We all know someone who has built their whole personality around support for a specific politician or political party. Someone who sees politics as a team sport, rather than a pursuit to better the lives of people in their country. These people, more than just being annoying, are symptomatic of a larger problem in American politics: that the beliefs of the candidates we vote for matter less than the letter next to their name. When looking at who to vote for this election do not look at the party, but look at the policy. Look at what they believe in and what they plan to do.
The reality is, in this year’s election, the policy offerings from both candidates are lacking, one much more than the other.
Former President Donald Trump is a complete non-starter. He is someone whose past actions, like the incitement of a riot at that capital on Jan. 6 and his blatant election denialism, make him a clear threat to our democracy. Trump openly wants to do insane things, such as get rid of the Department of Education. He lies when he says he has nothing to do with Project 2025, which is a playbook on how to take the U.S. back to the stone age, by crippling all social safety nets as well as the federal government. Trump is not running an election based on policy but rather based on nostalgia. Every rally he asks his supporters, “are you better off today than you were four years ago?” and then proceeds to whine and complain about random nonsense, providing no plan for the future interspersed with racist rhetoric against immigrants.
Trump is a threat to our democracy, so when deciding who to vote for, it should absolutely be something voters account for when deciding who to choose. However, this should not mean Democrats automatically deserve or earn Americans votes. In an era where the Republican party runs toward fascism and aims to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, it has become easy for the Democratic party to sit back and say ‘look how bad that guy is,’ without promoting any popular left-leaning policies. The Democratic party is banking on people making the correct and sensible choice that they are the better of two evils.
To be fair, Vice President Kamala Harris does have some solid policy. The expansion of the Child Tax Credit is good. Codifying abortion rights nationally after our far-right Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade is also fantastic. Things like tax credits for first-time home buyers and entrepreneurs starting a business are also fine enough policies, if not something that former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum would have pushed for in 2004. But in classic Democratic fashion, they have run to the right on immigration pushing for a right wing Republican Border Bill in an attempt to outflank Trump on the issue.
Speaking of Immigration. The discussion around the issue in this country has frankly gotten dangerous. When Trump highlights conspiracy theories, like Haitians in Ohio are eating your pets, it reeks of the same dehumanizing language used by Nazis to attack Jewish people and other minorities in the 1930s. This is a hyperbolic claim; however, Trump said “Illegal immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country,” in a speech back in 2023. These claims relate in frightening ways to the hateful rhetoric toward Jewish people in the Nazi era. The parallels are there, and they are concerning.
Harris has done very little to push back against these claims. She does not agree with them, but during the debate, and since then, has not called these claims out for what they are: racist and hateful. Rather than provide a counter-narrative to Trump’s insane plan, Democrats have given in to right-wing pressure and now support virtually the same immigration policy that Trump did in 2016. The Harris campaign is now pro-border wall when just a few years ago, it would have been unimaginable for a Democrat to believe that.
There will never be a perfect candidate. In an election where the safety of immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and our democracy is at stake, it is hard to justify voting for anyone else but Harris. We can complain and say that Democrats should have to earn our votes, but when standing in the voting booth, there are only two real options. If our choice is between ineffectual Democrats and a convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual abuse, give me the Democrats every day of the week.
