Kamala Harris’ Ellipse speech pushed back against ‘Trump’s division’

Kamala Harris’ closing campaign speech at the Ellipse on Tuesday night was a mirror image of the January 6, 2021, Ellipse rally that Donald Trump incited into a violent riot. While Trump’s remarks fueled distrust and even hatred of the democratic process, Harris’ speech sought to convince skeptical Americans that democracy is still a system worth protecting.

“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other,” Harris told a crowd. estimated at over 75,000 followers which stretched from the Ellipse to the grounds of the Washington Monument. “I’m here tonight to say: That’s not who we are.”

That could be said as much about the fragile state of American democracy as about Harris throwing up a race against Trump. Harris vowed to carve out “another path” from Trump’s division, pledging to “seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better.”

Harris’ remarks also offered a not-so-subtle throwback to 2020 and 2022, when President Joe Biden decided — against the advice of consultants and experts — to focus his closing arguments on the importance of protecting democracy from authoritarian threats. Biden knew better than the commentators, and his decision to emphasize democracy staved off Trump in 2020 and the mythical red wave in 2022. Now Harris hopes some of that magic rubs off on her own campaign.

It seems that there is reason for such hope. This week’s New York Times/Siena College poll found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans feel democracy is threatened. Nor are voters mistaken about where the threat is coming from. As a growing number of his former government officials and military leaders has made clear in recent weeks, Trump poses a clear and present danger to our nation’s most fundamental democratic safeguards.

There are plenty of voters who disagree with Harris’ reverence for democracy. One of them, former Trump aide Steve Bannon, was released from federal prison on Tuesday after serving a four-month sentence for refusing to cooperate with the official investigation into the Jan. 6 attacks. One of Bannon’s first acts as a free man was to urge Trump to prematurely declare victory next Tuesday in an attempt to undermine public faith in the vote-counting effort.

Others are more direct. House Freedom Caucus leader Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., made headlines last week when he shot down the idea of ​​simply giving North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes to Trump before the results are counted. Harris’ reasoning was that Trump would probably win the state anyway, so why even bother with the hassles of democracy? The outrageous proposal elicited barely a peep of protest from Trump’s lapdog, Republican lawmakers.

But Harris did not limit himself to a high-minded defense of democracy. After months of Trump tailing Democrats on the economy, she took the fight to the GOP with a forceful explanation of how four years of a “Trump sales tax” would be disastrous for people’s bank accounts.

Harris hammered Trump on trade, pointing out that his tariff policy would amount to “a 20% national sales tax on everything you buy that’s imported. Clothes, food, toys, cell phones, a Trump sales tax that would cost the average family almost $4,000 more a year.”

The high-priority focus on the economy in Harris’ remarks is an acknowledgment that many swing voters increasingly trust Trump on economic matters. But Harris also took the opportunity to press one of Trump’s economic weak points: the continued popularity of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

“You’ll pay even more if Donald Trump finally gets his way and repeals the Affordable Care Act, which will throw tens of millions of Americans off their health insurance and take us back to when insurers had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions,” said Harris to cheers. “Well, we’re not going back.”

Abortion rights loomed large in Harris’ speech, as they have throughout this campaign — the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. “I believe in the fundamental freedom of Americans to make decisions about their own bodies,” Harris said. “I will fight to restore what Donald Trump and his handpicked Supreme Court justices took from the women of America.”

More than that, Harris said, America’s democracy is inextricably linked to its healthy economy and thriving people. She argued that it requires accepting the future Trump proposes destroying America’s economy and trample on basic human rights. Harris hailed that idea in his closing moments, urging Americans to unite in “our pursuit of freedom, our belief in justice and decency, and our belief in a better future.”

In just one week, voters across the country will have the opportunity to decide what future they want for their country and for themselves. Tonight, Harris made that choice clear.