The Post-Liberal Apocalypse.

• Author: Ehrenreich, Barbara
• Position: Democratic Party Convention 2000

For four days in August, it was end-times in L.A.

Inside the Staples Center, linen-clad delegates conferred on their cell phones and celebrated the most conservative Democratic ticket in at least fifty years. Outside, the uninvited shouted their conviction that the centers of power, Democratic Party included, have grown so hopelessly cruel and corrupt that they no longer deserve to hold.

There was, of course, plenty of less radical and apocalyptic talk coming from the familiar liberal figures. The Jesse Jacksons, junior and senior, Paul Wellstone, and Russ Feingold rushed from podium to podium, expressing disappointment in the party and then urging their audiences to nevertheless get behind Gore. At the Campaign for America's Future conference, held in a room two stories below the surface of the Earth in the Hyatt, speakers fretted about Social Security privatization, Medicare expansion, and whether Gore has the mojo to mobilize a numb and anxious electorate.

But the object of liberal loyalties--the Democratic Party--refused to cooperate, or even put on a smiley face. To get into the Staples Center, you had to pass through two security checkpoints, including one metal detector and two searches of bags and purses. When we made our way in, we spent twenty minutes being shunted around by security guards before finding a couple of seats in the bleachers, way up near the altitude where the balloons awaited their post-acceptance-speech release. Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend wound up a bland and cheerful speech, then a rumpled man rushed out to the lectern and announced that it was time to vote on the party platform.

Ayes?

Some desultory shouts from the floor.

Nays?

Only ours, screeched inaudibly from up high.

That was it--platform approved --and the giant monitors flanking the stage moved on to a five-minute video of Gore and son climbing a mountain.

To see the party's contradictions in high-contrast display, you could attend the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees rally outside Loews hotel in Santa Monica. The hotel, which has been doing everything it can to bust HERE's unionization drive, is owned by Jonathan Tisch, a major Gore funder. A Latino hotel worker assured us that Gore would bring Tisch around, that he would, in fact, show up in person at the rally--although at this point Gore had not even touched down in L.A.

The landscape, too, refused to nourish traditional liberal hopes. This was not the L.A. of Hollywood hedonism warded off repeatedly, in the Gore and Lieberman speeches, with the apotropaic words "family" and "faith." It was the L.A. of...