The progressive case for Kamala Harris couldn’t be clearer

I can’t tell anyone who to vote for. If you’ve already decided, all I can tell you is to go vote. Register if you still can, get a ballot, fill it out, and send it in. Tell everyone you know to do the same: Tell your whole class, your colleagues, friends, family — everyone. The only way a representative democracy works is if everyone takes part in it. Sixty-six percent of eligible voters in the United States voted in the 2020 election — about two-thirds. That number should be at 100 percent. Every single eligible person in America — citizens over 18 — should cast a ballot in this election, no matter who they vote for. Every age, ethnicity, party, ideology, state. Even if you’re in deep-red Iowa, cast your ballot. Even if you’re in deep-blue Massachusetts, cast your ballot. Nobody who can vote should stay home and sit on their hands in a representative democracy, especially when the election is this close. You’ll run the risk of sounding like a dork, but tell everyone you know to vote.

However, I can implore you to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, whom I believe is the best choice for America’s next four years. Our democracy is dangerously close to falling on January 20. This isn’t an exaggeration; it’s reality. Former President Donald Trump would do everything in his power to turn the United States into a white ethnostate that prioritizes the needs of old, white men. He would deport immigrants, even those in our country legally. He would use the military on his political opponents — leftists of color — and throw them in internment camps. He would abolish the filibuster and enact a national abortion ban, caving to his ultraconservative base in the House and Senate. He would appoint two nationalist, fascist justices to the Supreme Court since Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would be too old to serve longer at the end of his term. He would abolish protections for transgender children, making it impossible for them to receive lifesaving gender-affirming healthcare in southern states.

This does not even mention his economic plans for our country. He would jack up tariffs on Chinese and European-made products — up to 2,000 percent — skyrocketing inflation. His mass deportation Kristallnacht would cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. His plans for an “Iron Dome” would cost billions. And he would accomplish all of this by slashing taxes on the rich and hiking them for the poor. (And even then, it wouldn’t be enough, thus astronomically increasing the national debt.) He would abolish the Education Department, which provides grants and loans to low-income students. He would eliminate Social Security, which tens of millions of seniors need to get by. He would abolish the Veterans Affairs Department after calling our troops “suckers and losers.” None of what I have said is a fabrication: They’re all views Trump has espoused previously, even if he might have now disavowed them to win this election.

That’s ultimately the problem with Trump. He’s not even a pathological liar. He doesn’t say a single truth ever. His pitch to the American people is not one comprised of specific policies; it is a claim that all of the world’s problems will vanish if we instill him as Füher of America. This is not a serious policy proposal — it is a blatant, shameless lie. Whenever the real voters of this country present him with a problem, he finds some way to blame it on supposedly illegal immigrants. When he’s corrected that the people he’s talking about are legal, he calls them illegal anyway. He explains how the southern border is a war zone, more dangerous than the battlefields of Ukraine or the streets of Gaza. He says that if you go to the Washington Monument, you’ll be shot, and your daughter will be raped — by illegal migrants, of course. Inflation is up, and that’s because of immigrants. Hospitals are full — that’s because of migrants. It’s rainy today — that’s because of migrants, too. And he wants you to know that when he was president, this country didn’t have a single ailment except for a deadly pandemic that massacred a million Americans.

Trump’s lies aren’t just disturbing — they’re murdering people. Victims of Hurricane Helene aren’t applying for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because he lied that President Biden’s administration was only handing out $750 paychecks. He’s willing to kill people just to carry out the genocide of nonwhite Americans he has promised over and over again. Trump doesn’t take a single media interview anymore — he canceled many just last week — because the media fact-checks him. It exposes his lies so America isn’t misled into installing this terrorist as president. He doesn’t like being interrupted, corrected, or painted negatively at all. When people question his antics, he tells people not to believe the experts but only him and his friends. If you acted like this at your job, you’d be fired on the spot.

