In front of a raucous and rapt Democratic National Convention Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the party’s nomination for president.
“We gotta get to some business,” she said while the crowd was still shouting and cheering. “Let’s get to business.”
The first business was honoring and thanking President Joe Biden.
“When I think about the path that we have traveled together, Joe, I am filled with gratitude,” Harris said. “Your record is extraordinary, as history will show, and your character is inspiring, and Doug and I love you and Jill and are forever thankful to you both,” she added.
“America, the path that led me here in recent weeks was no doubt unexpected. But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys,” Harris said. That journey, she said, started with her mother Shyamala.
“My mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California with an unshakeable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer,” Harris said. She explained that her mother raised her in “a beautiful working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all who tended their lawns with pride.”
“She taught us to never complain about injustice but do something about it,” she said about her mother. “And never do anything half-assed. And that is a direct quote!”
Harris’ introduction to public service, to helping people, came when she was in high school.
“I started to notice something about my best friend, Wanda. She was sad at school. And there were times she didn’t want to go home,” she said. Wanda didn’t want to go home, she explained, because she was being sexually abused by her step-father.
“I immediately told her she had to come stay with us. And she did,” Harris continued.
“That is one of the reasons I became a prosecutor. To protect people like Wanda. Because I believe everyone has a right to safety, to dignity, and to justice.”
The rest is history. After gaining degrees from Howard University and the University of California College of the Law, she started her law career and rose up as a county and city prosecutor to being elected as San Francisco’s district attorney, then the state’s attorney general, and finally U.S. senator.
As a prosecutor, she said, she had one guiding principle. “In our system of justice, a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” she said. “No one should be made to fight alone. We are all in this together.”
In my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people. So on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender, or the language your grandmother speaks, on behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey, on behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with, people who work hard, chase their dreams, and look out for one another, on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.
With this election, 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.
“I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know: I promise to be a president for all Americans,” Harris continued. “You can always trust me to put country above party and self.”
“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations,” she said. “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.”
Harris related some of the biggest fights for the people of her career. “These fights were not easy, and neither were the elections that put me in those offices. We were underestimated at practically every turn. But we never gave up because the future is always worth fighting for.”
“And that’s the fight we are in right now—a fight for America’s future.”
Her opponent, Harris said, “is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious…. Consider not only the chaos and the calamity of when he was in office.”
When he was out of office, “Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol where they assaulted law enforcement officers.”
“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,” Harris said. “Consider what he intends to do if we give him power again.”
“Consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”
But “we are not going back,” she and the crowd changed. “We are charting a new way forward,” Harris said. “Forward to a future with a strong and growing middle class because we know a strong middle class has always been critical to America’s success, and building that middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.”
“I believe American cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives, especially on matters of heart and home,” Harris continued. “But tonight in America, too many women are not able to make those decisions. And let’s be clear about how we got here.”
We got here because of Donald Trump and his Supreme Court appointees, Harris said.
“And now he brags about it. 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,” she said.
“One must ask, why exactly is it that they don’t trust women?” she continued. “Well, we trust women. We trust women.”
Democrats, she said, also trust voters and will restore those rights. “With this election, we finally have the opportunity to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.”
Speaking about national security, Harris gave full-throated support to Ukraine, and to the strength of the NATO alliance. “I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un who are rooting for Trump—who are rooting for Trump!—because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors.”
“Fellow Americans,” Harris went on, “I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go—in everyone I meet—I see a nation 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 has to fail for all of us to succeed. And that in unity, there is strength.
Another lesson from her mother: “Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are. 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 must be worthy of this moment. It is our turn … to fight for this country we love.” To fight for the “privilege and pride that comes with being an American.”
