By Jose Guerrero
There are only two weeks left until the election. It’s time to make a choice between Vice
President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. For those who are undecided, here are some reasons why I believe you should vote for Harris to be president.
A Younger & Stable Candidate
Despite Harris currently being 60 years old, she is the first candidate for president younger than senior citizen status in the past eight years. Then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was 69 years old in 2016. Trump, however, is currently 78 years old, and if he wins, he will be 82 years old by the time his term ends. We should respect our elders and let them retire and live out the rest of their lives in peace. This will avoid putting pressure on decisions for our economy, military, foreign policy, and social issues.
Being president requires mental stability, something that Trump evidently lacks, as shown in the presidential debate against Harris. Ask yourself this: Do you really want a president who genuinely believes that people are eating cats and dogs?
The Supreme Court
In the past couple of years, the Supreme Court has made a lot of alarming decisions, such as overturning Roe v. Wade, granting immunity for presidents, and allowing criminal action against homeless people. All of these were decided purely by conservative justices.
This all happened because Donald Trump, in his time in office as president, put in three Supreme Court justices, giving the conservative bloc of the court a supermajority of six. The liberal bloc only has three, making it impossible for them to outvote the conservatives. To help combat this, President Joe Biden has proposed implementing three reforms: the removal of former presidential immunity, term limits for justices, and binding of the code of conduct for Supreme Court justices, the same as for federal justices.
Kamala Harris has said she supports these reforms. Depending on how the Democrats do in the election in both the House and the Senate, it’s unlikely we could actually see these reforms go through. However, this can only really happen if the current vice president wins the presidency.
Social Security and Medicare
One of Vice President Harris’s promises is protecting and strengthening Medicare and Social Security, which have both been put in danger by Republicans and Trump. She plans to strengthen both programs by making billionaires and millionaires pay their taxes. “She will always fight to ensure that Americans can count on getting the benefits they earned,” according to her official campaign website, Kamala Harris.com.
Protecting Freedoms & Rights
Ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Harris has driven the current administration to defend reproductive rights and protect the privacy of patients and providers. This is her most important promise yet. Meanwhile, key Trump allies are making plans for Project 2025 to make it a full ban across the country. If he gets elected, whatever legislation protects reproductive rights will be gone.
Project 2025 and Trump
Project 2025 is an agenda created for Trump to go into effect on the first day in office if he wins. It was published by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank with a direct connection to Donald Trump. Though he claims he’s not connected, at least 140 people who worked on Project 2025 worked with Trump during his time in office. The current president of the Foundation, Kevin Roberts, was on the transition team for Trump back in 2016. Roberts even described his role as “institutionalizing Trump.”
Project 2025 contains a full ban on abortion access by reversing an FDA approval of Mifepristone, a drug used for medical abortion, and bringing back the Comstock Act. This 19th-century law bans abortion equipment from being sent through the U.S. postal service.
It also includes targeting communities through mass deportation and raids, ending birthright citizenship, separating families, and getting rid of the asylum system. Further, it violates the First Amendment by using federal police to target journalists, political opponents, and protestors. It abuses executive power to limit voting rights, censors critical discussions in schools, such as academic discussions about race, gender, and systemic oppression, and rolls back trans rights by requiring states to discriminate against transgender people.
How to Prevent This
Voting for Kamala Harris isn’t just about politics. It’s about the fate of our nation and the people. Just think of the people who will be affected by these policies. Many Republicans have realized how dangerous Project 2025 is, so they have endorsed Harris. When you cast your vote, just remember what is at stake.