Harris Makes History And Prosecutes Case Against Trump's Authoritarianism
In a consequential DNC speech, Kamala Harris laid out her hopeful vision for the future while warning of the threats posed by Donald Trump. It was effective, comprehensive, & undeniably presidential.
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Vice President Kamala Harris has made history.
In the most consequential speech of her political career, Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president, becoming the first Black and Asian American woman nominee for a major party in American history.
The stakes of this speech couldn’t have been higher, but Kamala Harris met the moment and exceeded expectations with boundless confidence.
Party convention nomination speeches have a few standard goals. Harris had to re-introduce herself to the American people, present herself in a way that ensures Americans can picture her as president and commander-in-chief, make the case against Donald Trump, and outline her own vision for the future.
In Harris’s specific case, her team also likely felt they had to refute some of the false right-wing efforts to paint her as a radical. The Trump Campaign even paid Twitter/X to sponsor a #ComradeKamala hashtag. So Harris also had to appeal to the progressives within her own party while also reaching out to Independent voters.
Kamala Harris nailed the speech, hitting every mark she needed to. She crushed it on style, substance, and sheer performance. She was downright presidential and far from the caricature the Trump Campaign has been presenting her as.
Throughout her speech, Kamala Harris exuded calm competence. The contrast with Donald Trump’s unhinged foolishness was as crystal clear as it has ever been.
Kamala Harris eloquently told her personal story, framing it as a quintessential American story. Harris then effectively prosecuted the case against Trump, directly calling out why he’s unfit for office and citing the specific authoritarian plans he aims to implement in his second term. Harris accomplished this all while balancing it perfectly with a depiction of her own vision for the future.
“Our nation, with this election, 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,” Vice President Harris said after accepting the nomination.
Kamala Harris was particularly powerful on foreign policy, promising to shore up our alliances and stand on the side of democracy. Harris also made sure to discuss her policies, showcasing common sense proposals that have wide appeal across the political spectrum. It apparently worked. An initial reaction to her speech among a Pennsylvania focus group of undecided voters run by CNN showed that she won over 6 of 8 of those voters.
Harris’s speech closed out a remarkably successful Democratic National Convention (DNC) that was defined by joy, hope, multiculturalism, and patriotism.
One of the noteworthy themes throughout the convention was the Democratic effort to reclaim patriotism. This has been a theme for years now, seen in their rhetoric, symbolism, and actions. Upholding the Constitution. Protecting freedoms. Safeguarding democracy against authoritarianism. Striving to make America live up to its ideals. These were the narratives that ran through the DNC. Modern Republican “leaders” oppose all of that. Democrats have proven that they embody it.
Kamala Harris’s speech was booming with pro-democracy patriotism with an eye toward the future. After watching it, I couldn’t help but feel like Harris’s candidacy might just bring about the historic, joyful end of the Trump era our democracy desperately needs and the start of something truly amazing.
Let’s dive into some of the specifics.
Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s Convention Speech
Her Story
Vice President Kamala Harris told the story of her upbringing. As the daughter of two immigrant parents, she grew up in a middle-class household and learned key values from her mother. Harris spoke about her career as a young district attorney and her record as California’s Attorney General. This first part of the speech culminated in what she wanted the audience to take away from her story:
“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens; who is realistic, practical and has common sense; and always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has been my life’s work.”
Then, she moved on to prosecute the case against Donald Trump.
Harris’s Case Against Trump
As someone whose primary journalistic focus over the past nine years has been warning about the extremism and authoritarianism of Donald Trump and the far-right movement he represents, I can say that Kamala Harris delivered one of the sharpest warnings about Trump’s authoritarianism I’ve ever seen from a leader.
This part of the speech was incredibly effective. In just four paragraphs delivered over 3 minutes, Kamala Harris expertly laid out Donald Trump’s past corruption and warned of his future authoritarian plans based on his own explicit promises. It was concise, straightforward, and necessary. I think it’s important to dissect that full moment here.
Harris began her case against Trump with this impactful line:
“Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”
There’s been a debate as to whether Democrats should frame Donald Trump as a mockable weirdo or an existential threat to democracy. In those three sentences, Kamala Harris found the perfect balance between the two.
Harris then went on to detail Trump’s past corruption, reminding Americans of exactly why he’s unfit for office:
“Consider not only the chaos and calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity of what has happened since he lost the last election. Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the U.S. 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. And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans, and separately found liable for committing sexual abuse.”
Americans needed to be explicitly reminded of Trump’s status as an insurrectionist, criminal, and abuser. Harris channeled her inner prosecutor and did that in a compelling way.
