Joe Biden cruised to victory in the 2024 Democratic primaries before suspending his re-election campaign. The only opponent that challenged Biden was the protest vote over the administration’s support for Israel and the handling of the war in Gaza — those marking “uncommitted” at the ballot box rose to a 100K+ votes in places like Michigan.
Still the “uncommitted” votes were largely viewed as political messaging, not campaign threatening, meant to influence, not to wound the Democratic candidate.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, faced a real candidate who drew large voting percentages in the Republican Party primaries. Though he also cruised to victory, significant numbers of former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley‘s supporters made it clear they preferred another kind of GOP ticket.
Since then, Haley has vanished as Trump’s opposition, capitulating and renouncing her previous Trump criticism to curry favor with MAGA and to stand in abject solidarity against the Democrats. Biden’s protestors, however, remain — just as the war they protest remains.
In Detroit this week they protested during a speech by the new Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Harris, whom Republicans are working hard to portray as a creature of the far-left, repudiated the protests by giving those upset with the Gaza tragedy a simple binary choice. In a short retort, the Vice President emphasized a practical approach over a sympathetic ear, and made clear that the prerequisite to any solution is first gaining power.
Interrupting the protestors who were accusing her, as they do Biden, of supporting “genocide” in Gaza, Harris — seeming to lose patience — said simply: “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then just say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
[NOTE: The poet Robert Frost once quipped, perhaps anticipating this moment, that “a liberal is someone too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.”]
Wow, Kamala Harris just destroyed a heckler pic.twitter.com/TRYwapgEr9
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 8, 2024
The reaction in the crowd was an unadulterated uproar of approval for the smackdown. Comments referred to Harris’s plainspoken binary as a “big moment” in her campaign, especially as Republicans will continue to paint her sympathy for pro-Palestine protestors as a weakness. One commenter called Harris’s response “clarifying.”
Harris has effectively used the same language — “I’m speaking” — in the past, notably to shut down VP Mike Pence during a 2020 debate. One commenter shared the moment below:
Gave me these vibes pic.twitter.com/Wq1soqjyep
— Franklin (@franklinisbored) August 8, 2024