Democrats, day 2

[calimac]

The part I was wondering about was the roll call vote. I shouldn't have worried. The same party activist/flunkies who usually announce their states' votes simply appeared with their states' party standards planted usually in some scenic spot, gave their brief puffery, and then announced the votes for Sanders and for Biden in almost exactly the same wording. (Some of them said "the next president of these United States." Why, are there some other United States?) You could usually tell which ones were live by whether it was night outside in them. The sequence went by quickly and the variety was entertaining. The nomination victory celebration afterwards, unfortunately, was small and tinny, more so than I think was absolutely necessary.

The opening keynote was delivered by a raft of young elected officials trading off one phrase at a time each. Energetic but exhausting. Some of them made surprise revelations of themselves as gay. I suspect some viewers might be viscerally repelled by that, but if so, they're bigots.

Somewhere in there also, Rosalyn and Jimmy Carter, in that order, without being visible on video, spoke slowly. Then Bill Clinton spoke both slowly and hoarsely. The final speaker of the evening was Jill Biden, who belied her introductory clip program full of crisp vigor by speaking ... even ... more ... slowly. By this point, Tybalt playing with a catnip bag toy was more interesting to watch as well as cuter.

Substantive content of the whole seemed to be about 30% praise of Biden, 50% denunciation of Trump, and 20% exhortations to text this to that. It felt too much like an infomercial.

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

Saying "these United States" (or "the United States are" makes it about federalism. It emphasizes that the nation is composed of many different political entities that have opposed one another in the past. Despite tensions and disagreements, the states are united and not considering secession or warring against one another.

It's way more common these days to speak of the United States as if it's simply one thing. I suspect a lot of the people using "these United States" are just old people saying it the way they heard it in formal political speeches way back when.

[calimac]

These is not just plural; it means these as opposed to those. I'm just wondering what those are. Or, more seriously, just needling a usage which implies something the speaker didn't intend.

I also question your theory, insofar as the fundamental shift from the United States as plural to singular dates from the Civil War, and indeed that war was what established that the U.S. was an entity in itself and not just a collection of state. I rather doubt that the old people you cite are quite as old as that.

[kate_schaefer]

"These United States" is what I remember many people saying back when I watched conventions on television, which would have been in (I am so very old, but so are you and most of our friends) 1964, 1968, and 1972. I also remember speeches about tomatoes and corn and pumpkins and aluminum, but I certainly do not remember which states cited which crops and products.