The dividing line is set
At the Ellipse, outside the National Mall, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the closing argument of her presidential campaign before a crowd comparable to the ones that watch the World Series – on a night when the 2024 World Series is still very much happening.
What was meant to be a crowd of 20,000 quickly grew as the Harris campaign prepared to make room for 40,000. The eventual crowd was over 75,000 people with overflow – a powerful message by itself before the vice president even began speaking. As she would point out later in her speech:
This is the exact spot where Donald Trump appeared on January 6, 2021, when he incited a crowd to attack the Capitol building and prevent Congress from certifying his loss of the 2020 presidential election.
While the former guy claimed that day drew his biggest crowd, it was estimated that 53,000 people showed up to hear him lie and incite the riot that resulted in 140 police officers being injured and the Capitol ransacked. Nearly one third more people showed up for that – with the overflow itself probably being bigger than some of Trump’s biggest rallies.
It’s clear: There’s more of us than there are of them – more people who believe in the promise of America and in democracy, than believe in Donald Trump’s lies and absurd grievances. It’s time to turn the page – and Harris’ speech – invoking the names of many brave Americans who led us forward to brighter futures – was the light we needed. Let’s run up the score and get her elected on Nov 5 with a Democratic trifecta.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making