committing on anything while keeping some of these people happy and the uncommitted people are basically like this the protest group that's holding their votes you know hostage almost uh to say like if if you want us to vote for you harris you have to you have to signal something whether that be like an arms embargo, a real effort towards getting a ceasefire done, trying to lobby for change by using their vote as a bargaining chip.

Yeah. And a couple of interesting things to note before I play an audio clip for the listeners here. It took almost the entire panel for them to mention Joe Biden by name. I think that only happened once. It was mostly just referring to the party itself. At one point, a panel member thanked VP Harris and she's trying, we need to hold her accountable, but give her a chance,

which was the general energy from the entire group was like, she is not Joe Biden. We're hoping for better. She's made an inch of a step. We need more. But we want to give her a chance to do that. And I mean, it's a really different vibe from a lot of the protests where you have people who are kind of more committed political radicals as opposed to the uncommitted folks. The overwhelming vibe is we would really like to get on board this, but you need to do something. with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders. And she has spent the last decade as a medical trainer

and helping people and organizations in Gaza and the West Bank. And she spoke for 10 minutes and I thought it was pretty moving. It was a large room and I was able to get very clear audio, which kind of says a lot about the crowd. And she kind of just spoke about her experience. And yeah, I guess I'll just play that clip for everyone now. When the Uncommitted Movement asked me to be here, I texted every doctor and surgeon that I knew who had been to Gaza in the last 10 months. And I asked them if they wanted

to join me here in Chicago. And the overwhelming response, actually every single person said, yes, let me see if I can switch out of my shift. And many of them are actually here in Chicago right now. Because we cannot unsee what we witnessed. It haunts every single one of us. Many of us have worked in many wars before, and we have never seen anything so egregious, so atrocious.

And that is why many of us swapped out ships and flown a very long way to speak to politicians when we're not politicians ourselves. As doctors, we're trained to protect and preserve life. As doctors, we're trained to protect and preserve life, and this Israeli military campaign that's targeting life and everything needed to sustain it has rendered that impossible. And that is why so many of us have taken to other means of trying to protect life. For the past 10 months, we have witnessed civilian massacre after civilian massacre, school massacres, when internally displaced people were sheltering, the flower massacre, massacres of people trying to collect water, massacres of people collecting aid at aid sites, massacre after civilian massacre, entire families exterminated in one single bomb, humanitarians, healthcare workers killed and journalists killed in record numbers, pediatric

amputations, amputations in children that are breaking records. and children that are breaking records. Over 17,000 children who have lost one or both parents since October in Gaza. We have treated so many children who have lost their entire family that it has, a term has been coined to describe these children. You've probably heard it, Wounded Child, Unsurviving Family, WCNSF. This is a term that has been coined since October to describe this very frequent phenomenon

that I personally witnessed more times than I can count while I was there. For children, I have held the hand of children who are taking their last gasps because their entire family was killed in the same attack and couldn't be there holding their hand and comforting them and could not marry them thereafter. For the children who I treated who were discharged and survived, they face a Russian let of a hundred ways that they will likely and potentially die when they leave the hospital due to the circumstances incompatible with life that has been architectured by this military assault. Direct bombing, starvation, dehydration, disease. Alarming reports of the first cases of polio in Gaza right now.

Polio is a potentially deadly disease that causes paralysis, including paralysis of the muscles needed to breathe. That has been eradicated for decades in that region. There's been a polio vaccination campaign that essentially has eradicated the disease from the majority of the world and now we're seeing cases emerging in a area of the world that cannot that has a health care system that is completely and entirely annihilated I mentioned these wounded children with no surviving family I'm going to give you two quick stories just so that you can humanize

what I mean when I say this because I know it's really hard to hear these numbers and and think about individuals and what this means to them. I received a young boy to the emergency department during one of the mass casualties who had half of his face and neck blown off. Luckily the organs that are vital for breathing and blood supply to the brain were preserved. They were visible but preserved. And he was talking to us. He couldn't see himself so he didn't know what he looked like at that point in time.

