Harris for president
But no 'joy' in this space
It was July 21 and my wife and I were somewhere in Arkansas, en route to San Antonio, when we heard the news that President Biden was exiting the presidential race and would throw his full support behind Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic nominee.
At the time, I recall thinking this might have been a mistake. Not the withdrawal of Biden, who was clearly in decline and who would have almost certainly lost to Donald Trump. No, the error was effectively handing the nomination to Harris, whose own 2020 presidential campaign was so lackluster that it folded before it even got off the ground.
But handing the prize over to a duly-elected vice president seemed like the cleanest way to install a new nominee, even if there were others (e.g. Whitmer, Shapiro, Pritzker) who would have been a better match for Trump. So, too, would Harris’ installation remove the political backlash borne of casting aside the first woman-of-color to serve in the nation’s second-highest office.
So here we are. We’re confronted with the choice of a mediocre Democrat who has spent the bulk of her career in the bubble of a one-party state where she has never had to appeal to centrists in order to win a statewide election. Consequently, Harris has advocated for some fairly left-wing policies over the years.
Contrast Harris with a former president — a lunatic who is looking to avoid jail time and is so manifestly unfit to return to the White House that dozens of books have been written on the subject by family members, journalists and former close aides. This is to say nothing of the policies he will likely enact if he pollutes the Oval Office with his daily presence once again.
I’ll take the middling candidate and hope like hell that she will bow to reality and stifle some of her more progressive policy prescriptions, including banning fracking, decriminalizing unlawful immigration, abolishing private health insurance and — perhaps worst of all — taxing unrealized capital gains. Even some of her own supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, have warned that such a tax would stifle investment and “kill the stock market,” though he quickly adds that he does not think the policy would be seriously proposed in a Harris administration. Cuban, the former owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is a smart guy whom I am inclined to believe.
Now let’s take a look at what a second Trump term would look like. First, we have Project 2025, a blueprint for four more years of Trump and a radical proposal for an overhaul of the federal government from top to bottom.
I covered that topic in an earlier column but suffice it to say that the scheme developed by the very conservative Heritage Foundation proposes to effect sweeping federal tax cuts, eliminate the Department of Education, begin the utterly impractical mass deportation of millions of unlawful immigrants, withdraw the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, and slash federal money for research and investment in renewable energy sources. Oh, and Project 2025’s authors also want to ban pornography. Good luck with that one.
For comic relief, see Jordan Klepper of the Daily Show reporting on TikTok on the industry’s reaction, which includes the launch of “Hand’s Off My Porn” campaign:
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As I wrote over the summer, Project 2025 also:
… proposes that the entire federal bureaucracy, including independent agencies such as the Department of Justice, be placed under direct presidential control” — part of a controversial constitutional idea known as “unitary executive theory,” which holds that the president has the authority to control almost the entire executive branch.
As you might expect, Trump and his surrogates have tried to distance themselves from Project 2025 but there is reason for concern for those of us who oppose them. When he first ran for president in 2016, Trump was utterly ignorant of the federal judiciary, so he approached the conservative Federalist Society and asked members to create a list of judges they thought would be suitable for the Supreme Court. He told them: “I’m going to submit a list of justices, potential justices of the United States Supreme Court, that I will appoint from the list. I won’t go beyond that list.”
Trump kept his word and the result, among other things, was the Dobbs decision on abortion — the first time in my memory that the high court has ruled to take away rights previously granted. A remarkable five of nine of the country’s top justices have Federalist Society ties.
If Trump has made a similar pact with the Heritage Foundation, it has not been made public, but the man has exhibited a slavish devotion to causes he thinks his supporters like and Project 2025 targets a lot of the same people most Trump supporters hate.
A second term for Trump will be driven by grievance and — to use his favorite word — “retribution.” It would be such a labor-intensive undertaking that I wouldn’t be surprised if he hired a secretary of retribution. His Justice Department will be filled with hack lawyers — loyal Trumpists who couldn’t find a job anywhere else.
