"Our nation stands on the precipice of an authoritarian, white Christian nationalist government of the few or a participatory, multiracial democracy for the many."- Jemar Tisby, historian, and author of The Color of Compromise, How to Fight Racism, and The Spirit of Justice
As I hike down the narrow trail, the vastness and sheer beauty of the Grand Canyon is breathtaking. (Hiking back up is also breathtaking, but for a different reason!) On the trail, I witness people climbing up on adjacent rocks for photos. I am quite satisfied standing further back from the edge. Staring down the precipice is not for me!
As historian and author Jemar Tisby reminds us, we as a nation are standing on the edge of a precipice. Democracy can either fall to its death or it can stay on the path to a more perfect union. We as voters will decide the outcome on November 5.
In the previous post, we discussed the Republican-generated Project 2025 as well as Republican presidential candidate’s own manifesto called Agenda 47. Now it is time to turn to Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’ policies.
Kamala Harris calls her campaign a New Way Forward “that protects our fundamental freedoms, strengthens our democracy, and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.” Hers is an “Opportunity Economy” where she is focused on policies that will help the middle class, which include (at this writing):
• Restoring the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit
• Increasing the Child Tax Credit to $6,000 to families with a newborn
• Ensuring no one earning less than $400,000 per year pays higher taxes
• Rolling back tax cuts to billionaires and corporations to pay for the above
• Increasing the supply of housing while cutting red tape to allow more
housing to be built
• Giving first-time home buyers a $25,000 credit towards a down-payment on
a home
• Encouraging new small businesses by increasing the startup tax deduction
from $5,000 to $50,000
• Preventing corporations from price-gouging during emergencies
• Imposing a federal ban on price gouging food and groceries (and expanding
on what 37 states currently do)
• Reducing prescription drug costs for all Americans
• Expanding the Affordable Care Act and making permanent the Biden-Harris
tax credits that lower premiums
• Expanding Medicaid’s post-partum coverage to help decrease the maternal
mortality rate
• Protecting Social Security and Medicare by collecting more in payroll taxes
from the wealthy
• Supporting the right to organize unions, increasing the minimum wage,
implementing paid family and medical leave
• Supporting quality education and working to reduce student debt
• Investing in affordable child care and long-term care
• Tackling the climate crisis, advancing environmental justice, protecting
public lands and public health, and holding polluters accountable.
In addition, Harris plans to safeguard our basic freedoms: the freedom to vote, the freedom to love and marry whom you wish, and the freedom from government interference in making personal health care decisions, including reproductive care.
The economy is still a top issue for many voters. According to The Washington Post, last week an open letter written by “more than 400 economists and former U.S. policymakers endorsed Harris for president,” called her “a strong steward of the U.S. economy,” and stated that her opponent's policies “risk reigniting inflation and threaten the United States’ global standing and domestic economic stability.”
The contrast between the two candidates could not be starker, and not just on policies. A candidate’s background and character are also important. Harris, raised by a single mother in a middle-class family, has been a public servant during her entire career as a district attorney, the attorney general of California, a US senator, and finally as the US vice president. By contrast, her opponent inherited millions of dollars, declared bankruptcy six times, was impeached twice as US president, has been convicted of rape in a civil trial, has been indicted on criminal charges in four different cases (including interference with the 2020 election), and has been convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts of business fraud that he perpetrated to influence the 2016 presidential election. He is a convicted felon awaiting sentencing.
The September 10th presidential debate between Harris and her opponent illuminated these contrasts further. In the allowed two-minute time allotments, Harris shared some of her policies, displaying that she cares about and will work for the American people, particularly the middle class. With empathy, she shared about the plight of pregnant people who, because of abortion bans, cannot get the care they need and end up “bleeding out in a car in the emergency room parking lot.” Her opponent was busy spouting lies about how Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, were kidnapping and eating pets and how babies carried to term are “executed.” He was called out by the moderators for these lies. There were, however, many other lies he spewed that evening that were not called out. (To watch the recorded debate, click here.)
