Denver: Disneyland for Democrats and the Unity Dilemma

When I looked out the window of my plane before it touched down on the Denver airport runway, a surreal thing happened. The clouds were parted just enough to let long streaks of light shoot down towards the patches of green and brown below. The scene reminded me a lot of those moments in TV and movies where the presence of God, or some mystical force shines down from the heavens. Though I'm not remotely religious, I took it as a good sign of things to come.

Sunday afternoon I got a taste of what the protests might be like during the week of the convention. A few NOBAMAS and one John McCain for President walked down the busy downtown street as a guy sitting across the street screamed BOO! Nice, Interactive theatre.



The downtown streets are so wide and jam-packed with stores and tables of trinkets it's like Disneyland (free shuttle included). The different meetings outside the Denver Pepsi Center are the Democratic National Convention's spinning teacups and the big night on Thursday is Splash Mountain. I'm just waiting for the life size Obama human puppet to walk out of Jamba Juice.

You can't walk anywhere without seeing cops during the DNC. Every time I see eight cops in padded gear hanging off the side of a car I keep expecting to see the Bat Mobile speeding behind.



On Monday night on my way to the Rock the Vote Concert featuring N.E.R.D, Fall Out Boy and YO!'s very own Donny Lumpkins, I got sidetracked by a huge barricade of police, blocking off almost two street blocks downtown. Nothing was going on, people were just standing around and I was too short to see what was going on behind the line of police, but a few people were arguing, venting their frustration. Part of me wanted to stay and see what happened next, but the rest of me wanted to hightail it out of there ASAP.

That whole moment, which probably lasted less than five minutes, gave me the creeps.
The contrast of what I saw within the walls of the convention center during the day and the dozens and dozens of cops lined up like chess pieces ready to pounce got me thinking about 'unity'. All I hear on the news is unity, unity, unity. The whole point of the convention is to get everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbaya as the balloons fall Thursday night.

It's obvious the protests are an attempt to get people to listen to the lesser-discussed issues and criticize the government; which is great, got to love the underdogs in life. When you don't like what you see and you're passionate about something you rally together, and bang pots and pans till the police show up and tell you to disperse.

But in terms of the protests within the Democratic Party, I almost feel this fragile alliance will at some point fall off the face of the Earth.

The Obama and Clinton rivalry may have died between the two candidates but the supporters haven't let go - which is obvious from how many Hillary signs I've seen since I arrived on Saturday. It then begs the question: is the Democrats' stand of unity really a broken teacup glued together with paste or it the real thing?

Is Denver going to have to create its own knock off of Disney's "It's a Small World After All"? But replace all the different ethnic backgrounds with all the major political players in the Democratic Party. I would go on it once, just to tell my grand kids I hopped on the 'Strained Unity Express'.

-- Eming Piansay