Former President Barack Obama delivered a blistering address on the third night of the Democratic National Convention, warning that the reelection of President Donald Trump may be nothing short of the end of democracy. “Here’s the point: This president and those in power… they are counting on your cynicism,” he said, adding that “this administration has shown that it will tear democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” an apt statement given that as he spoke, the sitting president was spewing enraged tweets about his predecessor.
Obama highlighted Trump’s lack of diligence and reverence for the job he was elected to do. “I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously … But he never did. For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. … Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.” The consequences of which, Obama noted, include “170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed.”
Vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, in a historic moment as the first Black and South Asian woman to appear on a national ticket, framed her acceptance speech as “a testament to the generations that came before me.” She said that previous generations fought for a vision of America “that made my own life possible,” a “vision that makes the American promise—for all its complexities and imperfections—a promise worth fighting for.” Harris also spoke movingly of Joe Biden not only as a lifelong public servant but “as the father of my friend,” tenderly recalling her relationship with the late Beau Biden when the two served as Attorneys General of their respective states.
“There is no vaccine for racism. We’ve gotta do the work,” she said. “We have a president who turns our tragedies into political weapons.” Just as Obama spoke of democracy in peril under Trump, Harris called on viewers to change the course of history. “Years from now, this moment will have passed. And our children and our grandchildren will look in our eyes and ask us: Where were you when the stakes were so high? They will ask us, what was it like? And we will tell them,” Harris concluded. “We will tell them, not just how we felt. We will tell them what we did.”
The early moments of night three focused on gun violence, climate change, and immigration, effective messages anchored in first-person testimonials—from mothers of shooting victims to children separated from their parents under the Trump administration. “He was standing at a birthday party when he was shot in the back left side of his head,” DeAndra Dycus said of her son, now a nonverbal quadriplegic. “The child that I birthed is not able to live his dreams, and that hurts,” she said, condemning Trump’s lack of action following shootings in Parkland, Las Vegas, and El Paso. Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman who was shot in the head while speaking to constituents in Tucson in 2011, spoke powerfully of her recovery. “I put one foot in front of the other. I’ve found one word and then I’ve found another,” adding: “Today I struggle to speak, but I have not lost my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words.”