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We strongly recommend you vote for Kamala Harris today

by · Boing Boing

The polls are open today across the U.S. If you haven't already done so, we strongly recommend that you go to your local polling station and vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Both are Democrats with sane, measured, center-left positions on most issues—and given what's at stake, any of those three qualities alone make this an easy choice. Moreover, both have shown strong progressive inclinations where it is most needed in America: most pressingly on abortion, womens' rights and labor issues, but also on how the costs of living can be reduced. She promises a substantial increase in the federal minimum wage and the most aggressive housing plan in nearly a century. If Mrs. Harris has disappointed many with her failure to more forcefully oppose Israel's invasion of Gaza—and her cultivation of moderate Republicans in general—her position on Gaza has improved markedly in recent days and represents a promise she can be held to. If the votes of you and yours are what puts her in the White House, her administration will be beholden to such promises as few ever have. Finally, Mrs. Harris pointedly did not back off her support for gay and transgender rights while pursuing a broader base of support, a show of spine considered optional by feckless liberal pundits and political consultants alike. It would be to everyone's benefit if some of her fellow Democrats are given a second chance to measure up to her example.

On the other hand, for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance to enter the White House would be a disaster for the nation, for the world, and anyone but the richest Americans—including his own supporters. A capricious, lying, indifferent felon and rapist who has escaped legal consequences only due to his wealth and power, he openly plans to use the presidency to pursue personal grievances and grifts. His offering to voters is a random mash of tax cuts for the rich, a promise of escalating violence directed against immigrants, workers who strike, the media and anyone else who opposes him, and tariffs he doesn't even realize would end up vastly inflating the cost of everything from groceries to gadgets.

His admiration of Hitler is attested to by members of his own former administration, his praise of Nazis is now a matter of record, his racism erupted like a sore in the final days of the campaign, and then there's Project 2025 to consider: a national ban on abortion would be just the beginning of what his right-wing supporters are planning for Americans, starting with women and children. With Trump in office again, Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government in Israel would receive America's full financial and logistical support to complete its genocidal campaign in Gaza and expand the war however it pleases.

If Trump's mind and body finally give way—and to see him lately is to know how soon it might be—the country will fall into the hands of Christian Nationalists and billionaires who share a vision of a darker, more feudal, more obedient America—an alliance embodied by the reactionary, misogynistic weirdo that came attached to all their money.

What to do in troubled times? Vote for Harris, Walz and other Democrats and the future they represent—and to avert the future represented by Trump, Vance and their backers.