I came of political age in the early 1980’s. Despite how much I grew to admire and respect Jimmy Carter in later years, his presidency was dogged by an overarching feeling of negativity. The Vietnam War tainted the way a lot of people viewed the United States. Watergate soured them on the American government. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon just cemented those negative feelings. And then Jimmy Carter swept into office and things seemed to get worse.
When Ronald Reagan ran for President in 1980, he brought a positive vision for the country with him. He saw the United States as a force for good, a shining city on a hill. That vision spoke to me. While Carter and the Democrats offered a dim view of the future and tried to sell sacrifice as a way forward, Reagan and the Republicans offered a brighter path to the future. Republicans were the party of ideas at a time when Democrats seemed to lack a coherent plan. Becoming a Republican at that time was an easy decision.
My, how times have changed. Today, Democrats are the party with the positive message and creative ideas for the future. I no longer recognize the Republican Party. They talk about an apocalyptic America where crime runs rampant, cities are like bombed-out war zones, and the economy is collapsing. They see the United States as a “garage can” (Trump literally called it that). This, despite the fact that crime is at a 50-year low, once down-and-out cities have rebounded, and our economy is the strongest in the world.
The Republican Party that attracted me to it prioritized freedom, limited government, strong national defense, quality public education, limited taxes, balanced budgets, conservation of the environment, free market capitalism, and a foreign policy that included not only American leadership, but a strong and supportive relationship with our allies.
Today’s Republican Party operates more like a cult of personality, with Donald Trump calling the shots and his fellow Republicans nothing more than loyal yes men. They often utter the word “freedom,” but they seemingly have no idea what it means. They have orchestrated the taking of rights we previously enjoyed, done everything possible to restrict voting, supported the banning of books, elevated the rights of Christians over non-Christians, attacked a free press, and have passed laws making it more difficult to peacefully protest. In fact, Trump has voiced his desire to use the military to tamp down any dissent from his political opponents. By any reasonable definition, that is not freedom.
They want to limit government by largely doing away with it. Trump wants to gut essential departments and appoint Elon Musk as Chief Efficiency Officer. Musk says he will chop $2 trillion out of the federal budget, more than the entirety of discretionary spending. He admits it will destroy the U.S. economy, but it will give us the chance to start over and will work out in the long run.
Republicans at both the state and national level are working to destroy public education. Trump wants to do away with the Department of Education at the national level. In the states, Republican governors are working to send taxpayer money to private schools, depriving public schools of much needed funds. Even at the college level, Gov. DeSantis in Florida is in the process of reimagining (i.e. destroying) public universities in that state. He has fired college presidents, installed his friends in those positions, and instructed them to turn the colleges and universities into right-wing training institutions. The results have thus far been a disaster.
Trump wants lower taxes, but not for you and me. He wants lower taxes for the wealthy and large corporations, people and institutions who can send him political contributions. He literally told oil executives he would do their bidding if they made political donations to his campaign.
Republicans also talk a good game when it comes to a balanced budget, yet they have increased our national debt every time they’ve been in office. In fact, no president in modern history has run a higher budget deficit than Donald Trump.
The Republican Party has also become the party opposed to conservation. In addition to claiming that climate change is a hoax and not wanting to do anything about it, Trump and the Republicans are generally resistant to any kind of renewable or sustainable energy. Trump has floated the idea of selling off federally owned land to developers, and has proposed increased oil drilling, including on pristine federal land like Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party no longer believe in free market capitalism. Trump has said over and over that he wants to implement tariff’s on foreign-made products (including those made by US-based companies), which would drive up prices and damage the economy. In other ways, Trump wants a completely unfettered market, with no regulations or consumer protections. This type of Darwinian “survival of the fittest” economy would benefit the wealthy, who could make any rules that suit their purposes on a given day, but would quickly bankrupt most lower and middle class consumers.
Trump does not believe in the alliances we have built since World War II through NATO. He has voiced his desire to pull the United States out of NATO, and has shown an interest in aligning the US with Russia, China, and other authoritarian countries.
The point of all of this is that, although Donald Trump calls himself a conservative, he is not. He is a right-wing extremist who doesn’t believe in democracy, preferring a more authoritarian form of government. He believes in an expansive unitary executive, which to his mind means he can do whatever he wants to do, with no limits or obstructions. He views the presidency more as a monarchy than an elected official in office to serve the people.
Likewise, his fellow Republicans have followed Trump off the cliff, jumping from democracy to authoritarianism. As long as they continue to support Trump and refuse to stand up for our democracy, I will never again vote for a Republican. The party must be cleansed or eliminated before I ever again cast a ballot for one of them.
You may have noticed that the title of this post is “Why I’m Voting for Kamala Harris,” but until now, I haven’t even mentioned her name. I think Harris is a capable person who will do a fine job as president. I agree with many of her policy ideas, and even those I don’t agree with, I can live with if it means we maintain our democratic form of government and we can vote in a meaningful election for president again in 2028. Because those are the things I fear most with Trump. A vote for him is a vote to end democracy and government of, by, and for the people.
So, why am I voting for Kamala Harris? Because she’s not Donald Trump.
