How I voted
I voted this week, via mail-in, for Kamala Harris. I don’t agree with her about everything. However, based on my priorities this election cycle, it was an obvious choice.
I’ve voted for both Democrats and Republicans in various elections over the past 15 years. I wish we had more choices, and that political discourse had become less like binge eating potato chips. As a whole, I wish the left was more capable of ignoring the most extreme voices of their party and focusing on effective policy design, and I wish the right even wanted to. Most of all, I wish politics were less “totalizing” these days — the idea that if you don’t agree with me about everything, or don’t say it in the right way, we can’t work together on anything.
I have plenty of days to complain about this. I have just a couple every four years to try to bend my nation in the direction I consider to be progress.
I hope laying out my priorities and thinking helps anyone else, even one person, feel confident in their choice and avoid the allure of throwing up their hands. Or worse, pretend like they are not voting for all of their candidate—including everything they stand for. At the very least, I hope it makes me feel better to say it all out loud. Or for someone else to see themselves.
2024 Priorities
For better or worse, Americans have two “big tent” parties representing coalitions of diverse interests. In the best case, we will end up with a president that pursues some of our goals, but frustrates or even blocks others. Being an effective civic actor means prioritizing the goals most important to you, even if it means slow or no progress in others.
My priorities in this election are simple:
- Voting: I want to continue to vote, and I want policies that preserve (and ideally expand) free, fair, and accessible elections as the primary driver of gaining and retaining the power to govern. I do not want direct democracy for everything, or a lack of check and balances, but I do believe the best outcomes come when leadership is accountable to the people they serve, especially their prosperity and well-being.
- Reproductive Rights: I want people to have autonomy over their bodies and lives. It is popular and polite to say “I don’t think the government should be in between a woman and her health care,” but my contention is fundamental: inability to control your fertility is inability to control your life. I would not want that to be a state’s rights issue as a man, and I don’t want that to be a state’s rights issue for anyone else.
- Living Standards: I want to raise living standards by as much and for as many people as possible. Raising living standards — making people wealthier, healthier, and safer — tends to solve a lot of other problems. When it goes the other direction, you tend to create a lot of other ones.
Is that everything I care about? No — I also care about education, scientific research, foreign policy, and plenty more. But these are the things I’ve decided to prioritize this election, because I think they have the greatest chance of differentiated outcomes between candidates.
Comparison
Now that I have my most important priorities, I can weigh candidates on the issues that matter most to me, rather than tribes and vibes.
Voting:
This is not difficult. We lived through a coup, repeatedly defended by only one of the candidates.
This crowd was directed by Trump, yet somehow he now blames Nancy Pelosi, compares the jailed rioters to Japanese-Americans detained in WWII, and is running on pardoning those involved. Hundreds of police officers were injured, multiple died, but it was all a “day of love.”
This is all in the public record. It is not a matter of interpretation.
If you believe that because he said “peacefully” once in his 70-minute rant to “stop the steal” that he does not bear legal responsibility for inciting a coup, fine. If you believe that consistently defending people who stood outside the US Capitol with nooses, chanting for the hanging of his vice president, is not itself disqualifying, also fine. Ignore January 6 somehow. You still have a candidate with a long history of denying unfavorable election results, most notably in 2020, and continues to assert he had “every right” to intervene. This is after every claim has been thrown out in court, by judges he appointed, at every level, in multiple states.
Beyond just casting doubt on the legitimacy of the tally, we know Trump actively sought to overturn the results by asking his vice president to refuse to certify the election, attempting to install fake electors for the electoral college, and berating officials to “find votes” in their jurisdictions. 100+ former officials from Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2, and Trump administrations have endorsed Harris on this basis, stating that potential concerns about Harris “pale in comparison to Donald Trump’s demonstrated chaotic and unethical behavior and disregard for our Republic’s time-tested principles of constitutional governance,” continuing that he “is unfit to serve again as President, or indeed in any office of public trust.”
In other words, we do not have to speculate about whether Trump would attempt to prevent a peaceful transfer of power to preserve his interests — he did. Voting for Trump is voting for someone with an established track record of resisting change via the democratic process:
Reproductive rights
This priority is also not difficult. I simply do not believe reproductive rights should be a state issue, much like I don’t believe child marriage or slavery should be a state issue. Control of your own fertility — and all that follows — is control of your life. In much of the country, women now have less control over their lives and bodies than their parents did, and much less than men. Moreover, we all end up worse off from a society that will have lower female labor participation, high school graduation rates, and lifetime earnings, and pay more taxes for welfare.
Even if you believe life begins at conception and supersedes the rights or outcomes of the mother, delegating this matter to states has created a scenario where pregnancy has become more dangerous in ~half the country. Doctors delay care even when the mother’s health is at-risk, for fear of criminal prosecution. Women are investigated by police for miscarriages, adding to already traumatic experiences. 10 states do not allow exceptions for rape or incest, meaning women can be raped and then forced to carry their trauma to term. If my partner were pregnant, I would be imploring her not to set foot in any state shown in any shade of red for her own safety:
In other words, the current reality is abhorrent, hurts the economy, and it hasn’t even decreased abortions! Not only does Trump celebrate this outcome as a personal victory, but his own running mate has in the past called for a national abortion ban, and his close connections (and likely administration officials) have an explicit agenda of punishing people who help women seek reproductive care.
