I’ve watched most of the Democratic National Convention thus far, and in the moment found it hopeful and inspiring, even the speeches by political figures I dislike.

But I woke up this morning with a kind of hangover, or really nausea, what you get after eating a lot of tasty but empty calories. 1/

"We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.”

It’s a beautiful line. Spoken by a woman worth 10s of millions, on a stage shared over the course of the convention with at least two billionaires.

I’m not saying the sentiments are fake, or trying to call out hypocrisy. I am saying that it takes some work to reconcile these facts, that some consciousness or self-consciousness, something other than pretending it doesn’t matter, would be helpful. 2/

The speeches really were very inspiring!

But my experience of profound, almost fatal, disillusionment with Democratic politics is a story of inspiring words giving cover to profound betrayals. I’m doing everything I possibly can to maintain a willing suspension of disbelief this time, and to be fair, so far the candidate herself has surprised me positively, on several occasions now. 3/

I do envy the other side just a bit, though.

George W. Bush didn’t speak, or even show, at the RNC. Democrats like to chalk that up of evidence that Trump is so terrible an aberration and rupture that leaders of the kinder, gentler Republican Party that came before are cut out or have the decency to cut themselves out. 4/

But another way to look at it is that George W. Bush led the country through a period of terrible error, a period that has left the country fraying at its seams, a circumstance to which his choices contributed. So maybe his not holding a place of honor at a contemporary convention is a way of communicating to the public that there has been some change, some reform. 5/

George Bush’s presidency was neither the start not the end of the period when the United States dismantled itself, both as an industrial power and as a proud, morally cohesive nation. The Iraq War was one of the largest errors of the period. But it was far from the only or earliest one. /fin