Kamala Harris' Ellipse Speech Pushed Back Against 'Trump's Division'

Kamala Harris' final campaign speech at the Ellipse on Tuesday night mirrored the Ellipse rally on January 6, 2021, which Donald Trump incited a violent insurrection. While Trump's comments 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 divide the American people and make them afraid of each other,” Harris told a crowd estimated at more than 75,000 supporters that stretched from the Ellipse to the grounds of the Washington Monument. “I’m here tonight to say: That’s not who we are.”

This can be said both about the fragile state of American democracy and about Harris' failed race against Trump. Harris pledged to “take a different path” than Trump's divisiveness, pledging to “look for common ground and common-sense solutions to make your lives better.”

Harris' remarks also offered a not-so-subtle throwback to 2020 and 2022, when President Joe Biden – against the advice of advisers and experts – decided 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 repelled Trump in 2020 and the mythical Red Wave of 2022. Now Harris hopes some of that magic trickles down to her own campaign.

It seems that there is reason for this hope. This week's New York Times/Siena College poll found that nearly eight in 10 Americans feel democracy is under threat. Voters also leave no doubt as to where this threat comes from. As a growing number of his former Cabinet officials and military leaders have made clear in recent weeks, Trump poses a clear and present threat to our country's most basic democratic guarantees.

There are many voters who disagree with Harris' reverence for democracy. One of them, former Trump adviser 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 call on Trump to prematurely declare victory next Tuesday in order to undermine public confidence in the vote-counting effort.

Others are more direct. The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., made headlines last week when he floated the idea of ​​simply giving Trump North Carolina's 16 electoral votes before the results are counted. Harris' reasoning was that Trump would probably win the state anyway. So why should he bother with the inconveniences of democracy at all? The outrageous proposal sparked little protest from Trump's Republican lawmakers.

But Harris did not limit himself to a high-minded defense of democracy. After months of sidelining Democrats on economic issues, Trump took the fight to the Republican Party with a forceful explanation of how a four-year “Trump sales tax” would be disastrous for people's bank accounts.

Harris criticized Trump on trade, pointing out that his tariff policies amounted to “a 20% national sales tax on everything you buy that is imported.” Clothing, food, toys, cell phones, a Trump sales tax that would cost the average family nearly $4,000 more per year.”

Harris' high priority on the economy in his comments is confirmation that many swing voters still trust Trump more on economic issues. But Harris also used the opportunity to point out one of Trump's economic weaknesses: the continued popularity of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

“They will pay even more when 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 the days when insurance companies had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions.” Harris said to cheers. “Well, we’re not going back.”

Abortion rights played a big role in Harris' speech, as they did throughout the election campaign – the first presidential election since the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court 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 hand-picked Supreme Court justices have taken from the women of America.”

Additionally, Harris argued that America's democracy is inextricably linked to its healthy economy and thriving people. She argued that embracing the future Trump proposes would require gutting the American economy and ignoring basic human rights. Harris honored that idea in her closing moments, calling on Americans to unite in “our pursuit of freedom, our belief in fairness 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 decision clear.