The change agent against the tyrant: Harris' big speech focuses on Trump | Kamala Harris

Where the politics of joy? Kamala Harris' solid if unspectacular closing argument for why she should be elected US president wasn't about Kamala Harris. It was primarily about Donald Trump.

In the Democratic candidate's big speech in Washington, Trump was mentioned by name 24 times, Joe Biden only once. It confirmed that Trump, even if he is not commander in chief, still dominates the American psyche.

A week before Election Day, Harris carefully chose her venue: the Ellipse, a park south of the White House. Trump “stood in this exact spot almost four years ago,” she noted, adding that he sent an armed mob to the U.S. Capitol to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

On Tuesday, a very different, more diverse and larger crowd gathered here – an estimated 75,000 – basking in the unusual afternoon heat and bundling up against the evening chill. They waved “USA” signs and the stars and stripes and wore bright blue or red wristbands. They shouted “Kamala! Kamala!” and “We are not going back!” They were surrounded by great symbols of the republic: the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the White House itself.

Speaking at a lectern behind protective glass, Harris warned of Trump's enemies list and his intent to turn the military against those who disagree with him. “This is not a presidential candidate thinking about how to improve his life,” she said. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed by resentment and seeking uncontrolled power.”

The Vice President then outlined part of her own biography as a prosecutor and police officer who fought for the people. But somehow the argument came back to the Republican candidate. “On day one if Donald Trump were elected, he would walk into his office with an enemies list,” she said. “If I’m elected, I’m going to come in with a to-do list.”

It was a far cry from the start of the Harris candidacy, which began with joyful euphoria and her vice president, Tim Walz, branding Trump and his allies “weird.” This felt like a refreshing tonic after years of fear and misery in the Trump era. At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, speaker after speaker mocked Trump and belittled him (Barack Obama even parodied his masculinity).

Notably, Harris was already beginning to adopt a more serious tone about the threat he posed, and in recent weeks she has welcomed the use of the term “fascist” by former Trump officials to underscore his authoritarian ambitions, even though she did so Word not used here. His rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on Sunday and the echoes of a pro-Nazi rally that took place there in 1939 provided further insight.

There is some political logic to this election: Make the election a referendum on Trump, not Harris; make him seem like the incumbent and Harris like the change agent. “It’s time to leave the drama and the conflict, the fear and the division behind,” she said. “It’s time for a new generation of leadership in America.”

That would explain why she has tried to distance herself from Biden, reportedly rejecting his offers to campaign for her. Although her rally on Tuesday in Washington was Biden-esque in its dire warnings about the Trump threat, it used the president's preferred word “democracy” only once. Instead, three huge blue banners read the word “Freedom” along with “USA.”

Some Democrats are also eager for Harris to distance himself from Biden on the issue of the Gaza war. A demonstrator was led away shouting: “Stop arming Israel!” Now arms embargo!” But Harris did not put a damper on the peace movement in her remarks.

While Biden had previously touted job growth and good economic news, Harris again made some practical promises: tax cuts for working and middle-class people, the first federal ban on food price gouging, a cap on insulin prices and help for first-time home buyers.

These were important things that should win votes. But they were not accompanied by a grand vision. Mario Cuomo's old saying was “campaign in poetry, govern in prose,” but Harris' address didn't contain much high-flown rhetoric. A decade of Trump was bad for the soul.

Toward the end, however, the vice president delivered a memorable image, recalling how America liberated itself from a petty tyrant (British monarch George III) for nearly 250 years and how generations of Americans have preserved that freedom. “They didn’t fight, didn’t sacrifice and gave their lives just to see us give up our basic freedoms, just to see us submit to the will of another little tyrant,” she said. “The United States of America is not a vessel for the machinations of would-be dictators.”

Then, from fear to hope: “The United States of America is the greatest idea ever conceived by humanity. A nation big enough to make all of our dreams come true. Strong enough to withstand any break or tear between us. And fearless enough to imagine a future full of possibilities.”

Doug Emhoff accompanied Harris to the stage with a hug and a kiss as the crowd cheered. Next Tuesday they will be back in Washington for the most exciting presidential election since George W. Bush versus Al Gore in 2000. They hope this Democratic vice president does better than Gore. A razor-thin margin of a few thousand votes in one or two swing states can determine whether Harris' closing argument looks like strategic genius or a catastrophic miscalculation.

She told the crowd: “Donald Trump has spent a decade dividing the American people and making them fear each other. That's him. But America, I’m here tonight to say: This is not who we are.”

The phrase “That’s not who we are” has been used often in the Trump era. Sometimes the evidence says otherwise. Next week the country will find out who we really are.