I am a child of immigrants. I cannot see my country institute a terrorist neo-Nazi — who can’t even get himself to pronounce Harris’ name correctly — as a dictator. The threat of Donald Trump is already enough to vote against him. Trump wants to pull our nation back to a time when immigrants were turned away from Ellis Island just because they weren’t white; when women had to stay in abusive marriages because no-fault divorce wasn’t legal; when LGBTQ people had to live in the closet for fear of retaliation; and when poor Americans were forced to die if they didn’t have enough money. He wants Christianity to be forced on schoolchildren; he doesn’t believe in the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause; and he wants to bring America back to a time when the court system was, by design, biased against certain people. We cannot let this happen to our nation.

But that’s not why you should vote for Kamala Harris — only why you shouldn’t vote for Donald Trump. Harris is the first step in moving this country forward instead of backward. She wants to give people tax credits for buying homes or starting businesses. She wants to codify Roe into law, expanding abortion protections for every woman in America. She wants to legalize marijuana, ensuring nobody ever suffers police brutality for possessing a bag of an already plentiful drug. She wants to pay for her reforms by taxing the rich who have already gotten enough tax breaks. If president, she would appoint two liberal Supreme Court justices, ensuring her legacy lasts for decades to come. She would seal our southern border and punish the American citizens who bring fentanyl across it. She would remove bureaucratic red tape preventing the construction of new homes, ensuring everyone has a place to live. She would force corporations to lower their prices, especially in times of need. With a Democratic Congress, Harris would be unstoppable.

Harris doesn’t promise this world because she’s a sane, normal politician. To institute this agenda, she needs a favorable Congress, and the polls don’t indicate she’ll be getting one. But one thing’s for certain: Everyone knows Kamala Harris stands for progressive values that will push this country into the future. For years, I’ve always said that I don’t hate America but rather the direction our country is headed. Republicans have made it impossible for this nation to move into the 21st century. We spend too much on the military and not enough on social programs; college is still too expensive, healthcare is a joke, and prices are too high despite low inflation. The United States has been on a perpetual slippery slope of falling into the third world despite our record economic growth and post-pandemic recovery. Harris hails from a new generation of politicians: she’s a woman, the first woman of color to run for the presidency, and she’s 60. We need change in Washington, and Harris will bring it.

If you really want America to prosper — if you really want the best for your neighbors — you have to vote for Kamala Harris. Everyone frustrated by Biden’s domestic and foreign policy should vote for Harris, a new generation. We need a new voice in Washington, one who can articulate progressive policies to the whole nation. Donald Trump in the White House is a dead-end for progressivism in America, but Kamala Harris has always shown an interest in getting the votes of leftists.

I understand where the wariness comes from: Harris has been courting more Republicans than leftists in recent weeks as the campaign comes to a close. She hasn’t shown a willingness to differ from the president’s policies in Israel, either. I understand these concerns. Seeing former Representative Liz Cheney, the ultraconservative Wyoming Republican, onstage with Harris makes me cringe inside. I don’t want her to be endorsed by Senator Mitt Romney of Utah or former President George W. Bush. I despise both of them — I’m a liberal. But I also recognize how these endorsements and events change the calculus of the race. Right now, progressives need to realize that those campaign dollars need to be spent on low-information, conservative voters. We need to build a broad coalition of voters from the left, center, and right, and the only way we do that is by keeping with our values of liberalism, equity, and dignity for every person.

Kamala Harris wants to make a more progressive America, but like every politician, she’s not perfect. She can’t cater to the hard left all the time, as much as she may want to, because she needs to court conservative voters, too. This election is critical: we can’t let a single vote go to Trump. If you care about the security and safety of transgender children in the South, women living under Republican abortion bans, or immigrants just trying to get by, you must vote for Kamala Harris. Voting for Jill Stein or staying home doesn’t help advance any of these values because the enemy is Donald Trump, not thin air. The apathy from the left expressed in this election is unacceptable. We need to save vulnerable members of society. They need our help. They’re counting on us. Just because you may not be hurt by Trump’s plans doesn’t mean everyone else in this country has the same luxury.

It’s reasonable to be frustrated by the years of unkept promises from the Democrats. I’m not saying this time will be different, either. But we have a chance to make a change in our country and to protect liberal values for another four years. The most liberal, progressive thing you can do for the world this month is to vote for Kamala Harris. You don’t have to like her, you don’t have to endorse her — just vote for change. Vote for freedom. Vote for progressivism.