He kept asking for his sister. His sister was in the bed next to him. The majority of her body was burned beyond recognition. He didn't recognize that the girl in the bed next to him was his sister. His entire family, parents and the rest of his siblings were killed in the same attack. That boy survived and the next day I went to see him. A very young plastic surgeon, one of the few remaining plastic surgeons in Gaza because the others have either been killed or have fled, understandably,

had removed part of his chest and created a graft to cover those organs in the neck. He was lying in his bed and mumbling because it was so difficult to talk, and he kept saying, I got really close to him, and he said, I wish I had died too. And I said, what? And he said, I think my entire family has gone to heaven. It's not my entire family. His exact words were something effective.

Everybody I love is now in heaven. I don't want to be here anymore. That is one of so many stories. Well, that's, yeah. There's some ads. Some ads, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah. There's some ads. Some ads, yeah. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge

and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez,

will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian. Elian, Elian. Elian, he looks so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parente. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down.

I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are back. We're going to close this episode by talking about me and Sophie's experiences in the actual DNC once we finally got past that ridiculous security gate. So we got in and the biggest thing that we realized first was just how disorganized this was, at least compared to the RNC.

Now, this is due to a number of factors, the protests being one. There's simply just more people at the DNC, like way, way more people. Yeah, I definitely feel like one of the right wing things to do right now is to be like, there was nobody there. Absolutely not. It was packed. It was packed. Way more crowded than Monday at the RNC. It was much harder to find a place to sit inside the arena.

Honestly, hard to find a place to comfortably stand inside the arena. No. So unbelievably packed. the arena no yeah so unbelievably packed garrison and i got inside of the actual seating area trying to find a place place to sit briefly as vp harris came to greet the crowd and it was roaring it was uh what i would describe as electric electric people really like to see here she played it very casual to kind of open up the convention she didn't even have a podium. She was just doing basically a standup set walking around with a mic. She came out to be like, Hey girl. Yeah, exactly. And she was, she was opening things up very informally. People seem to really like that. And then, you know, a lot of, a lot of the main speakers started,

started to kind of roll out. Now me and Sophie were able to somehow get special tickets to go on the actual like delegate floor area. Something we never were able to do during special tickets to go on the actual like delegate floor area something we never were able to do during the rnc dare i say a big mistake which was this was a massive error on our part this is why i just sat at the bar because it is a nightmare down there so much pushing shoving no place to go you really get democracy there. As soon as we stepped on the floor, AOC walked on stage. Everything went crazy. It was a nightmare. She called for a ceasefire at Gaza, which apparently I did not see any of the speeches before her.

But apparently that was the first time that was done that night. And the crowd loved it. She gave a great speech. She gave a great speech. Talking about working people. I think it's also important because of just how well she was received. Yeah. And like the kind of the spot that she had at the convention.

Like she is, she used to be kind of be like an outsider to like the Democrat Party. Right. No, they fucking loved her. She is like fully within the fold of like the Democrat machine. And for better or worse, I mean, probably a mix of both in some regards. There's a lot of talk that in eight or 12 years, she's going to be running. And yeah.

Yeah. She, she is preparing for a long political career. Yeah. And people seem to like her. And the person that spoke immediately after AOC, while, while we,

while me and Sophie were still being shuffled around the show floor. I don't think shuffled is the way to even describe it. guys have seen uh the jordan peele movie sorry what's the one with the sky monster nope nope yeah it's like being inside it's like being caught inside like you're being churned with a bunch of other people my hair my hair was caught in like a cnn camera uh like you could not breathe it was like a mosh pit but not fun no we were we were caught inside the jean jacket it was it was we were being sloshed around there there's three aisles and we were in the center aisle jesus christ directly like parallel to where the person who would be speaking comes up to talk and then hillary cl took the stage, and unfortunately, the crowd loved it.

They went feral for Hillary Clinton. Yeah. Baffling. Just baffling. It was, I looked back at Garrison and I, and we both looked at each other like, death? Yeah. We both wanted to die. It's like when you're in a foreign country and they eat some sort of, they eat like loot

fisk or something, some sort of like weird rotten fish dish that they just love over there or okay or when they eat like american garbage fast food and also love it you're like oh no this is terrible i don't know what i was expecting but i just didn't think the dnc still loved hillary the way they do but they went feral yeah she she was like very popular i mean she won the primaries she's got a base of support she just is the people who hate her hate her a lot which skews things um she gave a very big mad speech um loss of arm waving a lot of people disagree about that garrison people got angry at me for saying she seems angry she well she she was a little big man i would i wouldn't say i i would say she gave a standard hillary clinton yeah yeah it was a pretty standard yeah she's she's just not very likable