Words matter. Now, the Haitian community in Springfield is rightfully afraid of violence against them. Recently, there were bomb threats in several locations there, impacting not just these legal Haitian immigrants but everyone in the community.
His incorrect use of words is so misleading and his economic policies are so baffling that some of his word usage deserves to be called out. On the economics front, he says his plan to place a 60% tariff on Chinese imports and a 10-20% tariff on all other imports will be a tax paid by other countries and those funds will end up in US federal coffers. While tariffs can be beneficial when placed on competing products produced overseas, like on all electric cars from China to protect the US electric car industry or on all steel imports to protect the American steel industry, an across-the-board tariff would increase the price of goods coming into the US. These price increases would ultimately be passed on to US consumers. Estimates vary, but the cost to the average American family would be between $1,700-$3,900 per year. Implementing these tariffs would cause significant inflation and would yield no benefit.
Another example of how he does not understand economics was on display in a recent interview with the governor of Arkansas when this candidate said he plans to lower food prices by cutting imports. Reducing the supply of food will not lower prices. It will have the reverse effect: food prices will increase for those items that are in short supply.
In discussing immigration, he has misused the term “asylum seeker” by saying that asylum seekers are people let loose from asylums (mental institutions) in Central America and Mexico who are entering the US from the southern border; these people include the mentally ill, rapists, and murderers. The actual meaning of asylum seekers describes people who are escaping violent situations or political retribution and who are seeking asylum (refuge) in another country. By misusing the term “asylum seeker,” he dehumanizes and demonizes the immigrants who are escaping horrific conditions to live in the US. This ultimately creates resistance to help them and promotes American isolationism.
He not only slurs his words frequently, he usually speaks in word salads that are incomprehensible. The media often turns his rants into more coherent messages but listening to him in real time, like at the Economic Club of NY, leaves neurological experts wondering if he has dementia.
In addition to his reckless use of words, the debate showed in real time how easily he can be manipulated as Harris consistently kept him on defense. When she baited him on the crowd size at his rallies, he became totally derailed because crowd size is a barometer of how exalted he is with his base. As Harris pointed out during the debate, he only cares about himself. As another example, he influenced his supporters in Congress to vote down a bipartisan border security bill that would have provided funding and created solutions at the southern border. By putting his desire for re-election over the needs of this country, he shows he is more interested in using a problem than in solving it.
What I find just as frightening as his policies and his ignorant economic ideas is the fact that he has surrounded himself with people who are all too eager to take advantage of him, ostensibly through flattery, to get the power, position, and money they crave. This is even more noticeable than in 2016 and consequently, a second term would be significantly worse than his first term. We have just witnessed how easily he can be manipulated and how gullible he is to believe that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, are eating people’s pets. (He is either very gullible to believe these stories or as demonstrated on numerous occasions, facts hold no sway with him – or both.)
Is this who we want as the president of the most powerful nation on earth and the leader of the free world? Someone who is a convicted felon, who will lie to get what he wants, who often rants incoherently, who plans to seek retribution against his political enemies, and who seeks to divide us? A gullible, aspiring dictator who can be easily swayed by American extremists as well as by foreign dictators? Is this who we want to represent us on the world stage and in negotiations with other world leaders?
Or do we want a leader who is intelligent, articulate, energetic, and experienced as a prosecutor and a politician? One who has the nation’s interests at heart and not her own? One who wants to bring us together instead of divide us? One who has been a public servant her whole career? And someone who is well-respected on the global stage?
As we stand together at the edge of the precipice, may we choose candidates up and down the ballot that will strengthen and not destroy this democracy, who will defend our individual rights and freedoms, and who will allow the full participation of all in this multiracial democracy. Let us back away from the dangerous precipice of authoritarianism and choose to travel the path of true freedom – our lives, our liberties, and our individual pursuits of happiness depend upon it.
NOTE: The League of Women Voters*, a nonpartisan organization founded in 1920 by suffragist Carrie Chapmen Catt, sponsors a helpful website called VOTE411.org. On this website, voters can check to see if they are still registered to vote, to preview what is on their ballot, to find out info on the candidates, and much more. State and county election boards’ websites also offer key information for voters, such as voter registration deadlines, how to register, and more, including opportunities to volunteer as a poll worker.