Next, Harris turned to Trump’s future plans:
“And consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol. His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens. Consider the power he will have, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States. Not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.
And we know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in Project 2025, written by his closest advisers. And its sum total is to pull our country back to the past. But America, we are not going back. [Crowd chants along.] We are not going back. We are not going back.”
That right there perfectly captured the threat Donald Trump poses to American democracy. The importance of Harris citing specific examples without hyperbole can’t be overstated.
Laying out Trump and Project 2025’s authoritarian plans and calling on Americans to imagine a Trump with no guardrails is exactly the right way to frame this threat. It’s what I’ve been trying to do for almost a year now (you can find all my Project 2025 articles and MSNBC appearances in this new section of my newsletter).
Warning about authoritarianism can sometimes feel like you’re screaming into the void, so to see the attention Project 2025 has gotten over the past few months and for the Democratic nominee to lay out the plans we’ve all been warning about, it’s just amazing.
Harris then went even further, citing more specific plans, zeroing in on abortion.
“Children who have survived sexual assault, potentially being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. This is what’s happening in our country because of Donald Trump. And understand, he is not done. As a part of his agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion ban, with or without Congress.
And get this. Get this. He plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator, and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are out of their minds. And one must ask, why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well, we trust women. We trust women.
And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.”
Those plans are explicitly outlined in Project 2025. I hope Kamala Harris’s warnings will move voters.
Common Sense Policies
Kamala Harris highlighted her plans to cut taxes for the middle class and contrasted it with Donald Trump’s plans to cut taxes for the rich. She repeated a phrase she’s been using often: opportunity economy.
“That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy, an opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed,” Harris proclaimed. “Whether you live in a rural area, small town, or big city. And as president, I will bring together labor and workers and small-business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs, to grow our economy and to lower the cost of everyday needs like health care and housing and groceries.”
Kamala Harris then made a practical promise, putting Trump’s tanking of the bipartisan border bill into focus:
“Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The border patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.
Well, I refuse to play politics with our security, and here is my pledge to you. As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law. I know — I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.”
Pro-Democracy Foreign Policy
Kamala Harris’s section on foreign policy was remarkably strong.
This one line from the speech encompassed her approach and plans to continue to safeguard democracy both at home and abroad:
“And 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.”
Harris also got specific, outlining how she will prioritize American dominance in its competition with China and in reaffirming our commitment to NATO and Ukraine:
“I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence. That America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership. Trump, on the other hand, threatened to abandon NATO. He encouraged Putin to invade our allies. Said Russia could ‘do whatever the hell they want.’
Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelensky to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade. I helped mobilize a global response — over 50 countries — to defend against Putin’s aggression. And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”
This is in contrast to the far-right stance, which has largely abandoned Ukraine in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump also spent his presidency seeking to weaken the NATO alliance.
Harris went on to draw another contrast to Trump and spotlight his authoritarianism, condemning his weird obsession with dictators:
“And know this: I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump.
Because, you know, they know — they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself.”
And on the Israel-Hamas war, which has been a contentious issue within the Democratic Party and fueled protests in Chicago outside the DNC, Kamala Harris laid out a vision in a way that pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups could find something to be happy with:
“With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a cease-fire deal done.
And let me be clear. And let me be clear. I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.
At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.
President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
Reclaiming Patriotism
Throughout the speech, Kamala Harris repeatedly spoke about how much she loves America. She tapped into patriotic themes like “freedom” and utilized rhetoric that we traditionally have seen from Republicans. Harris’s campaign song is literally “Freedom” by Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar for a reason.
In one part of the speech, Harris flipped the script on Republicans and further embodied freedom:
“In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake. The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities and places of worship. The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride.
The freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote. With this election, we finally have the opportunity to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.”
Harris is implicitly pointing out that Republicans are the ones targeting our freedoms while Democrats are seeking to protect them.
Then, she closed the speech out with a powerful proclamation, expressing love for America and calling for a new era of unity. I’ll leave you with her words, and I hope you are as fired up and inspired to take action as I am:
“So, fellow Americans. Fellow Americans. I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go in everyone I meet, I see a nation that is ready to move forward. Ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.
I see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation and inspired the world. That here, in this country, anything is possible. That nothing is out of reach. An America where we care for one another, look out for one another and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. That none of us — none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed.
…
America, let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for: Freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness and endless possibilities.
We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and our grandchildren and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment.
It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American. So let’s get out there, let’s fight for it. Let’s get out there, let’s vote for it, and together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.
Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.”
Thank you, Ahmed, for driving home the salient points of Kamala’s speech. I’m very glad you have a large platform to spread the word.