I’ve been going back and forth for a while now about whether or not I wanted to use this space to weigh in on next Tuesday’s Presidential race. Yet when I received an email earlier this week asking me to sign a letter entitled “Historians for Harris,” I did not hesitate to do so.
Well, now that the cat is out of the bag, you can read the letter for yourself here: https://historiansforharris.github.io/.
My name is close to the end of the list, but it’s there, and I’m proud to be on the record as a Harris/Walz supporter.
Before I continue with this post, I want to make something clear: I am no “radical leftist,” “communist,” or “socialist.” My economic views are definitely on the left side of the spectrum, but since I almost always value pragmatism over ideology I would characterize them as “liberal,” not “progressive” or “leftist.” Furthermore, I would consider myself more of a social libertarian than a social progressive, since personal freedom and liberty are my core values in that category. Finally, I hesitate to admit this publicly (and will probably lose a couple of friends for this), but when it comes to foreign policy I can probably be best categorized as a “conservative.” In any event, my party affiliation is “none,” and I feel very comfortable with being labeled as an “independent voter.”
Anyway, that’s all I’m going to say about my own position, because one of the reasons why I’ve debated writing about this is that I’m already writing a lot of things right now. I am working on three scholarly articles, an upcoming blog series on some of the lessons I learned during the Legacy HUX teach-out, and a series of edits to my Grandpa’s Letters book I need to make in response to some peer reviews I recently received (this is a very good sign that it will be soon published . . . but I’ll say more about that when the time is right). Like most Americans, I have more than a decade’s worth of feelings, thoughts, memories, and impressions of the former and possibly soon-to-be-once-again President, and boiling them down into something that people will read just sounds like an awful, difficult task.
So, I will let the letter I signed do the work for me. It’s an impressive document that encapsulates much of how I feel about both candidates, and as a historian myself I appreciate its eloquent disciplinary framing. Please take a few minutes to read it, especially if you are still thinking about who to choose next Tuesday.
Beyond that, I’ve read (and watched) a lot of other fantastic things over the past few weeks, so instead of filling this blog with my words, I am going to link to some of my favorites. After all, if graduate school taught me anything, it’s how to write an annotated bibliography. Links to each article are hyperlinked in the title.
Please note that for each article below I make “recommendations” on who should read it. A libertarian isn’t going to get much use out of an article arguing that Harris is a better choice than Jill Stein, while a progressive who is not excited about Harris’s candidacy will not likely be moved by anything that Liz Cheney has to say. One of the things I love about the Harris campaign is that it is a big tent – the pro-democracy coalition is large, diverse, strong, and a majority of the country’s population. Getting everyone to affirmatively vote for a single pro-democracy candidate, however, is a much more difficult proposition. Hopefully one or two of the articles below helps move the needle for you.
Adam Gopnik, “How Alarmed Should we be if Trump Wins Again?” The New Yorker, 14 October 2024
Recommended for: Academics, historians, anyone who thinks that Trump will be a lot less dangerous than many of his detractors believe
Why I like it: This piece bounces around quite a bit, but the central distinction Gopnik makes here between “minimizers” who believe that Trump does not have it in him to blow up NATO, prosecute his enemies, censor the media, or deport 20 million Americans; and “maximizers” who think “YES, HE WILL ABSOLUTELY TRY,” is critical to understanding why some of us are (and why others are not) completely freaking out right now.
I’ve been an anti-MAGA maximizer since 2015, and I’ll confess feeling a tremendous sense of relief at 12:01pm on January 20th, 2021, knowing that Trump no longer had the nuclear codes. However, while I’ve never understood how people could not feel that sense of dread and anxiety I had throughout the entire Trump Presidency (and over the last several months this year), this article adds some clarity and perspective to this fundamental threat assessment divide in our body politic. And note that this assessment differential cleaves cleanly across party lines: Liz Cheney and most of Trump’s senior officials are now expressing the maximalist case, while Stein and West supporters clearly do not. That may be the biggest divide of all right now: those who think Trump’s election will mean the further erosion of democratic norms, versus those who don’t see the danger.
Key Quotation: “Trump is a villain . . . It is telling that the most successful entertainments of our age are the dark comic-book movies—the Batman films and the X-Men and the Avengers and the rest of those cinematic universes. This cultural leviathan was launched by the discovery that these ridiculous comic-book figures, generations old, could now land only if treated seriously, with sombre backstories and true stakes. Our heroes tend to dullness; our villains, garishly painted monsters from the id, are the ones who fuel the franchise.”
