ATLANTA (AP) – Two years later Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Donald Trumpshe’s still delighting Democratic donors and activists with jabs against him, saying the Republican is “insane, corrupt and incompetent” and calling him “the worst.” “chief decorator” for his White House renovations and gilded ornaments.
But the former vice president also has plenty to say about what her party, the electorate and the country should do next, as she also considers running again.
“This is the moment where we turn that anger into action,” Harris said several times during a packed schedule in the latter part of the midterm campaign.
Harris has campaigned for candidates in seven states, ending with a recent two-day visit to Georgia. It was, in part, the kind of nostalgic tour seen from Barack Obama And Bill Clinton – two-term presidents whose final campaigns are behind them – and the storm of potential future contenders such as governors. Gavin Newsom from California and Andy Beshear of Kentucky or the United States Representative. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York.
As the first black woman elected to national office, Harris urged her fellow black Americans to “honor the ancestors” with their votes, but she also became unabashedly “transactional” in demanding more from politicians.
Harris, a California senator before joining Joe Biden for 2020, also pushed her Democratic colleagues to govern aggressively and she called for “structural work” that she said was needed to reinvigorate American democracy: expanding the U.S. Supreme Court, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and reexamining the Electoral College.
“I think she hits all the right notes,” said Melinda Johnson, a retired nurse who attended a Fulton County Democratic Party fundraising gala headlined by Harris in Atlanta.
Harris arrived at first states with presidential primariesincluding Nevada, New Hampshire and Michigan. She also visited Mississippi, not exactly a hotbed of presidential politics, on behalf of U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom.
“The South is at stake,” she said. “When Democrats invest in the South, we can win in the South.”
In Georgia, Harris delved into civil rights history by accusing the U.S. Supreme Court of “backdoor racism” with its decision to gut the Voting Rights Act and allow Republicans to vote. redraw the boundaries for congressional districts that now elect nonwhite legislators.
“Cruelty” is the key, she said at the Democratic dinner in Atlanta. “Not cruelty in the sense of cruelty… but in our willingness to use our power to fulfill our commitments. » Democrats, she said, “can no longer let process get in the way of progress.”
Throughout her stops, Harris implicitly nodded at her loss to Trump.
“You know, we’ve spent a year and a half experiencing, for many of us, a whole range of emotions,” she told the students. “Anger, depression, sadness, frustration, feelings of helplessness and helplessness. »
Warning that Trump could try to interfere in Tuesday’s election, she echoed one of the the president’s own mantras to encourage people to vote.
“In this case,” she said at Elizabeth Baptist Church in Atlanta, “we just have to turn out in very large numbers, which would be too big to fake.”
Gn usa
