The sprawling Ellipse park in the heart of Washington D.C. was the stage for a pivotal moment in the 2024 presidential race on Tuesday. Amid the grand monuments to America’s founding ideals, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris delivered a searing indictment of her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, seeking to frame the election as a choice between a “change agent” and a “tyrant.”
An Election-Defining Contrast
Speaking before a diverse crowd estimated at 75,000 people, Harris wasted no time in taking the fight directly to Trump, mentioning him by name two dozen times. She zeroed in on the very location of her address, noting that it was here, nearly four years ago, where Trump “stood” before dispatching “an armed mob to the US Capitol to overturn his 2020 election defeat.”
This set the tone for Harris to draw a stark contrast between herself and her opponent. As she put it:
“This is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make your life better. This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”
– Vice President Kamala Harris
Harris warned of Trump’s “enemies list” and his intention to turn the military against dissenters. She cast herself, in contrast, as a unifying figure focused on kitchen table issues. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list,” she declared, promising tax cuts for the middle class, price caps on essentials like insulin, and aid for first-time home buyers.
A Prosecutor Makes Her Case
Leaning into her background as a prosecutor and law enforcement officer, Harris methodically laid out the case against Trump. She accused him of spending “a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other,” and suggested his grievance-fueled rallies, like a recent one at Madison Square Garden with echoes of a pro-Nazi event from 1939, validated the “fascist” label some ex-Trump officials have pinned on him.
Yet for all the fire directed Trump’s way, some Democrats have quietly wished for more of the “politics of joy” that defined Harris’ early campaign, and a clearer articulation of her own vision beyond being the anti-Trump. Her running mate, Tim Walz, got a mere single mention, and she’s reportedly kept President Biden at arm’s length, wary of his flagging approval ratings.
The Soul of America at Stake
Still, Harris ended on a note of hope, invoking the American founding nearly 250 years ago, when the nation “wrested itself free from a petty tyrant,” a thinly-veiled allusion to Trump. “They did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives,” she intoned, her voice rising, “only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms, only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant.”
With just a week to go until election day, Harris is betting that framing the race as a battle for the “soul of America,” as Biden often put it, will galvanize voters more than any 12-point plan. If she prevails, her speech at the Ellipse may be remembered as the moment she found her closing message. But if Trump emerges victorious, it may go down as a massive miscalculation, one that ironically kept him front and center till the bitter end.