* DISCLAIMER: I am a member of the League of Women Voters. Views expressed in this post are solely my own.
NOTE: Consider phone banking for the Democratic party at democrats.org to encourage registered Democrats, particularly in swing states, to get out and vote. Consider contributing to the Harris campaign as well as to the campaigns of vulnerable Democratic US Senators and House Representatives at ActBlue.org.
NOTE: If you have been a lifelong Republican, I understand how difficult it can be to cross the aisle. The fact is the Republican Party has moved so far to the right that they are no longer traditionally “conservative,” meaning they no longer follow the rule of law, or want decreased federal powers and increased national security. You do not owe the GOP anything. In the words of former Georgia Lt Governor Geoff Duncan (Republican) as he addressed the Democratic National Convention, “If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat, you are a patriot.”
NOTE: To read more about Kamala Harris’ policies, click here.
NOTE: It is Hispanic Heritage Month through October 15. Learn more at:
https://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/
https://www.history.com/topics/hispanic-history/hispanic-heritage-month
https://www.state.gov/hispanic-heritage-month-2024/.
Text and photograph copyright © 2024 by Dawn Dailey. All rights reserved. Photo of the Grand Canyon in Arizona at sunset.
Not a subscriber to the monthly blog posts? Click here to subscribe. Subscribers receive an email each month that includes the post with the lead photo as well as bonus photos not posted on the website. Email addresses are never sold or shared.
A NOTE ON SOCIAL JUSTICE:
Jesus says the greatest commandments are to love God and to love people (Matthew 22:37-40). The Christian faith boils down to these two precepts.
Social justice puts that love into action by helping individuals who are oppressed, mistreated, or suffering, and by pursuing ways to dismantle systems of oppression. How we treat others, particularly those less powerful in society than ourselves, matters (Matthew 25:31-46).
Racial justice is one aspect of social justice. Check out my web page on “Justice Matters” to find resources and to connect with organizations engaging in the cause of racial justice. Click here to learn more.
As I hike down the narrow trail, the vastness and sheer beauty of the Grand Canyon is breathtaking. (Hiking back up is also breathtaking, but for a different reason!) On the trail, I witness people climbing up on adjacent rocks for photos. I am quite satisfied standing further back from the edge. Staring down the precipice is not for me!
As historian and author Jemar Tisby reminds us, we as a nation are standing on the edge of a precipice. Democracy can either fall to its death or it can stay on the path to a more perfect union. We as voters will decide the outcome on November 5.
In the previous post, we discussed the Republican-generated Project 2025 as well as Republican presidential candidate’s own manifesto called Agenda 47. Now it is time to turn to Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’ policies.
Kamala Harris calls her campaign a New Way Forward “that protects our fundamental freedoms, strengthens our democracy, and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.” Hers is an “Opportunity Economy” where she is focused on policies that will help the middle class, which include (at this writing):
• Restoring the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit
• Increasing the Child Tax Credit to $6,000 to families with a newborn
• Ensuring no one earning less than $400,000 per year pays higher taxes
• Rolling back tax cuts to billionaires and corporations to pay for the above
• Increasing the supply of housing while cutting red tape to allow more
housing to be built
• Giving first-time home buyers a $25,000 credit towards a down-payment on
a home
• Encouraging new small businesses by increasing the startup tax deduction
from $5,000 to $50,000
• Preventing corporations from price-gouging during emergencies
• Imposing a federal ban on price gouging food and groceries (and expanding
on what 37 states currently do)
• Reducing prescription drug costs for all Americans
• Expanding the Affordable Care Act and making permanent the Biden-Harris
tax credits that lower premiums
• Expanding Medicaid’s post-partum coverage to help decrease the maternal
mortality rate
• Protecting Social Security and Medicare by collecting more in payroll taxes
from the wealthy
• Supporting the right to organize unions, increasing the minimum wage,
implementing paid family and medical leave
• Supporting quality education and working to reduce student debt
• Investing in affordable child care and long-term care
• Tackling the climate crisis, advancing environmental justice, protecting
public lands and public health, and holding polluters accountable.
