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    Kamala Harris's DNC speech claimed a new moment for progressive Democrats

    Kamala Harris

    Harris spoke about structural racism, injustice in healthcare and being a ‘proud black woman’ – fresh words for the presidential stage

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    Kamala Harris reflects on vice-presidential nomination at DNC – video

    The first note that Kamala Harris sounded in her first speech as the Democrats’ official vice-presidential nominee was not about Donald Trump, or Joe Biden, or the crossroads to which the country has arrived.
    Instead Harris began her acceptance speech at the party’s national convention Wednesday by looking backwards, to the black women activists who fought historically for the right to vote and then for “a seat at the table”.
    “We’re not often taught their stories,” Harris said. “But as Americans, we all stand on their shoulders.”
    It was a powerful and graceful tribute to open a speech most often used for quickie biographical sketches to introduce candidates to the big convention audiences watching at home.
    It also performed the magnificent trick, in turning the lens away from Harris, of underscoring for Democrats just how different the new vice-presidential nominee is from the party leaders of yore – and how well she might lead the party of tomorrow.
    If Biden is elected president – which remains a significant if – the victory will be built on many shoulders. The question is who will be standing on them. The obvious answer, for a few years at least, would be Biden, the prospective Oval Office occupant.
    But for some Democrats watching Harris’s acceptance speech at the national convention on Wednesday night, in which she spoke personally about racial justice, immigration and gender equality – exactly the key planks of the party platform – the identity of the new leader of the Democratic party was equally obvious, and it was not Biden.
    “That I am here tonight is a testament to the dedication of generations before me,” said Harris, the first woman of color on a major-party presidential ticket. “Women and men who believed so fiercely in the promise of equality, liberty and justice for all.”
    Just as Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and south Asian immigrants, embodies a future the Democratic party has aligned with – non-white, non-male, pluralistic, non-dynastic – her speech reached corners of the party identity that no one else in speeches to the convention, not even Barack Obama, could touch.
    Harris’s acceptance speech had the familiar cadence of a political speech, but it was full of lines that were totally new in the mouth of an elected official on the presidential stage. Harris used the phrase “structural racism” to describe why black, Latino and indigenous people are “suffering and dying disproportionately” from Covid-19. She called out “the injustice in reproductive and maternal healthcare”.
    Praising her mother, the potential future vice-president said: “She raised us to be proud, strong black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage.”
    The focus on Harris as the potential standard bearer for Democrats owes in part to Biden’s age. At 77, he would be the oldest person ever to be sworn in for a first term as president, and speculation has abounded that he would serve a single term if elected.
    Setting aside the significant question of whether the vice-presidency automatically elevates a politician as the party’s leader – Biden himself might differ – Harris faces obstacles to capturing the heart of a party invigorated by calls for generational change.
    She failed to attract significant Democratic support as a presidential candidate in her own right earlier this year. Her perceived coziness with law enforcement and perceived failure to challenge wrongful convictions as attorney general of California have drawn criticism from progressives, who harbor some skepticism about her incarnation on the campaign trail as a warrior for equal justice.
    “Women of color, particularly progressives, might feel torn,” Guardian columnist Derecka Purnell wrote earlier this month. “Progressives will have to defend the California senator’s personal identity, while maneuvering against her political identity.”
    At 55, Harris is two decades younger than Biden, and in something of a historic sweet spot age-wise for presidential candidates – but the intensity of the party’s progressive wing could focus an increasing amount of Democratic energy behind a younger leader, closer to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s generation than Harris’s.
    Whether Harris’s biggest moment is yet to come, she is in the middle of a moment now. In his speech on Wednesday night, Obama described her as a “friend” and “an ideal partner” for Biden “who’s more than prepared for the job”.
    “We’re at an inflection point,” Harris said. She was talking about the promise of equal justice under the law, but she could have been talking about the future of Democratic party politics.

