AOC and Hillary Clinton lead the new and old guard of Democratic women on first night of DNC for Harris

‘Well, my friends, the future is here,’ Hillary Clinton says as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushes Harris as a progressive champion

Eric Garcia
Chicago, Illinois
,John Bowden
Tuesday 20 August 2024 05:02
Comments
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivers a fiery speech in support of Vice President Kamala Harris

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton represented the old and new guard of Democratic women to push for Kamala Harris on the first night of the party’s convention as the vice president seeks to become the first female president.

The dual speeches showed an effort to unite the party’s establishment with its progressive insurgent wing.

Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat and self-proclaimed democratic socialist, received ovation after ovation and chants of her initials “AOC” as she praised President Joe Biden, Harris, and her running mate Tim Walz of Minnesota as she lambasted former president Donald Trump.

Ocasio-Cortez sought to tie her own background as a bartender before she entered politics with Harris’s working-class background.

“I am here tonight because America has before us a rare and precious opportunity,” she said. “In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class because she is from the middle class.”

Ocasio-Cortez, a supporter of Palestinian rights, also sought to assure progressives that Harris shared their concerns amid the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

“She is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home,” she said. Ocasio-Cortez also blasted for Trump for trying to make himself seem like a vanguard of the working-class.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) delivered a rousing address to assure progressives that Harris would be on their side on everything from Gaza to taking on Wall Street.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) delivered a rousing address to assure progressives that Harris would be on their side on everything from Gaza to taking on Wall Street. ((Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images))

“We know that Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing palms of his Wall Street friends,” she said. “And I for one am tired of hearing about how a 2 bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day."

Ocasio-Cortez’s star-turn comes four years after she was given only a minute to speak on behalf of voters who supported Bernie Sanders, the two-time Democratic presidential candidate who lost the nomination to Biden in 2020 and Clinton in 2016.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton delivered a rousing address connecting Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy with women’s rights, women’s suffrage and Clinton’s own 2016 candidacy.
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton delivered a rousing address connecting Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy with women’s rights, women’s suffrage and Clinton’s own 2016 candidacy. (AFP via Getty Images)

Clinton, for her part, fired up the crowd, leading chants of “keep going” to not give up the goal of shattering one of America’s last glass ceilings: the election of a woman to the presidency.

Clinton was greeted by a standing ovation and one of the loudest cheers of the evening as she took the stage. In her remarks, she tied Harris’s candidacy to suffragists who fought for women’s right to vote, to female trailblazing politicians Geraldine Ferraro, the first female vice presidential nominee, and Shirley Chisolm, the first woman to run for president in 1972, as well as Harris’s mother — and her own. Both of whom, Clinton said, she wished could see this moment.

“I wish my mother and Kamala’s mother could see us,” she told the United Center. “They would say, ‘Keep going!”

Clinton called the acceptance of the Democratic nomination for president in 2016 the “greatest honor of [her] life”, and went on to celebrate her performance in the election that year as a mark of progress in American history, despite her defeat to Donald Trump.

“Nearly 66 million Americans voted for a future where there is no ceiling on our dreams,” Clinton told the cheering audience, adding: “Together, we put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling.”

The former senator of New York, first lady and secretary of state said that progress was not guaranteed.

“We have to fight for it. And never, ever give up,” she said.

The two speeches came on the first night of the convention before Biden headlined. Last month, he announced lthat he would not run for the Democratic nomination for president and endorsed Harris.

Since then, Democrats have overwhelmingly rallied behind Harris. At the same time, a contingent of Democrats who voted “uncommitted” in the primary as a protest against Biden’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza continued to express their objections and hopes that Harris would shift policy.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in