The Democratic National Committee released its 2024 platform August 18 in conjunction with this week's national convention hosted in Chicago. There are some stark differences from the Republican platform.
First there's length: the Democrats' platform is more than three times as long as the Republicans'— 92 pages compared to 28. And then there is style. The DNC platform is written in a clear style that would hold up well against Strunk & White or the AP Style Guide; the RNC platform is written in Trump-Tweet-Caps-For-Emphasis style.
I was mostly interested in the economic plan and national defense. The economic section is the longest, spanning three chapters and 23 pages. It maps fairly closely to Vice President Harris' speech last week in North Carolina and I equate it to this: so much parade candy. Good manufacturing jobs! Lower the cost of groceries! Price caps on medications! While the economic section is long on promises it is short on specifics. What it all sounds like to me is a lot of government intervention in the marketplace. Hooray.
Not.
The second longest section is devoted to democracy, freedom and equity. This single chapter is 18 pages long. The first section is devoted to judicial appointments, and sort of reads like a call to a judicial appointment bidding war. I'd like to see the word "non-partisan" appear somewhere in this section; to me, that is what we should demand of our judges first and foremost. It is of course nowhere to be found.
As a new independent voter, I am concerned that taxpayer-funded primary elections are closed to a quarter of registered voters in New Mexico. Closed primaries – those that are only open to those voters registered with a major party – are the largest single source of voter suppression in the modern era. Independent voters are the fastest growing segment of voters in the country. The Democratic platform is silent on this matter in its earnest argument for voter access.
The section on equity will likely make MAGA readers' heads explode simply because it says "equity." It pretty much talks about guaranteeing equal rights under the law for every American regardless of race, gender or identity. Pretty mind-blowing stuff, that.
Equity is hardly a new idea. Thomas Jefferson said in his first inaugural address: "All too will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression." Classical liberalism or wokeness?
Five pages are devoted to border security, an issue the Republicans utterly botched this winter at the direction of former President Donald Trump. The agreement brokered in the Senate this January and February offered the Republicans every concession they asked for. But Trump wanted border security to remain a crisis for the campaign. So he strong-armed the House Republicans to jettison the deal.
The callousness of this decision should not be ignored by voters. The toll on our border communities, in security, and in human suffering rests squarely on Congressional Republicans and Trump who put potential political capital ahead of the nation's needs.
President Joe Biden finally issued an executive order this spring allowing for border closures when traffic reached certain thresholds and accelerating deportation for those who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States. The platform essentially reiterates these points and calls for permanent immigration reform to be taken up by Congress.
The 14-page national security section touches on every area of the globe in detail, in contrast to the RNC platform. This section sparked major protests at the convention, as it did not call for an arms embargo to Israel; good. It calls for the elimination of Hamas and Hezbollah, two key spokes in Iran's Axis of Resistance. While many see the selection of Minnesota governor Tim Walz over Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro as a sop to the pro-Palestinian wing of the Democratic Party, the continued strong support for Israel in the platform is reassuring.
The platform continues largely in the vein of the Biden administration and stops short of promising full-out military aid to Ukraine. This is a mistake. As the saying goes, Ukraine gets just enough aid to keep it from losing the war with Russia, but not enough to win. Continuing this half-hearted backing is creating another too-long conflict in a strategic region. We have had enough of that this century.
There is a jarring motif throughout the document. This is clearly the platform for the original nominee, Joe Biden – the document continually refers to him as though he were the nominee. As someone who has worked in executive communications for three decades, I know what it is to do a rewrite. DNC, this would not have been hard to do after the online delegate voting confirmed Harris to be the nominee earlier this month. It would have at most taken a day.
This editorial laziness both blunts the message and gives the opposition ammunition about the legitimacy of Harris' candidacy. It's a rookie mistake against an otherwise smooth and masterful campaign turnover.
However, to leverage any advantage, this will require someone at the RNC to read it. Given the short shrift given to their own platform, this may be too big an ask.
So as a voter, where would I rank the platforms?
For style, the Democrats win, since it appears that it was drafted and proofread by adults, and possibly vetted through committees. They do lose points for, you know, not actually updating it to reflect the current nominee. It's also just too damned long. The RNC platform, while pretty much a Trump manifesto, is at least digestible in less than an hour.
For substance, it's an even draw. The DNC platform doesn't make me angry like the Republican platform did. The DNC platform didn't make me feel anything. There is a definite effort to appeal to patriotism and national pride, but it doesn't quite get there for me.
From a policy perspective, for all its length, the Democratic platform was as short on specifics as the GOP document. Neither document is particularly economically responsible; neither mentions the federal debt. Both discuss reducing prices without actionable plans.
I'm going to give the Democrats the platform battle by a nose, merely for having the discipline to draft an original document instead of cutting and pasting together the nominee's social media posts and campaign speeches. I have no idea who the audience is for this thing, though.
The Democratic National Convention, like the platform, will be a largely self-congratulatory event. Hours of broadcast primetime will be spent conveying the same messages to the same friendly audiences. The GOP convention was no different. With 10 weeks until Election Day and so many swing voters left to convert, one wonders if there isn't better use of all this opportunity?
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at
