The following is a preliminary draft on a piece I’ve been thinking about for some time, but have only now gotten around to writing. I’m posting this draft here and now to try to get some early feedback to help edit it. If you have constructive comments, you can try the comment facility below (if I manage to figure out how to get it working), or better still, you can send me email. I will post an updated version (including the still unwritten “five reasons” section at the end) as soon as possible. I’ll also post this, and this week’s still not quite ready “Speaking of Which,” on my blog. I would be happy if other sites wish to reprint this post, and would appreciate any constructive edit suggestions. If you are interested in doing that, please contact me. [PS: Comments should be working now (but should be moderated before appearing, so please be patient.]
Two questions need to be addressed before we get down to detailed arguments. The first is why vote at all? I’d say first, because it is your right as a citizen, but must be secured by your exercise of it. People in America may have a very limited say in how the country is organized and run, but you do have the vote, and using it shows your willingness to engage in the responsibility for setting the nation’s direction.
The second question is whether you should limit your vote choice to the two major political parties, or consider voting for a third party should you prefer that candidate’s platform? History shows us that America gravitated into a two-party system almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified, and quickly returned to a two party system on the two instances where one major party disbanded (replacing the Federalists with the Whigs, and replacing the Whigs with the Republicans). No subsequent third party has been able to sustain significant followings, with third-party votes often dropping to under 5% in recent elections.
So from a practical standpoint, third parties are ineffective and unpromising.One might nonetheless consider voting for a third party candidate if: neither major party nominated a candidate you can stand, and there is no significant difference between the two candidates that can direct your choice. I can understand if you feel that both Trump and Harris should be shunned for their rote support of Israeli genocide, although I suspect that even there the nature of their positions differs enough to favor a vote for Harris.
One other possible consideration is whether one party offers a better chance for future improvement, based on the composition of the party, how open-minded its members are, and how democratic its processes are. The current two-party system is quite possibly the most polarized ever, which has led most people to select one party or the other. Moreover, both major parties have primaries that are open to all members, and as such are amenable to reform. If, like me, you are primarily concerned with “left” issues of peace and equal rights, you may have noticed that most of the people most likely to agree with you are currently Democrats. If your goal is to build a majority around your ideals, you need to establish a bond of solidarity with the Democrats, which often means voting for a candidate you don’t totally agree with. You are, after all, hoping that other Democrats, even ones that disagree with you, will vote for your candidate should that person win a primary.
The last third party candidate I voted for was Ralph Nader in 2000. I don’t feel bad about that vote, especially as I’m convinced that the Gore-Lieberman ticket would have been as gung-ho starting the “war on terror” after 9/11 as Bush-Cheney was. But I did learn one lesson from that election, which is that even in Kansas, where the Gore campaign was practically non-existent, 90% of the anti-Bush votes cast went to the Democrat. Since then, I vowed to work within the Democratic Party, such as it as, as best I could. (I did lapse once since, to vote against a particular Democrat I’ve hated what seems like all of my life, but there I went with the Republican, as I really wanted that Democrat to lose.)
Having narrowed the choice down to Harris vs. Trump, arguments that one candidate is better and/or one candidate is worse are equally valid. This being American politics, “one candidate is worse” arguments predominate. Lest you imagine there might be any suspense here, Harris is the better option, while Trump is much the worse.
And while the future is impossible to predict, the margins overwhelm any imaginable uncertainty. Trump is especially known, as we’ve actually experienced him as President. This doesn’t mean a second term will be just like his first: it could easily be worse, for reasons we’ll get into. Harris is harder to read. Although she has much relevant experience, presidency offers powers and temptations that she’s never faced before, as well as situations she’s never had to deal with. This raises doubts, which I will deal with in a separate list, following the “top ten.”
So, here are my top ten reasons to vote for Harris vs. Trump:
10. Donald Trump is a truly odious human being. That’s a personal, not a political judgment: sure, virtually all of his political views stink, but most of the people who share his political views have personal traits one can relate to, respect, even appreciate. As far as I can tell — and while I only know what’s been reported, I’ve been exposed to a lot of that — he has none. He seems totally miserable. If he’s ever laughed, it’s been at someone else’s expense. He lacks even the slightest pretense of caring for anyone, even for his wives or children (the prenups should have been a clue). He’s not unique in this regard, but most similar people are easily ignored. The only way to free ourselves from Trump’s ever-present unpleasantness is to vote him off (like in the “reality TV” shows he’s a creature of).
