‘Kamala for the people’: Harris seals nomination

“My entire career, I have only had one client — the people,” Kamala Devi Harris said on Thursday night, as she ceremonially accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination to be its presidential candidate for the 2024 election, while accusing her rival, Republican nominee Donald Trump, of serving only one client all his life — himself.

In the most important speech of her political life, Harris sought to build on this message of having served the people, while portraying Trump as being invested in power only for his sake to win over voters in what she termed the most important election of their lives. Harris told Americans her life story, traced her career and convictions, showcased her record in office, offered dark warnings against the serious implications of the return of Trump — “an unserious man... imagine a Trump without guardrails” — on the country and the world, and framed the election as an opportunity to move beyond divisions and craft unity.

“On behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother, and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with — people who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America,” Harris said, in the final speech of the four-day Democratic convention that has revitalised the party and given it a fair shot of regaining the White House in what remains a close election.

Harris began her speech by acknowledging the elephant in the room, for her candidacy has been a last-minute change from that of Joe Biden, but linked it to her own life story. “The path that led me here in recent weeks was, no doubt, unexpected. But I am no stranger to unlikely journeys. So, my mother, our mother, Shyamala Harris, had one of her own... my mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, travelling from India to California with an unshakable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer.” Harris spoke about how her mother and Jamaican father met during the civil rights movement, their early years of marriage and togetherness, how her mother raised her after her parents split, and the family — not of blood, but of love — which raised her in a working-class neighbourhood in East Bay in California.

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In what appeared to be an attempt to separate Trump, the political figure, from Trump’s voters, Harris reached out across the aisle. “I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.” Trump, after refusing to accept the legitimacy of the last election, sought to block the peaceful transfer of power and incited a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol, a point that Harris focused on later in her speech.

Harris warned America of what was in store if Trump won. “Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol. His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens. Consider, consider the power he will have, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States.”

She also referred to Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation far-right blueprint for a future Trump administration that Trump has distanced himself from but Democrats insist remains his agenda for office. “We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools. We are not going to let him end programmes like Head Start that provide preschool and child care for our children. America, we are not going back,” Harris said, as the crowd chanted with her, “We are not going back”.

But after attacking Trump, Harris pivoted to offering her own agenda, albeit in broad terms, and said building the middle class would be a defining goal of her presidency.

“We will create what I call an opportunity economy, an opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed. Whether you live in a rural area, small town, or big city,” Harris said. She pledged to bring labour and workers and small-business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs, to grow the economy, to lower the cost of everyday needs like healthcare and housing and groceries, to provide access to capital for small-business owners and entrepreneurs and founders, to end America’s housing shortage, and to protect Social Security and Medicare.

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A key focus of Harris’s speech was reproductive freedom, an area which has galvanised women voters and she has led the charge against the Supreme Court verdict to roll back the national protection to abortion. “America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives, especially on matters of heart and home”. Accusing Trump of planning to ban abortion nationwide and even appoint an anti-abortion coordinator to track women with miscarriages, Harris said, “They are out of their minds. And one must ask — one must ask, why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well, we trust women. We trust women. And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.”

Many women in the arena were dressed in white, a symbol of the suffragist movement. The floor was a sea of blue signs that read Kamala. The delegates appeared ecstatic and held on to each word, repeatedly breaking into applause and chanting the lines that have become the staple of the campaign: “When we fight, we win; we will not go back”.

HT was on the convention floor in Chicago’s United Center arena, packed with over 20,000 people. A woman delegate said Harris on the stage “gave her goosebumps”. A Black delegate watched and said this was “history”. An Indian American delegate said that never had he thought that he would see a moment like this in American national politics. A young man chanted “USA, USA”, waving the national flag. A California delegate from Harris’s home state teared up, while Wisconsin and Illinois delegates roared when Harris referred to her brief childhood stays in the two states.

Harris’s neatly structured 35-minute speech, delivered incidentally on what was also her tenth wedding anniversary, was a striking contrast from Trump’s 93-minute acceptance speech in Milwaukee last month at the Republican convention. An eye on the teleprompter at the back on both occasions showed that Harris faithfully stuck to her script, while Trump departed frequently from his own script and meandered, losing the attention of his audience.

Harris’s appearance was preceded by her nieces and grandnieces who vouched for her personal empathy and love; by former top national security officials who vouched for her commitment and capabilities; by top state governors who vouched for her experience; by progressives who vouched for her integrity and willingness to take on big corporations; by immigrant celebrity figures who saw in her their story; and by her sister, Maya, who offered to the audience a sketch of their lives with their mother from India, and vouched for her big sister’s character and courage. Over the past three days, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton — all living Democratic presidents, barring the almost 100-year-old Jimmy Carter who was represented by his grandson — attended the convention to back Harris’s candidacy.

Responding to Harris’s speech, Trump, who called Fox and NewsMax television networks, said these were non-specific speeches that failed to address issues such as inflation, immigration (terming Harris as “border czar”), energy independence and asked that if Harris could do all that she said, why had she not done it in the past three years and why does she not do it in the remaining five months of her term. He also called her a liar for linking him to Project 2025, a document he said he had nothing to do with.

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