Pitch-perfect

Harris set the terms of the debate, making the race about more than just Democrat versus Republican.

Kamala Harris delivered a pitch-perfect speech last night that defined her candidacy, set the terms of the debate, and invited all Americans into her campaign. Journalist (and Duke grad) John Harwood summed up the speech. “Trump has taken Republicans so far off the deep end as to leave the American mainstream wide open. Harris and Democrats spent this effective convention claiming it - on broadly-shared values, on decency, on love of country.”

The past month has been among the most amazing in modern American politics. An incumbent president dropped his campaign to be replaced by a vice-president that many believed lacked the political skills to unite the party. Instead, she secured the support of both the establishment and the base in about a week. Within a month, she raised $500 million dollars, almost as much as previous presidential races raised during an entire cycle. The four-day convention revealed a well-organized, focused campaign with a message of inclusion and a stark contrast to Trump and his dark vision for America.

It’s that light that matters most. Trump keeps telling us that we are a failing country. Millions of criminals and terrorists are crossing the border to invade our communities and homes. Millions of Americans are falling into poverty—70%, he told Fox News last night—and the American Dream is fading away. He’s peddling fear to drive voters to his campaign.

Harris is offering the country hope. She focuses on our strength, talks about helping our neighbors, creating opportunity, and calling us the “greatest country in the world.” She reminds us that the United States is a place where people bring their dreams and build successful lives. Her mother was one of those people and she told us that story, using the lexicon of the American experience. In her reckoning, our future is still bright, our nation still a beacon.

The speech was refreshing. Trump’s whole schtick is beating imaginary demons hiding around every corner. Biden’s campaign obsessively warned us about about Trump. Harris told us we can move beyond all of that darkness by uniting around our common values and embracing our diversity as our strength. It was a message of an optimism.

She didn’t hold back, though, when talking about Trump and the Republicans. She told us to imagine Trump “with no guardrails” now that the Supreme Court has guaranteed presidential immunity for almost all actions. She attacked them for their Project 2025 which would end abortion, cut Social Security and Medicare, and eliminate the Department of Education, among other things. Harris let us know that the threat is real, but she also asked, “Are they crazy?,” making them unserious instead of scary.

Democrats strategically made the convention about more than just us-against-them rhetoric. Every night of the convention, they gave speaking time to Republicans who are supporting Harris. They defined the stakes of the race, making Trump to be more than just a threat to democracy, but to the very soul of the nation itself. They built a permission structure for conservatives to vote against Donald Trump, not necessarily for Kamala Harris. If they hope to again have a party that looks like the one Ronald Reagan built, they have to remove the parasitic growth of right-wing populism that’s sucking the life blood out of the GOP.

Harris reinforced that notion that this race is about the soul and future of our country. She wants to turn the page on the dark days that have defined the country since the Tea Party spawned birtherism and a wave of right-populism. She wants a country for all of us and is the personification of the belief that diversity is our strength. We are a great nation because we can overcome differences of race, religion, sexuality, whatever. We have a path forward and it’s brighter than the dark times in which we’ve been living. That’s a message for all Americans, not just Democrats.