Obama, Kamala, Hillary and Nancy took the gloves off tonight at the DNC – and Trump's tweets showed his panic

The Democratic Convention just got devastating

“HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!” tweeted Donald Trump at 10.33pm tonight, while Barack Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention. And what a damning speech it was. The former president, who until now has avoided directly calling out the president by name, said flatly that “I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously” but “he never did.”

“He has shown no interest in putting in the work, finding common ground, or using the awesome power of the office to help anyone but himself and his friends,” Obama continued. For Trump, the presidency is just “one more reality show he can use to get the attention he craves,” he said. “He hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe.”

It was a calm and devastating takedown, a super-precise butchering without gratuitousness. Obama delivered it from Philadelphia in a sharp blue suit, with a small Stars and Stripes pin shining at his pocket and the words of the constitution written behind him. “WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?” Trump tweeted at 10.40pm, summarily proving his point.

This third night of the Democratic National Convention featured a number of familiar names besides the former president and star of many “bromance with Uncle Joe” memes: Elizabeth Warren, Billie Eilish, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Emma Gonzalez. It came at the end of a strange day, in which Trump endorsed a bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory about secret paedophile global elites because “they like me”. “You don’t need me to tell you everything is a mess,” said 18-year-old Eilish, with all the energy of a fed-up middle-aged dad describing a child who just won’t go to bed.

“I wish Donald Trump knew how to be a president because America needs a president right now,” said Clinton in a speech before Obama, adding that she too had hoped, “the morning after the last election”, that Trump would rise to the occasion. “For four years, people have told me: I didn’t realise how dangerous he was,” she said, before going on to say that it was important to register to vote because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris “can win by 3 million votes and still lose — take it from me.” It was a brief moment of sardonic humour and it felt right. Like Elizabeth Warren’s “I love a good plan – and Joe has some really good plans,” it was also extremely poignant.

When Nancy Pelosi appeared onscreen, she used her few minutes to skewer Mitch McConnell twice as she called out Trump, ensuring that his wagon is firmly hitched to the president’s in a year when he, too, will face an election in Kentucky. Her introductory video featured some of her “greatest hits”, including the moment when she calmly ripped up Trump’s State of the Union speech, and the moment she responded to a Trump outburst with the immortal line: “I’m a mother of five and a grandmother of nine, and I know a temper tantrum when I see one.” It was a full-throated embracing of the Nasty Nancy stereotype and it brought a genuine smile to my face.

Kamala Harris does not have the traditionally nuclear family to fall back on that Pelosi does, and she isn’t known for her home-cooked food or her freshly baked cookies. Sadly, the American public demands these softening factors for “likeability” in its female politicians to “balance out” the long and impressive resumé in politics and law, so Harris’s formal acceptance of the vice-presidential nomination was preceded by images of well-attended dinners and family photographs. Her stepdaughter, Ella, made an appearance, reminding viewers that Harris – or “Momala” – is “the world’s greatest stepmom”. Her younger sister Maya spoke about well-attended Sunday dinners. And Harris herself talked about the blind date she went on that led to her marriage to her husband, Doug.

Of course, Harris also said far more than that. She spoke of her mother, Shyamala, who worked in cancer research, and wryly added that “there is no vaccine for racism”. In the years to come, “our children and our grandchildren will look in our eyes and ask, ‘Where were you when the stakes were so high?’” she continued. “And we will tell them not just how we felt. We will tell them what we did.” It was a powerful ending to the night. She stood on a lone podium surrounded by flags and waved enthusiastically to a gigantic Zoom screen of applauding people at the end; Joe Biden came on stage at a social distance, and the camera panned out to reveal that in place of the usual convention audience were 50 posts representing each of the states. Some of the video audience held up “BUILD BACK BETTER” signs; others had banners reading “READY FOR JOE”.

The night left the distinct impression of something a little more positive – and a little more angry – than what had come in the two days before. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama took the gloves off properly for the first time. Nancy Pelosi already had hers on and her sleeves rolled up. Kamala Harris was getting comfortable with wartime rhetoric. “BUT DIDN’T SHE CALL HIM A RACIST??? DIDN’T SHE SAY HE WAS INCOMPETENT???” Trump tweeted at 11.17pm. He sounded like the pleading schoolboy who’s been caught red-handed and needs to deflect the blame, and no wonder: the strategy has shifted and he isn’t coping well. Because tonight the Democrats weren’t angry at Donald Trump; they were just really, really disappointed.