Ballots are arriving for the 2024 presidential election, and this may be my last chance before you fill in that circle or punch out that chad that I can talk to you about your choice.
Now, I strongly suspect that if you are reading this column, you are likely voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race in July. I figure there's likely also a rare possibility that you might be intending to cast a ballot for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was running as an independent but dropped out and endorsed Republican former President Donald Trump. (Kennedy remains on the ballot in California.) Or maybe Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Or you might be intending to sit this election out for whatever reason. Heck, as unlikely as it seems to me, there might even be someone out there reading these words who actually is intending to vote for Trump. I'd be shocked, but in 2024 it feels like anything is possible. Unfortunately.
Let me also make this clear from the get go: I am indeed voting for Harris. It's a pragmatic vote. I think she'll do a decent job, but I'm under no illusions that she will deliver a strongly progressive administration. Rather, I expect to once again find myself frustrated by incremental changes and centrist messaging.
When she took over the reins from Biden in this election, initially, I was fairly enthusiastic. I was hesitant, given some of her history. But the messaging at that time was spot on. Ditto when Tim Walz was brought on as Harris' vice presidential running mate, given his own work on trans and other issues in Minnesota, where he is governor.
Something changed for me, however, at the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago. While I did see transgender faces during the event as I watched on TV, the word itself was missing. Any allusion to trans-ness was carefully couched — and this, in a year when state Senator Sarah McBride (D) is likely to become the first trans person in Congress should she win her House race in Delaware.
If anything, it smacks of cowardice that transgender people have not been directly addressed by the Harris campaign. Doubly so given how much the Republican Party is hammering on people just like me.
The Republican Party has spent some $65 million since August to vilify transgender people, including ads airing during several high-profile sporting events. Likewise, Trump's speeches have increasingly included attack lines aimed at transgender people.
I'm sure it is deliberate that the Democratic Party has opted not to respond to these talking points, assuming that by not addressing them, it takes the wind out of them. For me, however, not responding to them is not making me feel all that wanted. If you cannot say something now, how can I be assured you'll say something when we see trans rights eroded by the U.S. Supreme Court, by Congress, or by another several hundred bills across the country?
Yet, in spite of my frustration, I am voting for Harris. In fact, I have already filled out and returned my ballot, on the very day it arrived in my mailbox. That vote was obvious, a no-brainer.
It was years ago, during former President Barack Obama's first term, that I really began to understand that you do not elect a president per se, but a presidential administration. You elect a president and vice president, whom you trust to make good decisions about who they bring into their cabinet, and let those people do the job of moving the administration forward. The president may set the agenda, yes, but every department and agency under them does the real work.
We saw what could happen with a good administration, as Obama's White House moved forward on trans rights. We also saw different factions in the Trump White House strip away trans and LGBTQ rights after he became president in 2017.
On top of this, you also get to vote for the candidate that the American people can persuade to do good work. Harris — compared to her opponent — can be pushed to be better. We can advocate, and we can likely make her and her administration act on our behalf. At the very least, it would be a possibility.
In a second Trump administration, particularly one that has published its authoritarian playbook, Project 2025, things will get that much worse for transgender and nonbinary people, along with, well, anyone who is not a full-throated supporter of Trump.
This Trump campaign is one that has grown darker and more fascist — especially in the last few weeks. This would not be a presidency that one could convince to do good.
Heck, it isn't one we could plead with not to do evil.
Likewise, I think there's an obvious elephant in the GOP's room. Trump, at 78, is not looking well. Sure, he's always seemed a bit off, but lately he has gotten that much worse. The word salad he has often spewed has taken on a rambling cadence, and he often forgets what he's talking about. His speech has become slow and slurred.
Can you really be sure that Trump will last another four months, let alone four years? If not, then you'd best be really sure you would be OK with Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump's vice presidential running mate, as president. I may not believe that Trump is in this for more than saving his own skin — even if I'm sure he'll be happy to let others in his administration push awful, anti-democratic policies — but Vance strikes me as more of a true believer, who will gleefully try to hurt as many people as possible.
I hate that nearly every election I've voted in has been about voting against awful people, not about voting for a candidate that fully fits my desires, but here we are. I dearly hope that you, too, will be willing to do your part this year, too. Our lives may literally depend on it.
Gwen Smith is, like so many others, horrified of what may come. You'll find her at www.gwensmith.com
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