Election Day 2024
Today’s election is all about one person. Even before we know the winner, we can already say that the millions and millions of Americans voting today—turning out in historically high numbers—are not so much voting on policy as they are choosing where they stand on Donald Trump. When it comes to policy, public opinion is quite clear. Two-thirds of Americans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, under the leadership of the Biden administration. If any other candidate were at the top of the Republican ticket, he or she would be poised to win in a landslide. But, as it stands, both parties are totally bankrupt—the Democrats ideologically, the Republicans organizationally. Ironically, Donald Trump offers Democrats their only chance to stay in power.
Americans enjoyed taking democracy for granted until Trump’s all-out attack on the credibility of US elections and attempt to derail the peaceful transfer of power. He has done the same with the justice system and any other institution he fears will hinder his grasp on power. Democracy is based on trust. As I said when Trump won in 2016, Americans were about to find out how much of their government was based on the honor system, on conventions that no one openly attacked–until Trump. Tragically, he has been given a third chance. It must be his last.
I endorsed Kamala Harris because I believe that Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy. It is no overstatement to say that the future of democracy, here and worldwide, hangs in the balance.
No matter the result, however, I believe that it will force a realignment of the American political landscape. This kind of reckoning is long overdue. I regret that it took the political disaster we find ourselves in to prompt it, but I believe it will set this country, finally, on a better course.