or charismatic so but she did i do i do have a great picture of uh once garrison and i survived the floor we were up in a press area and of hillary clinton with both her hands in the air and the crowd eating it up again, a choice. Yeah. Navigating this, this whole place was an area. We're never going to go in the,

on the delegate floor again, just a nightmare being shuffled around corridors. It's, it's, it's terrible. There was a few other, you know, a few other speakers,

uh, Bashir, I think did, did an okay speech. Uh, you know, a lot of stuff about abortion, uh,

a lot of videos on the big jumbotron about cop prosecutor Kamala taking down the felon Donald Trump, as expected. Do we want to play a clip of that, by the way? Do you have the Law & Order clip, Sophie? Kirsten, do I have the Law & Order clip? Of course I have the Law & Order clip! Okay, we can play like 20 seconds of the law and order clip. Yes, there was several different videos played throughout the night,

but I would say the most memorable one was the law and order themed clip featuring Big Bad Kamala as the prosecutor and criminal Donald Trump as the villain of the story. The New York Sex Pest Criminal of the Week. The criminal justice system. The people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.

This is the story of Donald Trump. His entire life, Trump has believed he's above the law that no one would ever dare hold him accountable for the first time in history we have a convicted felon running for president and to take on this case we need a president who has spent her life prosecuting perpetrators like donald trump god damn it it was the choice and it was night one we'll see how that plays so jill biden introduced uh well first introduced uh her daughter and then they introduced joe biden i think one interesting thing is that throughout the night i started seeing more green jill signs which i thought was really confusing like who snuck in jill stein

green party signs into this and then i realized no jill biden there's signs for jill biden which i don't know if they chose green signs to be intentionally like trying to like reclaim green for jill biden instead of jill stein i don't know i i found it to be odd she led the crowd and like we love joe chants and immediately as as soon as everyone started changing like we love joe thank you joe it's starting to feel like we're kind of just sending him out to pasture. And that was the main vibe of the Joe Biden speech.

He was very emotional. We're putting on his, his favorite Spotify. Yeah. Yeah. He was very emotional, came out crying after his daughter introduced him. And I would say there was like a good 10 minute standing ovation for

him. Maybe, maybe five, but it was, it was long. It was, I was being generous. It's his last big thing.

I don't care. It's a really nice farm. There's a great view of the mountains from it. Beautiful upstate. Tall grass, run through in the summer, all day long. He's got to be just running. We had a direct view of the teleprompter. He did a great job reading that teleprompter.

He went off script a handful of times. His actual performance was pretty good. Yeah, they have to zatter off. Especially for coming out around 11 p but his actual performance was pretty good yeah they have to zatter off especially for coming out around like 11 p.m he he did he did pretty good it was a strong it was a strong performance for joe one of the first things he mentioned was charlottesville as he's talked about before in his campaign for being with the reason that he ran in 2020 um you know talking about how you know lots of the rhetoric was identical from nazis and anti-semitic vile from the 1930s um he had he had

a line uh describing kind of the alt-right movement as as old ghosts in new garments i thought that was well written by whatever speech writer at the white house was putting that one together yeah you know talking about how trump's being aligned with these like with this new version of the kkk they just they just forgot to wear their hoods um talking about you know very fine people on both sides hate has no safe harbor in america all I'm talking about, you know, very fine people on both sides. Hate has no safe harbor in America, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, this is this rhetoric was a lot more common back in, like, you know, 2019, you know, right after Charlottesville and during like the height of like the alt-right movement. We don't hear this as much anymore, but I think it is important to remember that this was not that long ago.

He then kind of talked about mostly the past. He wasn't talking about kind of the future. He was talking about what the Biden administration has been able to do the past four years and trying to tie in Kamala to all of the good things that have happened. Talking about four years of progress, making waves with COVID, with the economy, lots of new jobs, inflation is down, at least now.

