CHICAGO—Vice President Kamala Harris, emerging from the shadow of outgoing President Joe Biden, presented her opening argument to the American public for why she should be elected the next president of the United States.
To a rousing standing ovation at the United Center on Aug. 22, concluding a four-day Democratic National Convention (DNC), the former California attorney general contrasted her social and legislative history with that of former president Donald Trump, whom she will face in the Nov. 5 general election.
She called on Democrats to unite voters behind her and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and pledged to end the divisiveness she laid wholly on Mr. Trump.
With this election, she said, “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.”
She pledged to put the country above party or self-interests and to abide by the “rule of law.”
Ms. Harris acknowledged that being the party’s nominee was “unlikely,” as President Biden had only recently decided not to seek reelection. With a month to prepare for her new role, the challenges to unite the party behind her and to introduce herself to an American public who hardly know her, she couched her 35-minute speech in reflections of growing up under a strong-willed, divorced mom but ending the speech with an effort to show herself as a forceful commander-in-chief willing to take on enemies and defend friends.
Her mother immigrated from India, and her father from Jamaica. They instilled in her qualities of faith, respect, compassion, and not to complain about injustice—just do something about it, she recalled.
She became a prosecutor primarily because her best friend in school was being molested by her stepfather. She asked the friend to come live in their home.
“As a prosecutor, when I had a case, I charged it not in the name of the victim, but in the name of the people. In our system of justice, a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” she said.
Harris’s path to the White House has been through the courtrooms of America. She was an assistant district attorney, city attorney, district attorney, and attorney general before being elected Senator from California.
She ran a failed 2019 campaign to be the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party but was selected by campaign winner Joe Biden to be his running mate. Ms. Harris has cast the most tie-breaking votes in an evenly divided Senate as vice president. In her current campaign for the presidency, Mr. Trump has launched attacks on her for mishandling immigration.
Ms. Harris told the crowd that Trump forced Republican legislators to pull their support from a bipartisan immigration bill so Democrats would not have a victory in their election campaign.
“I refuse to play politics with our security,” she said. “As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law. 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 Hamas-Israel war, she pledged defense of Israel and called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages. She said the Palestinian “scale of suffering is heartbreaking” and vowed never to bow to “tyrants and dictators.” Mr. Trump would not hold autocrats accountable because “he wants to be an autocrat himself,” she said.
“As president, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs,” she said.
Ghost of 1968
But more criticism emerged even as the convention continued.
The group Muslim Women for Harris withdrew its endorsement of Ms. Harris and disbanded, citing disappointment with the Harris-Walz campaign which refused a request from the Uncommitted Movement to have a Palestinian American speak at the convention, even as the campaign permitted the family of an Israeli hostage to speak, which the Muslim Women for Harris supported.
The Uncommitted Movement are Michigan delegates who refused to endorse Biden in the primary.
“We cannot in good conscience continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, in light of this new information … that VP Harris’ team declined their request to have a Palestinian American speaker take the stage at the DNC,” the group’s statement reads.
The DNC gathering had the ghost of the 1968 “police riot” looming over them, a violent DNC clash in Chicago between police and Vietnam War protesters. Leadup to that convention was not unlike 2024: There was a democratic president who would not seek reelection, an unpopular war raged and there had been assassinations of prominent leaders that year. (There was an assassination attempt on Mr. Trump in July.)
An overwhelming law enforcement presence, numerous street closures and heavy security fencing greeted thousands of demonstrators who marched each day of the convention to protest the Hamas-Israel war. But very few incidents occurred. (see related story)
Convention delegates gathered daily at the McCormick Place Convention Center for workshops and trainings that included Youth Forums, the GOP Project 2025 Agenda, Win with Black Voters, and Solutions to the Housing Crisis, among many others.
Protecting reproductive rights was a major topic at workshops, in the hallways and from the main stage. Victims of sexual abuse, trafficking and other reproductive rights concerns spoke to audiences with their stories.
In a workshop, Rev. Shavon Bradley, president and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women, said she suffered three miscarriages. The assault on reproductive rights is “an intentional investment in reproductive justice that has nothing to do with justice, but with constitutional overreach,” she said. Even the church has “one-issued” Black people to focus on one thing (abortion) and distract them from the entire process, which is what reproductive rights is all about.
“When I talk about reproductive rights, I think about people who lost children with no help. I’ve got three degrees, and it didn’t matter. This is bigger than one issue,” she said.
Inside the McCormick Place, Kenton Barnes, a U.S. citizen living in Germany the past 22 years, said he’s scratches his head when he sees what’s going on in America.
The professor of English and African American studies at a German college questioned the violence in America, the high cost of education and the political turmoil. He is chairman of Democrats Abroad-Germany, responsible to take information back and to contact, inform and encourage U.S. citizens abroad to vote.
Germany doesn’t have a gun violence problem, and education and other social programs are free, there are good labor rights, and there’s universal healthcare.
“I see a need to dispel the hate and unnecessary problems with each other in the States,” he said. “The GOP seems to have a notion that if Blacks get something to achieve success, that [Whites] are giving up something. That’s not true. Germans are nervous about what a Trump administration would mean,” he said.
Langton University student and Oklahoma delegate Antwaun Jackson, 21, is concerned about access to education, high tuition bills and better student loans.
“They say Harris isn’t putting forth policy, but she’s offering more policy than the opposition. We’ve heard her policy on climate change, foreign policy, education, reproductive freedoms, and healthcare. The opposition isn’t talking about policy at all,” Mr. Jackson said.
The NAACP issued its own project 2025 agenda in response to the GOP’s 900-plus page policy document, 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 teach Black history, expand broadband internet to underserved communities and other objectives.
The NAACP recently wrote a letter to the Department of Justice calling for an investigation into Georgia’s online voter registration removals … which allows individuals to cancel someone else’s voter registration without their knowledge through a few simple clicks on the secretary of state’s website, he said.
A who’s who gathering
A host of political heavyweights and celebrity entertainers walked the halls and stage at 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 falsely accused of rape and of whom Mr. Trump called for their execution—gave remarks.
The event also served as a “Thank you, Joe” event, lauding President Biden for agreeing to end his candidacy following his disappointing national debate with Mr. Trump.
“I revere this office, but I love my country more,” Mr. Biden told a roaring crowd. “So, I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation.
“I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”
In a rare demonstration of “patriotic unity,” members of the Republican Party attended the convention and endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket, the most stinging critique coming from former Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger.
“Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim,” he said.
Calling his presence at the convention an “awkward alliance,” he said, “I’ve learned something about the Democratic Party, and I want to let my fellow Republicans in on the secret: The Democrats are as patriotic as us. And they are as eager to defend American values at home and abroad as we conservatives have ever been.”
Republican veterans and law enforcement officials, some of whom suffered through the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, also participated in the convention and endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket.
