“Hope is back”: Barack and Michelle Obama inaugurate Kamala Harris as their political heir | US Elections

“America is ready for a new chapter. America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris,” he said. “Hope is back!” she proclaimed. In their closing speeches on the second day of the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, and his wife, Michelle, on Tuesday appointed the Democratic candidate as the heir to his political legacy, who could become the first black and Indian-origin president in the elections next November.

With the lofty oratory that is his trademark, the former president and spiritual leader of the Democrats has launched a call for unity, between generations and between ideologies. An appeal addressed not only to the 4,500 Democratic delegates who moments before had ratified in a ceremonial vote the nomination of Harris as candidate, and who listened to him enthusiastically with cheers, shouts of “Yes, we can” (his old campaign slogan). As he did in the 2008 campaign that took him to the White House, Obama appealed above all to the spectators beyond the United Center, to those who are not willing to listen to his message at first, to those who are not convinced by Harris. To “Democrats, Republicans and those who are somewhere in between.”

“Most of us don’t want to live in a bitter and divided country. We want something better. We want to be better. And the joy and excitement we see around this campaign tells us we’re not alone,” the former president said at a convention that tries to conjure up the spirit of optimism and hope for the future that turned Obama’s campaign into a political phenomenon.

The former president’s conciliatory words did not extend to the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, against whom he launched a multitude of rhetorical barbs. Some in the form of barbs: “He’s a guy whose theatrics have already become quite tiring. We don’t need four more years of shouting and chaos. We’ve already seen that movie and we all know that the sequels are usually worse.” Others, very serious: “Donald Trump sees power as nothing more than a means to achieve his ends.”

On the other hand, “together, Kamala and Tim (Walz, her running mate) have kept faith with the fundamental story of America. A story that says we are all created equal, that everyone deserves a chance, and that even when we disagree with each other, we can find a way to live together.”

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“Black jobs”

Like her husband, Michelle Obama drew a stark contrast between the Democratic candidate and Trump. In very personal terms, the real estate magnate was the main promoter of the hoax in 2011 that denied that Barack Obama had been born in the United States and could therefore be its legitimate president. The former president’s wife noted: “For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us,” she said. “His limited and narrow worldview made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated and successful people who happen to be black.”

Michelle Obama mocked Trump by alluding to the message the Republican candidate sent during his debate with Biden when he said that migrants crossing into the United States are taking “black jobs” from black Americans. The former first lady sparked laughter and applause from the audience when she asked: “Who is going to tell him that?” [a Trump] that the job he is currently seeking could be one of those ‘ghost jobs’, referring to the country’s presidency.

Michelle Obama praised Kamala Harris: “We have seen her spine of iron, the firmness of her upbringing, the honesty of her example, and the joy of her laughter and her light.” Of the former president, she said that “his limited and narrow worldview has made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who also happen to be black.”

Barack Obama’s speech in the city where he lived for years and the state from which he launched his political career had a special symbolism. Exactly 20 years ago, the former Democratic president made his first appearance at another Democratic national convention, the one that met in Boston in 2004 to nominate John Kerry as presidential candidate. His “There is no Republican America. There is no Democratic America. There is a United States of America” moved the entire country and launched the young Illinois state legislator, until then almost completely unknown, into political stardom.

Without Obama, Harris’s current candidacy would not have been possible. Not only did he pave the way as America’s first non-white president. He was the one who selected Joe Biden as vice president, making it possible for the former senator to one day reach the White House and, in turn, appoint Harris as his “number two.” And Obama was one of the notable Democrats who pushed this July to convince Biden to cede the nomination to his running mate.

Harris’ campaign bears more than one similarity, and more than two, to the one that brought Obama to the White House in 2008. The former chief strategist in that battle for the presidency, David Plouffe, has joined the candidate’s team. If the campaign of that time masterfully used the nascent social networks and databases to reach the maximum number of voters, before an audience much more fragmented than that of that time, the vice president has made it a priority to resort to the influencers and content creators, to use TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. Their slogans, like Obama’s, are short, memorable and optimistic. Even the artist, Shepard Fairey, who turned the black candidate into a cultural icon with his portrait “Hope,” has created a similar image for Harris, now titled “Forward.”

The relationship between the former president and the candidate dates back almost two decades, when Obama decided to throw his hat into the presidential election ring with only two years of experience on Capitol Hill, a ciceronic oratory and a slogan of hope: “Yes, we can,” to compete against the person who at the time had the almost complete support of the party hierarchy and was considered the inevitable candidate, former first lady Hillary Clinton.

Harris, then California’s attorney general, was one of the few senior officials to declare her support from the start for what seemed a doomed campaign, and even to help her try to convince voters door to door in Iowa. Obama never forgot this. The two became good friends.

Many things in common

They have many things in common: both are lawyers, of similar ages (63 years old, Obama; 59, Harris) and a life experience marked by their diverse cultural heritage and skin color. In 2015, the then president considered appointing her to replace the man who had been his attorney general until then, Eric Holder. As she has said in her memoir, The Truths We HoldHolder, a good friend of both, offered her the job, but she declined. She was already considering a Senate bid that same year, which would take her to Washington in 2017.

Once she was selected by Joe Biden to be his “number two” and took up the vice presidency, Obama maintained her role as mentor on the peculiarities of White House life and protocol. And the former president was one of the party leaders who pushed for Biden to forgo reelection after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump in June.

Obama’s legacy is not immaculate. Progressives believe that throughout his term he was too conservative in areas such as immigration reform, where he missed the opportunity to have a sufficient majority in both chambers; and, at the same time, too aggressive with a foreign policy that attacked Libya and sent American soldiers to Syria. Others accuse him of having neglected relations with the Democratic National Committee, towards which he always felt distrust, to the point that he seriously weakened the party’s structures, something that could have contributed to Hillary Clinton’s defeat against Republican Donald Trump in the 2016 elections.

But on Tuesday, none of that mattered. The old spirit of optimism, hope and hunger for change prevailed. The “yes, we can,” which Obama turned in his speech into a “yes, she can,” which the audience chanted. “We did it then and we can certainly do it again now… Let’s keep moving our country forward and go higher than we’ve ever been before,” concluded Michelle Obama, to thunderous applause.

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