On Tuesday, Nov. 5, America will choose its next president in one of the most consequential elections in U.S history. This election cycle has been host to some of the craziest stories and twists, from President Joe Biden dropping out of the race after a horrific debate performance and being replaced with Vice President Kamala Harris to two separate assassination attempts on Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump. Now, though, almost everything has been said and done, and either Harris or Trump will be the 47th president of the United States.
That is where the similarities end for the two candidates. They are far apart on almost every issue, but more importantly than that, only one of them presents a significant danger to the health of this country — Trump. Here, I’ll lay out why Harris is clearly the better choice for America on several issues that have alternatively been seen as strengths and liabilities for the Democratic Party.
Let us start with the strong points for the Harris campaign. Perhaps the single most important aspect of the presidency is upholding the oath of office and maintaining their duty to the American people. On this, Trump has shown himself to be woefully and dangerously indifferent to the responsibility that comes with presidency. After the 2020 election, he refused to accept a peaceful transfer of power and tried to overturn the results. He has continued to exhibit beliefs antithetical to the ideas of democracy, at one point calling for the termination of the Constitution in a social media post in an attempt to overturn the election. He has called Democrats “the enemy within” and promised that if he wins in 2024, he will use the Justice Department to go after political opponents. Harris, on the contrary, has served well as vice president under Biden and served as a senator and attorney general in California. Only Trump would present a danger to democracy.
A second issue that presents a win for the Democrats is abortion. As president, Trump nominated three Republican Supreme Court justices as part of his stated goal to overturn Roe v. Wade, and in 2022 the Court did so, placing abortion laws back into the hands of the states. This caused a catastrophic effect for many women in Republican states, where draconian abortion bans were passed, sometimes without exceptions for rape and incest. On the other hand, Democrats support reinstating the protection of Roe v. Wade – a position that simply allows women to have a choice in what they do with their body. It does not include people murdering babies after birth, as Trump has claimed.
On the issue of climate, which young voters are especially concerned about, Trump is also dangerous. During his presidency, he took the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, which set agreed-upon limits for fossil fuel emissions, and now wants to “drill, baby, drill” and increase energy production with abandon. Although many activists would like to see the Democrats do more to tackle climate change, Harris would be far better for increasing sustainability and keeping us on the right track when it comes to hitting fossil fuel reduction goals.
The issues that Harris is perceived to be weaker on, such as immigration and the economy, would be no better under Trump. In his first campaign in 2016, Trump promised to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. This, in short, did not happen; only a couple hundred miles of wall were built. His current plan to solve the border crisis is a mass deportation of illegal immigrants, an idea that is not feasible in terms of manpower or cost. Trump has also derided immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country,” and accused Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, who were here legally, of eating cats and dogs, injecting racist language into his anti-immigration crusade.
When it comes to the economy, despite many attacks from Trump about supposedly devastatating inflation, reality is unfortunate for Republicans. Inflation is down to around 3 percent, and the Biden administration has added 16 million jobs in four years. Trump’s plan for the economy, on the other hand, would be an actual problem; he wants to impose massive tariffs on goods from foreign countries, which economists have estimated would add two more percentage points to inflation. Harris’ plan for an “opportunity economy” would strengthen the middle class by offering benefits for first-time home buyers and small businesses.
On all of these issues and in the election overall, Harris is the better choice. She is ready to serve as an effective president after her long experience with government. Trump, on the contrary, would be an unmitigated disaster for our nation.