Recommended for: Republicans, conservatives, and fiscal hawks who read right-leaning and classically liberal publications like The Economist
Why I like it: The Economist’s endorsement of Harris yesterday is a bit more lukewarm than I would like it to be, but at least it comes off as honest. It makes a lot of the same points Gopnik makes in the article above, yet it is much more succinct and direct.
For what it’s worth, I am a big fan of The Economist. If you’re an independent-minded voter who dislikes MAGA-world but wants a less politically polarized and more analytically driven news feed, you should already be a subscriber. If you are not, though, it is never too late . . . especially since, in the event that Trump wins, its global reach and UK-based leadership will likely insulate it to some degree from Trump’s attacks on the free press.
Key Quotation: “America may well breeze through four more years of Mr Trump, as it has the presidencies of other flawed men from both parties. The country may even thrive. But voters claiming to be hard-headed are overlooking the tail risk of a Trump presidency. By making Mr Trump leader of the free world, Americans would be gambling with the economy, the rule of law and international peace. We cannot quantify the chance that something will go badly wrong: nobody can. But we believe voters who minimise it are deluding themselves.”
McKay Coppins, “Loyalists, Lapdogs, and Cronies,” The Atlantic, 4 December 2023
Recommended for: Anyone who thinks that a second Trump term will resemble the first one.
Why I like it: This is an older article, and the Atlantic is so chock-full of well-written, high-impact columns this fall warning against a second trump administration that it seems unfair to post one from last year. However, it also cuts right to one of the key defenses a lot of supporters make in justifying their first pro-Trump vote in a post-January 6th world: that Trump is smart enough to surround himself with much smarter people who will provide guardrails against his worst instincts.
Well, apart from the obvious question of why anyone would want a President who needs guardrails in the first place, it seems patently obvious this time around that he’s replacing those guardrails with traffic cones and a steep ravine. Coppins makes that case here.
Key Quotation: “The available supply of serious, qualified people willing to serve in a Trump administration has dwindled since 2017. After all, the so-called adults didn’t fare so well in their respective rooms. Some quit in frustration or disgrace; others were publicly fired by the president. Several have spent their post–White House lives fielding congressional subpoenas and getting indicted. And after seeing one Trump term up close, vanishingly few of them are interested in a sequel: This past summer, NBC News reported that just four of Trump’s 44 Cabinet secretaries had endorsed his current bid.”
Chuck Wendig, “If He Wins,” Terrible Minds, 30 October 2024
Recommended for: Progressives who are thinking about voting for Stein or West; anyone who appreciates good writing
Why I like it: This is the best-written (and funniest) piece of the bunch. As a writer, I’m a sucker for good prose, and this blog does the trick. But it is also a powerful affirmative case for Harris . . . this is the kind of piece I would imagine famous anti-Nixonian Gonzo journo Hunter S. Thompson writing if he could have stuck around for another 20 years.
Key Quotation: “You gotta vote, and you gotta vote Harris / Walz. You gotta help others do the same. And I know, there are certainly policies you don’t agree with of hers . . . It’s good to have principles, but not when the execution of those principles serves only your moral comfort and not, say, the greater good. The perfect cannot be the enemy of that good. We choose the path that gets us collectively closer to a better place — not the path that will take us into only darkness.”
Recommended for: Girl dads, dads in general, men, boys, guys, dudes, bros, and anyone else who identifies as a man
Why I like it: For all the jobs I have, the most important one is also the one that pays the least: “daddy.”
There’s no doubt that we live in an age of incredible change, with everything from technology to religion to culture shifting constantly beneath our feet. Gender roles, gender identities, and the very definition of “masculinity” are no exception to that. As a cis-man, I’m less troubled by people expressing gender identities that were not listed on their birth certificates than I am with men who believe that healthy masculinity requires buying expensive pickup trucks, disparaging women, and voting for Trump. This election will not settle that conversation, but Trump is banking on a lot of young men who are confused and distressed by these changes voting on behalf of their outrage and despair.
Although this is a blog, it contains a wealth of testimonials from other men who are navigating the same issues as the rest of us, but whose love for their country AND for the women in their lives are compelling them to vote for the first woman President. If you’re a dad, an uncle, a husband, a boyfriend, whatever, this is worth checking out.
