As I said when Biden withdrew and Kamala Harris was unceremoniously anointed as the Democratic Party candidate for president, I was open to being persuaded to support her. I watched her, listened to her, considered what she had to say. I continued to watch and listen, hoping that she would present herself in such a way as to give me a reason to vote for her. This continued up to the last Town Hall with Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Harris failed to persuade me to support her. Indeed, I found her canned, non-responses to the most obvious and easiest questions posed, disturbing. I have no idea whether she will support Israel given here inherently conflicted attempt to play both sides. I have no clue whether she will be the progressive she claimed to be in 2019 and for which her facile switcheroo “I’ve learned better” explanation doesn’t cut it for me. Will she be a moderate liberal or a woke progressive? To the extent she provides “hints,” she sometimes suggests the former, other times the latter. What she won’t do, and has studiously avoided doing, is giving a clear, firm answer.
In the end, I could not bring myself to support Kamala Harris.
So why, then, did I vote for her yesterday? Because as underwhelming as Harris may be, Trump is worse in every respect. He is a despicable, repugnant person. He is vulgar, deceitful, narcissistic and ignorant. He has two, and only two, motivations: self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. If you’ve been a reader here for a while, you know all this as I’ve said it all before. It’s only gotten worse since. No, claims that things were better under Trump do not make Trump any less despicable.
Unlike progressives and MAGAs, the ends do not justify the means for me. The means matter, and must be guided by principle even if the outcome is not what I desire. The president of the United States should be a person of integrity and honor, of intelligence and humility, of grace and respect. I do not know that Harris embodies these qualities. I am certain Trump does not.
Some of you will remember when I argued that the shrieks against Trump at the outset of his first term claimed that he was immoral. My contention was that Trump was not immoral, but amoral. Morality never entered into his actions, which were grounded solely in what was good for him. He or his proxies might spin it one way or the other, or both since no one seemed particularly bothered by rank hypocrisy, but it was all subterfuge. It was only about whatever worked for Trump at any given moment.
He was impetuous. He was lazy and couldn’t be bothered to learn or think about things when he could instead just spew whatever nonsense popped into his head. And he was not smart enough to pull it off, although a smarter person would have realized his limitation, something Trump was incapable of doing.
Harris might be a terrible president. She might do some truly awful things for our nation. Or not. Who knows what she will do? But Trump is a terrible person, and he might do some truly awful things for our nation as well.
I voted yesterday. I could not bring myself to want to vote for Kamala Harris, but I could not stop myself from voting against Donald Trump. Whatever comes of this election, I pray it will see the end of Trump and a return to a nation where thoughtful and well-intended liberals and conservatives can debate what is best for the nation in good faith and with tolerance and respect for views with which we disagree.
Your headline worried me, Scott. I think you made the best decision. My gut and observations tell me she will be a very good President; someone I can be proud of. He is everything you said in your post.
So I take it that you didn’t watch Trump on the JRE.
I have my policy preferences and positions, but it’s the rare candidate for any office comes close to aligning with them across the board – let alone having a realistic chance to act on them. (It’s disturbing how folks running for local offices want our votes because of their stands on national issues; e.g., city councilmen really have no influence on whether we’ll provide more arms to Ukraine).
So, I have rarely (not never, but rarely) been enthusiastic casting my vote for a candidate for any office, but then I don’t tend to like politicians. My votes are pretty much always for the potential winner I’m less concerned about. (That’s part of why I never vote for anyone who runs unopposed for anything.)
Despite many misgivings dating to her actions as California AG, that’s made a Harris vote easy from day 1. Welcome to the fold.
The beauty of two party control of politics is it allows the party corporations to offer as little as possible to the public using the only competition as leverage. Add ballot control, federal funding and yellow journalism to force feed the public a steady diet of polarization. Trump is the system operating in fine form for that end, and this post would make a fine testimonial for the annual report. (That’s an indictment of the system, not this post which is a rational response to the downstream effects.)
The ghost of Ross Perot is looking down at 2024 and cursing the year he was born. “I could have run against these two?!?”
