When Kamala Harris took to the stage on the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago after four days of incessant praise, it seemed as though she could have said anything and got rapturous applause. Where was the policy? The substance? That was unnecessary, her party replied. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, from Rhode Island, told me that detail is not what the public wants. “They want to hear vision, goals and energy and a new attitude about politics and campaigning,” he told me. “As long as she stays on what she’s doing, she’s going to be fine.”
And she delivered. She promised to build the middle class, end the housing crisis, and put the country before party and self. Echoing Barack Obama’s DNC speech in 2007, she pledged to champion Republicans as much as Democrats. As a former prosecutor, she would be hard on law and order. Secure the border. Protect the troops. She lent on centrist tropes about freedom to win over trepidatious Republicans. The convention was delighted. Her gamble is that Americans chose ill-defined joy over familiar Trumpian division.
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