In addition, Harris plans to safeguard our basic freedoms: the freedom to vote, the freedom to love and marry whom you wish, and the freedom from government interference in making personal health care decisions, including reproductive care.
The economy is still a top issue for many voters. According to The Washington Post, last week an open letter written by “more than 400 economists and former U.S. policymakers endorsed Harris for president,” called her “a strong steward of the U.S. economy,” and stated that her opponent's policies “risk reigniting inflation and threaten the United States’ global standing and domestic economic stability.”
The contrast between the two candidates could not be starker, and not just on policies. A candidate’s background and character are also important. Harris, raised by a single mother in a middle-class family, has been a public servant during her entire career as a district attorney, the attorney general of California, a US senator, and finally as the US vice president. By contrast, her opponent inherited millions of dollars, declared bankruptcy six times, was impeached twice as US president, has been convicted of rape in a civil trial, has been indicted on criminal charges in four different cases (including interference with the 2020 election), and has been convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts of business fraud that he perpetrated to influence the 2016 presidential election. He is a convicted felon awaiting sentencing.
The September 10th presidential debate between Harris and her opponent illuminated these contrasts further. In the allowed two-minute time allotments, Harris shared some of her policies, displaying that she cares about and will work for the American people, particularly the middle class. With empathy, she shared about the plight of pregnant people who, because of abortion bans, cannot get the care they need and end up “bleeding out in a car in the emergency room parking lot.” Her opponent was busy spouting lies about how Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, were kidnapping and eating pets and how babies carried to term are “executed.” He was called out by the moderators for these lies. There were, however, many other lies he spewed that evening that were not called out. (To watch the recorded debate, click here.)
Words matter. Now, the Haitian community in Springfield is rightfully afraid of violence against them. Recently, there were bomb threats in several locations there, impacting not just these legal Haitian immigrants but everyone in the community.
His incorrect use of words is so misleading and his economic policies are so baffling that some of his word usage deserves to be called out. On the economics front, he says his plan to place a 60% tariff on Chinese imports and a 10-20% tariff on all other imports will be a tax paid by other countries and those funds will end up in US federal coffers. While tariffs can be beneficial when placed on competing products produced overseas, like on all electric cars from China to protect the US electric car industry or on all steel imports to protect the American steel industry, an across-the-board tariff would increase the price of goods coming into the US. These price increases would ultimately be passed on to US consumers. Estimates vary, but the cost to the average American family would be between $1,700-$3,900 per year. Implementing these tariffs would cause significant inflation and would yield no benefit.
Another example of how he does not understand economics was on display in a recent interview with the governor of Arkansas when this candidate said he plans to lower food prices by cutting imports. Reducing the supply of food will not lower prices. It will have the reverse effect: food prices will increase for those items that are in short supply.
In discussing immigration, he has misused the term “asylum seeker” by saying that asylum seekers are people let loose from asylums (mental institutions) in Central America and Mexico who are entering the US from the southern border; these people include the mentally ill, rapists, and murderers. The actual meaning of asylum seekers describes people who are escaping violent situations or political retribution and who are seeking asylum (refuge) in another country. By misusing the term “asylum seeker,” he dehumanizes and demonizes the immigrants who are escaping horrific conditions to live in the US. This ultimately creates resistance to help them and promotes American isolationism.
He not only slurs his words frequently, he usually speaks in word salads that are incomprehensible. The media often turns his rants into more coherent messages but listening to him in real time, like at the Economic Club of NY, leaves neurological experts wondering if he has dementia.
In addition to his reckless use of words, the debate showed in real time how easily he can be manipulated as Harris consistently kept him on defense. When she baited him on the crowd size at his rallies, he became totally derailed because crowd size is a barometer of how exalted he is with his base. As Harris pointed out during the debate, he only cares about himself. As another example, he influenced his supporters in Congress to vote down a bipartisan border security bill that would have provided funding and created solutions at the southern border. By putting his desire for re-election over the needs of this country, he shows he is more interested in using a problem than in solving it.
