I was at a gathering a few months back, and a friend I hadn’t seen in some time asked if I was still writing, and when I said no, she asked me why.  I told her the honest to God truth that a certain former president had broken me and if I sat down with the intent to write I’d probably just bang my fists on the keyboard and any words that could be made out would come out to, “Grr, fuck Trump!”  And I didn’t want this blog to become a regular occasion of, “What has the orange lunatic done lately?” because I imagine the people who read this blog either (a) didn’t want to hear it, or (b) wouldn’t mind hearing it, but they’re pretty much in the same boat as me.

So that’s why I’ve been gone.

At the same time, I’ve been paying (way too much) attention to this election cycle, and I feel this one’s too important to keep quiet (as if I’ve actually kept quiet – anyone who reads this thing knows EXACTLY where I stand).  So, I decided it was time for me to put my thoughts into writing so any future administration can have a very easy time throwing me in any hypothetical gulags.

Yes, today we’re discussing why I’ve cast my vote for Kamala Harris.

Author’s note: there’s a decent chance this post will get a little raw and nasty.  If you’re concerned that you might read something here that will change how you think of me and cause you to disassociate with me, you may want to skip this post…I’m making no apologies.  Like I said before, it’s too important.

The Policies

I don’t think Kamala Harris is a perfect candidate.  She’s not a great candidate.  She’s barely an ok candidate.  Her #1 redeeming quality is, “She’s not Donald Trump,” and #2 is, “She’s not Joe Biden.”  I’ll readily admit that I’m practically a one-issue voter, with that one issue perfectly matching with her #1 redeeming quality.  I’ll expand on that in more detail further, but let’s examine a few issues that explain why she – and her party – have earned my vote.  And if this looks more like, “Why I’m not voting Republican,” and less, “Why I’m voting Democrat,” well, tough shit…I’m not arguing semantics here.

Abortion Rights

Look, aside from someone not being Donald Trump, I don’t really have a single-issue that I vote on.  I’m pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-voting rights, pro-civil rights, and I believe we’ve got a serious gun problem in this country (although I’m not for coming for people’s guns).  But with people calling this Roevember and correctly pointing out that this is the first presidential election after Roe v. Wade was struck down, it’s important to get the elephant in the room out of the way.

Republicans don’t care about abortion.  Let me clarify that.  Republicans care about abortion because it wins them the evangelical vote.  Beyond that, ask any Republican in the House, Senate, Supreme Court, or running for president how many abortions they’ve paid for, and I guarantee the average is nowhere near zero.

But evangelicals hate abortion.  They believe life begins at conception and women are nothing more than broodmares created to bring more men and broodmares into the world.  Abortion is an evil sin that women use because they don’t have the moral fiber to keep their legs shut.  Any politician that comes out in favor of abortion is fine with killing babies in the name of Satan.

And because evangelicals hate abortion, and the evangelical voting bloc is a not insubstantial portion of this country of ours, Republicans hate abortion too.

And so, now that Roe has been overturned, we have 13 states that have enacted total abortion bans, 9 of which don’t allow for exceptions for rape or incest.  And sure, there are medical exceptions in each state, but as we’ve seen with the cases of Josseli Barnica in Texas or Amber Thurman in Georgia, among, I’m sure, many others, what constitutes a medical emergency is a bit of a mystery to the doctors who could face prison time if they try to save a woman’s life when she’s in crisis.

Thankfully, in every state where abortion access has come to a vote of the people, including several very solidly Republican states, the anti-choice measures have failed.

But Republicans will never stop their anti-choice crusade.  They’ll scream about late-term abortions, as if someone decided after 7 or 8 months of carrying a child that they didn’t want it anymore and had it aborted, when in reality every late-term abortion was a wanted child where the woman experienced a tragedy, and the baby can no longer be carried to term.  I won’t even dignify the nonsense of a “post-birth abortion”, which doesn’t exist, because it’s just the Republicans trying to convince you that Democrats are literal baby killers.

