48 Hills was live from the DNC all week. Check out our full coverage here.
Among the more strange sights in Chicago this week, courtesy of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, is certainly the “Democrats for Palestinian Rights” kefiyyeh. Made of some sort of synthetic fabric from which wine spills are easily wiped, the scarves might seem off-putting, given that a Democratic administration is currently funding the brutal Israeli war on Gaza.
But slung around the neck of an uncommitted delegate, the unexpected garment assumes some coherence. As thousands of protestors march and even, in an isolated incident, breach the DNC security perimeter to draw attention to the 40,000 lives that have been lost in Gaza, the uncommitteds are attempting to shift Kamala Harris’ policies from the inside the beast.
In Michigan, 13 percent of Democrat voters weighed in on the primaries as “uncommitted,” for many, a tactic designed to push the party’s candidate to halt funding to the bloodshed in Gaza before the general election. Overall, some 30 uncommitted delegates have made their way to Chicago—a drop in the bucket of 4,000 delegates total, but trust that the uncommitteds have been busy reminding their peers of the genocide taking place.
You can hardly question Rhode Island delegate Daniel Denvir’s commitment to shifting US dialogue around Palestinian liberation and other progressive causes. I met Denvir years ago through his work with Oregon campesino group Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste and much more recently, he’s been a part of two Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns and active in tenant justice organization Reclaim RI.
Perhaps his best-known project to date is The Dig, a socialist podcast produced by Jacobin whose hours-long interviews with marquee leftist guests—Boots Riley, AOC, Bernie, Rashida Tlaib, and Naomi Klein have all made appearances—have turned to Middle Eastern resistance in the wake of the Israeli invasion. A full 40 hours with historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti on radical movements in the Arab world? Available to all comers via free download on The Dig website.
On Wednesday night, uncommitted leaders were told that the DNC would not grant their request for a Palestinian speaker to be heard on the convention’s main stage. In response, uncommitted delegates are staging a sit-in on the sidewalk outside the United Center—ironically, within sight of where Palestine protestors had been arrested for breaching the security perimeter on Monday.
Some bowed their heads in grief. Many still wore their “Democrats for Palestinian Rights” kefiyyehs.
Hours before, I roamed the cavernous atriums of the convention center housing the DNC caucuses with a somewhat sleep-deprived Denvir to speak of his uncommitted perceptions on day three of the party gathering. The following is an edited version of our chat before he had to bid adieu to speak to more Harris delegates about the need for an arms embargo.
48HILLS I’m here with Dan Denvir and we are striding around McCormick Place South. So, how has the convention been going?
DANIEL DENVIR It’s been a whirlwind. It’s strange and maybe historically unprecedented to be in the position of being an uncommitted delegate at any major party convention. The idea is that we are all people who are of the Democratic Party, but who are strongly dissenting from its policy, which is consistently providing bombs to Israel that are being dropped on Gaza to perpetrate genocide. It’s been both heartening and depressing—heartening in that I have dozens of amazing conversations every day with ordinary Harris delegates who maybe are a school principal or small-town mayor, and are just sort of the rank and file of the Democratic party, and they firmly agree that not only do we need a ceasefire, but we need a ceasefire that’s guaranteed by an arms embargo by the party funding the genocide.
That’s been heartening, but what’s depressing is that as of yet, we have not seen any real indication of a policy shift from the Harris campaign. It would mean a lot to just clarify, for example, that under a Harris administration, US military aid would be governed by international and domestic law. But we haven’t heard anything along those lines. We have heard a so-called shift in tone in terms of more empathy with Palestinian suffering and I’m not going to say that’s bad—that’s good, and it does make me hopeful that it’s possible that a Harris administration will be better than a Biden administration, but we need a concrete policy shift to know that for sure.
48HILLS What was your reaction to the party adopting a platform that doesn’t call for an arms embargo on the first day of the convention?
DANIEL DENVIR It makes me think that the party does not understand that there are still huge numbers of would-be Democratic voters who certainly don’t want Trump to be president, but who are profoundly alienated from the party over Biden’s steadfast commitment to arming Israel’s genocide.
48HILLS I attended the pro-Palestinian coalition march on Monday and was present for the fence breach and the cops pushing everybody out of Park #578. What was the awareness like on the convention floor while that protest was taking place? Were delegates aware that several thousand people were trying to get their attention just a couple blocks away?
DANIEL DENVIR I think that a majority of delegates, just like the majority of Democrats in opinion polls, want an end to the war in Gaza. I think it is complicated for many Harris delegates, though, because they are very excited about Harris being the nominee. All the depressive vibes that had gathered around the Biden campaign have become inverted into ecstatic enthusiasm for Harris and Walz.
48HILLS The vibe shift.
DANIEL DENVIR Massive vibe shift. I get why. There are a lot of commendable facets of the Harris platform, just as there are many things that Biden did in terms of domestic policy. But what we’re asking Harris delegates to do is to ensure that their moral imagination is large enough to include Palestinians that are being subjected to the worst thing that can be done to people, which is a genocide. I think that most Harris delegates understand that. I mean, hundreds are signing our letter calling for an arms embargo and are basically with us entirely. Basically, an uncommitted delegate’s day-to-day is comprised of organizing Harris delegates to sign this letter. We have, I think, over 250 Harris delegates signed on. Our goal is 500, let’s see if we get there.
