Election 2024: Vote for Kamala Harris

Here in the US, this year’s general election is being held on Tuesday, November 5th. And here is my opinion:

You should vote for Kamala Harris, and not just because of harm reduction.

I hope, dear reader, that I don’t have to tell you about Project 2025, but if I do: it’s an outline by Christian nationalists of what they intend to accomplish during a hypothetical second Trump term. Trump has publicly disavowed it, but members of his campaign staff, including his VP pick JD Vance, were involved in its creation.

This is what the republicans want to achieve, if they had the leverage in Congress and the White House. (They already control the Supreme Court at this point.)

That alone should be enough to convince you, fellow voter, to do everything it takes to prevent Trump from re-entering power.

Yes, I hear you, my friends to the left of me. The Biden administration is complicit in the atrocities in Gaza.

Yes, they haven’t been able to break the republican grip on the Supreme Court.

Yes, they haven’t kept all of their promises.

You want to abstain. Or you want to vote third party.

Please don’t. Please, please don’t.

Jill Stein won’t ever win the presidency. Her party has no grassroots support, and has shown no interest in doing so. It’s not a protest vote. You’re not voting your conscience. It’s just contrarianism. You know she and other third party candidates won’t win in a system rigged to only allow two parties. I think you’re lying to yourself and to others.

I understand if you want to abstain, but remember that voting is not an eternal contract. Get someone in power who will bend, and then pressure them as much as it takes.

Dislodging the Trump appointees from the Supreme Court? That takes control of Congress as well as the White House. Are you voting down ballot? The MAGA voters are, and that’s why they’re taking over local school boards.

So why vote for Kamala Harris in particular?

Unlike people such as JD Vance, who experienced poverty yet seek to punish those still living in it, Harris works to help those who still struggle. I was struck by a passage in her memoir, The Truths We Hold, about her work as the attorney general of California, fighting to get compensation for homeowners who lost everything during the housing market crash of 2008. She fought to get more from the banks when the other state attorneys were ready to throw in the towel, and eventually got some leverage. Obviously, such political memoirs can be self-serving, but this story appears to be true.

She was raised by a single mother for most of her childhood. I recall when I was very young, after my parents divorced, and my mom and I had to live in a dilapidated duplex in Cape Coral. She knows, as I do, how difficult being a single mother is. Compare this to Trump, who abandons wives when it’s convenient, or JD Vance, who condemned his mother after leaving home.

But if this isn’t enough to convince you: we – the US, democracy in general, the world – will suffer much more under a second Trump term. Isn’t that enough to vote for someone else?