By contrast, Harris’s record is extremely strong and consistent on this issue. As a candidate, vice president, senator, and attorney general she has championed reproductive rights and access as a core priority. She supports codifying Roe v. Wade at the federal level. During office in the post-Roe world, she has actually made a difference: reiterating federal protection for doctors providing emergency care, protecting patient privacy, and more. Like voting itself, you have no idea how much I wish that this didn’t have to be one of my voting priorities, but we are where we are, and I am enthusiastically in support of Harris’s policies in this area. I am also extremely concerned that significant erosion on this issue will cause a brain drain of talented women, which would undermine US competitiveness for a generation.
Finally, as a reminder, voting for Trump is voting for this person to be the self-proclaimed “protector of women”:
Living standards
This last priority is what elections should be about in a normal cycle, and would be my entire focus if not for the massive contrast and current state within the above. It is also where the choice is much more debatable.
First, Trump’s core claim is that Biden “ruined” the Trump economy, and Harris will do more of the same. When we look at their actual records and policies, the data just does not back up this narrative. Annualized, inflation-adjusted GDP growth was higher under Biden than Trump, even if you exclude 2020. More jobs were created under Biden, again excluding pandemic years. Despite high interest rates to combat inflation, unemployment is still quite low at ~4%.
Inflation was indeed bad during Biden’s term, but that’s because it was high everywhere. Most countries inherited the same dynamic: a hangover from massive economic stimulus crashing into a global supply chain trying to reset itself all at once. The US actually did quite a bit better than many of its peers:
Moreover, despite all the headlines, inflation-adjusted household incomes are actually higher than in 2020, meaning wages kept up with inflation.
Real household wealth has also kept up, and not just for rich people:
The stock market is also higher, meaning most people have much better 401ks than they did under Trump.
Overall, America has weathered the post-COVID recovery much better than other countries. Prices are higher, but so are our wages, investments, and economic output in real terms. Inflation was bad, but it has returned to normal, and it was even worse in countries with different policies and different leaders. There are plenty of things I can criticize or wish were better about the Biden-Harris administration, but the argument that it was some sort of liberal economic doom loop is a complete myth.
Looking ahead, both candidates are very light on policy rigor. Trump’s entire platform seems to be based on stopping migration and imposing tariffs, both of which are provably bad for economic growth and raise prices. Harris’s platform has many good intentions, most exciting to me being the development of 3 million new housing units, and reducing regulatory red tape that makes housing more expensive. However, there are also plenty of bad old-left ideas around subsidizing and restricting prices (on rent, groceries, etc.), or scapegoating the uber-wealthy and big companies, both of which are also bad economics.
Overall, at best the two are a wash on the economy, but I give Harris an edge based on her ambitious housing plan and protecting free trade. Most economists agree, including 23 Nobel laureates who stated Trump’s policies will lead to “higher prices, increased deficits, and greater inequality.”
But what about crime? I don’t want to feel unsafe, and it’s a primary talking point for Trump. The data is a little murky, but I don’t see how a credible claim can be made that crime was better under Trump, let alone “skyrocketed” under Biden. If anything we saw a spike in certain crimes in 2020 (under Trump), and rates steadily dropping since (under Biden), most recently with big improvements in violent crimes and mixed performance in others. I wouldn’t credit either of their policies for this, and the more obvious takeaway of the data is that crime is way lower than anything I grew up with:
There are very real policy debates to be had, but they are primarily at the local and state level. Moreover, as a society we are extremely uninformed about crime rates, especially the fact that illegal immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans. I actually agree that our border policy has been weak and that our immigration system is deeply unfair, but if illegal immigrants don’t cause more crime and mass restrictions will hurt the economy and raise prices, I struggle to see why I should want Trump’s proposed solutions, let alone make them a top priority. If crime really is a top voting issue for you in a federal election, take up gun control, the leading cause of death among American children and teens nationally.
Conclusion
Once again, revisiting my priorities:
- Voting: I want to keep voting, and for voting to be the primary means of holding our leaders accountable to our well-being. Trump actively sows mistrust in elections as a political strategy, denies results that don’t go his way, tried to overturn results to retain power, and continues to defend a failed coup by his supporters. People he worked with closely while in office say he is unfit, dangerous, and was envious of Hitler. The same can not be said of Harris and I would vote for her on this basis alone.
- Reproductive Rights: I want people to have control of their lives and bodies, and I believe we all lose by continuing to disenfranchise half our population. Trump celebrates a new abortion regime that has already made American women less safe, and in time will make us all poorer and less competitive as a country. Harris has actively fought to restore reproductive rights at the federal level, and at minimum will prevent further erosion. Harris is the clear choice on this basis.
- Living Standards: Trump’s entire argument — that he will save us from economic ruin and uncontrollable crime — has no evidence, and his record is not better than Biden’s on either metric. Kamala Harris has some ideas that I disagree with, but her policies are likely to lead to lower prices and a stronger economy than Trump Pt 2. She also has an ambitious plan on an issue I care about (housing), whereas I can not say the same about Trump.
So, I dropped off my ballot for Harris — for all of her as my president, including all that I like and all that I don’t. I hope you do, too. If not, I hope you are at least clear that you’re voting for all of Trump.
