The Speech I'd Advise Vice President Harris to Give

In this nadir of hatred, bold acts may be our sole path to unity–and democracy’s last hope.

Trump is not going to seize this moment to repudiate the venom he himself has spewed, so Harris should—but it has to be bold.

Author’s note: To be clear, I’m not advocating for shallow opportunism below. This is bigger than Trump or the GOP. Democracies can endure incivility, economic travails, even plagues, but they cannot withstand sustained violence against political leaders, voters, those who organize voting, or ethnic communities—groups Trump targets.

The gun lobby gorges on bloodshed; the disunionists feast on chaos. The second assassination attempt on former President’s life is a solemn reminder that American democracy teeters on the precipice. In the aftermath, the nation holds its breath, fearing the blast radius of hatred that may follow. All eyes turn to Vice President Kamala Harris to light a path forward.

If I was advising Harris, I’d tell her to reframe these spasms of hatred – the second attempt on former president Donald Trump's life, the Apalachee High School massacre – as inflection points demanding action, a clarion call for reform, an opening for progress.

With oratorical strokes of sublime master and scalpel-like precision, she must deliver a career defining speech future presidential historians will quote. She should describe the details in visceral detail – gunfire splits the air, anguished wails echoing, the acrid gunsmoke burning lungfuls, the postmortem descriptions of children’s bullet-ridden bodies and Trump’s ear (though we still haven’t heard from a doctor at the hospital/scene…) and emotional trauma. From this waking nightmare of America's epidemic, pivot to the grotesque statistics. Numbers and descriptions have the power to rivet, when arrayed by a master's hand. 

For this to appear like more than an empty campaign stunt, Harris must dangle what should be bipartisan action–which is far more meaningful than hopes and prayers: “The Donald J. Trump Gun Violence Prevention Act.” As I suggested in Rolling Stone months ago, it would honoring the former President's harrowing trauma while repudiating the toxins he himself has pumped through the body politic. As the polls show, Americans crave real solutions.

To highlight the transformation of the Republican party, Harris should evoke heroic antecedents: Let the nobility of Ronald Reagan's post-assassination conversion guide her. This will also underscore Trump’s inability to be remade by any tragedy.

Harris would do well to highlight the necessity of leadership at this critical junction. As I said on CNN this morning, he’ll probably double down on the incendiary rhetoric that has inflamed his supporters and brought American democracy to the brink. All the more imperative, then, for Harris to strike a concordant tone. 

The vice president should acknowledge that this is an audacious proposition, certainly, but these are times demanding of audacity. In this nadir of hatred, it may be our sole path to unity–and democracy’s last hope.