Key Quotation: “While my decision to support Kamala is rooted in my responsibility as an American, it also reflects my hopes for a better future for my family. As a father, I want to ensure that my children grow up in a country where leadership is grounded in wisdom, stability, and a commitment to the democratic process. I believe that the decisions we make at the polls directly impact the world we leave behind for the next generation. Voting for Kamala isn’t just about politics—it’s about safeguarding the values that will shape my children’s future and the future of our nation.” – Eric, a “North Carolina Dad On Why He’s Supporting Kamala Harris”
Ilya Somin, “Kamala Harris is a Far Lesser Evil than Donald Trump,” Reason, 24 October 2024
Recommended for: Libertarians, Harris-skeptical voters who are looking for a good reason to choose her
Why I like it: Somin presents this column as an “exercise in how to assess issues and weigh them against each other.” That’s a fantastic way to look at it . . . Somin approaches this election as a libertarian who has serious qualms about both candidates’ expressed positions. I certainly don’t agree with many of the things the author writes here about Harris (I’m a fan, to be perfectly honest, and I think she will be a great President), but in spite of all that we arrived at the same conclusion: that a vote for Harris is the only way to help ensure that our nation can avoid the evils, excesses, and dangers of a second Trump term.
Key Quotation: “In sum, we face two bad options in this election. But for people who care about freedom, liberal democratic institutions, and the strength of the Western alliance, one is clearly far worse than the other.”
Michael Bloomberg, “Why I am voting for Kamala Harris,” Bloomberg, 31 October 2024
Recommended for: Any undecided voters looking for more reasons to vote for Harris.
Why I like it: It was really nice to see former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s endorsement yesterday, especially since so much is being made of Elon Musk’s embrace of Donald Trump (in my opinion it has less to do with the value of a so-called billionaire genius’s endorsement and much more to do with the $15.4 billion in federal contracts owned by SpaceX). Bloomberg is no stranger to making money, and unlike Musk he has actually knows a thing or two about running a government. In this column, he succinctly lays out his case, and moves point by point through a variety of issues. He makes it clear that they don’t see eye to eye on everything, but hopefully it is clear by now that the only candidacy that can afford to apply ideological purity tests is Trump’s.
Key Quotation: “I don’t know Harris well — we have only talked a couple of times — but I’ve been impressed by the way she has run her campaign: reaching out to independents and Republicans and rallying voters of all parties by offering a positive vision of the country. She is determined to lead our nation forward, and she understands that the only way to do that is by bringing people back together.”
Bernie Sanders, “’I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?’ Here is my answer:” (YouTube Video, 28 October 2024).
Recommended for: Progressives, Gaza War activists, Bernie Bros
Why I like it: Just like it is impossible to imagine someone out-Trumping Trump, it is equally unimaginable to conceive of someone outflanking Bernie Sanders on the left. You don’t have to agree with everything he says, but he points out here that you don’t have to agree with everything Harris says, either. There’s a lot of daylight between my worldview and his, but I respect him as a man of courage and principle. Listen to what he has to say below.
Key Quotation: “This is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Kalama Harris on Gaza. So do I. But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has got to be defeated. Let’s do everything we can in the next week to make sure that Kamala Harris is our next President.”
Jimmy Kimmel, “A Special Monologue to the Republican in your Life” (YouTube Video, 29 October 2024).
Recommended for: Trump supporters, late night comedy fans
Why I like it: I’m a big Jimmy Kimmel fan (not going to apologize, he’s hilarious . . .), and in this monologue he drops the virtue-signaling and inside jokes in an earnest attempt to talk directly to those who are voting for Trump. If you’ve ignored everything up until this point in the blog and are still planning voting for Trump, please at least check out the video below. It’s sincere, poignant, and, well . . . it’s pretty funny.
Key Quotation: “Public schools are not giving gender surgeries to children or any surgeries to children . . . parents can’t send their kids with peanut butter, (because) schools won’t let their kids eat nuts . . . do you think they are OK with cutting them off?”
Ballotpedia (non-partisan, data-driven web resource)
Recommended for: everyone!
Why I like it: This isn’t an argument for Harris (or against Trump), but I wanted to conclude this with a link to Ballotpedia. This site uses public records to inform voters on local, state, and federal candidates for office, as well as ballot propositions. If you’re curious to know, for example, who is funding all of the various propositions on the California ballot this year (THERE ARE SO MANY!!!), Ballotpedia gives you unvarnished, unedited, and publicly available information on that. You can also read endorsements for each side, the legislative language being proposed, etc. In an election defined more by mis- and disinformation than by actual, verifiable truth, Ballotpedia should be your first and last stop for “true” information. Of course, what you do with that information is completely up to you . . .
To learn about what’s on your ballot, just enter your address.
Key Quotation (from the FAQ): “Ballotpedia is nonprofit and nonpartisan. We are not affiliated with any political campaign or advocacy group. Our goal is for Ballotpedia to be neutral and unbiased. We believe voters deserve objective and factual information at all levels of government, so that they can make the choices that are right for them.”
Dang, you’ve been thorough!