As you know, given my personal involvemen with Kamala Harris and the role she played in bringing serious felony charges against me in what was a vindictive and retaliatory prosecution, it would be understandable if I despised her. However, I’ve been able to put my persoal feelings aside in lieu of the larger issue, which is that Donald Trump and his MAGA cult must be defeated in the coming election.. I voted for the Biden – Harris ticket in 2020, and I voted for her again through my overseas ballot. The danger that the hideous and vile Trump poses to all of us and what passes for our democracy is much too great to let my personal feelings override what must be done in the coming election. My story, and Kamala Harris’ actions in the bogus case brought against me are already documented in the podcast series due for release next summer.
For me, being accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome is not far off from being accused of having Hitler Derangement Syndrome. As if the problem is somehow on my end.
The only thing I have ever heard from Trump people as to how they can support such a man is that he means what he says. And yet these very same people will tell you that he does not mean it when he says he will turn the military on the “enemy within.” And so on.
Other than that, and some vague notions as to how his business acumen will benefit the economy, I have yet to hear a Trump supporter cite any specific reason to support him. It is as if they know how embarrassed they should be to support such a man. But they cannot help themselves.
There are a million reasons why this man should never again be in the White House. There is the birtherism, the Access Hollywood tape, the “good people on both sides,” his ignorance of history and world politics, and so on. But for me there was this: Speaking on the Howard Stern show, he bragged about walking into the dressing room at the Miss Teen pageant to see all these teenage girls in various stages of undress. Because he owned the pageant and no one could stop him from doing it.
You wouldn’t want this lecherous guy at your backyard barbecue. Why would you ever want him in the Oval Office?
People called me Chicken Little in 2016, and they can do so again now. But I don’t think people have a clue how dangerous his presidency will be.
Gimme five
I’m still alive
Ain’t no luck
I learned to duck!
It’s not Tuesday, but maybe Scott will let this slide.
One of my favorite mondegreens was when someone misheard the US Blues lyric, “Shine your shoes, Light the fuse” as “Chinese food, Slightly chewed’.
Still makes me smile.
Here in the flats, it is clear that all the markers will go to Trump. Whomever I vote for, it cannot affect the result here, or the result nationally.
The only thing I can hope to accomplish is preservation of my personal integrity, by voting for a candidate other than Tweedle Phony or Tweedle Psycho.
Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Comacho for president.
He won’t be any worse than the options we’re currently offered.
I can’t vote for Harris for the reasons you articulated so well. Also, if she gets in, then the Clintons and Obama will be back in power.
I don’t see how either one could keep their promises about tax cuts, but they are running for election and a candidates gotta do what a candidates gotta do to get elected.
Everything you said about Trump is true, but come November 5th, I’m going to walk into the voting booth and cast my vote for Trump. I’ll hold my nose as I do it.
Why would I vote for him instead of Mickey Mouse? Well, he will do something about the border and frankly, that is my major concern. I have been personally affected by the masses coming across. Also, he will loosen up drilling and mining for the minerals and rare earths we need as a nation. I don’t like being dependent on China, Brazil, and India for the materials we need to build our military hardware.
And my final reason for voting for him is the foreign nations are scared of him. They have no clue what he will do. With the Clintons and Obama running things, China and Iran would be given the keys to our underwear drawer. I would rather the U. S. be feared than giving its lunch money to the school bully.
So, yeah, I’ll vote for Trump because I think he will do the least damage to our country. YMMV.
Foreign nations are scared of him?
That’s why the United Nations members started laughing at Trump during his speech in 2018? Even if, as you say, they are now scared of him, is that actually a good thing? I don’t think so.
Border?
He cancelled a conservative wishlist of a border bill just to help himself and hurt the democrats (his enemies).
He doesn’t care about this country.
Congrats on voting though.
You care about the border, bet yet will vote for the guy directly responsible for killing the border bill, mostly written by Republicans. The dissonance in you is strong.
Wow. You’re pretty full of yourself.
And yet, weirdly, a lot of people come here to read what Scott has to say and nobody gives a shit about what you have to say. Go figure.
This is the inverse of “Writers who agree with me are briliant!” I suppose we can call it “Writers who disagree with me are stupid and evil!”
Under this theory, anyone who would vote for (literally) Hitler is of course stupid and evil, and of course nobody would want to read anything that they type. Your comments, OTOH, are always wise and informative, even when they mostly consist of insults directed at other commenters.
A while back, I realized that Scott was doing all the dirty work of cleaning up the mess in this hotel bar, so I figured I really ought to do more to help and take some of the work off his back. I may not have his wit when insulting idiots, but I do my best.
