In a country that prides itself on escaping the social strictures of pre-independence, British-dominated America, the Democratic Convention is proving itself fixated on class. When I asked Tammy Duckworth, a popular Illinois senator, what the recipe for Kamala Harris winning in 2024 should look like, she replied that appealing to the “middle class” would provide the route to the White House and give the party the two terms in power it longs for.

Duckworth is amplifying a preoccupation that emanates from the main stage: Tim Walz, the vice presidential candidate, channelled homely “dad power” as he revved up the crowd last night, appealing to aspirant Americans – the “middle-class family – or a family trying to get into the middle class” with a left-populist mix of tax-cutting pledges and plans to boost home ownership.

Expect more of this from Harris, whose image has been recrafted at this convention, from Californian liberal lawyer to an incarnation of upward social mobility who worked in menial jobs to get through college: “She understands the middle class because she is from the middle class” was the rallying cry of AOC – the glossy New York left-winger Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

That is a bit of a stretch, given that Harris’s family background is of successful academic parents. Her........

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