In the shadow of Jan. 6, Harris concludes her case against Trump
The speech billed as Kamala Harris’s closing argument reflected the nearly concluded campaign itself: her words were mostly about normal economic pledges, while the atmosphere pulsed with abnormal stakes.
She stood in the very spot where Donald Trump urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to disrupt the certification of an election.
She began and ended with references to that democracy-rattling episode, as spectators gathered in the spotlit backdrop of the country’s most storied monuments.
“It will probably be the most important vote you ever cast,” the Democratic presidential nominee began in her speech Tuesday to tens of thousands on Washington’s National Mall.
“We are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised,” she said, closing with references to American history.
The bulk of her speech, however, was spent on the nuts-and-bolts promises of her campaign. These are the issues her team spends its advertising dollars promoting, the ones believed to swing more votes: new housing construction, tax credits for families, and abortion access.
As is also the norm in this campaign, there were protests. For anyone asking why this election is so close, one demonstrator carried a protest sign ascribing it to Harris’s unflinching support for Israel.
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Yet a number of people attending this rally, people already planning to vote for Harris, described the stakes as so much bigger than run-of-the-mill campaign pledges.
A husband and wife, tourists from Chicago, got misty eyed as they reflected on the day they’d just experienced in their nation’s capital.
“This is a sacred time,” Dave Andersen said, referring to the Nov. 5 election.
“I’m optimistic that the very dark hour of Jan. 6 was a reminder that there’s good and evil. And we continually need to put our effort on the good side of human nature.”
One week before election day in the U.S., Vice-President Kamala Harris used what she called her ‘closing argument’ speech to warn against a second Donald Trump presidency at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., the same place where Trump helped incite the Jan. 6 attacks. Meanwhile, Trump described his controversial weekend rally as a ‘love fest.’
What Trump is talking about doing
This, after all, is an election where dozens of Trump’s former officials haven’t endorsed him – starting with his previous vice-president.
His former defence secretary, a top defence official, another defence secretary, and chief of staff, have all called him a fascist, someone with fascist leanings, or a threat to the United States.
Trump wants to invoke the 226-year-old Alien Enemies Act to help mass-deport undocumented migrants; revoke the broadcast licences of news networks he deems unfair; use the military for domestic reasons; investigate his opponents; pardon people who rioted on his behalf on Jan. 6; replace more bureaucrats with political staff; punish providers of transgender treatment for minors; and gain power over setting interest rates. He’s expressed support for police violence.
He’s already warning about this election being rigged; he’s again declared that he cannot lose legitimately, priming his supporters for a fight, if that happens.
What made Andersen and his wife so emotional was the arc to their day, which included visits to their nation’s monuments and ended with this rally.
He found himself thinking of all the people who’d served the republic, from the founders, to the soldiers, to the White House cooks and staff he saw during his tour there Tuesday.
The most poignant moment, he said, came at the Lincoln Memorial, etched with some of the most immortal lines in American oratory, the Gettysburg Address. That speech honouring Civil War dead concludes with Lincoln’s wish that government of the people, by, and for the people be their enduring legacy.
So the couple got misty eyed as the day ended, with them lingering near the Washington Monument, after watching the Harris rally.
Mary Andersen referred to inscriptions on the Franklin Roosevelt monument across the Mall and wondered if Trump supporters know their country’s history: “Have they ever read those quotes? Does it matter to them?”
Victor Dimbo spoke of his own personal experience with democracy. The Maryland real estate agent referred to his native Nigeria’s history with strongmen and political violence.
“You don’t know about power,” he said, referring to people who have only known fully democratic countries.
“Power where everybody’s scared. The ultimate power. Where you say something against your president — somebody will knock on your door at night and take you.”
The No. 1 issue: Elections themselves
He described his horror watching the TV in his home office, the afternoon of Jan. 6, seeing people scale and smash their way into the Capitol to keep Trump in office.
He referred to Trump as a masterful salesman – to get all those people to believe in a rigged election, and willing to risk their freedom for him.
When asked about this election, he said, as he walked in the long line toward the National Mall: “I’m very worried. I’m praying.”
When the topic of authoritarianism comes up, Trump throws it back at his opponents: He’s the one who’s been shot, and blames it on his rivals’ rhetoric. And he’s the one prosecuted in multiple criminal cases, although he reportedly, and repeatedly tried doing the same to his opponents when he was president.
