Why Democrats’ convention set them up to lose in November

All icing and no cake. 

That’s the only way to describe the Democratic National Convention that mercifully ended Thursday night with Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech as the party’s improbable nominee.  

The icing, of course, was all the joy shoved down America’s collective throats from Chicago, a city where more than two dozen have been shot since the convention began, all without a care in the world about the state of the country.

On Night Three alone, the word “joy” was said 30 times by various speakers. 

But that wasn’t close to the word uttered most from podium.

Instead, the gold medal goes to a name: 

Trump. 

Night One speakers somehow said it 160 times.

On Night Two, which featured Barack and Michelle Obama, Trump got a break; he name was broached only 60 times.

The number shot back up to 94 on Night Three.

And on the final night, Harris alone hit him 15 times. 

But surely Dems would move past the icing and get to the cake, right? 

Guess again: On Night One, the border, a prime issue for voters, got mentioned all of eight times — and then to blame Trump for the crisis Biden and Harris and the party created all on their own.

Here’s the facts: Trump’s final year in office saw just 400,651 illegals encountered at the border. In 2023, that number jumped to about 2.4 million, not counting so-called gotaways. 

OK, so how about inflation, the No. 1 issue for the public?

That was mentioned exactly three times.

Forget about cake, that isn’t even a crumb.

And in her speech Thursday night, Kamala mentioned inflation 15 less times than she did Trump, or 0.0 times. 

OK, but at least the sitting president, who Democrats have hailed as the most unselfish patriot this country has seen since George Washington himself, was there throughout the convention to show his support for the party that ousted him once they realized he was leading them to a Trump landslide in November, right? 

Nope.

As we saw, Biden delivered yet another angry, divisive, loud speech with the usual greatest hits: 

• Trump supported neo-Nazis in Charlottesville (lie). 

• Trump called dead US soldiers “suckers and losers” (lie). 

• Trump promises a bloodbath if he loses (lie). 

• Trump supports Project 2025 (lie). 

After that speech, Scranton Joe was promptly loaded onto Air Force One and off to (yet another) vacation at the $37 million home of billionaire donor Joe Kiani. 

Just like that, Biden and his record were erased from the convention.

Tuesday night, for example, the man they all said they loved the night before was mentioned on stage exactly twice.

And as the president vacationed and Kamala and her goofy, profoundly weird running mate Tim Walz partied along with the rest of the party elites, Washington continued to deploy more firepower to the Middle East than any time in our history, begging the question: Who really is running the country right now?

Biden is gone in more ways than one, and Harris is campaigning. 

Sleep tight, America. 

Regardless of the lack of specifics or substance, Kamala Harris will likely see a bounce in national polls. The question is: Will the spectacle have any staying power?

Note that top betting market, Polymarket, had Harris up by four points the day the DNC began; post-convention, Trump leads by three points.

What does that say in terms of the way this was perceived at home?

And now the bet here is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Trump will engulf the news cycle this weekend, instead of the media waxing nostalgic over the Obamas and Clintons and Oprah and Kamala.

Kennedy’s support sits somewhere between 4% and 6% in national polls; in key swing states, his backing of Trump could be the deciding difference. 

The other big questions moving forward are, 1) Can Kamala Harris continue to not post any policy positions on her campaign website? We’re about five weeks removed from her essentially becoming the party nominee, and yet there’s still not one policy listed. 

And, 2) Can she really go the next 70-plus days without holding one press conference or sitting down with anyone resembling an actual journalist? 

She’s sure going to try, all while the very media who should be demanding answers instead play the role of campaign surrogates while embracing the icing over the cake. 

Joe Concha is the author of “Progressively Worse: Why Today’s Democrats Ain’t Your Daddy’s Donkeys.”