While AOC might have given Kamala Harris too much credit for her efforts to end the war on Gaza—a speech that was “tailored to please as broad an audience as possible,” argues DSA leader Kareem Elrefai—Heer sees her speech, like Fain’s and Warnock’s, as evidence of “a party that is much more vigorous in pursuing class politics.”

That has always been Bernie Sanders’s vision, too, of course. An older politician with perhaps less to lose than AOC, in addition to his typical emphasis on corporate greed, the Vermont senator was bold on Gaza. Or as John Nichols put it—he “went there”—demanding, with great heft, that the party insist on “an immediate ceasefire.” (To great applause, one might add.)

Meanwhile, delegates from the Uncommitted National Movement never got the chance to put a Palestinian or Palestinian-American on stage. While Stevie Wonder and Mindy Kaling mingled at DNC festivities, just outside, the uncommitted delegates—who earned their way into the convention with hundreds of thousands of primary ballots protesting Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza—stood around demanding a moment to speak. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure our voices are heard as Palestinians,” Sabrene Odeh, an uncommitted delegate from Washington state, told reporter Sarah Lazare.

The convention ended with Kamala Harris, who officially accepted her nomination, offering voters a bit of her biography, and giving everyone a little taste of what she might be like as president.

-Alana Pockros

Engagement Editor, The Nation

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