By Katie Rogers and Reid J. Epstein

CHICAGO — Vice President Kamala Harris used her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday (22) to present herself as a pragmatic leader who could unite all Americans behind a “new way forward”, painting her opponent, former President Donald Trump, as a dangerous and “unserious man” whose election would alter the foundation of American democracy.

With a steady voice and a straightforward gaze, Harris, a former prosecutor, presented the lengthiest and most serious case she has made against Trump as a presidential candidate.

At each turn of the nearly 40-minute address, Harris warned that the former president’s truculent behaviour belied a serious and substantive threat to Americans, whether they are seeking access to reproductive health care, concerned about the safety and stability of diplomatic relationships, or worried about the flow of immigrants across the nation’s southern border or about the health of democracy.

“With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past,” she said. “A chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”

Speaking to thousands of supporters at the United Centre in Chicago, Harris acknowledged that her candidacy was not the one her party was expecting as little as a few weeks ago. But she told the crowd that she was “no stranger to unlikely journeys”, describing herself as the daughter of an Indian scientist whose dreams of a new life in the United States became the catalyst for Harris’ legal and political career. Her mother, she said wryly, taught her to “never do anything half-assed”.

Although she didn’t mention it, Harris’ nomination is barrier-breaking: She is the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to accept a major party’s nomination. If elected, she would be the first female president in the nation’s history.

Yet Harris did not try to sell her supporters on a presidency that would be wildly different from the one held for the past 3 1/2 years by President Joe Biden, who, as a candidate, fought against a leftward drift in his party during the 2020 presidential race and later pulled Harris onto the ticket. Biden, 81, also promised to be a uniter at a time when the country was deeply divided and reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. He, too, had long embraced a “middle out, bottom-up” economic philosophy focused on protecting American technology advancements, curbing the rise of global competitors and retraining workers.

On Thursday, Harris promoted policies that would address housing affordability, ideas that amount to incremental change from those Biden has laid out. But what is different now is not the policies — it is the candidate, a 59-year old woman who took the stage to rapturous applause and vowed to push her party forward.

For weeks, Harris had approached the biggest speech of her political career knowing that she needed to reintroduce herself to Americans who may know her only as the vice president who ascended to the top of the ticket after Biden botched a debate and abandoned his candidacy.

The speech contained the most extensive remarks on foreign policy that Harris has delivered as the presidential nominee. She presented herself as a deliberate and forceful leader and a defender of traditional alliances, in contrast to Trump’s whim-based decisions and coddling of overseas autocrats, while declaring herself prepared to handle the crisis in the Gaza Strip that sapped Biden’s popularity.

“I will not cozy up to tyrants and terrorists, like Kim Jong-un, who is rooting for Trump,” Harris said at one point. (Trump, for his part, responded to the speech on his social media site by saying, “The tyrants are laughing at her, she’s weak and ineffective.”)

The section of her speech dedicated to the war in Gaza generated one of the biggest applause lines of the night from the convention crowd — and served as a capstone to a week in which pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched near the United Centre and a small group of delegates protested the war from inside the arena grounds. Harris denounced the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and said of Gaza since the attack, “The scale of suffering is heart-breaking”.

“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,” she said.

Harris and her advisers also knew that she needed to further define the threat posed by Trump, choosing to focus at length on Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda drafted by his allies. She warned that the policies could have a devastating effect on reproductive health, leading to a nationwide abortion ban and further restrictions to women’s health care.

“Simply put, they are out of their minds,” Harris said. She said that she would “proudly” sign legislation protecting abortion rights into law — a pledge also made by Biden, but one that is a long shot in the current Congress.

She also admonished Republicans who, at the urging of Trump, torpedoed a bipartisan border security bill that would have established the toughest restrictions on immigration in years. She promised that the United States would create an “earned pathway to citizenship” and that she would sign a border security initiative into law as commander-in-chief.

“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” Harris said. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”

Harris warned that Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, his encouraging of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the recent Supreme Court ruling that grants presidents broad immunity for crimes committed in office portends a second Trump term that would be far worse for the country than the first.

“Just imagine, Donald Trump with no guardrails,” she said, “and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States.”

The race remains uncomfortably close for Democrats, though in recent weeks Harris has gained ground with young people, Black voters and women, all groups that are crucial to the party’s success in November. And with rousing speech after rousing speech at the convention this week, members of the Democratic Party made it clear that they were optimistic about her chances in the months ahead. And several party leaders, including former President Barack Obama, have hinted that Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, will have help on the campaign trail.

Throughout the week, the most famous figures in the Democratic Party made their cases for a Harris presidency. Hillary Clinton, the first female Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Trump in 2016, said Harris was the latest in a line of American women who have fought for civil rights, run for public office and knocked on the door of the presidency. Obama argued that Harris’ candidacy was an extension of his own political movement.

Others have used their time on the stage to thrash Trump’s behaviour and policies. Michelle Obama, the former first lady, bluntly cast the former president as a racist and a sexist.

But the convention’s final night wove chapters of Harris’ biography with a focus on the party’s key issues: climate change, racial justice and preventing gun violence. A line-up of speakers argued that Trump had transformed the Republican Party beyond recognition and that people who felt alienated by that party could find a home with the Harris campaign.

“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.”

-New York Times