No, I don’t care about getting a woman into the white house. That’s just the bonus. I care about someone who is actually going to serve the American people as president. Experience, character, and reliability are the most important qualities for a good president. These are also things that I value in everyday life. I want this in my neighbor, family, and friends. Vice President Kamala Harris exhibits all of these qualities, while former President Donald Trump does not.
Experience—practical contact with and observation of facts or events. To be president, you need to have good experiences with power and making things happen. The only candidate with the ability to wield this kind of power is Harris. She went directly into law, starting as Deputy District Attorney of Alameda County, California, in 1990. In 1998, she was appointed as Assistant DA of San Francisco. She then became chief of the Career Criminal Division. Fast forward to four years later, she became DA of San Francisco and ran a second time, unopposed, in 2007. She created the San Francisco Reentry Division. In 2006, she fought homicide at its roots, starting at the elementary schools. In 2016, she won the senate election, only the second Black woman to do so. As senator, she enforced stricter gun laws and tax reform. With all of this experience, she is the person we want and need in office. Not only was she DA, attorney general, and senator, but she was also Vice President. She has accomplished a lot in the last four years. She capped the price of insulin and expanded postpartum care through Medicaid. She set the record for most tie-breaking votes as president of the Senate. This includes voting in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest ever investment in the future of our planet.
To contrast, Donald Trump has none of the necessary experience to be our next president. He started in the business of real estate in 1968. His father made him president of Trump Management, a company that owned racially segregated middle class rentals. This even caught the eye of the Justice Department, who sued Trump Management in 1973. He later used this as an umbrella company and started managing other businesses, six of which he ran into the ground. He then used a combination of sixteen bank loans to buy the Plaza Hotel, which was finally seized when he defaulted on over three billion dollars in loans. He also founded the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which was later investigated and shut down due to tax evasion. His several unsuccessful attempts at business didn’t stop him from trying to continue making money and being in the public eye. He even wanted to run for president in 1988, but George H. W. Bush, whom he would be the vice president under, found the request “strange and unbelievable”. Trump also thought about running against former President Barack Obama, but later decided against it. In 2016, he finally ran for president.
Reliability—the quality of being trustworthy or of performing consistently well. As DA she didn’t just create all of these committees and programs, she actually did something about the problems that they represented. Within only the first six months of taking office, she cleared an impressive 27 backlogged homicide cases. She also pushed for higher bail for criminal defendants involved in gun-related crimes, arguing that historically low bail encouraged outsiders to commit crimes in San Francisco. The San Francisco Reentry Division was mainly focused on drug offenders. Over six years this program helped over 200 people. Less than ten percent of those who graduated repeated their crime. In the past, 53 percent of drug offenders went right back to prison before even being two years out of prison. She combated truancy in elementary schools after seeing that most criminals are dropouts or chronic skippers. In April of 2009, there was a 23 percent decline in the amount of elementary school truancy cases.
Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign advertised that “real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as Obamacare.” The follow-through? Nowhere to be found. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) still exists and is still followed for healthcare coverage nationwide. Trump also promised to “approve the Keystone XL project and reap the profits,” which never happened. Not only did Trump never follow through on these promises, he also vowed not to make cuts to Medicaid. but he did. Actually, his desire to repeal Obamacare would undermine Medicaid’s expansion to low-income adults. His administration also issued guidance encouraging states to get waivers that would overhaul Medicaid. Not only did he demonstrate zero reliability on promises he made, he damaged programs he claimed he would protect. He’s hurting the very people he wants to vote for him.
Character—the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. Harris’ character is that of a hardworking prosecutor who fights for justice. After allegations that she “slept her way to the top,” she kept going, for the people. She kept working, kept campaigning, and plunged onward. Notice how no one is outraged that Trump was born with opportunities at his fingertips. Oh, and she didn’t sleep her way to the top, she actually ran against the person her former partner recommended her to, and won. She is an upstanding citizen who knows what it’s like not to be handed a fortune at birth, as Trump was. She is the kind of person who exemplifies more than what it is like to be a good politician; she exemplifies what it is like to be a good person. A person who values the safety of students, and a woman’s right to make her own health decisions. Her character above all makes her the only plausible candidate for the presidency.
Trump, on the other hand, does not have good character. While Harris has put away felons, he is one; he has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. He is a liar. He has been accused of sexual assault multiple times, and was found to be friends with Jeffrey Epstien, a former registered sex offender who died in 2019. Recently, yet another of Trump’s victims has come out of the woodwork: Stacy Williams. She is a former model who is alleging that Trump groped her while Epstien looked on. This is gross and inexcusable behavior that cannot be permitted in the White House. Such actions are repulsive in any environment, but especially cannot be tolerated in the face of our nation. Now, he claims that he has done more for Black Americans than anyone, maybe except Abraham Lincoln. What about MLK? Rosa Parks? Harriet Tubman? This complete disregard of important African American activists is disrespectful and disgusting. In reality, he has been racist since he was sued for just that in the 1970s. He has repeatedly, instead of denouncing violence done in his name, called his supporters “passionate”, when discussing two of his supporters who beat a homeless man with a metal pipe and then urinated on him while saying, “Donald Trump was right”. Donald Trump doesn’t care about anyone. Not that man who was beaten. Not his own supporters. Just the man in the mirror.
The President of the United States is a coveted position, held only by those deemed fit by the people. Someone with good character. Someone with experience. Someone who can follow through and do what’s best for our country. Kamala Harris is my pick for president. She should be yours. She is our only option.