A Dozen Reasons Why I Won’t Vote for Kamala Harris
In a President, Justice Matters More to Me than Joy
When he was still running earlier this year, I never even entertained the idea of voting for Joe Biden. But after she replaced him, there was a very small window during which I was open to the idea of voting for Kamala Harris. Now that I’ve seen what there is to see, I can’t think of a single reason to do that. I can, however, think of plenty of reasons not to.
She is actively and unconditionally supporting the mass murder of Palestinians. And she vows to continue doing so. This is one policy she has been very specific and very definitive about. Her expressions of concern for Palestinians are as performative as Joe Biden’s claims to be negotiating for a ceasefire. They mean nothing. All by itself, this is a deal-breaker for me. I simply can’t support anyone who unashamedly enables this abhorrent violent, racist land grab for the purpose of securing resources and influence in the Middle East. It’s illegal, immoral, and illegitimate.
She doesn’t care that over 75% of registered Democrats are in favor of a ceasefire, which makes it clear that voters are not the constituents she serves. She, like Trump, has been vetted and approved by the corporate donors and the power elite, and those are the people she’s responsive to.
She has accepted $5 million from AIPAC, the arm of the Israel lobby that wields illegal and undue influence in the U.S. government. AIPAC should be registered as a foreign agent. The last person who attempted to do the right thing in this regard was Robert F. Kennedy (who was hardly perfect but might also have been the last best hope for this country).
She is a former prosecutor who, as part of the Biden administration, is complicit in violation of both national and international law. Her statements on Israel and Gaza indicate that her administration will continue to prevent the UN from operating effectively, based on the votes of the majority, to end the violence perpetrated by Israel in the Middle East. International law only works if everyone abides by it. The U.S. makes sure that it is only applied to countries it disagrees with. As such it is one of the biggest impediments to peace in the world.
She is more Republican than Democrat—not defined by, but evidenced by, her embrace of Dick Cheney’s endorsement. Are we supposed to have forgotten all about who Dick Cheney is and what he’s responsible for? Or are we no longer supposed to care?
Since 2020, she has changed her position on fracking, the Green New Deal, assault weapons, and unauthorized border crossing, among other things—all, in my opinion, in the wrong direction. See #2 above, as well as #5. Some call this “pragmatism,” a euphemism if ever there was one. The people with the money prefer her current positions, and that’s what matters to her.
She appears to be in lockstep with the Biden administration’s crackdown on campus anti-genocide (free-speech) protests, which is consistent with the outrageous claims made by numerous Democrats, including John Kerry, Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama, that the First Amendment’s check on the government’s ability to determine what U.S. citizens can say and know is a bad thing. No, it’s a good thing. It’s why we have a First Amendment. We already have massive corporate media censorship in this country. A government that is operating aboveboard does not lie to its citizens or try to hide what it’s doing.
She is also more invested in projecting a particular image than she is in developing and articulating substantive national and foreign policies. I get that that is partly a campaign strategy and it may garner votes, but it’s not good for the country. It may or may not get her elected, but she’s not going to be able to deliver on that image.
As the Democratic candidate for President of the United States of America, she was anointed at nearly the last minute by the DNC, which may be a more corrupt organization than the RNC. I’ve learned not to trust the judgement or the recommendations of this extremely untrustworthy cabal, which does not operate democratically.
The primary reason put forward by those exhorting everyone to vote for her is to keep Trump from winning a second term. This amounts to telling us to vote for what we don’t want as opposed to voting for what we do want, since what we do want is not on the government-approved menu. The scare tactics are much less effective than they might be given most of what I’ve already said. There’s simply not that much difference between the two.
When I listen to her speak, I am just as terrified of her being in charge of anything as I am of Trump being in charge. (But the U.S. is an oligarchy, and it’s the oligarchs who are actually in charge, so with the situation as it stands the outcome will be equally terrifying no matter who wins.) When I listen to either Jill Stein’s or Butch Ware’s well-thought-out and clearly articulated policies and positions, I am not terrified, just extremely saddened that our government is on a completely different trajectory with a completely different agenda.
I’m going to act as though I live in a country with a government that really is of the people, by the people, for the people as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address. That’s why I am voting for Jill Stein rather than Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Stein represents my values; the other two don’t. It’s really that simple.
Hints of Desperation?
Democrats and the Harris campaign are seriously out of touch with their anti-free speech stance and embrace of Dick and Liz Cheney. Some of the bloom is definitely off the rose of the Harris candidacy. So now we have Barack Obama exhorting black men, referring to them as black “brothers,” to vote for Harris, which has predictably not gone over well with said black men. And who is he trying to kid, anyway? How many of these “brothers” have a net worth of $70 million?
After suing to keep third party candidates off the ballot, the Harris campaign has now run an attack ad against Jill Stein.
Kamala DECLARES WAR On Jill Stein | Breaking Points | 10/14/24
My stance on Republicans hasn’t changed at all. But I always scrutinized them more carefully than I did Democrats. I think that’s kind of how it works in the U.S. in regard to political party affiliation. But after Israel’s immediate and massively unproportional response to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, I began to direct considerable scrutiny to not only Israel and Palestine but also the U.S. government in general and the party currently in power in particular. One result is that, after a lifetime of voting for Democrats, I changed my voter registration to Decline to State. I was so damn sure I knew who these people were. But I was dead wrong.
That made me complicit. And I refuse to knowingly endorse or be complicit with injustice, especially on this monstrous and massive scale.