CHICAGO-Vice President Kamala Harris, stepping out of the shadow of outgoing President Joe Biden, presented her first arguments to the American public as to why she should be elected the next President of the United States.
To thunderous applause on August 22 at the United Center at the conclusion of the four-day Democratic National Convention (DNC), the former Attorney General of California contrasted her social and legislative career with that of former President Donald Trump, against whom she will run in the general election on November 5.
She called on Democrats to unite voters behind her and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and promised to end the division she blamed solely on Trump.
With this election, she said, “our nation has a precious, fleeting chance to put the bitterness, cynicism and divisive struggles of the past behind us and forge a new path forward. Not as members of a party or faction, but as Americans.”
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She promised to put the country above party and personal interests and to adhere to the “rule of law.”
Ms Harris acknowledged that becoming the party’s nominee was “unlikely” given President Biden’s recent decision not to seek re-election. She has had a month to prepare for her new role, navigate the challenges of uniting the party behind her and introducing herself to an American public that barely knows her. She couched her 35-minute speech in reflections on growing up under a strong-willed, divorced mother, but ended the speech by trying to portray herself as a forceful commander in chief, ready to take on enemies and defend friends.
Her mother immigrated from India, her father from Jamaica. They instilled in her qualities such as faith, respect, compassion and the principle of not complaining about injustice, but simply doing something about it, she recalls.
She became a prosecutor primarily because her best friend was being sexually harassed by her stepfather at school. She asked her friend to live with them.
“As a prosecutor, when I had a case, I did not prosecute on behalf of the victim, but on behalf of the people. In our legal system, harm done to one of us is harm done to all of us,” she said.
Harris’s path to the White House took her through the courtrooms of America. She served as assistant district attorney, city attorney, district attorney and attorney general before being elected Senator from California.
She ran a failed campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2019, but was chosen by the winner of the election, Joe Biden, as his running mate. Ms Harris won the most votes as vice president in a balanced Senate. In her current presidential campaign, Mr Trump has attacked her for her mismanagement of immigration.
Ms Harris told the crowd that Trump had forced Republican lawmakers to withdraw their support for bipartisan immigration legislation so that Democrats could not win their campaign.
“I refuse to play politics with our security,” she said. “As president, I will reintroduce and sign the bipartisan border security bill he vetoed. I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system.”
On the thorny issue of the war between Hamas and Israel, she pledged to defend Israel and called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages. She said the “scale of Palestinian suffering is heartbreaking” and vowed never to bow to “tyrants and dictators.” Mr. Trump would not hold autocrats to account because “he wants to be an autocrat himself,” she said.
“As president, I will never slacken in defending America’s security and ideals, because in the ongoing struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs,” she said.
Spirit of 1968
But further criticism was voiced as the congress continued.
The group Muslim Women for Harris withdrew its support for Ms. Harris and disbanded, citing disappointment with the Harris-Walz campaign, which rejected a request from the Uncommitted Movement to allow a Palestinian American to speak at the convention, even as the campaign allowed the family of an Israeli hostage to speak, which Muslim Women for Harris supported.
The Uncommitted Movement consists of delegates from Michigan who refused to support Biden in the primaries.
“Given this new information … that Vice President Harris’ team has denied her request to bring a Palestinian-American speaker to the DNC stage, we cannot in good conscience continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz,” the group’s statement said.
Memories of the 1968 “police riots” loomed over the DNC gathering, when police clashed with Vietnam War protesters in Chicago. The period leading up to that convention was not unlike that of 2024: There was a Democratic president who would not seek re-election, an unpopular war raged, and there were assassination attempts on prominent politicians this year. (There was an assassination attempt on Mr. Trump in July.)
Thousands of demonstrators protesting the war between Hamas and Israel every day of the congress were met with an overwhelming police presence, numerous road closures and heavy security fences. However, very few incidents occurred. (see also the corresponding report)
Convention delegates met daily at the McCormick Place Convention Center for workshops and training sessions that included youth forums, the GOP’s Project 2025 agenda, winning over black voters and solutions to the housing crisis.
Protecting reproductive rights was a central theme in workshops, in the hallways, and on the main stage. Victims of sexual abuse, human trafficking, and other reproductive rights issues spoke to the audience and shared their stories.
In a workshop, Rev. Shavon Bradley, president and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women, said she has suffered three miscarriages. The attack on reproductive rights is “a deliberate investment in reproductive justice that has nothing to do with justice, but with an overstepping of the Constitution,” she said. Even the church has “an issue” for black people to focus on one thing (abortion) and distract them from the entire process of what reproductive rights are actually about.
“When I talk about reproductive rights, I think of people who have lost children without help. I have three degrees and it hasn’t helped. This is more than a problem,” she said.
At McCormick Place, Kenton Barnes, a US citizen who has lived in Germany for 22 years, says he scratches his head when he sees what is going on in America.
The professor of English and African-American studies at a German university criticized the violence in America, the high cost of education and the political unrest. He is chairman of Democrats Abroad-Germany and is responsible for gathering information as well as for contacting, informing and encouraging US citizens abroad to vote.
Germany has no problem with gun violence, education and other social programs are free, there are good workers’ rights and universal health care.
“I see the need to dispel the hatred and unnecessary problems between the states,” he said. “Republicans seem to believe that if blacks get something, (whites) give up something to be successful. That’s not true. Germans are nervous about what a Trump administration would mean,” he said.
Antwaun Jackson, a 21-year-old Langton University student and Oklahoma delegate, is concerned about access to education, high tuition fees and better student loans.
“They say Harris doesn’t propose policy, but she offers more policy than the opposition. We’ve heard her policies on climate change, foreign policy, education, reproductive freedoms and health care. The opposition doesn’t talk about policy at all,” Jackson said.
The NAACP has issued its own agenda, “Project 2025,” in response to the GOP’s 900-plus-page policy paper, Dominic Hawkins, the organization’s vice president of communications, told The Final Call. The NAACP’s document includes efforts to increase diversity in the workforce, protect the right to be taught black history, expand broadband internet in underserved communities and other goals.
The NAACP recently wrote a letter to the Justice Department calling for an investigation into Georgia’s online voter registration purges…which allow individuals to purge another person’s voter registration without their knowledge through a few simple clicks on the Secretary of State’s website, he said.
A who’s who meeting
Numerous political heavyweights and prominent entertainers streamed through the halls and across the stage of the United Center. Among them were Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack and Michelle Obama. Members of the Central Park 5, now known as the Exonerated 5 – black men who were falsely accused of rape and whose execution Trump called for – gave speeches.
The event also served as a “Thank You, Joe” event, praising President Biden for agreeing to end his candidacy after the disappointing national debate with Mr Trump.
“I adore this office, but I love my country more,” Biden told a roaring crowd. “So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation.”
“I know there was a time and a place for long-standing experience in public life. There is also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”
In a rare show of “patriotic unity,” members of the Republican Party attended the convention and supported the Harris-Walz consortium, with the harshest criticism coming from former Republican congressman from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger.
“Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He is a treacherous man pretending to be righteous. He is an abuser who can’t stop playing the victim,” he said.
He described his participation in the convention as an “uncomfortable alliance” and said: “I have learned something about the Democratic Party and I want to let my Republican colleagues in on this secret: Democrats are just as patriotic as we are. And they are just as eager to defend American values at home and abroad as we conservatives have ever been.”
Republican veterans and police officers, some of whom suffered in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, also attended the convention and supported the Harris-Walz ticket.
