"So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week"
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Politics used to have a genuine third act, and Beschloss is reminding you how much we’ve padded the script.
His point isn’t nostalgia for cigar smoke and backroom deals so much as a diagnosis of how democratic theater has been replaced by prepackaged certainty. For roughly a century and a half, conventions weren’t merely branding opportunities; they were decision-making machines under public lights. The “drama” he names is doing double duty: it’s the suspense of not knowing who will emerge, and it’s the visible friction of factions bargaining, threatening, peeling off, rejoining. Voters weren’t just watching applause lines; they were watching power get assembled.
The subtext lands in that quiet cutoff: “until the 1960’s.” That’s the hinge moment when reforms, primaries, and modern media changed the locus of choice. The nominee stopped being forged in the convention hall and started being confirmed there. What was once uncertain became, by design, inevitable. Beschloss’s phrasing (“part of the drama”) is slyly economical: he’s not claiming conventions were pure or fair, only that they were consequential. Suspense is a proxy for agency.
Context matters because conventions remain culturally huge while politically thin. Networks still treat them like climactic events; parties still stage them like national rituals. Beschloss is pointing to the gap between spectacle and selection. When you already “know ultimately,” the convention becomes less a democratic crossroads than a four-night commercial for a decision made elsewhere - and the public’s role shifts from witness to consumer.
His point isn’t nostalgia for cigar smoke and backroom deals so much as a diagnosis of how democratic theater has been replaced by prepackaged certainty. For roughly a century and a half, conventions weren’t merely branding opportunities; they were decision-making machines under public lights. The “drama” he names is doing double duty: it’s the suspense of not knowing who will emerge, and it’s the visible friction of factions bargaining, threatening, peeling off, rejoining. Voters weren’t just watching applause lines; they were watching power get assembled.
The subtext lands in that quiet cutoff: “until the 1960’s.” That’s the hinge moment when reforms, primaries, and modern media changed the locus of choice. The nominee stopped being forged in the convention hall and started being confirmed there. What was once uncertain became, by design, inevitable. Beschloss’s phrasing (“part of the drama”) is slyly economical: he’s not claiming conventions were pure or fair, only that they were consequential. Suspense is a proxy for agency.
Context matters because conventions remain culturally huge while politically thin. Networks still treat them like climactic events; parties still stage them like national rituals. Beschloss is pointing to the gap between spectacle and selection. When you already “know ultimately,” the convention becomes less a democratic crossroads than a four-night commercial for a decision made elsewhere - and the public’s role shifts from witness to consumer.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nostalgia |
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