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    Kamala Harris makes history, Barack Obama slams Trump: day three at the DNC – video highlights

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    Kamala Harris officially accepted her vice-presidential nomination on the third day of the Democratic national convention. Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, joined her on stage alongside Joe Biden and his wife, Jill. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Gabrielle Giffords were among the many figures who condemned Donald Trump’s presidency and pledged their support for the Biden-Harris ticket
    Harris makes history and Obama issues warning: key takeaways from the DNC’s third night
    Kamala Harris makes history at DNC after Barack Obama rallies voters against Trump – as it happened

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    Trump's USPS attacks are already undermining confidence in vote by mail

    Some election officials are receiving a flood of questions from voters suddenly concerned about whether or not their mail-in vote will count, an alarming signal of how Donald Trump’s efforts to hamstring the United States Postal Service (USPS) are already causing considerable confusion and undermining confidence in the 2020 election.Trump admitted last week he opposed additional funding for the USPS because it would make it more difficult for the agency to support mail-in voting this fall. There have been reports of significant mail delays across the country in recent weeks, a problem postal workers and Democrats have attributed in part to operational changes imposed by Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general and a major Republican donor. Facing tremendous scrutiny over the changes, DeJoy announced Tuesday he was suspending the changes until after the election “to “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail”. Despite that pause, it does not appear that DeJoy will replace mail-sorting machines, mailboxes and other equipment reportedly removed from postal facilities.But, regardless of DeJoy’s announcement, the damage to voters’ confidence may already have been done. Forty-five per cent of Americans believe the 2020 vote count will be accurate, a drop from the 59% who believed so in 2016, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Seventy-three per cent of Republicans believe that votes cast by mail will not be counted accurately, the poll found.In Douglas county, Kansas – a Democratic stronghold home to the University of Kansas – hundreds of voters called the office of Jamie Shew, the county clerk, with concerns last week about whether their mail-in ballot will be delayed in the mail and ultimately counted because of problems with the mail. The calls were so frequent, Shew said, that the office receptionist was picking up new calls as soon as the person on the phone hung up.Shew said his office had already received a record number of mail-in ballot requests for November’s election. But last week voters who requested mail in ballots as far back as May and June began asking whether they could cancel their requests and vote in person and had other questions about the process. In total, about 20 voters followed through and cancelled their requests.“It’s frustrating. We’ve been doing a lot of things to try and build trust,” said Shew, whose office recently enacted a program allowing voters to track their ballots. “Election administrators like myself have worked for years to build up this system and then within a few weeks, the distrust of the system occurs because of, you know, politics.”Shew said he was counting on a significant number of people to vote by mail because he faces a shortage of election workers necessary to hold in-person voting. He’s been reassuring voters that the county’s absentee ballot program is secure and that their mail in vote will count. He also ordered more secure drop boxes where voters can leave their ballots.Many election officials like Shew are eyeing official dropboxes as an alternative to the post office for voters to return their mail-in ballots without relying on USPS. But Trump opposes drop boxes too – his campaign is suing to block Pennsylvania from using them. More

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    Hillary Clinton urges voters to prevent Trump from 'stealing way to victory'

    Hillary Clinton has called on Democratic voters to turn out in “overwhelming” numbers for the November election, arguing such an effort is needed to ensure Donald Trump does not “sneak or steal his way to victory”.Addressing the Democratic national convention on Wednesday from her home in Chappaquiddick, New York, Clinton said she had spoken to a number of Americans who have said they wished they had voted in the last general election, or voted differently.“For four years, people have said to me, ‘I didn’t realize how dangerous [Trump] was.’ ‘I wish I could go back and do it over.’ Or worst, ‘I should have voted,’” Clinton said. “Well, this can’t be another woulda-coulda-shoulda election.”She added: “Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.”In 2016, Clinton, the first woman nominated for president by a major party, became the fifth presidential candidate to lose the US election despite winning the popular vote. In her address, she endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, and vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.“Don’t forget, Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose. Take it from me,” Clinton warned. “We need numbers so overwhelming Trump can’t sneak or steal his way to victory.”Following a video celebrating women’s suffrage, Clinton, wearing suffragette white, said Trump had taken office “with so much set up for him,” including a pandemic response team.Clinton argued Trump could have been a more successful president “if he had put his own interests and ego aside”.“I wish Donald Trump knew how to be a president because America needs a president right now,” Clinton said.A few minutes into Wednesday’s proceedings, a fundraising email in the US president’s name contained a string of insults. “Just when I thought this pathetic event couldn’t get more CORRUPT, they decide to bring in CROOKED Hillary, Crazy Nancy, Pocahontas, Phony Kamala, and Lyin’ Obama all in ONE NIGHT,” it said.It was a list that included Trump’s favourite nickname from 2016, “Crooked” Hillary Clinton, as well as his racist tag for Senator Elizabeth Warren.Leaning into negative partisanship, the message added: “All of these Radical Democrats HATE me and they HATE YOU. They would love nothing more than to see us FAIL, which is why it’s going to take all hands on deck to make sure that never happens.”In her speech, Clinton said she knew about the “slings and arrows” that vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris will likely face as a Black woman on the ticket.“Believe me: this former district attorney and attorney general can handle them all,” she added. More