They can tell you they won’t come for IVF, which requires the destruction of embryos, but they’ll vote against a national right to IVF bill.  They’ll tell you abortion should be left to the states, then come out and introduce an abortion ban in the Senate.  They’ll ignore the fact that nearly 65,000 rape-related pregnancies occurred in the states with near-total abortion bans following the Dobbs decision.  It doesn’t matter how many women die that shouldn’t, it doesn’t matter how many more infants die that didn’t need to suffer because they were forced to be brought to term, to Republicans, abortion is evil, women who have it performed on them are immoral and deserve their fate, and doctors who provide basic medical care should be in prison.

If either party sweeps the presidency, House, and Senate, the filibuster will almost certainly be gutted and a national law either permitting or outlawing abortion will be implemented.  I’m giving my vote to the people who care if women and children die, and that sure as hell ain’t Republicans.

Trans Rights

I’d like to imagine that we’re at a place where gay rights are entwined in the fabric of our country, but we’re giving platforms to conservative kickers who speak out against the “deadly sins” of Pride month, so we’re not there yet.  And considering Clarence Thomas called for a review of the case that gave gay couples the national right to marry in his concurring opinion in Dobbs, it’s safe to say we’re nowhere near closing the book on LGBTQ+ rights being infringed upon.

But the right has chosen to make transgender rights one of the great boogeymen of the 2024 election, and thus that’s what I’m going to focus on.

To hear conservatives tell it, sending your children to a public school runs parents the risk of having their beautiful boy come back as a girl when you pick them up at the end of the day.  That children are identifying as cats and as a result schools are required to keep litter boxes on hand for those kids (the real reason schools stock kitty litter is far more depressing – it’s part of a “go bucket” in case students are locked in a classroom during a school shooting, which Republicans don’t give a damn about).  That we’re handing out gender reassignment surgeries to every prisoner that wants one.  And dear God don’t get them started on trans kids invading girls’ sports or wanting to go to the bathroom in peace.

Trans people are not trying to dress up as the opposite gender to get ahead in life.  They were born in bodies that don’t correspond with their gender identity.  Without gender affirming care, they are more prone to suicide and self-harm, something that you’d think wouldn’t be an issue if a guy just wanted to wear a dress or win a college swimming meet.  Democrats advocate for people to receive the gender affirming care that they need to allow them to live their best lives.  Where’s the harm in that?  You don’t want your taxpayer dollars going to prisoners’ care?  I don’t want my tax dollars propping up the disgustingly bloated military industrial complex.  Sometimes our tax dollars go to things we don’t like.

Less than 1% of the world’s population identifies as transgender.  There has never been a reported situation where a transgender person assaulted a child in the bathroom.  The odds that a transgender person is going to have an impact on someone’s life is somewhat minuscule, but to watch a Monday Night Football game, you’d believe that the transgender community is coming to turn every man in America into a woman.  Thanks, but I’ll vote for inclusivity.

Other Issues

Look, I could go into further detail on why I think Harris’s policies are better for the country than Trump’s are, but let me just give you a few bullet points:

• She’s for expanding voting rights.  Republicans have realized that their policies are unpopular, so instead of shifting to the mainstream, they’ve decided to double down and attempt to limit who can vote, specifically targeting minority groups who have historically voted for Democrats.
• She’s in favor of reducing gun violence.  Republicans think a good guy with a gun is the only way to counter a bad guy with a gun.  Tell me how often that’s worked out.  Much as I love him, John McClane isn’t coming through that door.
• She supported the border security bill.  Republicans agreed to the deal that would’ve added 1,500 border security agents then decided to bury it because Trump wanted to run on a border crisis.  They don’t care about the border – they care that they can villainize “illegal immigrants”.
• She’s for imposing term limits on the Supreme Court and requiring them to comply with the same ethics rules that other federal judges are bound by.
• She’s pro-union.  I used to be very anti-union, and then I grew up and realized that the guy who clocks in in the morning, goes to the bar, and clocks out at the end of the day is the very small exception, and not the rule.  Unions increase wages and protect workers against the fuckery that our corporate overlords try to pull on us.  Naturally, the right wants to outlaw labor unions.
• Harris is calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East.  Now, I’m no expert on Middle East policy, but there’s a genocide going on in Gaza (sorry, just because you suffered through a genocide doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you to impose one on someone else).  I don’t think the Biden administration has been great with their continued and undying support of Israel, but I know that Trump has been meeting regularly with Benjamin Netanyahu, ignored centuries of territorial disputes to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and called for a ban on Muslims coming into the U.S.  I’m terrified that Muslims sitting out this election – justifiably so – are going to swing the election to Trump, thinking he’s good for them or will end the atrocities in Gaza.  Like I said, I don’t know shit about the Middle East, but however Trump would end the situation isn’t going to be good for the Palestinians.