There’s been a debate in Democratic circles for over a year, about how much to make this election about free elections themselves.
A major donor group supporting Harris has warned against messaging that focuses on former officials calling Trump a fascist.
It sent an email saying that its own research found it unpersuasive with voters. Other Democrats have agreed, urging a bread-and-butter appeal to voters’ pocketbooks.
But Jeanne Blue called the bigger question unavoidable. No single policy, she said, is more important than having free and fair elections.
“Think about the location,” said Blue, who works as a geriatric care manager across the river in Arlington, Va.
“The Trump presidency ended in this spot, on Jan. 6, with an attack on our democracy. An attack on all our people. Were he to ever resume that seat of power why wouldn’t we expect him to pick up exactly where he left off? That’s why I’m here.”
Harris’s campaign has tried to do two things simultaneously, as reflected in Tuesday’s speech. It had the pledge of tax credits and a housing plan, enveloped in warnings of encroaching doom.
Whether her message will resonate remains uncertain. It faced stiff competition for attention, from other campaign events.
From protesters, chanting. From Trump, deflecting a controversy involving a racist joke, about Puerto Rico, by a comedian at his rally.
And finally, from Harris’s own boss. President Joe Biden overshadowed her message in his own inimitable way: he commented on the Puerto Rico uproar in such mangled syntax it remained open to interpretation whether he was referring to the racist joke, or to Trump voters, as “garbage.”
It was the 2024 U.S. election in a nutshell.
Published at Wed, 31 Jul 2024 21:58:04 +0000
Who is Amit Shah, the Indian minister accused of criminal plots in Canada?
India’s interior minister Amit Shah, accused by Canada of being behind plots to target Sikh separatists in that country, has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest aide for decades and is widely seen as his hard-nosed alter ego and potential successor.
Shah’s office and the Indian foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the accusation. India has denied any role in the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the alleged targeting of other dissidents there, although the row has led to expulsions of diplomats in both countries.
Canada has not released any evidence of Shah’s alleged role in the campaign against Sikh separatists, which was referred to by Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison on Tuesday.
Many political analysts consider Shah, 60, the most powerful politician in India after Modi and the two, both Hindu nationalists, have been working together in national or provincial governments for more than two decades, starting with their native Gujarat state. Shah is widely seen as likely to take over if Modi leaves office.
When Modi attended his first press conference in India as prime minister in 2019, he made a brief statement but took no questions, pointing to then-ruling party president Shah sitting by him.
“I am a disciplined soldier (of the party), the president is everything to me,” Modi said, referring to Shah.
Shah, renowned for campaign strategy, has led Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to election victories across the country, propelling the party to political dominance from near-obscurity. In 2019, Modi named him as the head of the all-powerful interior or home affairs ministry.
“As a vigilant and alert administrator, Amitbhai Anilchandra Shah considers weak and lumpy security to be a major obstacle in the development of society, country and state,” Shah’s website says.
It says he was falsely implicated in 2010 in the extra-judicial killing of a “dreaded terrorist” when he was the state home minister in Gujarat, after which he resigned and spent three months in jail. A court acquitted him in 2014.
Shah has also been instrumental in ending the semi-autonomy of India’s then-only Muslim majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, in 2019 and allowing non-Muslims from neighbouring countries to gain Indian citizenship, according to his website.
Born in Mumbai, he has been an elected politician for more than 25 years. The son of a prosperous family in Gujarat, Shah left school around the age of 18, according to a declaration signed in the 2019 general election.
Shah said in a 2016 interview that, since then, aside from a short spell selling plastic tubing, he has spent almost his entire adult life working for the BJP and its affiliated groups. He has gained a reputation as a Hindu hardliner with uncompromising views.
A person who has known both Modi and Shah for decades said both believed in fighting for Hindu causes not just as “thought leaders, but as action leaders” and they are “fearless about it.”
In 2021, Shah told a conference that India’s was following a “nation first” policy under Modi after its targeted strikes against alleged militant camps in Pakistan in 2016 and 2019, in response to attacks on Indian troops at the time.
“The world was taken by surprise when we responded to Pakistan inside their territory,” he said.
“Earlier, the U.S. and Israel were known for this, but now India has joined their ranks. For the first time our defence policy came out of the shadows of foreign policy. We made it clear that we want peace with everyone … but you have to behave peacefully with us too.”
Published at Wed, 30 Oct 2024 16:31:15 +0000