WHAT IS AT STAKE WHEN WE VOTE

 

©Wendell Griffen 2024

 

Voters in the United States have already begun casting ballots for the November 2024 general election. Our ballots will contain different candidates and issues depending on where we live. But each ballot will contain the names of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, along with other lesser known and financed candidates, as candidates for President of the United States.

I hope we choose Harris as the next President. 

As Vice President since 2021, Kamala Harris is experienced, and competent, about top-level policy issues that affect the nation and the world. Her service as Vice President, United States Senator from California, Attorney General of California, and District Attorney for San Francisco, California, demonstrates that Harris is steady, serious, honest, and considerate of diverse points of view. 

Vice President Harris's public service record is longer and better than any of the other candidates who will be on our ballots, including former President Trump, her chief competitor. More importantly, Harris has demonstrated a much better ability than Trump to make public policy decisions, work with people who hold different perspectives, reach consensus, compromise when consensus is not achievable, yet stand firm on her principles.

Trump's record proves that he is intellectually, morally, politically, and behaviorally unfit to hold public office, let alone the highest public office in the nation. He is notorious for being unable, or unwilling, to study, consider varying perspectives, weigh alternatives, and make rational decisions. People who served and dealt with Trump while he was in office have recounted that Trump is emotionally unstable, intellectually dishonest, vindictive, petty, and self-serving, to the extreme. 

It is fair to remind ourselves about these observations. After all, they were among the reasons voters fired Trump in 2020. That being the case, we should not rehire Trump if we want the nation to have sensible, competent, and fair-minded leadership.

Elections are always about choosing leaders and making decisions about the future we hope for ourselves, our families, neighbors, and society.

I want my granddaughters to grow up in a society led by someone who cares about their freedom to grow, learn, think, love, work, and care for themselves and others. 

I want my  neighbors to live in a society where they are treated as blessings no matter where they were born, not threats.

I want to live in a nation that cares about the air, water, and earth that we share with the rest of the world.

Donald Trump’s record shows that he does not want to lead our society in those ways. Instead, Trump despises those values, hopes, and goals for my family, neighbors, nation, and the rest of the world.

I strongly disagree with Harris about U.S. providing continued military, financial, and diplomatic support for Israel and its genocidal conduct in Gaza, settler colonialism in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and apartheid. I will continue doing as much as I can to persuade others that U.S. support for Israel is morally, politically, and strategically dangerous and wrong. However, I disagree with Trump’s position also, if not more strongly.

We each get one vote to cast in the general election for President of the United States. I want my vote to help make the next four years better, safer, and more kind than Donald Trump is, has been, or wants to be. So, I will cast my one vote for Kamala Harris, the candidate with the best chance of leading the United States to achieve the future I want for myself, my family, my neighbors, our nation, and the world. 

I hope you will join me in doing so.