It's time for this to end: Vote Kamala Harris 2024

Hello everyone.

I am writing this a few hours after coming back from a canvass in the small town of Mondovi, Wisconsin. It's a town of about 3,000 people about 20 miles south of Eau Claire that voted for Trump by 28 points in 2020. I was there because I was door knocking for Rebecca Cooke - a waitress and daughter of dairy farmers I have profiled in other articles on the blog who is running against a J6-attending extremist in Wisconsin's Third District. I had a lot of great conversations with voters there. I also had an extremely combative Trump supporter yell at me from his stairwell to go away, proceed to walk outside of his house as I was leaving, and leer at me from his stoop as I was walking away to my car (I was looking for his wife, not him - but the house did have a Trump sign. I don't think he was a persuadable voter, guys.)

I don't want to fixate on this guy because frankly, he's not worth the time of day. I won't lie though: the experience was extremely sketchy, and far from my only combative Trump supporter that I've met while door-knocking for the 2024 cycle. Sometimes, politics is deeply unpleasant despite our best intentions - and this was a primo example of it.

But I do want to say this: guys like this admire Trump, I think, because he creates a permission structure for them to be bullies. Donald Trump revels in cruelty toward his opponents. He tears others down constantly with threats and mockery, and has done so long before he entered the political arena. He's also a white supremacist and a neofascist. Guys like this love this type of politics - it validates their smallness and their cruelty, and makes them feel strong. They're bullies too, and because they can't win with arguments, they win with threats and posturing instead. They revel in the feeling of superiority over others that Trump gives them - it is their psychological lifeblood.

It is time to turn the page on Donald Trump and his spiteful politics of personal resentment and petty cruelty. It's time to stop making the most mean-spirited people in this country feel emboldened to be cruel toward others. It's time to stop making Neo-Nazis feel like they have a haven for their hate emanating from the highest echelons of power. It's time for an end to the conspiracies and lies about our elections that have fueled violence and caused pollworkers in swing state counties to require snipers, drones, and bulletproof vests to protect them. It is time for this to end.

In many ways, this is the January 6th election - to see if America will reward a man who incited an actual attack on our Capitol through his lies and conspiracies about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. As the bipartisan January 6th Commission found, had Donald Trump conceded the election and agreed to a peaceful transfer of power, the attack of January 6th would not have happened. Period, end of story.

I voted for Kamala Harris and Rebecca Cooke, along with other Democrats like Senator Tammy Baldwin, weeks ago. I have knocked about 225 doors this election cycle for Democrats up and down the ballot. I have done this in spite of several recent life issues. I have done this because I believe in the people of America, and do not want to see it regress horribly under another 4 years of Trump. I hope all people concerned about the state of American democracy vote to uphold it, regardless of your ideology.

The Republican Party as it stands is fully the party of one Donald J. Trump. It has been consumed by his lies and conspiracies, and has become something more akin to a personality cult devoted to one man's grievances than anything resembling a healthy party in a democracy. Don't take my word for it, though. Just ask guys like Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois, who used his speaking slot at the DNC back in August to make just that point. I think a guy elected to Congress under the Republican banner would understand quite well where the political headwinds are blowing for his party. Kinzinger also sat on the January 6th Committee, and helped make the case that his own party's president was the cornerstone of the attack. Again, had Trump conceded, it would not have happened.

After I had that particularly unpleasant experience that I noted above, I came upon a house that was deluged with Democratic yard sign in its front yard. I admit: in the misty dark, it was hard to see addresses in this rural town with few steetlights. I wasn't sure if this was the house that I was supposed to knock, but I needed to return a bit of pep to my step after dealing with that guy. I knocked the door, and had a great conversation with a young guy named Andrew who wasn't much older than I am (and yes, it turns out I had the right door). I briefly recounted what had just happened, and I admitted to him he was a sight for sore eyes. He told me I was brave for knocking a house with a Trump sign, but also made a point that I liked for its note of optimism: that while not every Kamala Harris voter will be loudly and proudly displaying their support for her, many millions across the vast sweep of America will nonetheless vote for her. I think there's something to that.

I have done what I can. Thousands of others have also answered the call to defend democracy beyond casting their ballot - whether by phone banking, door-knocking, or simply convincing as many friends and family members as they can to go vote. In particular, I would like to echo Abigail Adams, the wife of American founder John Adams, who admonished her husband that the men like him creating a new government almost 250 years ago ought to "remember the ladies." I am here remembering the ladies. Go to any phone bank or canvass launch for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats, and there's an extremely high chance that you will see a staggering number of energized middle-aged and elderly women named Barbara, Diane, and Janet. They are the backbone of organizing to defend American democracy.

These women hustle. They organize. They do the goddamn work and then some. They are the best this country has to offer, and too often I have seen people belittle them as nothing more than cringey wine moms as opposed to what they actually are: warriors for democracy. The Women's March of 2017 might seem like it was eons ago, separated by a vast gulf of all the events that have transpired since then, but I believe it laid the foundation for some of the most powerful pro-democracy organizing we've seen in this country's history.

Kamala Harris has run, from my perspective, a very solid campaign. It has not been perfect - I have issues in particular with how she's approached Gaza. But hers is a campaign aimed at persuasion as well as mobilization, winning many Republican endorsements in the hopes of peeling off disaffected Republican voters who are exhausted by the Trump era. In closely divided 50-50 states like Michigan and Wisconsin, those kinds of defections can add up quickly and be electorally devastating. She's also emphasized the fact that many former Trump administration members have called him completely unfit to serve again - not to mention a fascist. They'd know: they worked closely with the guy.

Harris has also offered an agenda that would help people like myself and my family. From protecting Social Security from cuts, to expanding Medicare to cover home and elder care costs, to a plan that would enable millions more units of affordable housing to be built, she offers us actual policies to make our lives better and a little bit easier. Kamala Harris has solutions. Donald Trump has grievances.

I would also like to echo Harrison Ford in his pithy endorsement video of Harris, which in my opinion gave us one of the most memorable quotes of the campaign: Kamala Harris will protect your right to disagree with her.

Could you say the same of her opponent?

I could use so many more words to describe why a return to power for Donald Trump would be a disaster: his bragging about sexual assault on the Access Hollywood tape and his conviction for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. His threats to use the military against political opponents. His promises to prosecute and jail his political enemies. His anti-climate agenda, encapsulated by Project 2025 and its giveaways to the oil and gas industry while the planet burns. His conspiracies about Haitian migrants in Springfield, which resulted in bomb threats and school evacuations. His anti-women, anti-abortion policies that have led to women dying in states with abortion bans that his hand-picked Supreme Court justices made possible. His cruel demeanor and his unapologetic racism and misogyny. His incitement of violence on January 6th, leading to an actual attack on the Capitol that resulted in several deaths and scores of injuries.

But maybe I should just echo a Democratic slogan from a different era of politics some 60 years ago: in your guts, you know he's nuts.

In your guts, you know he's nuts.

Now, it is up to you. Make sure to cast your vote. Turn the page on the Trump era and all its conspiracies, violence, and nastiness. Let's end this.

For voting resources for your state, you can go to: https://iwillvote.com.