The Economy

I’ll be honest with you.  Financially, I’m in decent shape, so the matter of grocery prices doesn’t hit me as much as it does people who are struggling.  I’ve never really been in a situation where I had to count pennies to have food on the table (although when I was young after her divorce my mom did scrounge and save for Baskin Robbins), although I have previously voted – or considered voting – for my financial interests before anything else.  I was younger and naïve and believed that our social policies were not going to move backwards.  I’ve learned enough to know that that’s obviously not the case, and thus I’ve decided I’m never going to vote against people’s rights to save me a few bucks at the check out line or gas station.

But I also know that, much as the right would like you to believe that inflation was the result of Bidenomics that Harris has to answer for, in reality, inflation was a worldwide problem, the U.S. recovered quicker than most developed countries, companies are posting record profits, and, in just one example, a Kroger executive admitted the company gouged prices above what was necessary to maintain profits during the COVID pandemic.

Now, just like I’m not an expert on most policies, I’m not an economist either.  I’m a moron who hides behind his keyboard and manages to save a bunch of articles that support my position.  And lord do I have some for you on the economy.

A Time article summarizing what a Trump win would mean for the economy found the following:

• Trump would impose tariffs on every import coming into the U.S.  Contrary to what Trump believes, tariffs are not a tax on the exporting country, but rather on the importing company, who will then pass those added expenses on to their customers.  The investment bank UBS projected that a 10% tariff could lead to a 10% contraction in the stock market.
• A report indicated that the inflation rate could rise to between 6% to 9.3% by 2026 under his policies, as opposed to a baseline estimate of 1.9% without his policies.  The average American household would see annual cost increases of $2,600 to $7,600.
• Extending his 2017 tax cuts would add $5.8 trillion to the federal deficit.

Further, his plan to end taxes on overtime, Social Security benefits, and tips would add $3.6 trillion in debt – not to mention hastening Social Security’s insolvency – and his proposed campaign to detain and deport undocumented immigrants would cost $350 billion.  All told, his policies would add twice as much to the national debt as Harris’s would.

Trump will tell you that his tax cuts promote job creation and trickle down to the working class.  They don’t.  They lead to stock buybacks and bigger bonuses for corporate CEO’s.  A recent study from the London School of Economics found that 50 years of tax cuts did noting to change GDP or unemployment rates, and led to the incomes of the rich growing much faster in countries where taxes were lowered.  One of the co-authors of the study found that the period with the highest taxes on the rich was also a period with high economic growth and low unemployment.

Keep this in mind when Elon Musk and the tech bros of Silicon Valley are donating millions to get Republicans elected.  I don’t necessarily agree with the growing calls that billionaires shouldn’t exist, but Elon Musk could pay a 10% wealth tax and still be worth $244 billion.  Even if you factor in the 20% capital gains due on the stock he’d have to sell to pay the tax bill, he’d still have enough to buy every team in Major League Baseball and the NBA and have more than $34 billion leftover.

Now, enough about what the policies of “business genius” Donald Trump will do to the economy.  I looked up some of the standard barometers of the status of the economy from the beginning of the Reagan administration until the end of the Trump administration¹ and determined an average change per presidential term by political party.

Metric	Democratic	Republican	Biden
Unemployment Rate Change	-21.71%	+19.34%	-35.94%2
Gross Domestic Product Change	+20.16%	+23.38%	+28.07%3
Federal Debt Change	+25.89%	+51.91%	+23.81%
Federal Debt to Gross Domestic Product Ratio Change	+5.22%	+23.01%	+3.32%
Consumer Price Index Change (i.e., inflation)	+9.06%	+13.53%	+19.87%
Dow Jones Industrial Average	+69.14%	+31.77%	+34.57%4
S&P 500	+70.24%	+29.58%	+47.80%
Nasdaq	+95.73%	+41.92%	+32.48%

You can argue with the methodology or discuss the overarching theory that a given president is working off the policies of his predecessor, and if you want to do that, I’d be fine looking at the numbers you put together.  As Mark Twain once said, there’s lies, damned lies, and statistics.  And you can attribute some of the numbers to shocks to the system (the 1987 stock market crash, the Great Recession, and the COVID pandemic), but for the most part those can be seen as functions of the policies of the administration in place.  But over the last 40+ years, the numbers are pretty telling: during Democratic presidencies, the unemployment rate, debt/GDP ratio, inflation (with the exception of the Biden administration), and the stock market all change at more advantageous rates than they do under Republican presidencies.

