Get serious: Kamala Harris takes middle road
Kamala Harris used her presidential nominee acceptance speech to call for unity and hope, while underlying the ‘consequences’ of another term under Donald Trump.
Kamala Harris has used the biggest speech of her career to portray herself as a candidate of unity and hope, promising a “new way forward” for the divided US while framing Donald Trump as “an unserious man”.
In an electric acceptance speech laced with optimism and patriotism at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the party’s 59-year-old candidate vowed to be a president for all Americans, accusing her Republican rival of being a dangerous relic of the past.
“With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past – a chance to chart a new way forward, not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans,” Ms Harris told 20,000 cheering Democrats and a massive audience across the country.
“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads – and listens, who is realistic, practical, and has common sense. And always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has been my life’s work.”
Ms Harris was speaking one month and one day after she replaced Joe Biden as the Democrat candidate, during which time she has energised the party and taken a narrow lead over her Republican opponent in the polls.
Ms Harris said America needed to look to the future and warned of the potential dangers of putting 78-year-old Mr Trump back in the White House.
“We are right now in a fight for America’s future. This election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life of our nation,’ she said.
“The consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious … Consider the power he will have – especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution.”
She accused Mr Trump of creating chaos and calamity.
“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. We are not going back,” Ms Harris said, as the crowd echoed the chant in what has become a central campaign slogan.
Mr Trump hit back on his Truth Social platform in a series of posts, saying Ms Harris and Mr Biden had squandered their years in office. “She’s done nothing for 3½ years but talk, and that’s what she’s doing tonight, she’s complaining about everything but doing nothing!” Mr Trump wrote.
Ms Harris also portrayed her opponent as an enemy of middle-class working Americans, saying he would end the Affordable Care Act and gut Medicare and social security while giving tax breaks to the wealthy. By contrast, she would “create jobs, grow the economy and lower the cost of (living)” and pass a middle-class tax cut.
“We will end America’s housing shortage and protect social security and Medicare,” she said, in a bid to help the middle class.
“The middle class is where I come from,” she said.
Ms Harris, who has faced pressure from the left wing of the Democratic Party to pare back US support for Israel, pledged to “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself” against terror groups such as Hamas as she called for an immediate ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the last 10 months is devastating, so many innocent lives lost, desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over,” she said. ‘The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”
Ms Harris promised to ensure Palestinian people had rights to “dignity, security, freedom and self-determination”.
She vowed to support America’s ongoing global presence, saying she would be a staunch supporter of Ukraine and NATO and would always promote democracy abroad, mocking Mr Trump’s alleged infatuation with autocrats.
“As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world, and I will fulfil our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families and I will always honour and never disparage their service and their sacrifice,” she said.
In a speech designed to introduce herself to the more than one in three Americans who say they don’t know what she stands for, Ms Harris spoke of being brought up by her late immigrant Indian mother Shymala Harris, who raised her in Canada.
“America, the path that led me here in recent weeks was no doubt unexpected. But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys. My mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, travelling from India to California with an unshakeable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer.
She said her mother taught her ‘never to complain about injustice, “but do something about it”.
Ms Harris spoke of how she was inspired to become a prosecutor when her friend Wanda confided that she had been sexually abused by her stepfather.
She spoke of how as a prosecutor she stood up for women and children against predators who abused them and for the rights of workers, veterans and seniors who were being exploited.
Ms Harris used her speech to focus on abortion rights, attacking Mr Trump for his pride at picking Supreme Court judges who overturned Roe v Wade, claiming he would work to effectively ban abortion across the country, a claim Mr Trump has denied. “He is not done: he and his allies would limit access to birth control. and enact nationwide abortion bans with or without congress …. they are out of their minds,” she said.
She promised that as president she would sign legislation to protect abortion rights.
Ms Harris, who has been criticised for her role in allowing millions of undocumented immigrants to flood over the border, vowed to be tough on border security, saying she would seek to pass the bipartisan border security bill that congress ultimately rejected at Mr Trump’s urging this year.
Mr Harris’s speech crowned a four-day convention that underlined how the party had embraced her candidacy after the withdrawal of 81-year-old Mr Biden.
Almost every senior Democrat figure including the Obamas and the Clintons spoke in Chicago, giving strong endorsements of Ms Harris and launching fierce attacks on Mr Trump and his record.
The convention is likely to prolong Ms Harris’ political honeymoon, which has seen her campaign go from strength to strength, having started as the underdog just a month ago. It caps off a stunning ascent for the former Senator from California who dropped out of the Democratic Party’s 2020 primaries before they began before serving an unremarkable term as Vice-President.
Ms Harris’s elevation to the top of the Democrat ticket has halved Mr Trump’s lead in strongly Republican Texas, the second largest US state by population, according to a poll published earlier in the day. Mr Trump commanded 50 per cent support in the state compared with Ms Harris’s 45 per cent, half the lead the Republican enjoyed when Mr Biden was the candidate. The poll reflected others that showed Ms Harris’s national lead over Trump had risen steadily to 47-44, according to the latest average compiled by FiveThirtyEight.
Other prominent Democrats to speak on the final night included former congresswomen and gun violence victim Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona senator Mark Kelly and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
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