Indeed, if he wins a second term, Trump will struggle to fill positions in his administration with competent people. He will be left with a coalition of the half-assed. Or, as the The Bulwark put it, “Individuals with ambitions dangerous to the future of our democracy are likely to be in positions of power and influence.”
More than 100 top Republican government officials who served with Trump, including former members of Congress, defense secretaries, CIA directors and other national security officials, have endorsed Harris. Even his own vice president, whom Trump’s thugs wanted to hang on January 6, 2021, refuses to endorse him.
As the title of this Substack column suggests, Im not reflexively right or left on most issues, but I do think it’s worth asking whether a conservative can vote for Harris with a clear conscience. Here is a list of Harris endorsements from CBS News and it includes several former Trump administration officials themselves.
My personal favorite Republican endorsement is from Wisconsin conservative Charlie Sykes (along with his dogs, of course):
Two other important matters to consider:
1. I contrasted the economic proposals of the two candidates last month:
I’ve found very few reputable economists who prefer Trump’s proposals over Harris’. Both of them would add considerably to our debt and deficit numbers, but Trump’s are even worse:
In an op-ed published last week in the Wall Street Journal (free link), Furman agreed with me on tariffs and concluded that Trumps’ proposals would add $5 trillion to the deficit, while Harris’, if she chooses to stick to her “commitment” not to raise taxes on families earning less than 400,000 per year, would add merely $1.5 trillion.
In another piece this week in the WSJ (free link), a quarterly survey of prominent experts by reporters at The Journal, found that “Economists still say Trump’s policies are more likely to add to inflation, deficits and interest rates.” A survey in July, when Biden was still the Democratic nominee, found a similar result. But, adds the Journal, “If anything, the margin has grown since July” since Harris became the nominee during the third week of that month.
Why, pray tell?
Hamilton and his colleague Matthew Fienup now see a second Trump term producing faster price increases because of the former president’s tariff plans. “Since July, it became apparent to us that Trump is even more anti-free-trade than Harris,” Hamilton said.
So the odds are very good that if Trump defeats Harris and gets his way (which is probable, given the near-certainty of a GOP-controlled Congress), you will have greater debt and deficit numbers, higher inflation and higher interest rates from The Fed to combat the inflation. These are precisely the core economic issues Trump supporters say they care about: the cost of groceries, gasoline, automobiles and buying a home.
2. Are you concerned about the future of the Supreme Court? It is likely that, if elected, Trump will have at least one or maybe two justices picks. Two justices are getting on in years: conservatives Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74.
Trump would replace both of them with a Federalist Society-approved judge. Of greater concern is liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is reported to be in ill health. As Mehdi Hasan reported earlier this year:
Of course, only Sotomayor knows the full status of her health … still it is public knowledge that she has had type 1 diabetes since she was seven; had paramedics called to her home; and is the only sitting justice to have, reportedly, traveled with a medic.
If Trump wins, he will likely have a GOP-controlled Senate, which is the body that confirms SCOTUS justices. And remember, the filibuster for judicial nominees has been abolished, so only 50 votes are needed to approve a SCOTUS nominee because a Vice President J.D. Vance would cast the deciding vote in the event of a tie.
So there you have it. You can elect a deranged, addled old man with mostly bad policies, or a mediocre politician with better policies and far superior people around her.
The choice for me is clear — and we haven’t even addressed foreign policy yet. Americans typically don’t give a rat’s ass about foreign policy unless American soldiers are dying, but here is a clear-eyed and comprehensive assessment of the two candidates by the Council On Foreign Relations:
Really enjoyed your column today. Like you, I am more than concerned about the choice we have, and I am afraid of what will happen come Election Day no matter who is elected. I do not recall ever fearing the results of our votes no matter who is elected ….. but this year certainly feels different.
Your last paragraphs about the Court are frightening!