He gave his greatest hits. Shrinking the racial wealth gaps you know health insurance stocks are good we finally beat big pharma i'm sure whatever a lot of stuff about tying him to the unions you know saying that people have called him the most the most pro-union president in history and he's like i'm proud to i'm proud to take on that moniker or something like that chanting union joe union joe said he was a you know first president to walk the ticket line so you know they were definitely focusing a lot of that union messaging it is interesting considering that one union leader spoke at the rnc yeah um back when the

nomination for the democrats speeches yes yes yes very brief talk about carbon emissions and pollution but similarly very little climate change stuff. Almost, yeah. Which has been common throughout this whole campaign, this whole election. There's been very little mention of climate change stuff. You really get a feeling of what a gift it has been for the Democratic Party that the Republicans have given them all this fascism stuff to talk about, rather than actually needing to make any kind of serious statements about what they're going to do vis-a-vis climate change. Part of the other kind of achievements that he was they're going to do vis-a-vis climate change.

Part of the other kind of achievements that he was, you know, lauding was saying that they finally beat the NRA passing this gun safety bill. And next they're going to ban assault weapons and pass universal background checks. Which gun safety bill? It was one of the ones that didn't really do anything. Yeah, correct. Okay, yes. There was a brief section about the border saying that there's now fewer border crossings than when Trump left office, saying that, you you know trump tried to kill our border security bill and he said the main thing

that makes us different from the republicans is that we won't demonize immigrants we are going to we are going to still do really really bad like border violence and and really really bad border security policies from asylum from being able to like flee bad situations but they're not going to be spending the whole convention every single day talking non-stop about how immigrants are coming to rape your family and like yeah that is true you don't talk about them in the same way but some of your actual policies are not all that different from what most republicans in office want um you know they're not calling for massive deportations at the same rate. But still,

that border security bill was very similar to ones that Trump was proposing. And the only reason that Trump killed it was so that Biden wouldn't be able to take credit, which Biden did also say during the speech. Border fear mongering. I mean, it's just been a titanic victory for the right. And talk about abortion. Talk about how if Harris is president, she'll be able to sign in something that puts into law the right to abortion, saying that, quote, MAGA found out the power of women in 2022, saying that they're going to find out again in 2024, which he's not wrong about. That is that is repealing Roe v. Wade did did swing election results in 2022. January 2025. Abortion's mandatory. Finally. 245 abortions mandatory. Finally.

And yeah, he's, you know, talking about it. Quote, we got to put a prosecutor in the Oval Office instead of a convicted felon saying that Harris is going to be 47. And whenever he made a comment like that, talking about how Harris is going to be the next president, the whole crowd sort of breaking out in chants saying, thank you, Joe. Thank you, Joe. Which is just really funny because they are just thanking him for stepping down for the race everybody wanted a chance to remember what 2008 was like and they got it and they could not be more grateful and just just interesting to note that it took it did take him quite a while to really start talking about kamala but whenever the large chance of thank you joe would start he'd be like no no no thank you kamala one of the last

things that joe talked about was briefly mentioning ukraine and then talking about uh gaza and this is kind of one of the last things in his speech before he started like his like closing remarks you know he talked about you know the need to get to get the hostages to safety and to quote unquote end the war in gaza saying that they're working around the clock to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza and to get a lasting ceasefire. He then gave a small off-the-cuff mention to the DNC protests, and this part wasn't on the teleprompter. He said, quote, those protesters out in the street have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides. And he made similar comments to this last March, saying that protesters who were disrupting a rally of his had, quote unquote, have a point.

So he has used this line before. But this was kind of the only acknowledgement of the protests that I saw today from any of the DNC speeches. And it is interesting that this was not scripted. This was just something that he said. Because as mentioned before, we had a view of the teleprompter and at the same time that this happened someone on the far side of the crowd unfurled a banner and i think robert has some more info on that yeah uh there were a couple of delegates who managed to sneak in a banner do you know if they were delegates well at least one of them was. Okay. A banner that said, Stop Arming Israel.

They unfurled it and got a very strong negative reaction from the people around them, some of whom were hitting them or at least shoving them. I think you could look at the video and use either term. They were definitely pushing signs up. They were definitely aggressively making contact with them. These big wooden signs that people had. These Thank You Joe signs. Yep. were definitely aggressively making contact with them with these like big wooden signs that people had these uh uh thank you joe signs yep and then set up a chant of thank you joe to kind of like drown them out as the people filming in the venue like cut the lights basically or downed the lights in that area so that it would it would be less visible eventually they got the banner away from

them but it was one of those like it shows you kind of the hollowness of, there's enough of a need that even Biden had to make a positive reference to the protesters. They see it as enough of a potential threat to, you know, being able to get the votes they need, that they have to signpost to it. But a banner, and this is not a radical banner, Stop arming Israel is not a radical stance to have. No, it's not calling an end to the state of Israel. It wasn't an Intifada revolution banner, right? It was a literally just stop sending guns to the genocide team. Can we stop sending $20 billion of bombs to Israel that's being used to bomb families?