Harris, on the other hand, can listen, and respond appropriately. She has a generous and infectious laugh. And while I’ve never seen her cry, she is at least cognizant of situations that call for a show of concern and empathy. I don’t particularly like the idea of president as “handholder-in-chief,” but it’s better to have someone who can feign that than someone who utterly cannot.
9. Such personal failings drive most people to despair, which at least could be pitied, but Trump’s inherited wealth has provided him with an armor of callousness, which has long elicited the warm glow of supplicants and sycophants. From this, he has constructed his own mental universe where he is adored and exalted. This has produced extraordinary hubris — another of his distasteful traits — but more importantly, his narcissism has left him singularly unprepared to deal with reality when it so rudely intrudes on his fantasy life (as happens all too often when you’re President).
I should note here that the collective embarrassment we so often felt when witnessing Trump’s failed attempts at addressing events has dulled somewhat since he left office (need I remind you of Hurricane Maria? — just one of dozens of examples, ranging from his staring into the eclipse to the pandemic). The only things that have affected him that way since have been his indictments, but even there he’s been sheltered like no one else ever. There is no reason to think that Harris wouldn’t respond to events at least as well as a normal politician, which is to say, by showing palpable concern and deliberation. Trump’s disconnect from reality is unprecedented. (Good place to mention his election denialism.)
8. There is some debate as to whether Trump’s wealth is real, but even as it seems, that should be reason enough to disqualify him. Only a few Presidents have come from the ranks of the rich, and those who did — like Washington, Kennedy, and the Roosevelts — took pains to distance themselves from their business interests. Back in 2016, Trump suggested he would give up his business ties, insisting that his wealth made him more independent of corrupt influences, but after he won, he backtracked completely, and ran an administration that was outrageously corrupt — especially at the top, where his son-in-law’s diplomacy netted him a billion-dollar private equity fund, but his administration hired lobbyists to peddle influence everywhere. One might argue that Trump’s business was so large that he couldn’t possibly disentangle himself, but that’s just part of the reason why people like him shouldn’t be allowed in politics. Their inability to relate to ordinary Americans is another.
7. Aside from his abuse of executive power to staff government with corporate agents, pack with courts with right-wing cronies, and pardon numerous criminals in his circle, his record for delivering on his 2016 campaign promises is remarkably thin: he lost interest in things that might have been popular (like building infrastructure, or “draining the swamp”). He also lucked out, when a couple Republican defections saved the ACA, and then when Democrats took Congress back in 2018. The only positive bill he signed was the pandemic relief act, which he wanted desperately to save a flagging stock market, but had to accept a mostly Democratic bill that helped pretty much everyone.
Also, the full impact of many policies can take years before it is felt. The repeal of Taft-Hartley in 1947 took decades before it started to do serious damage to unions and workers (although it had the immediate impact of ending a campaign to unionize in the South, which would have been a big advance for civil rights). Deregulation of savings & loans in the 1980s and larger banks in the 1990s took most of a decade before triggering recessions. Much of what Trump did during his term didn’t blow up until after the 2020 election, including his killing of the Iran nuclear deal, his agreement to give Afghanistan to the Taliban, and his Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Harris’s ability to deliver on campaign promises will, as Biden’s has, depend much on the balance of power in Congress, but at least Democrats have a track record of trying to pass laws to help most Americans, and not just those favored by Republicans with their tax and benefit cuts. Harris will be further hampered by the Republican packing of the courts, but that’s one reason why it matters not just that Democrats win elections, but win big.
6. On the other hand, if Trump were more dedicated in pursuit of the policy positions he espouses, or if he’s just given more power by a Republican Congress, he could (and probably would) do much more harm in a second term, way beyond the still not fully accounted for harm of his first. For starters, he has a much more developed idea of what he wants to do — not because he understands policy any better, but because he has more specific goals in areas that especially interest him — and will hire more loyal operatives, eager to carry out his wishes. This will be easier, because he’s already bent the party to his will, especially promoting its most crazed cadres, while he himself has become further radicalized. Moreover, he now has a long list of enemies to punish, while his minions will be free to pursue their own grafts and obsessions. We’ve already seen how he’s turned the presidency into a cult of personality. Give him more power — not just in Congress but the Supreme Court is ready to enshrine the “unitary executive theory” — and he will only grow more monstrous.
