Democrats say they are unified — but around what?

The message on the opening night of the party's convention was consistent and insistent

Democrats.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

On the first night of the multi-day infomercial we call the Democratic National Convention, a simple and powerful message was repeated over and over again: The Democratic Party is unified. Whether the speaker was a democratic socialist senator, the wife of a popular two-term president who governed from the center-left, or a prominent center-right Republican, viewers were told that Donald Trump is an atrocious president and that former Vice President Joe Biden is the perfect guy to take him down.

It's a potent message, and a crucially important one. Because the Democratic Party's greatest strength — its extra-wide, big-tent breadth, with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders holding down the party's left wing and prominent NeverTrump Republicans welcomed to join in on the right — is also its greatest vulnerability.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.