I volunteered at the Democratic National Convention last week, along with many college-age voters. Some were from Northwestern University, where I teach, and others had flown in from schools around the Midwest. As my colleague and I predicted, young people will show up for a candidate who addresses their issues and communicates through social media. According to Vote.org, we have seen a 700% surge in new voter registration since President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, mostly among voters ages 18-24.
In my time at the convention, I saw only one Donald Trump supporter. He was a young man in a red MAGA hat, heckling people as they walked into the United Center. “So are you voting for Trump?” he kept saying, over and over. “Why not?”
He seemed out of sync with his generation. The young people I volunteered with were not talking about Trump at all. They were just doing the work with the no-nonsense kindness and inclusivity that characterizes Gen Z. They were helping people in wheelchairs find the elevator, sharing their lunches, putting on wristbands, trying to figure out the room number for caucuses. It was a reminder that most of the work of politics is unglamorous. But just as every action is valuable, so is every interaction.
One of the young men I worked with gave me his pass to attend the speeches on Monday night because he had to get up early to volunteer the next morning. This quiet act of generosity was just one of many that I experienced. The audience at the United Center was the most excited and diverse I had ever been a part of. And the speakers put forward a fuller version of the Democratic Party than we had ever seen. It felt like the real America, in all its variety.
The only thing that seemed out of sync was how much of the prime-time speeches were about Trump. In a crowd that included everyone from the Congressional Black Caucus, to Hasidic Jews for Kamala, to Evangelicals for Kamala, to disability rights and climate activists, Trump seemed suddenly irrelevant.
I know that it was necessary to talk about Trump to viewers at home. But one thing became clear to me: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have unleashed unprecedented authenticity and momentum in our country. And we will only take full advantage of this moment if we get over our addiction to grievance in order to access our more creative energies.
As a country, we have been running on grievance for several years. Trump’s entire campaign is about grievance. Grievance has also become habitual on the left. We use grievance to suggest our intellectual superiority or to assert our identity difference in order to stop listening. Our constant grievance against Trump himself is perpetuated in conversation, on social media and in news outlets. Culturally, we have mistaken grievance for critical thinking and have gotten used to a way of communicating that amplifies specific missteps and disregards the larger vision.
But grievance can only react. It cannot create.
And just as Trump’s bullying brand of masculinity has finally run its course, so has the perpetually aggrieved tone. We witnessed this shift last week. As the convention progressed, politicians made their speeches sound less angry and more in line with the hope radiating from the audience.
Now, in the days after the convention, I see some of our old habits returning. And I realize that it is not only the media that should shift away from its focus on Trump, but everyday Democrats too. When we feel ourselves massaging a marginal complaint, we need to take a breath, and override that smaller part of the mind to make space for the bigger portion that can imagine a new future.
I know we must stay vigilant to the threats that Trump poses. I know also that Democrats are not only aggrieved about Trump. Many feel grievance — or better put, grief — about the supremacy and militarism that murders innocent people with the backing of our tax dollars. I would never want these protesters to go quiet. Compassionate grief is a deep, real emotion, and is therefore transformational. Grievance, on the other hand, is usually self-interested. It loses a sense of proportion to complain about the part and disregard the whole.
The most triumphant thing about the Democratic convention was the way that it kept combining identities usually seen as separate. This was exemplified in Walz, the state-ranked football coach who was also a sponsor of a gay-straight alliance, and Harris, the Black woman prosecutor who also became vice president. Each came across not as a type but as a warmhearted and complex human being, showing up to do the job they are qualified to do.
The other volunteers and I, meanwhile, were largely ineffectual during our first shift on Monday. We hadn’t been told where the rooms were for the caucuses, and we sent many people to the wrong place. Most people were surprisingly cool about the confusion. But one woman began to loudly complain. It was unacceptable to have to walk this far, she said, and she was right.
A young organizer stepped in to help. He was wearing pro-peace, pro-Palestine buttons but he was working within the system — an act of hope in itself. He offered to get the woman a scooter. But she kept loudly broadcasting her grievance. I saw him listen respectfully, then look calmly into her eyes. “Sister, I agree with you,” he said. “But could you give us a little grace? We have never done this before.”
Just as this young organizer transformed a moment of performative grievance into a genuine, human exchange, we can transform our own moments of complaint into something more connected and constructive. We have been living in the age of grievance for a while now. But we ushered in a new age last week, here in Chicago. Now let’s hold onto that clarity and kindness as together we do what we have never done before.
Rachel Jamison Webster is a professor of creative writing at Northwestern University and the author of the book “Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family.”
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
