Is there any politician as ill-suited to a city as Hillary Clinton is to Philadelphia?
Philly is a rough, hard-scrabble, cantankerous, but ultimately big-hearted town. The people who live there will drive by the busload up to New York to boo Donovan McNabb when he’s drafted by the Eagles, but then fall in love with McNabb once he turns out to be a hero. It’s the city of Frank Rizzo and Rocky, Allen Iverson and Buddy Ryan. It’s the city that endured the MOVE bombing and Bud Dwyer’s public suicide. It’s the last city in America where people care–really and truly care, in an emotional and cosmological sense–about sports.
Philadelphia demands certain characteristics of its public figures. To make it in New York, all you have to do is be rich and shameless. To make it in Washington, all you have to do is be connected. Hillary Clinton has the right stuff for those burgs, obviously.
But to make it in Philadelphia, you have to be both externally tough and secretly sentimental. You have to have grit, but not moxie. You have to burn to win, but know how to lose. More than anything else, you have to care, really care about the world around you. Because if you’re a phony, or you’re on the make, or you want to take short cuts, this town will hit you with remorseless contempt. Ask Kobe Bryant. Ask Ricky Watters. Ask HitchBot.
Hillary Clinton is almost the antithesis of the Philadelphian. She’s been on the make since she could walk; she’s always looking to cut corners or make an easy buck; she’s transparently insincere; and it’s impossible to tell whether or not there’s anything she actually cares about other than her own advancement. Philadelphians will respect her toughness–she’s plenty tough–but that’s about it.
Just about any of the other major Democrats would have been a better match for the city. Tim Kaine is a closer fit. Cory Booker would have taken the city by storm. Heck, if Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders had been the nominee, they would have been made honorary Philadelphians.
Of course, this doesn’t really matter. The real Philadelphia, as George Allen might put it, doesn’t have to love Hillary Clinton. But the ill-fit between her and her host city is just another symbol of the ill-fit between her and her party. Which is of great importance. Because after all the talk of the GOP’s “unity” problems in Cleveland, the Democrats have a unity problem of their own.
The Republican convention opened with a sham floor vote and plagiarism from the candidate’s wife. The Democratic convention opened with an FSB op targeted at Hillary Clinton, the resignation of the chair of the national party, and an open revolt from the Bernie bros.
In nearly any other year, either of these affairs would have been viewed as a disaster for their parties. As things stand today, Trump and Clinton are engaged in such a profoundly depressing rush to the bottom that neither bit of disunity seems to be slowing their campaigns. In other words, disunity isn’t the exception; it’s the rule.
The fact that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are intellectually or logistically unified is a sign that the entire political system is under tremendous strain, from forces both internal and external.
The internal half means that in both parties, the center of gravity has shifted suddenly, dramatically, and in ways that the party of even four years ago hasn’t come to terms with. For Republicans, it means that a party that went heavily for super-moderate Mitt Romney has transformed, in the space of 48 months, into a Yankee version of the National Front (though with fewer democratic niceties). For Democrats, the change has been only slightly more incremental. What began with the radicalization of the Dean insurgency of 2004 became the Obama realignment of 2008. But Obama governed so far to the left that (1) he moved the party with him and (2) he provoked an electoral backlash that cost pushed centrist Democrats out of the party. The result of which was the near-election of an out-and-proud independent socialist to be the party’s nominee.
The external half has affected both parties, though in slightly different ways: There’s the continued fallout from 9/11, which changed the face of American foreign affairs. There’s the housing bubble and Great Recession of 2008, which sent a shock sto deep into the American economy that it is still being felt. There’s the bailout of TARP and Obama’s corrupt, ineffectual “stimulus” package, which made people even more wary of the government’s ability to handle economic calamity.
But if you want a short-hand for the entire external problem, it’s this: The ’00s–which began on September 12, 2001 and have extended to today–have been one of the worst periods in American history. Think of it this way: When else could you plausibly argue that the country grew worse off for four consecutive presidential terms?
And that’s exactly what’s happened since the 2000 election.
Party conventions are supposed to be about putting gloss on the candidate and engineering a sale to voters. But this year we have seen something different: We’re watching the parties use their conventions to sell the nominee to their own members. And we’ve seen this challenge from both angles.
The Republicans allowed their party to be captured by a hostile actor who shares almost none of their beliefs, who has a history of supporting the other party, and who spends much of his time attacking long-time Republicans. The Democrats had a similar figure in their midst, but the party institution organized a ruthless resistance so that a traditional Democrat won their nomination.
The take-away here is that no matter which path they chose, both parties wound up at the same place: fractured.
What we’ll see in November is what happens to a fractured party when it loses. And what happens when it wins.
Because this may not be a floor, but a ceiling. A couple months ago Sean Trende wrote an incisive piece about the Europeanization of American politics. Here’s how he ended:
On that cheery though, enjoy Thursday night’s spectacle. And remember: No matter how rude the Bernie bros might be, real Philadelphians would be much, much worse. Just ask Michael Irvin, or J.D. Drew, or Santa Claus.