5. Donald Trump is a shit stain on the face of America. They say that wealth is power, and that power corrupts, absolute power absolutely. America emerged from WWII with half of the world’s wealth, with troops spread to Europe and East Asia, and corporations everywhere. America has been “breaking bad” ever since, starting in the 1940s rigging elections in Italy, fighting communists in Greece and Korea, overthrowing democratic governments in Guatemala and Iran, replacing them with corporate-friendly autocrats. Still, even Reagan expected good guys in white hats to win out, so he pretended to be one, while the Bushes hid their conservatism behind fake compassion. Trump is the first US president to give up all pretense. His fans may mistake his contempt for candor, but the result is a much more brutal world. He demands tribute from allies, lest they fall into the ranks of enemies, who are expected to cower when faced with overwhelming American might, and face escalating threats when they refuse to fall in line. His is a recipe for neverending war, as we’ve already seen with Russia and Iran, with Korea and China waiting for the next break.
Nor are we only talking about foreign policy. The conservative solution to domestic matters is also to rely on force, starting with mass incarceration, eroding/stripping rights, smashing unions, purging the civil service, quelling demonstrations, stifling free speech, book bans, censoring the press, turning education into indoctrination, rigging elections, even going so far as to incite mobs and promise them immunity. While these impulses have long been endemic to Republicans, Trump is unique in he wants you to see and smell the feces, and that seems to be the basis for his popularity among his hardcore constituency. This, with its embrace of sheer power and rampant criminality, is what’s so reminiscent of the fascist movements of the 1930s.
4. Still, as bad as Trump is personally, the real danger is that his election will bring a tidal wave of Republicans into power all throughout the federal and local governments they have pledged to debilitate and reduce, as Grover Norquist put it, “to the size where I can drown it in the bathtub.” (The less often discussed ancillary idea is to hack off functions done by government and give them away to the private sector. This almost never works. When attempted, it almost always makes the functions more expensive and/or less useful.) This is just one of many deranged and dysfunctional ideas prevalent in the Republican Party. Like most of their ideas, it’s appealing as rhetoric, but unworkable in practice. Republicans have repeatedly tried to reduce government spending by cutting taxes on their donor class, but have found little to actually cut — even when they had the power to write budgets — so all they’ve produced is greater deficits, and an inflated oligarchy.
They’ve had more luck at poisoning benefits, trying to make government appear to be worthless. The idea is to convince voters that voting is hopeless, because government will only take from them, and never give back. The idea that the purpose of government is to “provide for the general welfare” (that’s in the Preamble to the US Constitution) is inimical to them. The idea of “government of, by, and for the people” (that’s in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address) is alien to those who hate most American people. Republicans created a death spiral of democracy, which they hope will leave them in permanent power, not to serve the public, but to prevent people from using government for their own improvement.
Trump has added his own authoritarian quirks to the Republican agenda, but the big risk to democracy has always come from money, which Republicans have made sure selects candidates and drives elections. Trump is less a cause of oligarchy than evidence of how far it has progressed.
3. Two important concepts in economics are externality (public costs that are not factored into product costs, such as pollution) and opportunity costs (other things that we could spend money on if we weren’t preoccupied with given expenses). Republicans, driven exclusively by their desire to help the rich get richer in the here and now, and blind to the future, have no interest in these concepts. Democrats are subject to the same donor pressures, but at least recognize that such side effects are real and important. This is because they try to recognize and balance everyone’s welfare, and not just that of their donors and voters.
Climate change is a good example of both: it is largely caused by the waste products of fossil fuels, and can only be remedied by major investment sooner rather than later. But people only see what gasoline costs when they fill up, while the climate change they’re contributing to only manifests later, and mostly to other people. This gives them little reason to spend now to avert future costs, so they don’t. Even as climate change has become a very tangible problem, Trump and the Republicans have wrapped themselves ever deeper into a cocoon of denial and ignorance, which ensures that as long as they’re in power we will never invest what we need to in sustainable infrastructure. While a second Trump term could do a lot of immediate damage, its long-term cost will largely be opportunity costs, as we belatedly realize we didn’t invest what we should have when it would have been more effective.
2. It’s impossible to overstate how completely Donald Trump has taken over and perverted our culture, what philosophers call our noosphere — the mental universe, our ability to reason. This may seem paradoxical given that few people on Earth are as disengaged from and contemptuous of reason as Donald Trump, but that may well be the source of his power. He has effectively given his followers permission to disengage from other people, to eschew reason and argument and indulge their own prejudices and fantasies, because that’s what he does, and he’s so fabulously successful. Moreover, it has the added benefit of driving crazy all those who still worry about real problems (both their own and those of other people), which they expect to deal with through science and reason. (Such people often project their own mania back onto the Trumpers, and reckon them to be saddled with problems, when they actually seem to be quite blissfully serene in their obliviousness and/or ignorance.)
