Harris prosecutes Trump in a fierce acceptance speech at Democratic convention | Opinion
Kamala Harris answered one question Thursday night: she can throw the hard stuff.
In 38 minutes of the Democratic convention, she set a tone of not backing down from Donald Trump, whose signature move is to try to intimidate his way through campaigns.
Strategically, the vice president and onetime California attorney general started off with the traditional thank-yous and backstory about growing up in a middle-class home in California, getting an education, and becoming a lawyer and prosecutor.
Then, she pivoted hard and set up the packed-to-overflowing United Center in Chicago as a virtual courtroom, with herself as prosecutor, putting Trump on trial for the chaos of his presidency and what came after, starting with the Jan. 6, 2021 raid on the U.S. Capitol by Trump loyalists.
“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she said. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”
“In the 2020 election, Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes,” Harris said. “When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite. He fanned the flames.
“Consider if we give him power again. Consider his explicit attempt to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol; his explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents, an anyone he sees as the enemy; his explicit intent to deploy active-duty military against our own citizens.”
It was a powerful attack and a strong signal that win or lose, Trump’s going to know he’s been in a fight.
The indictment continued, dipping back into Trump’s presidency.
“We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare,” she said.
“We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with preexisting conditions.”
She blasted Trump for squelching a bipartisan deal to secure the border because if immigration is better controlled, it would hurt his campaign. Ditto for hand-picking Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, creating a patchwork of abortion laws across the country and sowing chaos among doctors, who are afraid to treat women’s issues in fertility and pregnancy for fear of being jailed for illegal abortions.
Throughout this week’s Democratic National Convention, the keyword has been “joy.”
It turns out that for the Democrats, the biggest joy is having a presidential candidate who isn’t afraid to throw the high hard one at Trump’s head.
“She’s a prosecutor and she’s going to prosecute her case,” said Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee as he exited the arena. “We get our joy back in this country by ridding ourselves of this potential disaster of Donald Trump. There has to be joy in the fight. But tonight, she gave us the purpose of the fight. The way we conduct the fight is going to be joyful.”
It was the most important speech of Harris’ political career.
And it will remain that way for the next 3 1/2 weeks, until Sept. 10 when she’ll face Donald Trump one-on-one in their first campaign debate. In the Sept. 10 debate, and another yet to be scheduled, Harris doesn’t just have to be good; she has to be perfect.
After the last nine years of American politics, the country has basically become numb to Trump’s bizarre statements and prevarications — which are generally written off as just Trump being Trump.
Meanwhile, Harris got momentarily tongue-tied in a speech about her economic plan last week and wound up saying she’d fight “price gauging” instead of “price gouging.” Talk radio and right-wing media immediately pounced, proclaimed it a campaign trail “gaffe.” Forbes Breaking New posted the video to its 3.4 million YouTube subscribers.
Double standard? Absolutely.
On Thursday, Prosecutor Harris caught the jury’s attention. The verdict comes in November.
This story was originally published August 22, 2024 at 10:08 PM with the headline "Harris prosecutes Trump in a fierce acceptance speech at Democratic convention | Opinion."
