…and it will kick off my campaign coverage for 2020. Public Seminar has a total of three essays, plus an upcoming photo essay by the incomparable feminist theorist and photojournalist Jo Freeman, that focus on an event that may be a turning point for the Democratic primary season. Or at least, it’s a turning point for the media to take Warren seriously and for Sanders backers to consider what they should do if, in fact, the Trump administration does not trigger a social revolution.

My brief story focuses on Warren supporters, rather than Warren:

As I walked through the press gate in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park at 5:30 and collected my credentials, speakers were blasting the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” a happy tune from Warren’s youth, and my own. It was a hot, late summer evening, and the crowd, which the campaign estimated at over 20,000 people (NYPD estimates put it at about half that) was not just sweating: we were dripping. The area in front of the Washington Square Arch, where Warren was scheduled to speak at 7:00, seemed impossibly full from where I initially staked out a spot in the press gallery. Nevertheless, armed with my green paper press pass, I abandoned the bored (and boring) scrum of photographers and reporters all plugged into power strips, and made a break for the front, using skills honed in my teens at stadium rock concerts.

You can read the whole thing, with links to other coverage, here.