Everyone's favorite silk press is back, baby.
Last night, former Vice President Kamala Harris made her first major speech since losing the 2024 presidential election—and in typical Harris fashion, she delivered on laughs and sharp critiques of President Donald Trump. The speech took place during the 20th anniversary celebration of Emerge, an organization dedicated to helping women run for office.
In case you didn't know, Emerge and Harris go way back, with the group supporting the former prosecutor while she was running for office in 2003. As my colleague Nina Martin wrote for Mother Jones last year:
“The minute I met Kamala I thought she should run for office,” Andrea Dew Steele told me back in 2007 when I was interviewing her for a profile of Harris. “She is extremely smart and very good on the policy side, but also, such a charismatic person.”
While she didn't clinch the presidency, watching Harris' moving—albeit brief—speech reminded me how true every word Steele said about her was. But one section really hit me in the gut: During her speech, Harris referenced a cute viral video of elephants at the San Diego Zoo during an earthquake.
“As soon as they felt the earth shake beneath their feet, they got in a circle and stood next to each other to protect the most vulnerable,” said Harris. “What a powerful metaphor, because we know those who try to incite fear are most effective when they divide and conquer.”
I wish I could say that those words brought me comfort, but they just filled me with rage. Where was the “protect the herd mentality” when young supporters of Palestinian freedom faced vicious attack during the election cycle? Time and time and time again, plenty of high-profile Democrats turned their backs on activists pleading with President Biden's administration to step in decisively during Israel's war in Gaza.
Now, as the Trump administration has made those organizers—and the civilians of Gaza—more vulnerable than ever, I can only hope that the Democratic Party will do more to practice what it preaches.
—Arianna Coghill
