Report From Rhode Island Returns

By Susan Bergeron

Friday June 26: On Wednesday, if you were to open my skull and peer inside it might have looked like that moment just before Chernobyl blew. I woke just after dawn and got to work booking my round trip flight to Milwaukee. The previous Saturday Zoom meeting had been the largest to date, finally including the PLEO delegates--public leaders and elected officials on the call. All were informed that anyone could choose to stay home and vote virtually if they felt unsafe traveling. If one traveled it was at their own expense. Hotel costs were going to be $350/ night, a four night affair. Doubling up was permitted, and in previous conventions it was common. "Who might share?" the group leader asked. I raised my chat box hand and unmuted. "I will if the other woman agrees to quarantine for two weeks before the trip." A man responded, "I will." The leader then asked, "Is there anyone who prefers not to travel to Milwaukee? A huge face filled the screen. A young woman, as if about to be attacked in her bedroom in some B horror movie squeaked out, "I don't. I'm scared." There was a pregnant pause before the meeting continued. 

No one wanted to carpool. I started looking for flights. There were only four flights a day out of RI. Most of the major carriers have grounded their aircraft due to the impact of Covid on sales. The problem with booking flights right now is that the carriers are blocking out as much as 60% of the seats for social distancing (which is good), making less seats available for sale in major markets (not so good). I zeroed in on Delta Airlines, a favorite choice of mine for past travel needs. Delta had generous Covid waivers of change fees due to the pandemic but you had to book before June 30th. Although I, too, was scared---more scared than Donald Trump at a spelling bee, I felt an overwhelming desire to travel to Wisconsin and vote in person to nominate Joe Biden. Over 30,000 people had voted for me. But there was something else motivating me that allowed me to overcome my fear to go in person. I suppose it was the visions in my head of watching all those past conventions on TV over the decades, the excitement of being so privledged to be part of such a time honored American tradition. I'd wear my mask. I'd social distance. I'd be careful. All the social programs had been cancelled. It was going to be all business. I'd be fine.

I picked out my flights, glamouring the agent into a nice deal for $350 and a chance to turn the tickets in for credit up until September 2022 if I had to cancel due to Covid concerns. Not bad. Reservations were so slow the agent lingered on the line chatting with me about politics after I told her what the trip was for. The agent had a thick accent; she was an Indian-American immigrant living with her ancient grandmother who she joked about, sharing some hilarious stories of how her Grandma was completely confused by Donald Trump. We talked about the recent protests and the young agent revealed she had cried when she saw George Floyd being killed on TV and that she had joined in some protests. I wished her well and told her I hoped she didn't get sick. She called me "a really cool senior," which made me chuckle. Relieved that the burden of planning transportation was complete, I let out a victory whoop as I emerged from my office lair only to be greeted by Ron holding the screen of his i-phone in my face. "500 Delta Staff Test Positive For Covid-19; 10 Dead" The article went on to say that Delta had pulled its planes out of two more airports. I sank into the sofa with a feeling of utter defeat. From there it slid downhill fast. Like a toboggan full of hippos flying down a ramp greased with Vasoline.

There was a regularly scheduled Zoom call that evening at 6:30 for the national delegates. As I put on a nice shirt and fixed my hair (the only time I bother anymore), my phone began to blow up. Dear Jesus. What now?  It was an email alert from state party headquarters. The Milwaukee convention had been cancelled! It happened just minutes before the meeting was launched. There was no time to react, it was 6:30. I hopped on the call and there was the face of the Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, Galvin Gilchrist staring at me. He was giving a very favorable report from this major battleground state. Next up on the agenda was news of the cancellation. After tough deliberation, the DNC committee decided it was too unsafe to risk the health and safety of the delegates to hold a live convention. They pulled out of the arena and moved into a smaller venue where national broadcasts will be done from August 17th through the 20th. Satellite locations will broadcast speakers and delegates will vote remotely. This will be a convention that will look very different than any before. We have had to innovate---something we Americans are famous for. It will be the first virtual convention. Voting methods are still being worked out. Part of the process involves getting all the delegates certified. I'm now certified but not all of the delegates have been.

I had resigned myself to being stuck with an airline credit for a ticket to nowhere when a fellow delegate advised me that one can always cancel for a full refund within 24 hours. It worked!---but it wasn't easy. News was spreading like a wildfire about the sickness at Delta and the cascading cancellations caused their phones to crash. A message at their customer service line told callers to try back in a week!  The Direct Message feature on my Delta app would hang for hours as harried agents came back on the line, interspersed with robots, asking me if my question was "time sensitive." Just before midnight I finally got an answer to my request for a refund. I stared at the screen in disbelief. It simply said, "OK." It was a live agent, short-staffed, who'd been pummeled with questions from panicked flyers all night. I felt sorry for "Tracey." She helped me with the details for my refund and I thanked her. "I'm sorry about your co-workers," I wrote. "Please stay safe out there." A reply came back a few moments later. "I'm sorry. I don't understand that question." The robot was back.

While keeping one eye on the news reports of the burgeoning Coronavirus outbreak in America---the so-called Second Wave---somehow I had still maintained a type of magical thinking that it would recede by August. But in the stark light of day I now see that's not going to happen. Donald Trump's Trojan Horse of Deadly Disease has escaped from the barn and it's galloping across America. It will continue to kill and kill until responsible leadership can harness it.

In a previous column I mentioned that Trump is insisting on having his Convention for the Reichstag Nationalist Committee. It's now been moved to Jacksonville, Florida. The RNC has been uninvited from Charlotte, NC, due to safety reasons related to the Covid outbreak. But now Florida is quickly becoming the national epicenter of Coronavirus in the U.S. Some Floridians are calling for Governor DeSantis' resignation because of what some are calling his criminally inept response to the pandemic. Trump wants to take his dog and pony show there---to the heart of the Second Wave, a steaming stew bath of contagion. As Rex Tillerson once put it so eloquently, "Trump is a fucking moron."

I posed a difficult question in that same column: How can Democrats have a convention when the world is criticizing Trump for doing the same thing? Look at what happened in Tulsa: as far as safety standards go, Trump's pathetic "Comeback Rally of Carnage" was a disaster. It was as if Trump had gone there to plant a bomb in Oklahoma---a disease bomb. The media crucified him for it, as well they should have. 

I'm glad the Democratic leadership chose this new path. It was not the easy one. Benny Thompson of Mississippi will preside as chairman. The 2020 DNC Convention will be a ground-breaking event that will be sure to make history. It probably will not go smoothly, but it's the right thing to do. It's the safe and moral thing to do. It shows the ability to lead through example, something that the current regime clearly lacks.

I'll be posting news of this exciting inside look at how the wheels of Democratic politics manage to keep churning, despite occasional gusts of sand getting blown into our gears, as we head into the final eight weeks of the Primary process. It will culminate on August 20th, in the official election of our nominee for the Democratic candidate and our next president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden. I only hope and pray that I can survive long enough to see the dawn of a shining new era of hope, devoid of Trump's ungodly reign of terror.