Where the politics of joy? Kamala Harris’ solid, if unspectacular, closing argument for why she should be elected U.S. president was not about Kamala Harris. It was primarily about Donald Trump.

In the Democratic candidate’s big speech in Washington, Trump was mentioned by name 24 times and Joe Biden only once. It confirmed that even if Trump is not commander in chief, he still controls the American psyche.

A week before Election Day, Harris chose her location carefully: the Ellipse, a park just south of the White House. Trump “stood in this place almost four years ago,” she noted, adding that he sent an armed mob to the U.S. Capitol to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

A very different, more diverse, larger crowd – estimated at around 75,000 people – gathered here on Tuesday, basking in the unseasonable heat of the afternoon as they bundled up against the evening chill. They waved “USA” signs and the stars and stripes and wore wristbands that glowed blue or red. They sang ‘Kamala! Kamala!” and “We’re not going back!” They were surrounded by great symbols of the republic: the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Monument, the White House itself.

Speaking from a lectern behind protective glass, Harris then warned of Trump’s enemies list and intent to turn the military against those who disagree with him. “This is not a presidential candidate thinking about how to make your life better,” she said. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with resentment and bent on unchecked power.”

The vice president then outlined part of her own biography as a prosecutor and law enforcement officer who fought for the people. But somehow the argument came back to the Republican candidate. “If he were elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office on day one with a list of enemies,” she said. “If I am elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

It was a far cry from the start of Harris’ candidacy, which kicked off with joyful euphoria and her running mate Tim Walz calling Trump and his allies “weird.” That felt like a refreshing tonic after years of fear and misery in the Trump era. At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, speaker after speaker mocked Trump and made him look small (Barack Obama even parodied his masculinity).

Remarkably, even then, Harris began to take a more serious tone about the threat he posed, and in recent weeks she embraced the use of “fascist” by former Trump officials to underscore his authoritarian ambitions, though she did not use that word here . His rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, and the echoes of a pro-Nazi rally that took place there in 1939, provided more fodder.

There is a political logic to this choice: make the election a referendum on Trump instead of Harris; make him look like the incumbent and Harris like the change agent. “It’s time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and the division,” she said. “It is time for a new generation of leadership in America.”

That would explain why she has tried to distance herself from Biden and is reportedly turning down his offers to campaign for her. Although her Tuesday rally in Washington was Bidenesque in its dire warnings about the threat from Trump, the president’s favorite word, “democracy,” was used only once. Instead, the word “freedom” was spelled out on three giant blue banners, along with “USA.”

Some Democrats also want Harris to split from Biden on the issue of the war in Gaza. A protester was led away shouting: “Stop arming Israel! Arms embargo now!” But Harris didn’t throw a bone at the peace movement during her remarks.

While Biden previously praised job growth and good economic news, Harris again made some practical promises: tax cuts for working people and the middle class, the first-ever federal ban on grocery price increases, a cap on the price of insulin and help for first-time buyers. housing market.

These were important things that should win votes. But they were not accompanied by a grand vision. The old Mario Cuomo adage was campaign in poetry, govern in prose, but there wasn’t much rousing rhetoric in Harris’ speech. Ten years of Trump had been bad for the soul.

The vice president, however, delivered a memorable image near the end, recalling how America fought its way free from a petty tyrant (British monarch George III) for nearly 250 years and how generations of Americans have preserved that freedom. “They did not struggle, sacrifice and give their lives just to see us give up our basic freedoms, but to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant,” she said. “The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”

Then, from fear, a turn to hope: “The United States of America is the greatest idea ever conceived by humanity. A nation big enough to encompass all our dreams. Strong enough to withstand any rift or rift between us. And fearless enough to imagine a future full of possibilities.”

Doug Emhoff joined Harris on stage with a hug and a kiss as the crowd cheered. Next Tuesday they will be back in Washington for the most nerve-wracking presidential election since George W. Bush against Al Gore in 2000. They hope that this Democratic vice president will do better than Gore. A razor-thin margin of a few thousand votes in one or two swing states could determine whether Harris’ closing argument looks like strategic genius or a catastrophic miscalculation.

She told the crowd: “For a decade, Donald Trump has tried to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That’s who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say: that is not who we are.”

The phrase “this is not who we are” has been used often in the Trump era. Sometimes the evidence says otherwise. Next week the country will find out who we really are.