Whatever your politics, if there’s one thing that the RNC vs. DNC showdown clearly established is that just as a zoom education is no match for in-person instruction in a classroom, a zoom convention is no match for an in-person convention. Even if the in-person part just means having speakers on an actual stage in an actual place and actually many of the speakers speak from that same place.

The DNC convention largely went all in on the virtual, where the RNC convention emphasized that it was happening in real places. It emphasized the physical, rooms, stages, and memorials, where the DNC emphasized the virtual way we live now.

The contrast is striking and powerful. And there’s no question which way the gravitas leans.

The DNC’s “We’re all in this together” media strategy is calculated to appeal to many of the remote workers, many of them white and upper middle class, but what the RNC delivered is just, on a purely visual level, more impressive and watchable, even when we set aside the actual speakers themselves.

Reality trumps virtuality. Zoom sessions in real life tend to be exhausting and bewildering. That’s the visual effect the DNC convention largely achieved. It felt like a combination of a work call, motivational seminar, infomercial, and struggle session, all of it airing at the same time on late night television.

The RNC felt like a convention.