Political scientists have a concept known as the Overton window, which describes “the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.” Ideas outside the window are dismissed as radical or even unthinkable, making it very hard to get any sort of coverage, as the media limits itself to more widely acceptable ideas. Events may push some ideas into the mainstream, while discarding others. For instance, there was a time when eugenics was all the rage, but no more. Climate change has become increasingly mainstream, although there are still political interests out to kill any such discussion. A big part of politics is fighting over what we can and cannot talk about. What Trump has done has been to expand the Overton window to the far right, legitimizing clusters of issues that were previously regarded as baseless (like QAnon, antivax claims, election denial). Perhaps the most disturbing of all has been Trump’s own criminal enterprises. These subjects, which at best distract from real problems and often create more, would only grow under a second Trump term.
I have no doubt that the bad policies advanced by Trump will blow up and wind up discredited, but at a great waste of effort to stop them, and a huge opportunity cost as we ignore constructive ideas from the left. Even where Harris does not have good programs, which certainly includes her continued fealty to Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden (and Cheney?) foreign policy, her election would provide a much healthier window for debate than what we’d be stuck with under Trump.
1. It’s time to turn the page on Trump and the era of Fox Republicanism. Cloture on Trump is easy to imagine, as he’s way past his prime, increasingly doddering at 78, unlikely to ever run again. Vote him out, and that’s one problem America will never have to deal with again. Not only would it give us a chance to heal, to move on, to deal with our self-protracted problems, but it could be the kindest result for Trump and even for his Party. Trump could cut his plea deals and escape most of the legal jeopardy he’s landed in. The Party could finally recalculate, trying to find a way to compete in the real world instead of trying to scam the rhetorical madness that Fox created to profit from fear and rage. Moreover, by cutting their losses, they’d escape much of the blame for the disasters their preferred policies would inevitably lead to. Progress is inexorable, so those who would resist it only have two choices: bend or break. The Republicans’ forty-year (1980-2020) era has done much damage to the social and economic fabric of the nation. Some things have broken, and many more are creaking. We might survive four more years of Trump, but time is running out. And when things do break under Trump, beware that no one will be more ill-prepared and incompetent at dealing with them.
On the other hand, Harris, like most Democrats (even the nominally left-wing of the party), doesn’t represent visionary change, but she is perceptive, analytical, and pragmatic, which suggests that she will adapt to changing circumstances, and endeavor to make the best out of them. She will be sorely tested by the influence of wealthy lobbyists, by the superficial and sensationalist press, by the still powerful remains of Republican power — which while incapable of governing competently let alone responsibly, is still a formidable machine for amplifying grievances — and by new challenges we haven’t even been able to think of yet (so mired are we in the ruins of bad Republican politics, from Nixon and Reagan through the Bushes to their ultimate self-parody in Trump, tempered ever so slightly by interim Democrats who never got beyond patchwork repairs).
Of course, one can think of many more reasons, especially if you tried to work from policies outward. I may do a separate document where I read through Trump’s “Agenda 47” and comment line-by-line. Presumably there’s a comparable Harris document somewhere, which could also be scrutinized. From them, I might be able to come up with a scorecard, but there’s no chance of a different result. As it is, I’ve concentrated less on issues and more on personalities and political dynamics: Trump is at best muddled on issues, but his shortcomings as noted are extremely clear.
Harris, as I noted, is harder to read, especially because for tactical campaign purposes she has adopted a set of views that aim to win over not just undecided/centrist voters but any Republicans that Trump hasn’t totally stripped of their decency yet. She’s had some success at that, although it remains to be seen how many actual votes follow her celebrity endorsements. At this point, I don’t see any point in second-guessing her campaign strategy. Presumably she has researched the electorate and knows much better than I do just how to pitch them. If she loses, we’ll have a field day dissecting her mistakes — which, for all the reasons mentioned above and many more, may be the only fun we can have in the next four years.
But for now, let’s assume she wins, and she runs her administration along lines it is reasonable to expect. In that case, the left will still have work to do and things to protest. So here are my:
Top 5 Reasons Electing Harris Won’t Solve Our Problems
5. Perhaps most important, US foreign policy needs a total rethink.
4. Immigration.
3. Climate change.
2. Money in politics.
1. Inequality and injustice.
Test to make sure that comments are working. It wasn’t straightforward to turn this on.