BRATTLEBORO-There have been highs, there have been lows, and then there was the Democratic National Convention.
"Ebullient" would be the best word to describe Vermont U.S. Rep. Becca Balint going into the event, which was held in Chicago from Aug. 19 to 22 to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the Democrats' candidates in the November election.
"It felt like the roof was being blown off the top of the convention center by the sheer energy and joy," Balint said. "One of the things that was so exciting was to be in a huge arena of people from across the country who were genuinely excited about the energy and enthusiasm for this ticket. It's been an incredible relief for me to feel like my party has found its footing."
The public, Balint believes, can share in the jubilation - it does not want to live in an ongoing climate of fear and distrust.
"We're understanding that what we need to tap into is this general feeling that's been bubbling for years, which is that we don't actually want to be hating our neighbors," Balint said.
Instead, she said, "we can be focusing on lowering the cost of prescription drugs and talking about building more housing."
"It doesn't have to be about hating your neighbors," Balint said. "It doesn't feel good. It feels awful - emotionally, mentally, and physically - to feel grievance politics all the time."
The Biden decision
Balint is among the Democrats who believe that President Joe Biden would not have been able to win a second term.
"He had an incredible record to run on," Balint said. "And I think history will absolutely look kindly on him and his presidency in terms of the sheer amount of work that was done in three years' time."
She cited the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, the CHIPS and Science Act (it provides funds to support the domestic production of semiconductors, among other products), and the law that has let the administration negotiate lower costs of prescription drugs.
"It's a remarkable body of work that he got done," Balint said. "But it wasn't translating to rank-and-file voters, I think, because they had concerns about his ability not just to win the election but to govern."
The memory of Biden's lackluster performance in the first debate against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. was not going to go away, Balint said.
"It was difficult for us to come back from the debate performance, and it's unfortunate that that is the story," Balint said. "It didn't matter that Trump had lied for 90 minutes on the stage. It just is so discouraging, because Trump is a con and a fraud and a liar, and he makes no sense when he talks. And yet, the story for weeks was 'Biden is too old to lead.'"
If Biden had remained the candidate instead of stepping aside in favor of Harris, it would have been a far different convention.
Her young constituents told her, "'I will vote for Joe Biden, but I'm not going to campaign for him. I'm not going to door knock. I'm not going to phone bank. I can't get my friends excited about the Joe Biden presidency,'" Balint said.
But Biden did step aside, and the Harris candidacy has overwhelmingly energized the party.
Among other things, Balint has been doing "affinity calls," where several hundred people attend a digital fundraising teleconference - like "Vermonters for Harris," which just after the convention raised more than $15,000 in 90 minutes and got 50 people to sign as volunteers.
Balint recently did another organizer with Taylor Swift fans. The singer-songwriter herself was not on the call, but among the fans on the call were U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Reps. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Chris Deluzio. Oh, and songwriter Carole King.
"What we are seeing from all these affinity calls is something that we've never experienced in a presidential campaign before," Balint said. "We've had different kinds of organizing. We saw it with Howard Dean with the 50-state strategy. We saw with Obama's campaign, with all of these house parties popping up. I see this as another milestone in presidential campaigning, this spontaneous coming together of these affinity groups."
"I have a sense that we can work really, really hard together and also be joyful while we're doing it," she continued.
"And I have to say, I've been so disappointed with some of the talking heads on the cable networks who have discounted this joy, this energy, saying that it's not sustainable. It's absolutely sustainable, because it's self-sustaining. When we do these calls, it spins off into other ways of organizing."
Balint cited Single Dog Men for Kamala and even Evangelicals for Harris as other affinity groups that are forming.
"You've got Republicans, even former MAGA people, organizing for Harris," Balint said. "But what I want Vermonters to understand, and I've said this in every political event that I've done over the last month, is this is an organic movement."
When President Joseph R. Biden stepped aside and endorsed Kamala Harris, "those of us inside of Congress didn't know that was going to happen. Right up until he made that decision, he had been saying to us on small group calls, 'I'm not stepping aside. I'm running.'
"So this whole idea that the Democrats orchestrated all of this is false. It happened so quickly that what you saw was this spontaneous energy."
People were saying they would support Harris, and they were also writing checks.
"The massive amount of small-dollar donors from across the country who were first-time donors to a campaign shows this is real," Balint said. "The number of people signing up for phone banking, for door knocking. I've had a number of attorneys in Vermont sign up to go to battleground states to be poll watchers."
Balint said the Harris campaign is "tapping into this feeling right now that, regardless of your background, it is a time to stand up for the Constitution. And it feels tremendous."
