{"id":31284,"date":"2024-08-23T03:52:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T08:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=31284"},"modified":"2024-08-23T03:58:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T08:58:41","slug":"5-takeaways-from-kamala-harriss-dnc-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=31284","title":{"rendered":"5 takeaways from Kamala Harris\u2019s DNC speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHICAGO \u2014 Vice President Harris\u2002<\/u><\/a>accepted the Democratic nomination<\/u><\/a> here on Thursday with a speech wrapped in an intense tone of patriotism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she also took the fight<\/u><\/a> to former President Trump in pugnacious style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris has arrived at this point after an extraordinary sequence of events ignited by President Biden\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>disastrous June 27 debate with Trump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Biden announced on July 21 that he would abandon his bid for a second term, Harris has been transformed from a vice president with tepid approval ratings and an uncertain future to the narrow frontrunner in a race that could make her the first female president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vice president delivered a speech just short of 40 minutes\u2019 duration to a United Center packed to the rafters with cheering Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the main takeaways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fervent embrace of patriotism<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no surprise that a nominee\u2019s acceptance speech would sound some ritualized patriotic notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Harris went far further than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She cast her bid for the presidency as an effort to spark new hope and unity within the nation, and to bring increased respect for the U.S. in the wider world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see a nation that is ready to move forward, ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America,\u201d she said toward the conclusion of her speech. \u201cI see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation and inspired the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris critics would argue there\u2019s a narcissism in casting one\u2019s own quest for election in such sweeping terms. But the vice president is plainly trying to build a campaign that leans on inspiration \u2014 something which was in rather short supply with Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris at the same time cast Trump and his allies as fundamentally unpatriotic because of their propensity to focus on what they see as the nation\u2019s flaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her opponents, Harris said, were constantly \u201cdenigrating America, talking about how terrible everything is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the lines of the speech, the appeal to patriotism also looked like an attempt to defend Harris against attempts to \u201cotherize\u201d her \u2014 a Black woman of South Asian descent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time will tell whether she succeeds in driving back those attacks. But she made a strong effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris leans on the power of biography<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The election will likely be decided by a small sliver of undecided voters \u2014 and it seems fair to assume that many of them have not yet developed a fixed opinion of Harris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite her serving as vice president for almost four years \u2014 and in the Senate before that \u2014 many Americans went into Thursday unfamiliar with the granular details of her background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris sought to assuage that curiosity in some of the speech\u2019s most vivid passages, which dealt with her family and upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She recalled \u201ca home filled with laughter and music \u2014 Aretha, Coltrane and Miles.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She talked fondly of her early life in \u201ca beautiful, working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses and construction workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most movingly of all, perhaps, she recalled her mother as \u201ca brilliant, five-foot tall Brown woman with an accent\u201d and immediately added that \u201cas a child, I saw how the world would sometimes treat her. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris also cast her early career as a prosecutor as stemming from a troubling moment in adolescence when a friend, Wanda, said she was being sexually abused by her stepfather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris said she would later go into law \u201cto protect people like Wanda\u2026Everyone has a right to safety, to dignity and to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throwing hard punches at Trump<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we fight we win\u201d has become one of the slogans of Harris\u2019s campaign \u2014 and of this convention. The vice president threw some sharp punches on Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of the strongest soundbites, Harris called Trump \u201can unserious man\u201d but warned that the \u201cconsequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She spoke starkly about Trump\u2019s behavior in and around Jan. 6, 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She characterized his false claims of election fraud as an effort \u201cto throw away your votes.\u201d She added that, as the riot was going on, \u201cwhen politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were also more implicit, but clear, jabs at Trump as when she promised, of veterans, to \u201cnever disparage their service and their sacrifice\u201d or when she pledged to \u201cput country above party and self\u201d and to abide by \u201cthe peaceful transfer of power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as saliently, Harris alleged that Trump would go even further if elected to a second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,\u201d she warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passion but no change of policy on Gaza<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The question of Israel and the Palestinians is by far the most divisive within a Democratic Party that is otherwise ardent about uniting behind Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protests here did not reach either the scale or level of disorder that some had anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris addressed the issue in her speech with passion \u2014 but no notable change in policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said it was time to get a hostage deal and launched into a vigorous defense of Israel\u2019s right to defend itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She insisted that \u201cthe people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She then segued into an acknowledgement that \u201cwhat has happened in Gaza\u201d \u2014 the killing of more than 40,000 people, according to local health authorities \u2014 \u201cis devastating.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She called the suffering \u201cheartbreaking\u201d and said that she hoped for a day when the Palestinian people would be able to recognize their right to \u201cself-determination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be a dissatisfying response for the activists who are most outraged about the Biden administration\u2019s support for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Harris is betting that she will lose few votes in that regard in the end \u2014 and that any failure to defend Israel could carry worse electoral consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressing the point on abortion, playing defense on immigration<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many Democrats expect abortion to be their single strongest issue in this year\u2019s campaign. Republicans counter that immigration is the Democrats\u2019 biggest vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was no surprise, then, that Harris leaned in hard on the former, and sought to ameliorate the political danger on the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting some of the effects of the striking down of Roe v. Wade, she went on to insist that a second Trump term would enable the former president and his allies to \u201climit access to birth control, ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion ban.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it came to immigration, she noted Trump\u2019s central role in thwarting a bipartisan border deal that had been proposed earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She insisted she recognized the importance of securing the border and suggested there was a need to \u201creform our broken immigration system.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics will say such promises are platitudinous. And Republicans believe the political vulnerably to Harris will remain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she at least made her case with vigor and tried to drive Trump back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 Vice President Harris\u2002accepted the Democratic nomination here on Thursday with a speech wrapped in an intense tone of patriotism.  But she also took the fight to former President Trump in pugnacious style. Harris has arrived at this point after an extraordinary sequence of events ignited by President Biden\u2019s\u2002disastrous June 27 debate with Trump.  Since Biden announced on July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30178,2302,23024,1489,4712],"class_list":["post-31284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-democratic-nomination","tag-harris","tag-highlights","tag-speech","tag-vice-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31286,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31284\/revisions\/31286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}