The argument that both parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are the same, unravels even with the slightest glance at the two individuals at the top of each party’s ticket vying for the presidency—VP Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
A Sept. 21, 2024 Washington Post article described Trump’s recent campaign behavior as “impulsive” and “impetuous.” The article also said, “In a single 24-hour span at the end of last month, for example, [Trump] amplified a crude joke about Harris performing a sex act; falsely accused her of staging a coup against President Joe Biden; promoted tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory; hawked digital trading cards; and became embroiled in a public feud with staff and officials at Arlington National Cemetery.”
Not very presidential.
NOT LIKE US
And at a moment when Harris is being praised for clearly laying out her policy positions, political pundits are calling Trump’s campaign verbiage “policy incoherence,” as in pronouncements that make zero sense.
Examples given regarding this incoherence include Trump bragging about ending Roe v. Wade but saying he’s good for women’s health rights, claiming credit for those pandemic stimulus checks when they were fought for and delivered by a Democratic Congress and the Speaker of the House at that time, Nancy Pelosi.
At issue: mainstream (white) media’s attempt to report on Harris and Trump as similar candidates when their policies and campaign rhetoric, among other things, show that one of the two is “not like us;” i.e. normal human beings who possess at least basic levels of morals, empathy and decency.
SANITY VS. INSANITY
Compare these examples. While Harris received the endorsement of more than 700 current and former national security officials, Trump continued to endorse the North Carolina candidate Mark Robinson who described himself as a “Black Nazi” who said slavery wasn’t such a bad thing, and if reinstituted, he would buy some.
While Harris grappled with serious global issues, including Russia’s war on Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, Trump promised that if elected, he vowed to find where California is supposedly hiding its “very large, huge” secret faucet that he believes the state uses to dump all of the rainwater into the ocean. Yes; you read that right. A person being taken seriously for the position of Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. believes there’s a faucet, “the likes of which you’ve never seen,” that controls whether or not the state of California can dump all its rainwater into the ocean, or choose to hold onto the water to make people suffer from drought.
If that were written up as an SNL sketch, it would be rejected for being too nonsensical and absolutely not funny because no one on planet Earth would be that stupid to believe such nonsense. And no political candidate would believe voters to be ignorant enough to believe it. Ah, but there is such a person. And he led a whole-a insurrection against the United States of America’s government… while being the president and leader of the United States government. Make that one make sense.
Turning the handle on this mystery faucet that exists only in the mind of Trump and his die-hard followers, is the programmatic solution he offered to the very real water crisis facing millions.
Harris made news promising an expanded child tax credit of up to $6,000 for families with newborns, to put more money into the pockets of families. She then offered details of her plan for paying for this economic boom. At the same time, Trump reiterated his intentions to abolish the Department of the Interior, a move that would mean privatizing public lands for fossil fuel industry profits, ending environmental protections and more mayhem.
While Harris is campaigning on protecting democratic freedoms, Trump is doubling down on his desire to do just the opposite by taking away the broadcast licenses of news organizations that criticize him. That’s a move that happens in countries with dictators, where citizens have no rights and everyone is at the mercy of the whims and daily moods of that nation’s leader.
A centerpiece of the Harris/Walz ticket is providing White House leadership for all people, regardless of political affiliation. Trump recently posted on his social media platform that he wants to put President Barack Obama on trial in front of a public military tribunal. He has also promised “revenge and retribution” upon all of those who have ever opposed him (i.e. those who sought to hold him accountable for running a scam for-profit university, pocketing money collected for children with cancer, sexually abusing women, instigating a treasonous insurrection, illegally trying to steal the 2020 Presidential Election that he lost, etc.)
COMPARING BLACK AGENDA
Award-winning journalist Keith Boykin highlighted the stark difference in the seriousness of the two presidential candidates in a recent article, part of which focused on the candidates’ Black Agendas.
“First, if you want to know Kamala Harris’s Black agenda, look at what she’s already done,” said Boykin. “As vice president, Kamala Harris helped to pass the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, provided a record $16 billion in funding to HBCUs, $2.8 billion for Pell grants and need-based assistance, $2 billion to Black farmers, $2 billion to clean up pollution in communities of color, doubled the number of Black businesses in America, and brought us the lowest Black unemployment rate and the lowest Black poverty rate in history.”
Boykin added that the Biden-Harris administration also expanded the child tax credit, which cut the Black child poverty rate in half, capped the cost of insulin at $35 for seniors, which is especially important for Black people who are disproportionately affected by diabetes, signed up five million more people for Obamacare, canceled $168.5 billion in student loan debt for 4.8 million people, pardoned thousands of marijuana charges, and even signed a law creating the first new Black-related federal holiday in 40 years — Juneteenth.
Boykin added that the Biden-Harris administration appointed more Black judges than any administration in history, and gave the nation its first Black woman on the Supreme Court and the first Black vice president.
In comparison, though Trump says he’s the best president for Blacks since Abraham Lincoln, he was the first president since Richard Nixon 50 years ago to appoint no Black judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeals.
“And the judges he did appoint are the very ones striking down the laws and policies that help Black people,” added Boykin.
Moreover, Trump has promised to free abusive police from oversight or legal repercussions, empowering them to continue abusing Blacks without penalty.
