CHICAGO — Daytime television mega-celebrity Oprah Winfrey told a cheering crowd at the United Center that the 2024 presidential election boils down to a choice of values and character and warned that “decency and respect are on the ballot.”
Winfrey, who identified herself as an independent, made it clear she thinks Vice President Kamala Harris is the clear winner over former President Trump in the “decency and respect” department.
“There’s a certain candidate that says if we just go to the polls this one time, we’ll never have to do it again,” she said, referring to Trump’s cryptic remarks last month in which he assured supporters they would not have to vote again if he’s elected president.
Winfrey called out those remarks as un-American and said it highlighted the election as a choice of candidates’ values that will set the future trajectory of the country.
“So I’m calling on all you independents and all you undecideds. You know this is true. You know I’m telling you the truth, that values and character matter most of all,” she added. “In leadership and in life.”
Winfrey said that preserving decency and respect in this year’s election is a matter of “common sense.”
“Common sense tells you that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can give us decency and respect,” she said.
“Let us choose loyalty to the Constitution over loyalty to any individual because that’s the best of America. And let us choose optimism over cynicism and let us include inclusion over retribution,” she said.
Winfrey then energized the crowd by defiantly declaring that “we won’t go back, we won’t be sent back, pushed back, bullied back, kicked back. We’re not going back,” she said in a rhythmic cadence, appearing to warn implicitly that electing Trump to a second term would have consequences for civil rights and equality in America.
The former television show host paid tribute to four six-year-old girls who desegregated New Orleans elementary schools in 1960, including Tessie Provost, who died last month at the age of 69.
“The New Orleans Four they were called. They broke barriers and they paid dearly for it but it was the grace and guts and courage of women like Tessie Provost Williams that paved the way for another young girl who nine years later became part of the second class to integrate the public schools in Berkeley, California,” she said, drawing a line to Harris.
Harris was part of the second integrated class at Berkeley’s Thousand Oaks Elementary School in 1968.
“Soon and very soon we’ll be teaching our daughters and sons how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, two idealistic, energetic immigrants … grew up to become the 47th president of the United States,” Winfrey said, drawing wild cheers from the crowd.
