Kamala Harris officially kicked off her 2020 campaign for president with a rally of some 20-thousand supporters in her hometown of Oakland, California. And while it’s way too early to tell who may be the frontrunner among the Democrats, when watching the California senator speak you couldn’t help but think she is at the top of the pack. The energy was high and the speech was powerful. Here’s an excerpt:
“We are here knowing we are at an inflection point in the history of our world. We are at an inflection point in the history of our nation. We are here because the American dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before. And we are here at this moment in time because we must answer a fundamental question. Who are we? Who are we as Americans? So let’s answer that question to the world and each other right here and right now. America, we are better than this…
When we have leaders who bully and attack a free press and undermine our democratic institutions, that’s not our America.
When white supremacists march and murder in Charlottesville or massacre innocent worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue, that’s not our America. When we have children in cages crying for their mothers and fathers, don’t you dare call that border security. That’s a human rights abuse. And that’s not our America.
When we have leaders who attack public schools and vilify public school teachers, that is not our America.
When bankers who crashed our economy get bonuses but the workers who brought our country back can’t even get a raise, that’s not our America.
And when American families are barely living paycheck to paycheck, what is this administration’s response? Their response is to try and take health care away from millions of families. Their response is to give away a trillion dollars to the biggest corporations in this country. And their response is to blame immigrants as the source of all our problems.
And guys, let’s understand what’s happening here. People in power are trying to convince us that the villain in our American story is each other. But that is not our story. That is not who we are. That is not our America. You see, our United States of America is not about us versus them. It’s about we the people.”
Watch the full rally above.
Strictly from the staging, energy, and crowd size perspective, Kamala Harris is setting a pretty high bar for the 2020 field. Shows the advantage of jumping in with both feet, getting a boost from your hometown. pic.twitter.com/GAyYrPUhBn
— Matt Viser (@mviser) January 27, 2019