Democratic party to dissatisfied voters, perfectly nailed.
It’s painful to find myself in the position of having to hold my nose and vote Harris. How could the Dems have fucked this up so badly that they couldn’t find a candidate who would crush Trump? The Republicans may be a lost cause until they rid themselves of Trump, but the Democrats have no excuse for not doing better than Harris. It’s a shame.
You fell for the manipulation. If you were interviewing her for a managerial position in your company, would you hire her? Based on what you wrote, you wouldn’t. Then why would you hire her to manage the country? She can’t even manage her campaign. There are other candidates, you don’t have to choose between Harris and Trump. There’s Jill Stein, a committed environmentalist, an Cornel West, who has a long history of progressive activism for social justice. Don’t expect change if you continue to vote as you are told by party leaders. Shake things up a bit. Vote for the best candidate, not one of the approved candidates.
This is not the selling point you think it is.
Me personally, I think I will do a write-in for Scott H. Greenfield for president
I won’t blame anyone for voting against either. They are both awful.
This is America and the bill of rights gives us all the freedom to weigh the specific elements of their awfulness differently. Some may even find something to vote for instead of everything to vote against in one of these awful candidates.
Personally, I’m tired of voting against the greater evil, and of never getting anything worth voting for, so I’m sitting this one out.
Harris may be the second worst Presidential nominee of a major party in my lifetime. Unfortunately she’s running against a man who is without question the worst. That there are people who can listen a Trump rally and cheer makes me weep for humanity. I’ll never forgive Trump and his sycophantic band of supporters for forcing me to vote for Biden, Ossoff, Warnocik, and Harris.
If I cannot be first, well I will settle for middle,… or even last is okay by me. This is so painful, it’s hard to put into words. Hunting Guy makes an interesting argument, but I do not buy. We voted Green and no Dems, except at the local level. See my letter to Editor at Provincetown Independent, Oct. 24. It’s about a candidate (unnamed here) who claims our local courthouse is “failing apart.” Oh really! I did not know that?
The courthouse is not falling apart, trust it. Been there, done that, trust it. What is falling apart is the criminal justice system, not only locally, but nationwide. This candidate, and no other candidates, mention that looming crisis. (That’s where Simple Justice comes in, ahem!) Needless to say..,
Everyone is afraid of the judicial branch. I’m afraid additionally of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is the real fourth branch of government, people. It is not a real bank, in case you were unawares.
For the first years of my marriage, my husband and I could never discuss politics without risking some major fights and possible divorce. He was a registered and fairly extreme Conservative. I was an Independent who leans liberal on social issues but generally did not vote any strict party line. We never went to vote together, and if we both voted, we often canceled each other out.
But Trump united us in our disgust of him, the Conservative Party, and the GOP. For the past few years, my husband and I have gone to vote together, and we both vote a straight Democratic ticket, to vote against Trump and spineless bigots and hypocrites in the Conservative and Republican parties.
Neither one of us is a fan of Harris, but she got our vote.
Do we regret voting against an entire party instead of having someone to enthusiastically vote for? Absolutely. But how preposterous that the GOP would nominate a man who tried to overthrow the government and pervert the peaceful transfer of power. How obscene that they would excuse his lies and violence-inciting rhetoric. And for Trump to claim that if he loses, “blame the Jews?” Haven’t we seen this all before?
Yes, we voted against Trump and the GOP. But we voted FOR Proposition 1 and by voting the Democratic ticket, we voted FOR our daughter, our grandaughter, nieces and all the girls and women in our life who are being deprived of their human right to make decisions about their own healthcare.
Like so many others, we fear what will happen with the election outcome.
I fear that while your intentions in voting for Prop 1 were good, it was sold under false pretenses and will prove to be a disaster.
I was not thrilled with the wording, but we did want to express our firm support for reproductive healthcare autonomy and rights for women. I hope Prop 1 is not a disaster if it passes (I read your post about it and don’t disagree with your points), but if it doesn’t pass and Trump is elected and the GOP controls the House I feared we will have more of a disaster with more attempts to erode human rights and civil rights.
It all feels like damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
For whatever Harris may do or doesn’t do, this country can survive 4 years of a President Harris. It cannot survive 4 more years of a orange, thin-skinned octogenarian with onset dementia. The dementia is real, I’ve saw it take over my own parents. He has all the symptoms. (I am not a doctor).
I