Last week¡¯s ¡°gathering¡± was the most unconventional Democratic National Convention I¡¯ve seen since 1976, when Jimmy Carter (¡°who?¡±) was nominated and later elected president. Then a student of American politics at the University of Minnesota, I never dreamed that national conventions would be as hollow and ¡°virtual¡± as the 2020 DNC.
Well, in a sense, the convention was not virtual. Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg, John Kasich, Cindy McCain and Colin Powell, who took part, are all real. That said, many in Tokyo found this year¡¯s DNC as real virtuality, since neither participants nor viewers online seemed to have felt the pulse and passion of a national convention.
Editorials in Japanese newspapers last week were naturally ambivalent. Liberal papers, like the Tokyo Shimbun and the Asahi, sounded rather descriptive and neutral with headlines like ¡°Biden needs to unite his party of various groups¡± or ¡°U.S. presidential election requires debate to overcome fragmentation.¡±
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