Joy in Chicago
Many powerful moments at the convention stand out in Balint's mind.
"Michelle Obama has turned into quite a great speaker," Balint said. "And then there were the unexpected moments, like former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who was on the January 6 Commission, talking about what it means to stand up for the Constitution over party. It was very inspiring."
Then she said, "I just think we also put on a really good party."
Balint knows Harris. The vice president invited her to dinner when the new representatives first came to Washington two years ago. Balint called it one of the most powerful memories of her first year.
"She invited a small group of freshmen Congresspeople to her house," Balint said. "Doug Emhoff, her husband, was there too. It was an intimate dinner, and was really a wonderful peek behind the scenes of who she is in relationship to her husband, who she is when the cameras aren't rolling. It was no photo op. It was 'Let's talk about the issues that are important to you. Let's talk about what it is that you as freshmen hope you can bring to this work.'
"It was a very moving night for me, because when you looked around the table, it looked like America. And so many of the people sitting there never imagined that they would be in Congress or sitting with the vice president for dinner. She has a genuineness and an ability to listen deeply and reflect back to you what she sees in your leadership."
Since then, Balint has had the opportunity to speak with Harris several times.
"She's very funny," Balint said. "I had a woman say to me at an event in Burlington the other day, 'Where has this Kamala Harris been? I feel this joyful, powerful speaker has been hidden from us.'"
That's the challenge of any vice presidency, Balint observed.
"You are there to support the chief. You are there to support the president. Because of that, I think people are feeling that they're meeting her for the first time," she said.
"But those of us who have spent time with her in the last two years feel like finally, America is seeing whom we've seen. I wish we had a little bit more time to introduce her to the nation before we all have to vote.
"I know early voting is going to happen soon. But I think people like what they see, and I'm feeling very hopeful."
Balint is very aware that much work has to be done in the coming weeks to increase support for Harris and Walz, whom she also enthusiastically supports.
"When you see the campaign stops that they have been doing across the battleground states, sometimes the audience members will start chanting [about Trump], 'Lock him up! Lock him up!'" Balint said.
"And whether it's Harris or whether it's Walz, they always say, 'The courts will take care of that. We are focused on beating him at the ballot box. We are focused on the issues.' It's going to be a tough race."
One thing that gives Balint hope is the new voters who are rushing to register.
"A lot of the polls are tapping into likely voters, which means people who have voted in the past," Balint said. "And we know we're registering a lot of new voters right now. Among women and among young people in general, Harris has a huge lead over Trump. And some of those people are not on anyone's radar screen. They're perhaps voting for the first time.
"Certainly, among Black voters there's a huge gap," she continued. "We've increased the gap among Latino voters. And so I think that we can't listen to the polls. We have to continue to organize every single day."
Getting back to work
Down from the highs of hanging online with Swifties for Harris, Balint now must move her attention back to the House and the continued dysfunction of the 118th Congress.
On Sept. 10, Congress returned to the endless dogfight between MAGA Republicans who want to shut the government down because Trump thinks it will help him win the election and those who believe that the government needs to stay open and, at the very least, pass next year's budget before the new federal fiscal year starts on Oct. 1.
"We should have passed spending bills before we left for this recess," Balint said, noting that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson "actually sent us home early because he couldn't get the votes together to pass the funding bills that he promised would be passed before the summer recess.
"So now, because we haven't passed the bills to keep government open, we're going to once again pass a short-term spending bill, a continuing resolution, which kicks the can down the road once again," she said.
"And already you've got Trump asking him and his MAGA surrogates like [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene and others not to pass a continuing resolution so that we shut down the government. He thinks that will be a win for him on the campaign trail."
Deploying his allies who hold office is a theme of Trump's, Balint said, "whether it's the border, or the call that Trump made to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the other day, asking him not to sign a cease-fire deal because it would be better for Trump in the election," Balint said, adding that Netanyahu "would like a Trump administration, but that's a whole other issue."
"Trump is now asking his surrogates to essentially crash the economy," she said. "He wants them to not pass a spending bill and shut down the government for his own political gain. This man does not care. He does not care about anything except for himself."
But the House will pass a continuing resolution, Balint said, one way or another.
"Although Trump wants this, you've got Mike Johnson who understands that the Republicans are going to lose a significant number of seats in the House of Representatives," she said. "The Democrats coming in will just make it harder for him."
Balint said that as much as Johnson "is Trump's lapdog, he also has his own job to do, which is to preserve his majority.
"So I think he knows politically that it does not help him to crash the government. So I think we will cobble together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to pass a continuing resolution," she said.
But, Balint said, "it's just pathetic that this is where we are."
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.