48HILLS What do you think could happen if you get to 500 or beyond?
DANIEL DENVIR Emphasize the message that among Democratic voters and even among rank-and-file party officials, small-town mayors, and state legislators who make up the base of the party, that there is strong support for putting an arms embargo on Israel.
48HILLS I’ve heard some people criticize who you might call hardline pro-Palestinian protestors for their focus on stopping Israel genocide to the exclusion other, largely domestic issues. There’s a sense among those individuals that such single-mindedness could hand Trump the election. How do you respond to such concerns?
DANIEL DENVIR The uncommitted movement represents actual voters out there who are alienated from the Democratic Party due to the genocide of Gaza. They’re not alienated from the Democratic Party because I or any other uncommitted delegate is telling them to be. They are alienated and they voted uncommitted and we are representing those people. The US has supported Israeli genocide in Gaza, that’s the first causal factor that has then alienated large swaths of the Democratic base from the party and then that in turn leads to uncommitted delegates representing those voices here in the DNC. So, if we trace that causal chain back to its origin, the reason the party is divided is because the US won’t stop arming Israel’s genocide. We firmly agree that the Democratic party should be united to defeat Trump, but for us it’s beyond obvious that the way to do that is to end the genocide.
48HILLS To what extent do you think that Biden’s withdrawal from the race was due to the pro-Palestinian movement?
DANIEL DENVIR I think that, obviously, the overwhelming decisive factor was that after the debate, his age-related decline became incontrovertible and undisputable. But I think that also, without a doubt, his steadfast support for war in Gaza amid one of the largest anti-war protest movements in probably half a century—I think that certainly played a role in weakening his standing amongst the party base. It was very clear when you looked at the portions of the Democratic-leaning electorate among which support for Biden had fallen dramatically, it’s the same people who were most upset about Gaza, the same demographics: Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, young people, progressives.
48HILLS At what point did you decide to organize within the Uncommitted Movement rather than work to support a third-party candidate?
DANIEL DENVIR The reason that I was a strong supporter of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, a primary challenger within the Democratic party, is because simply we live in a two-party system. I came of age in left politics as a 17-year-old hardcore volunteer for the Nader 2000 campaign and our goal then was to get five percent, so the Green party could get major party financing. As the race tightened between Gore and Bush, that fell to like, two or three percent. What I learned during the 2016 Bernie campaign is that progressives, the left, advocates of social, racial, environmental, economic justice, all of those sorts of political forces, wield far more power in the Democratic Party than outside of it. I think the powers-that-be would be perfectly happy for the left to play in cul de sacs and sandboxes of third-party politics. As much as I would love to live in a multi-party parliamentary system, that’s simply not the reality of the US.
48HILLS Did you have any thoughts upon seeing Jesse Jackson, one of the original voices for Palestine at the DNC, in the audience this week?
DANIEL DENVIR I think Jesse Jackson certainly paved the way for making Palestinian liberation a mainstream issue within Democratic party politics. He was also really, in so many ways, a precursor to the Bernie campaign. In a lot of ways, if in 2016, 2020, we could have somehow stitched together what was the Jackson coalition with what became the Bernie coalition into one giant coalition, I think we would have won. I have a lot of respect for Jackson’s ’84 and ’88 campaigns and the Rainbow Coalition.
48HILLS I’ve also seen Arab American Institute founder [and another early DNC voice for Palestinian liberation, when Jackson invited Zogby to present his platform at the convention in 1984] James Zogby be very present this year, including in the DNC’s Palestine panel on Monday. I imagine you were in attendance at that panel, do you think it was effective in shifting dialogue within the convention?
DANIEL DENVIR Definitely. I think protestors obviously have a role outside, I’m not going to police or criticize how anyone decides to protest genocide—which again, is the most horrible thing that can be done to a people. But I think our role inside as uncommitted delegates and ceasefire delegates is to organize within the more leftward party of the two-party system that we unfortunately live under. And I do think it’s a small but notable victory to have the [panel be the] first-ever DNC-sanctioned event on Palestine. It doesn’t get us anywhere close to stopping the genocide, but it’s certainly significant. We will inevitably begin to shift US policy. If you just look at the generational politics around this, young peoples’ strong support for Palestine, Israel over the years will become increasingly politically isolated in American politics and I truly believe that US support for apartheid and genocide will end. These are the sorts of steps, amongst many steps, that have been taken all over the country along the way to that eventuality.
48HILLS And to end on a high note, what’s been your favorite at this week’s convention?
DANIEL DENVIR I have two favorite moments. One, even though I’ve had substantial criticism of Bernie’s response to the genocide in Gaza, he very quickly did become one of the few people to be very clearly advocating for cutting off military aid to Israel. He very clearly called for an end to the war in Gaza, I think is the most clearly it’s been heard from the stage. And second, Jason Carter, the grandson of Jimmy Carter, who spoke on Tuesday—I was charging my phone in the hallway and heard someone say, “Thank you.” I looked up and he gave me a fist bump. I was like, “Oh shit, that’s Jimmy Carter’s grandson.” Although, I wish he’d spoken about it from the stage, and even though Jimmy Carter was not a great president in terms of policy and rights as president—
48HILLS Has there been a US president who was great on Palestinian rights?
DANIEL DENVIR No. But Carter really, actually bravely, did stand up for them in his post-presidency, and that’s significant.
Listen to Daniel Denvir’s The Dig podcast here.
