We are living through the nastiest, ugliest and most divisive contest for the United States presidency ever. Yet the decision this year is quite simple, the choice quite clear.
Donald J. Trump, a former president, has no place in American politics and certainly no place leading the United States of America as its 47th president.
We would make this assertion no matter whom he is running against.
Fortunately for America, in his opponent, we have a more-than-capable candidate to serve as president for the next four years.
Vice President Kamala Harris is the only choice in 2024, and the Advance/SILive.com endorses her enthusiastically and without hesitation.
We understand a significant portion of conservative-leaning Staten Island will disagree, some vehemently, in support of her opponent.
Most will base that support on Trump’s “policies” — at least, that is what they will tell you — not his out-of-control, disgusting, hate-filled rhetoric. Or that he refuses, to this day, to accept the fact that he lost the election in 2020, disparaging America and its system of free and fair elections, resulting in a riot on January 6, 2021, an attempt to overthrow the democratic process.
Admittedly, voters have questions or doubts about Kamala Harris, shielded for the past three and a half years in the traditionally shrouded office of vice president, while President Joe Biden took center stage daily.
Add to that Harris having only 15 weeks to introduce herself to the United States electorate because the sitting president took so long to accept the likely outcome of his campaign: He couldn’t win.
Still, the vice president has proven herself an extraordinarily superior candidate to take on the leadership of America with intelligence, strength, style, vision and energy, positioning America as a respected partner to our global allies, and a leader to be reckoned with among those who are not.
Kamala Harris sees America’s future as bright and optimistic, full of promise of what an America pulling together can be. Donald Trump sees America as a dark place, a place beset with soul-crushing, mind-bending issues – issues he claims only he can fix.
Really, Staten Island . . . is your life as bad as Donald J. Trump paints it?
It is essential to elect a candidate who we can respect, a candidate who respects the people they will lead, a candidate who respects our global allies.
Donald Trump is none of that. He has been called “crude,” “vulgar,” “unhinged,” and “delusional.”
All of which Donald Trump is.
Labeled a fascist by his foes, he has praised autocrats like Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
Trump has called the United States “a garbage can for the world.”
He has threatened to turn the United States military against the “enemy from within.” These are not Communists who have infiltrated our society. These are Americans, some elected political leaders, some journalists, some who had even served with Trump when he was president.
Their crimes? They will not kowtow to his crazed ideas of how he wants to “make America great again,” and they believe he is a “threat to democracy.”
He is a man who belittles women and has been found liable for sexual abuse, as well as convicted of 34 counts in a hush-money trial. A man who chose a vice presidential candidate who disparages women who have no children, and instead opt for a career.
Donald Trump has already served four years as president, so he does have a record on which to run. His presidency was not all bad, although it was totally chaotic. His accelerated program to produce a COVID vaccine was effective. But this after he failed to inform the American public of the COVID danger because he did not want to panic Americans.
No one can say for certain, but it’s likely tens of thousands died as a result.
His tax plan then added $2 trillion to the national debt. His plan today is predicted to do at least the same.
He claims to have controlled border crossings, although crossings today are lower than when he left office.
It is difficult to discern what Trump’s polices are, lost in the hate-filled rhetoric spewing from Trump himself and his unwavering supporters — if he has any real policies at all. Recall, for example, during the debate with Vice President Harris, when he said he has a “concept” for a revised health plan. That’s hardly “policy.”
We do know he pledges mass deportations of those he has dehumanized. We do know he plans stringent tariffs on goods coming into America, which economists predict will cause prices, already high, to increase even more. We do know his foreign policy is to stare down America’s enemies – those outside the country, if he indeed sees them as enemies – striking fear into them, so they will cower, and we will have no more global conflicts.
Kamala Harris has served as vice president, so she too has a record on which to run. Although critics will say we are giving her a pass, the fact is she was not the ultimate decision maker in the room. Joe Biden was.
That said, to suggest the Biden-Harris administration was flawless would be foolish. The border policies of their administration led to the migrant “crisis” seen across the country. We in New York saw up close what a financial and logistical disaster it was. It could have easily been avoided or stopped outright by stricter enforcement at the border.
Although Harris continually points to the Trump-scuttled bill that would have addressed the border issue, legislation was not needed to do a lot more to stem the crisis.
Harris now has a more nuanced approach to dealing with immigration, providing resources to update a system that still operates like it’s 1950. Trump’s ill-defined, draconian plan to presumably send the military onto our streets to round up immigrants into camps for mass deportation harkens back to the worst of our history, and threatens to gut our workforce.
It’s far too late in the game now, but the vice president should have taken ownership of a failed Biden border policy.
Harris has been criticized for not participating in interviews with journalists, frankly, we think, by journalists themselves slighted that she did not show them the reverence they think they deserve.
That said, she faced Donald Trump one-on-one on national television, questioned by experienced journalists, and crushed Trump. She sat with conservative-friendly Fox News host Bret Baier for a contentious 30-minute interview, and did more than hold her own, stopping Baier in his tracks.
“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas,” Harris told Baier. “I represent a new generation of leadership.”
Trump cannot match Harris’ experience, even though he did hold the job they both now covet. She has served as a district attorney, attorney general of the third largest state in the country (with the largest population of any state in the union), a United States senator and as vice president.
Trump supporters point to their candidate’s experience in running businesses as the reason he can run America, as well as his get-tough policy on tossing people out of the country.
When it comes to business acumen, let‘s not forget Donald Trump’s father gave him $413 million to start, yet Donald Trump was forced into bankruptcy six times.
Harris has garnered much support for her position on women’s reproductive rights. But even those who are pro-life and disagree with her should consider her philosophy:
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”
In other words, let your faith lead you. Not the government.
Harris and Biden were handed a country in total disarray, guiding us out of a pandemic that crippled the country; they rallied world support for Ukraine; they’re working to stop the Middle East conflict from spreading into a world war.
Harris wants to help first-time homebuyers with their down payments. She wants to help families with newborns by increasing tax credits. She wants to expand public health care.
Tragically, we think, millions are blinded by Trump’s promises of an America they think they remember, gazing back through rose-colored glasses, not realizing what a threat he is to the country they say they love so much.
John F. Kennedy, when elected, told America the torch was being passed to a new generation.
It is time to pass that torch again, keeping it from a man who peddles hatred, who threatens his fellow citizens, who disparages anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him, who is so mercurial in his thought process – if there is a thought process – that no one knows what he might do next.
A man who would rather cozy up with dictators. A man willing to walk away from Ukraine, allowing Putin to do whatever he wishes with the country.
In this election, Kamala Harris is the only hope to save America from a continuation of the chaos we saw in Trump’s first four years, and indeed, in the four years that followed as Trump continued to sow hatred and divisiveness.
Ask yourself this simple question: No matter where you stand on policy matters, how would you feel if your children, your grandchildren, your nieces, your nephews, your next-door neighbors’ kids, treated people the way Donald J. Trump treats people?
What kind of message does your vote rewarding that behavior send?
And then think of the alternative.
If our goal is a better, kinder America, an America where we are not afraid to be ourselves, Kamala Harris is that alternative.
