The biggest surprise on the last night of the Democratic convention wasn’t that Beyoncé or Taylor Swift didn’t show up (contrary to widespread rumor). It was that so much time was devoted to touting the party’s credentials as the champion of a principled foreign policy and a strong national defense.

Generally this topic hasn’t been the Democrats’ rhetorical high point, either at previous assemblies or for the short duration of Kamala Harris’ campaign up to this point. Its emergence Thursday night was so striking that Wall Street Journal columnist (and former GOP speechwriter) Peggy Noonan complained that the Dems “stole traditional Republican themes (faith, patriotism) and claimed them as their own.”

Noonan misstates what’s been happening in the era of Donald Trump. The fact is, the Republicans have abandoned those themes, and the Democrats—who never rejected them—are picking them up, with intensity, as part of a broad rescue mission. Democracy, freedom, equality, and community—concepts so deeply embedded in American politics that their validity has long gone unquestioned—are “on the ballot” in this election. The same is true of national security, and so the DNC’s strategists elevated it too from a common cliché to a cherished value and vital interest under threat from the cult of personality surrounding Trump.

But national security falls in a special category. The world is dangerous in particularly complicated ways, teeming with threats and opportunities. Harris faces a big question: Is she up to the task? She faces the question more than many previous Democratic candidates for two reasons. First, despite her three-and-a-half years as vice president and her previous four years as U.S. senator, her record is not well known. Second (and there’s no getting around this), she’s a woman, and there is still a contentious stereotype—which Trump frequently gins up—that women are too weak to stand up to strong dangerous men.

And so, on the convention’s last night—Harris’ night—the schedule was packed with speakers to sweep away that stereotype: to affirm that this Democratic woman grasps the world’s dangers and has the knowhow and nerve to deal with them. Leon Panetta (former secretary of defense and CIA director), Sen. Mark Kelly (former Navy combat pilot), Rep. Adam Kinzinger (who, like several Republicans who appeared to endorse Harris, derided his own party because it was “no longer conservative”), and a stageful of veterans for Harris—all forcefully made the case, on national security grounds, against Trump and for Harris.

Then came the nominee. Most of her speech dealt with traditional domestic themes, but the passages on defense and foreign policy formed in many ways the most impassioned part of her speech—and certainly rank among the most muscular delivered by any candidate at a Democratic convention in living memory. Some of these passages are worth noting and analyzing in detail:

As commander in chief, I will ensure America has the strongest, most........

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