Joy unleashed Kamala Harris stirs Democrats with new path out of darkness

Five weeks ago, Democrats were preparing to hold their national convention in Chicago under a pall, weighed down by fears of defeat and what Michelle Obama called a "palpable sense of dread about the future".

- Ed Pilkington

An 81-year-old president, trailing badly in the polls, would face his people as they cowered before the prospect of four more years of Donald Trump and his bloodlust for retribution.

What we got at the DNC in Chicago was a week-long celebration that went well beyond the relief that the party evidently feels, now that it is back in the game. There was rejoicing in the energy and confidence that has been unleashed by the unexpected metamorphosis from Joe Biden to the "joyful warrior", Kamala Harris.

Relief and rejoicing were written on Harris's face as she took the stage in Biden's place on Thursday night. She was met by a roar from delegates, many dressed in blazing white in homage to the suffragette movement without which they would not have been marking the nomination of the first Black and Asian American woman on a major party ticket.

Harris came across as unleashed herself, emboldened even, as though she had been lifted up by the trust her party had placed in her. A woman who has spent the past four years in the shadows, cooped up in the notoriously unsung role of vice-president, was now beaming under the spotlight.

As she introduced herself to a country that is still rawly new to the Kamala Harris phenomenon, she talked about her earlier career taking on big banks and sexual predators as a prosecutor. "We were underestimated at practically every turn, but we never gave up, because the future is worth fighting for," she said.

Nobody is underestimating Harris now. Not even Trump.

She diligently performed on Thursday one of the main tasks of any nominating convention - to sell her life story. But the convention was so much more than a crashcourse in Kamala Harris.

There was a sense of the party reaching for a new definition of itself, one fit for a new generation.