Democrats seize the urgency of our moment

A former prosecutor, she made what she called her “proven ability to prosecute the case against this administration” a centerpiece of her presidential campaign.On Wednesday night, she put those skills to work for Joe Biden.In the process, the senator who seeks to become the first Black American and the first woman to be vice president reminded a nation where Africans were brought to be enslaved, and where women were denied the right to vote, that it was possible to achieve “a beloved community.”It would be a place, she said, “where all are welcome, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we love.”In keeping with expectations that a vice presidential candidate will strike relentlessly at the opposition, Harris continued the online Democratic National Convention’s assault on President Trump’s failures, lies and selfishness.But as prosecutors sometimes decide to do, she chose to speak not angrily or irritably, but in a tone of quiet sorrow over a country confronting pain, distress and exhaustion with a divisive and erratic president.“Donald Trump’s failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods,” Harris said. “Our democratic institutions [are] threatened as never before,” he said.Henry Olsen: The Biden-Harris ticket spoke directly to Black and Latino AmericansThe twin speeches, combined with statements from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former secretary of stateHillary Clinton, reflected the astonishing discipline that the two-hour-long online convention has imposed on a party that has often turned its guns toward internal rivals.Over and over, the party has stressed three themes: the catastrophe that Trump’s reelection would bring in its wake; the empathy and competence that Biden would bring to the White House; and the Democratic Party’s devotion to diversity, inclusion and social justice — a nation, as Harris put it, committed to “the fundamental belief that every human being is of infinite worth, deserving of compassion, dignity and respect.”But it fell to Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016 when nearly everyone expected her to win, to be explicit about a fear that will animate Democratic activism between now and Election Day.“For four years,” she said, “people have said to me, ‘I didn’t realize how dangerous he was.’ ‘I wish I could go back and do it over.’ Or worst, ‘I should have voted.’ Well, this can’t be another woulda-coulda-shoulda election.”Obama drove that theme home, too.