On Tuesday night, one week before Election Day, Kamala Harris drew an estimated crowd of 75,000 to the White House Ellipse to hear her give a closing argument for her campaign for the presidency. The location was symbolic, because it’s the same place Trump delivered his infamous January 6th speech asking his supporters to walk down to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to prevent the orderly transfer of power to Joe Biden and Harris.
In June 2022, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the congressional committee investigating the January 6 coup attempt. As part of her testimony, she swore that President Trump had grown annoyed just prior to his appearance at the Ellipse that there were long lines to get through security.
Minutes before Donald Trump took the stage at an Ellipse rally on Jan. 6, 2021, he urged the Secret Service to remove security magnetometers to let in people with weapons because “they’re not here to hurt me,” a former top White House aide told investigators on Tuesday.
This meant, of course, that he knew some of his supporters were armed and were there to hurt somebody prior to directing them to fight at the Capitol. Harris did not ask that magnetometers be removed on Tuesday night, nor is it possible to imagine her doing so. She didn’t direct an armed mob to commit violence, but asked a civil crowd to listen. She didn’t demand that the assembled crowd disregard the verdict of the American electorate, but rather invited the electorate to participate and “make a decision that directly impacts your life, the life of your family and the future of this country we love.”
And when she asked the people there to “fight,” it wasn’t against another branch of government but rather “for this beautiful country we love,” because “in seven days, we have the power, each of you has the power to turn the page and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told. I thank you all.”
The extraordinary story wasn’t about America becoming a garbage heap of nonwhite immigrants but of a people who “nearly 250 years ago…wrested freedom from a petty tyrant,” and then “across the generations…preserved that freedom, expanded it, and in so doing, proved to the world that a government of by and for the people is strong and can endure.”
I know which vision for the future I will choose. It’s time to vote for that future.