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    Kamala Harris to condemn Trump's 'chaos' and 'callousness' in DNC speech

    Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants who has broken racial barriers at every step of her political career, is set to become the first Black woman and first Asian American to accept a major party’s vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday night.In the most consequential speech of her political career, Harris, 55, is expected to urge voters to reject the divisive and destructive leadership of a president who “turns our tragedies into political weapons”.Early excerpts show she will sketch an optimistic vision for a nation whose promise drew her parents from opposite ends of the world decades before.“We’re at an inflection point,” she will say, speaking from a waterfront convention center near Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. “The constant chaos leaves adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot – and here’s the thing: we can do better and deserve so much more.”At the very beginning of Wednesday’s event, Harris gave a short direct-to-camera speech about the importance of voting in November’s election. She said she knew many of the viewers may have “heard about obstacles and misinformation, and folks making it harder for you to cast your ballot.”She offered directions to viewers on how they could get more information on ways to vote in this election – a short plea underscoring Democrats’ efforts to increase turnout.Harris, only the fourth woman in history to be nominated for a presidential ticket, will share a stage on Wednesday – one hundred years and one day after the ratification of the 19th amendment that guaranteed the women – with Hillary Clinton, the first woman nominated by a major party for the presidency, and Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker and highest-ranking woman in American political history.Born in 1964 to Shyamala Gopalan, a Indian-born American breast cancer researcher, and Donald Harris, an American economist from Jamaica, Harris will recount their political activism and said some of her earliest memories of attending civil rights protests as a toddler.Harris and her sister, Maya, were raised by her mother, who she will say taught her “to walk by faith, and not by sight”.Maya, Harris’s niece Meena, and Harris’s step-daughter Ella Emhoff are expected to nominate Harris on Wednesday night.After graduating from Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, DC, Harris pursued a career in criminal justice. In 2003, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California before becoming only the second Black woman to serve in the Senate.It is this chapter of her career that Harris struggled to reconcile during her own presidential campaign, when confronted by progressives over her record as a prosecutor.But on Wednesday, the Democrats mostly celebrated her historic ascensions. Harris’s presence on stage Wednesday was not preordained.During the first Democratic primary debate last year, Harris confronted Biden over his past opposition to school bussing policies and his working relationship with segregationist senators. The attack wounded Biden, who had centered his campaign around the promise to restore the soul of the nation.After her own presidential campaign fizzled and she dropped out of the race late year, Harris returned to the Senate, where she found her voice in the midst of nationwide protests over racial injustice. She joined protesters on the street and delivered a deeply personal speech on the Senate floor about being Black in America. She sponsored police reform legislation and championed a bill to make lynching a federal crime.Harris’s speech caps the third night of the Democrats’ national convention, which moved almost entirely online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Other speakers include Clinton and Barack Obama, who is expected to warn that Donald Trump poses a threat to American democracy. More

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    Democratic national convention day three: Barack Obama & Kamala Harris lead speeches – watch live

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    Democrats stage the third night of their online convention after formally nominating Joe Biden as the presidential candidate for November’s election. The main speakers on Wednesday include Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi
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