What I find just as frightening as his policies and his ignorant economic ideas is the fact that he has surrounded himself with people who are all too eager to take advantage of him, ostensibly through flattery, to get the power, position, and money they crave. This is even more noticeable than in 2016 and consequently, a second term would be significantly worse than his first term. We have just witnessed how easily he can be manipulated and how gullible he is to believe that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, are eating people’s pets. (He is either very gullible to believe these stories or as demonstrated on numerous occasions, facts hold no sway with him – or both.)
Is this who we want as the president of the most powerful nation on earth and the leader of the free world? Someone who is a convicted felon, who will lie to get what he wants, who often rants incoherently, who plans to seek retribution against his political enemies, and who seeks to divide us? A gullible, aspiring dictator who can be easily swayed by American extremists as well as by foreign dictators? Is this who we want to represent us on the world stage and in negotiations with other world leaders?
Or do we want a leader who is intelligent, articulate, energetic, and experienced as a prosecutor and a politician? One who has the nation’s interests at heart and not her own? One who wants to bring us together instead of divide us? One who has been a public servant her whole career? And someone who is well-respected on the global stage?
As we stand together at the edge of the precipice, may we choose candidates up and down the ballot that will strengthen and not destroy this democracy, who will defend our individual rights and freedoms, and who will allow the full participation of all in this multiracial democracy. Let us back away from the dangerous precipice of authoritarianism and choose to travel the path of true freedom – our lives, our liberties, and our individual pursuits of happiness depend upon it.
NOTE: The League of Women Voters*, a nonpartisan organization founded in 1920 by suffragist Carrie Chapmen Catt, sponsors a helpful website called VOTE411.org. On this website, voters can check to see if they are still registered to vote, to preview what is on their ballot, to find out info on the candidates, and much more. State and county election boards’ websites also offer key information for voters, such as voter registration deadlines, how to register, and more, including opportunities to volunteer as a poll worker.
* DISCLAIMER: I am a member of the League of Women Voters. Views expressed in this post are solely my own.
NOTE: Consider phone banking for the Democratic party at democrats.org to encourage registered Democrats, particularly in swing states, to get out and vote. Consider contributing to the Harris campaign as well as to the campaigns of vulnerable Democratic US Senators and House Representatives at ActBlue.org.
NOTE: If you have been a lifelong Republican, I understand how difficult it can be to cross the aisle. The fact is the Republican Party has moved so far to the right that they are no longer traditionally “conservative,” meaning they no longer follow the rule of law, or want decreased federal powers and increased national security. You do not owe the GOP anything. In the words of former Georgia Lt Governor Geoff Duncan (Republican) as he addressed the Democratic National Convention, “If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat, you are a patriot.”
NOTE: To read more about Kamala Harris’ policies, click here.
NOTE: It is Hispanic Heritage Month through October 15. Learn more at:
https://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/
https://www.history.com/topics/hispanic-history/hispanic-heritage-month
https://www.state.gov/hispanic-heritage-month-2024/.
Text and photograph copyright © 2024 by Dawn Dailey. All rights reserved. Photo of the Grand Canyon in Arizona at sunset.
Not a subscriber to the monthly blog posts? Click here to subscribe. Subscribers receive an email each month that includes the post with the lead photo as well as bonus photos not posted on the website. Email addresses are never sold or shared.
A NOTE ON SOCIAL JUSTICE:
Jesus says the greatest commandments are to love God and to love people (Matthew 22:37-40). The Christian faith boils down to these two precepts.
Social justice puts that love into action by helping individuals who are oppressed, mistreated, or suffering, and by pursuing ways to dismantle systems of oppression. How we treat others, particularly those less powerful in society than ourselves, matters (Matthew 25:31-46).
Racial justice is one aspect of social justice. Check out my web page on “Justice Matters” to find resources and to connect with organizations engaging in the cause of racial justice. Click here to learn more.
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