Why I voted for Harris
And felt entirely comfortable doing so
My up-front admission: Harris was my clear choice back in 2019, before I, like the rest of the Dems, settled on Biden as the best chance to dislodge Trump from office. It wasn’t based on any policies per se; I just liked everything about her:
How she spoke intelligently about things
How she had a clear sense of humor and enjoyment of life
That she had been the top law enforcement player in the world’s 5th largest economy (great line)
How she was calm and centered and comfortable with herself
That she had a clear sense of a life mission to do right by an America that had treated her well
That she would be a happy warrior in support of the vast majority of what I believe in regarding America and this world
That she was no-nonsense about serious things
That she displayed great empathy because, without it, you can’t be a capable strategic thinker (just an ideologue)
That she evolved as a person and as a politician and doesn’t fear admitting that (whereas Trump brags about being the same person he was in first grade, which tells you everything you need to know about him).
“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same. The temperament is not that different.”
Donald J. Trump
Back then, as with today, I seek a leader with the perspective and package capable of handling the full range of what I see coming down the road toward America this century — without resorting to fear mongering about our world (which I find incredibly unprofessional as a closing argument).
In short, I eagerly voted for her and not merely against Trump. Hell, I felt the same way with regard to Biden initially.
America is greatly in need of a progressive era, and while I readily admit that a President Harris will likely have a very hard time pushing that boulder up the hill with Republicans controlling one or possibly both houses of Congress, I greatly prefer her embrace of change and tomorrow relative to Trump’s throw-it-all-into-reverse mode of rule, which I find to be a cop-out for this moment in history.
America can’t slur and name-call its way back to global leadership. Hell, Trump doesn’t even aspire to anything approaching global leadership and couldn’t if he wanted to. He wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and thus is easily manipulated by genuine professionals.
I just can’t vote for somebody I know won’t be in control of either himself or the job but instead will constantly ricochet among sycophantic advisors all scrambling to put the last words in his ear. That just feels like a bait-and-switch involving a cast of nefarious characters with all manner of agendas (and yes, that does remind me of Hitler and his crew of crazies).
I know what I’m buying with Harris, and yes, I most definitely like that she’s a woman. I want that energizing change for my daughters and for the nation — the courage to pivot away from — what I view as — painfully braindead (and hopelessly male) mindsets on power in this emerging era of globalization, with all its history-bending collisions and opportunities.
We simply need far more sophisticated leadership than what aging Boomer males can presently muster.
The last thing America needs right now is nostalgia for past glories, because that’s just our younger selves lying to our present selves. This country — today — is the best version of itself ever. It’s just not one suitably familiar for our present leadership generation of Boomers — the last great White-dominated and privileged generation in American history. They had their golden age and they want it back, no matter the cost to future generations.
Delaying our nation’s embrace of what is to come risks permanently sidelining us as a global power, and I don’t think those supporting Trump suitably appreciate what a loss that will be in the face of China’s determined efforts to reshape the global order in its image.
And yes, this is where the historical analogies to the 1930s and America’s near-abdication of its historic role resonate greatly.
Trump is essentially selling a world beyond our control and that, to me, is surrendering to history instead of driving it. This notion that democracy can’t handle the truth of today’s problem set and tomorrow’s great unknowns makes no more sense now than it did back then.
Trump is basically Joseph Kennedy switching sides from democracy to autocracy because he couldn’t imagine us navigating that dangerous period while so “handicapped” vis-a-vis the competition.
I hate that surrender-monkey perspective, those frantic game over man! hysterics. The panicked types always switch sides at the worst moments.
I just can’t embrace that behavior, that cut-to-the-chase install-an-American-caesar out-of-fear response. To me, that’s just the death of strategic thinking.
I’m not jettisoning my entire professional career out of a momentary panic.
Such surrendering is also lazy analysis and bad writing that gives into the sad pretense that main character energy can only be recaptured if this big fish suddenly downsizes all its expectations and ambitions to some little pond of its own retreating.
That, to me, is White Christian nationalism in a nutshell — a sort of when the going get tough, the scaredy cats go Amish and retreat into their imagined past devoid of “them” and all the complications “they” engender.
That sort of capitulation … it’s just not who we are as Americans, as those people stayed home and never came to our shores looking to do bigger and better.
As for the ones who did come here - and still come here? They’re the ones with courage, and ambition, and a willingness to risk it all.
I love that America because it keeps us locked and loaded for the world as it confronts us. We are constantly being infused and improved as a society by those who know the world better than we natives bother to understand. This is why so many of our cutting-edge companies and industries are led by first or second-generation immigrants — to include that weirdo Musk.
Harris, as a second-generation immigrant (India, Jamaica), is an entirely suitable fit for our present set of fears regarding demographics, immigration, and globalization writ large, whereas Trump is nothing more than the raging, fear-filled White male Boomer desperate to hold onto that generation’s peculiar and destructive definitions of personal success (More! More! More! How do you like it? How do you like it?).
I don’t even want to get started on the sheer stupidity that is Trump’s economic vision for this country. Like all those Nobel laureates, I spot only national-suicide in that pathway, to whatever extent Trump could pull it off before our economy’s wheels fell off.
Getting very selfish myself, let me note that I am too damn old for this shit. I haven’t made it to 62 to just suddenly surrender to fear and confusion and the pathetic wish that daddy would just come home and set everything right. That’s just so Premillennialism: that throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air and give-up mindset that says there’s no point in working today’s problems because the sooner everything goes to hell, the faster the messiah comes back and fixes everything.
So, instead, you segregate yourself off from that evil world in the meantime — again, White Christian nationalism at its core.
I just find that so childish and pathetic.
I’m not spending my time on this planet waiting for somebody else to do my homework. I take full responsibility for what’s happened to date and I am ready, willing, and able to evolve however much is required to generate a future I find worth creating — one I will be pleased to pass on to my kids in the form of a strong, intact, and growing United States of America.
Turning our backs on today and tomorrow while muttering fight! fight! fight! is not the answer. Hell, it doesn’t even understand the question.
Trump is proud of his ignorance on that score and I find that makes him completely unfit to lead this great nation into anything other than some idealized, unrecoverable past.
Harris remains entirely open and eager to work today’s and tomorrow’s challenges, and so I voted for her rectitude, her courage, her calmness, and her optimistic, can-do ambition.
But that’s just me. I grew up with an incredibly strong mother, and so I am entirely comfortable with such leadership.
Game just beginning, man!
Act accordingly.
Hear, hear! Couldn't agree more.
Two more Ohio for Harris votes here.