Do with that what you will.

The Other Guy

Donald Trump is a fascist.  This isn’t the rambling of a keyboard warrior who just thinks that the party opposite the one they support is automatically fascist.  This is the opinion of his Chief of Staff.  And this isn’t one of the guys that Trump hired because he’d tell Trump everything he wanted to hear, John Kelly was a Marine Corps general, one of the guys that was hired as a guy that would keep Trump in check.

Of course if that’s not enough for you there are the 13 officials from his administration who signed an open letter backing up Kelly’s criticism.

Or how about an interview with a Yale philosopher who wrote a book called “How Fascism Works” and said that Trump practices fascist politics 6 years ago?!?

Trump admires dictators and calls our allies weak.  He’s called his political enemies vermin and says that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.  He’s called for using detention camps for mass deportations.  He’s said he will use the military to handle an enemy from within, specifically, “radical left lunatics”.

A collection of 233 mental health professionals signed an open letter calling Trump an existential threat to democracy.  They accuse him of intense sadism, citing it as a symptom of malignant narcissism, and compare his psychology to history’s most evil dictators.

I could go on for days about Trump’s cruelty, his inability to take responsibility for anything he does that doesn’t work out, his refusal to apologize for any mistakes, his blatant hypocrisy, his racism, his sexism, his transphobia, his criminality, or the fact that he’s a sexual predator.  None of that matters.  All of that was known in 2016 and 2020 and tens of millions of people decided that they were perfectly fine with all of that because for years they’d been led to believe that Democrats were the enemy and would lead us to Communism.  They’ll gladly do it again this year knowing all of that, and that he led an attempted insurrection against this country, and that hundreds of people who know what they’re talking about are calling him a threat to the nation.

If that doesn’t chill you to the bones, you’re either not paying attention, or you don’t care.

Final Thoughts

As I’ve said before, Kamala Harris is not a perfect candidate.  That she’s the best the Democrats could come up with, after finally realizing that the corpse of Joe Biden threatened every down ballot race in the country is truly a depressing state of affairs, and it’s more depressing that there is an excellent chance that a person as flawed, cruel, and flat out evil as Donald Trump will be elected president again.

I’ve thought a lot about the people who have voted for Donald Trump or will vote for him this election cycle.  And I try my best not to view them as fundamentally flawed or irredeemable, because the people I know who have voted for him aren’t voting for him because they want to see women die when having an otherwise treatable miscarriage; or would rather trans people kill themselves than live as their true selves; or want to see people rounded up and thrown into concentration camps; but rather because they think those things don’t impact them and his economic policies are better for their families.

I’m terrified of what will happen next Tuesday, and what will happen between November 5 and January 6, and I’m terrified of what will happen on January 6 if circumstances arise that the election could be taken from the rightful winner, and I’m terrified of what will happen in the next four years should Donald Trump be inaugurated as president on January 20.  And I say that as a somewhat well-to-do straight white man.  I can’t imagine what marginalized communities are going through.

I’ve tried my best in this post to provide hopefully non-biased articles (as much as that’s possible in this world) that support my positions.  I don’t think I’ll change anyone’s mind but at this point it’s the best I can do.

1. If you’re wondering about these arbitrary start and stop points, the current conservative movement is widely regarded as having its true jumping off point with Ronald Reagan’s presidency in 1981.  And I would have included the Biden administration, but as his term is not yet completed, I didn’t want to do an apples to oranges comparison.  When looking at the numbers of his administration, though, it doesn’t change the overall point.  His term’s numbers are included for your information. ↩︎
2. Through 9/1/2024 ↩︎
3. GDP, Federal Debt, and GDP/Federal Debt Ration through 4/1/2024 ↩︎
4. DJIA, S&P 500, and Nasdaq through 10/7/2024 ↩︎