Vox Sentences: In 2016, Democrats want to be the party of ___

Who are the Democrats in 2016?; Zika is officially in the mainland US; a court finds North Carolina blatantly disenfranchised black voters.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Hillstory

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first woman to accept a major party's nomination for president of the United States last night. (You knew this was coming, but you might have been surprised by how you felt about it.)

  [Vox / Sarah Kliff]

• Clinton's speech wrapped Bernie Sanders–inspired liberal policy in Republican-inspired conservative rhetoric — encapsulating a Democratic National Convention that worked really hard to appeal to literally everyone in America not already committed to voting for Donald Trump.

  [Business Insider / Josh Barro]

• The power of anti-Trump patriotism propelled the convention's breakout moment, when Khizr Khan — the father of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq in 2004 — literally pulled a copy of the Constitution out of his pocket and asked if Trump had ever read it. (The phrase "bro do you even" was merely implied.)

  [CNN / Chris Moody and Eugene Scott]

• At times, the patriotism got a little hard-edged and militaristic — consistent with the party's current nominee, but more than a little reminiscent to some members of both parties of the 2004 Republican National Convention (which made a lot of Democrats feel like they were being called traitors for opposing the Iraq War).

  [Politico / Kyle Cheney and Katie Glueck]

• If you weren't in Philly, you didn't notice one of the biggest changes from the Democratic Party of 2012: The convention accepted big lobbyist money this year, putting many Democratic officials in the awkward position of arguing that money corrupts politics, but only when it's given to the other team.

  [Vox / Jeff Stein]

• The DNC was also more religious than recent Democratic conventions. But it embodied a social justice–oriented and ecstatic aesthetic particular to the black church (which could be President Obama's most durable rhetorical legacy).

  [Slate / Jamelle Bouie]

• After a generation in which religion in politics has been associated with stigmatization of LGBTQ Americans and women, Vox's Todd VanDerWerff welcomed the DNC's case that Christianity is a liberal religion.

  [Vox / Todd VanDerWerff]

Florida Man Bugs Out

Press/LatinContent/Getty Image

• Welp, Zika virus has officially entered the mainland US. Florida officials confirmed Friday that four people in Miami-Dade County have been infected by local mosquitoes.

  [CNN / Debra Goldschmidt]

• The timing is not great for Congress, which declined to pass a Zika relief package before going on August recess.

  [USA Today / Liz Szabo]

• If you're not a member of Congress, Vox's Julia Belluz explains why you shouldn't freak out. (For one thing, 80 percent of Zika recipients are asymptomatic.)

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• If you're pregnant or planning to get pregnant, the CDC has some simple and straightforward Zika guidance for you.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• If you're an Olympic athlete, congratulations! (Email us and tell us what event you're competing in!) But also here is some useful Zika information from StatNews for your trip to Rio.

  [StatNews / Helen Branswell]

• Then again, if you're an Olympic athlete, you probably have bigger problems to worry about.

  [The Ringer / Claire McNear]

"As close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see"

Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

• The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down several provisions of a voting law passed in North Carolina in 2013, arguing that the law intentionally disenfranchised black voters.

  [The Atlantic / David A. Graham]

• As characterized in the opinion, the state legislature's actions were ... shockingly blatant. Legislators literally asked for information on things like state ID possession and early voting use, then placed restrictions on the voting techniques disproportionately used by African Americans.

  [Washington Post / Christopher Ingraham]

• Judge Diana Gribbon Motz called it "as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times."

  [Vox / Victoria M. Massie]

• The problem with "smoking guns" like this is that in many cases, discrimination isn't necessarily this blatant. The NC case shouldn't be another reason to ignore "racism without racists."

  [CNN / John Blake]

• But it certainly throws an inconvenient wrench in Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion, in the case that struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (which would have allowed automatic federal review of the North Carolina law), that racism in the South is no longer a threat to voting rights.

  [NYT / Adam Liptak]

MISCELLANEOUS

This is crucially important footage of Bill Clinton playing with balloons. [BuzzFeed / Lauren Yapalater]

• Donald Trump is going to start getting classified briefings as early as next week. Here's what that will entail.

  [Washington Post / Philip Bump]

• You can see the rise of the gig economy everywhere but in the actual employment statistics.

  [Jacobin / Kim Moody]

• Multiple online news outlets have reported that Julian Assange claims to have emails that will "send Hillary Clinton to prison." One problem: There doesn't appear to be any evidence Assange ever said this.

  [NY Mag / Jesse Singal]

• The evidence that It's Always Sunny's Dennis Reynolds is not just a creep but a serial killer is … more compelling than you'd think.

  [AV Club / Sam Barsanti]

VERBATIM

"There’s nothing Christian or Greco-Roman about using penicillin to deal with a bacterial infection." [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander]

• "We seldom agree about perfect justice, but we often concur about glaring injustices — they really do glare at us."

  [3am / Jerry Gaus]

• "In fact, the one time in American history a Clinton held the White House, it did not lead to fascism."

  [NY Mag / Jonathan Chait]

• "Would a Bush family endorsement be a net gain for Hillary? Without a doubt. … Like Gaullist-Socialist alliances against Marine LePen’s National Front in France, it would signal that Trump is outside what’s acceptable in a liberal democracy, and that protecting the republic is more important than inter-party rivalries."

  [New Republic / Dana Houle]

• "A few researchers — a very few — think child-size sex robots or virtual reality could help them to study pedophiles, learning what arouses them or maybe even giving them a safe outlet."

  [Technology Review / Antonio Regalado]

WATCH THIS

Donald Trump's threat to dismantle America's strongest alliance, explained [YouTube / Liz Scheltens, Zack Beauchamp, and Gina Barton]

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