Harris delivers final message: 'Unity of the country against petty tyrant Trump'
The Democratic candidate speaks from the Ellipse in Washington in front of 50,000 people. Four years ago Trump had incited the crowd that stormed Congress here
from New York Marco Valsania and Luca Veronese
3' min read
3' min read
He spoke from the Ellipse, from the National Mall in the heart of Washington. And Kamala Harris, for what she presented as 'the great final message of her presidential campaign', chose the location not by chance: from here, a stone's throw from the White House, Donald Trump - defeated in the election - invited the crowd on 6 January 2021, asking his supporters to 'fight like hell' against 'stolen elections'. "Fight like hell," said the then-president, still in office, urging the most exaggerated to storm Congress, in one of the darkest pages in the history of American institutions.
With the White House in the background, Kamala Harris, Democratic candidate, put herself forward as Trump's antithesis: 'It is time to turn the page, to overcome divisions. It is time for a new generation of leaders in America. And I'm ready,' the vice-president said, pledging to 'govern for all' in front of more than 50,000 people who came to hear her.
But, a week before the vote, along with the call for national unity, from Harris also came a scathing attack on Trump, once again the candidate for the Republicans, and his policies that are 'more divisive today than yesterday and dangerous for American democracy'.
"Trump is the person who four years ago from this place sent an angry, armed mob to Parliament to overturn the will of the people who had spoken in free and fair elections, elections they knew they had lost. Trump is a petty tyrant but the voters will not accept submission,' Harris said. Even in recent rallies Trump has instead remembered 6 January as 'a day of love'.
'This election,' Harris stressed from the Ellipse, turning up the heat, 'is more than a choice between two parties and two different candidates. They are a choice between having a country rooted in freedom for all Americans or one ruled by chaos and division'. In one of the most impressive passages, he stated that Trump, if victorious, will enter the White House 'with a list of enemies to avenge': 'I will enter with a to-do list,' he said. Again, he called Trump 'unstable' and 'obsessed with retaliation', 'consumed by controversy' and 'chasing unchecked power'.