And people were angry enough that, I don't want to overstate the level of physical violence, but I don't want to understate it. They were physically aggressive over this. And had this small group of people surrounded. And seeing that is a reminder that I am not in line with the people on the left who repeatedly call the Dems fascist, because fascism

means something. No, it's a real political thing. But the Democrats have plenty of authoritarians. And that's what that is, is that is authoritarian thinking, and it can and will, if not checked, lead to a lot uglier shit than what we saw last night. So I did not like seeing that. It is a reminder that even as nice as the vibe shift has been, and I'm'm not gonna try to take enjoyment from that away from people we are still in a real pickle as a country re our acceptance of authoritarian aims and tactics and especially you know sending 20 billion dollars in bombs and sending 20 billion dollars in bob just send the take all the israel weapons and send them to the ukians. That's my stance. I'm sure Rudy Giuliani will love that.

So, yeah, I mean, you said that the crowd had a big reaction to some of the Palestine stuff. And at least from inside the convention, certainly calls for ceasefire did. That was big. When Biden made his little comment acknowledging the protests, the whole room kind of went silent. Like everyone was kind of surprised. Like it was like a chill went over the air. Like no one knew how to take it. the whole room kind of went silent. Everyone was kind of surprised. It was like a chill went over the air. No one knew how to take it.

There wasn't massive cheers. There wasn't boos either. Arguably, Biden gave a more positive comment referring to the protests than most of the regular delegates and attendees. Most of the attendees who were standing around in the waiting line were much more negative and dismissive. I think Biden's comment kind of took the wind out of the attendees who were standing around in the waiting line were much more like negative and dismissive. And I think I think Biden's comment kind of like took the wind out of the air, at least inside the convention arena. But that was basically the end of it. He gave, you know, closing closing remarks.

Kamala went onto stage. They hugged. They did their little thing. And then me and Sophie went out of the convention as fast as we could. Me and Sophie went out of the convention as fast as we could. And we found this little corridor exit because we didn't want to mess with the escalators or the elevators because that's always a nightmare. So we found this nice little staircase. And I turned to the left walking down the stairs.

And I saw two very large men in riot gear with two assault weapons. And I said, I guess we're not going that way. And I turned around and walked the other direction. Honestly, funniest moment of the day. We were like 10 feet away from these guys. 10 feet away. Some of the most heavily armed men I've ever seen. I think we stumbled across, because I looked at the signs later,

I think we stumbled across the security gate for the presidential motorcade. So that's where we almost accidentally went yeah no those are guys who have spent every year of the last 20 years of their lives just planning to kill as many people as they can the second someone takes them off the leash they wouldn't shoot a twink on sight they do not care they don't give a fuck who they shoot the instant they have a chance so me and sophie left as soon as we could and went back to the hotel and immediately went to sleep and that was the first night at the dnc you had drinks with me garrison i did not we shared a special moment i'm trying to create a compelling narrative for the podcast well i thought it was compelling narrative that we had a nice drink i said hi to you and then i went okay bye yeah i wasn't

interested in you because you left yeah sorry i abandoned you uh-huh i'm so sorry but that anyway that was the first night at the dnc that was the first round of speeches um i believe tonight we're gonna split up so he's gonna go and go over there and me and robert are gonna be back in the streets yeah i i will report if anything of interest happens. It is the, I believe, Bill Clinton Obama night. Jesus Christ. It's, once again, the year is 2024. It's the Bill Clinton Obama night.

It would be pretty funny if Bill Clinton got played on the stage by bad Leroy Brown. All right. This is the It Could Happen Here. This is It Could Happen Here recording from Chicago, Illinoisinois we'll see you i don't want all right jesus fuck it could happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources.

Thanks for listening. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit. The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners. For those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture.

Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso

as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.