Opinion | Kamala Takes Chicago

Kamala Harris had a message for America about Donald Trump and JD Vance on Thursday night.

“Simply put, they are out of their minds,” she said to cheers from thousands of Democratic convention delegates in United Center.

She was talking about their draconian abortion stances but it could have applied to so much more.

“One must ask,” she continued, “why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well, we trust women.”

Harris has to prove that she is a woman America can trust, as she tries to get the country to do something it has never done before: elect a woman as president. She seized the moment from the very start of her speech — “let’s get to business” — to her section on foreign policy, which was the best part of her address.

Looking crisp in a navy pantsuit and a blouse with a bow, Harris played it safe by casting herself as a common-sense moderate, but also played it smart by casting herself as a tough-as-nails champion of the middle class, America’s allies and anyone who has had their rights stripped away by Trump. She promised that she would “proudly” sign a bill restoring abortion rights across America. Aside from that, she barely talked about gender and didn’t dwell on race, shrewdly positioning herself as a Black female nominee ditching identity politics.

It was a strong speech but not particularly lyrical: She started slowly and built the drama, giving Americans plenty of details to get a better picture of her. But none of the lines were especially memorable. She made her case like a lawyer, not a poet.

For weeks she had been pitching herself as a “joyful warrior,” as her husband, Doug Emhoff, put it — the bright, inclusive, graceful antidote to Trump’s dark, repudiating gracelessness. On Thursday night, she was all those things but she was scorching, too, calling out Trump for trying to steal the 2020 election and then sending “an armed mob to the United States Capitol” to achieve his ugly ends, saying he “fanned the flames.”