Editorial: Harris-Walz best to lead the American people

By The Herald Editorial Board

You’d actually be hard-pressed right now to find someone who — among those planning to vote — truly are undecided about whom they will vote for.

Various polls put the range between 2 percent and 5 percent who say they are undecided; the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin and Marshall College reported an estimate of 3 percent, and that was in September; though to read and listen to national news media you’d assume the ranks of the undecided were far larger. (Independent voters, it should be noted, are most likely among the undecided, with about 40 percent saying they either don’t know or are still deciding.)

So assuming that a few of the undecided are among those reading right now — or need just a bit more information before marking their ballots — we offer this:

Vice President Kamala Harris should be the voters’ choice for the 47th President of the United States.

We could fill this page — and scores more — with reasons why former President Donald Trump isn’t fit to serve and shouldn’t be reelected to a second term; and we’ll offer a few in a moment.

But let’s start with the affirmative.

Harris — and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — are the best choice to lead as president and vice president.

A truly unprecedented election season, which vaulted Harris into position as the presumptive Democratic nominee only three months ago, has limited her time on the campaign trail and her opportunity to outline and clarify her policy positions, her character and demeanor and how her administration would compare to that of President Biden and to that of her opponent.

Still, the information is out there.

Harris’ agenda

As much as any president — on his or her own — can guide an economy, Harris has pledged to build an opportunity economy that strengthens the middle class by working to bring down everyday costs for groceries and health care, developing more affordable housing and by encouraging job growth through family-wage jobs and helping small businesses.

At the same time she has promised to work to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare.

Again, seeking to help working and middle class Americans, she will back legislation — as Congress considers taxes in its next session — to reduce their burden, specifically with an expanded Child Tax Credit and and the Earned Income Tax Credit, limiting tax increases to those making more than $400,000 a year.

Harris also takes seriously the threat of climate change and will continue the landmark work started by Biden to make desparately needed investments in the transition to a clean energy economy and responses to the consequences of the climate crisis that we already are experiencing.

On immigration, Harris has committed to signing tough border security legislation that Republicans and Democrats in Congress negotiated, legislation that Trump ordered key Republicans to abandon.

“We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border,” she said during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

On public safety, Harris assisted a $15 billion investment in local law enforcement and community safety and has pushed for gun safety policies as head of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. She backs a ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines and backs universal background checks and red-flag laws.

(And despite claims by Trump and other Republicans of rampant crime, violent crime in the U.S. has reached a 50-year low, with the largest single-year drop in murders, as reported by the FBI and data from the Council on Criminal Justice.)

More than even Biden, Harris has spoken clearly of her commitment to protecting women’s reproductive freedoms, including access to abortion, and has vowed to veto any national abortion ban but sign a law that would restore the protections that had been guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.

On foreign policy, even before Biden announced he would not seek reelection and endorsed Harris’ run, his administration had increased her presence on the world stage, putting her out front in meetings and negotiations with foreign leaders including European allies, Ukraine’s Volodmyr Zelensky and China’s Xi Jinping. She, like Biden, has evinced commitment both to Israel’s security and Palestinian self-determination through a two-state solution.

Promises are just that: promises. But Harris has already shown a commitment to the above priorities and others by pursuing them as a prosecuting attorney, California’s attorney general, as a U.S. senator and as Biden’s vice president, providing tie-breaking votes in the Senate on the Inflation Reduction Act and the covid-era American Rescue Plan.

Trump’s plans

In contrast, Trump has placed much of his economic agenda on promises of deregulation that would harm the environment and threaten union jobs and on abandoning the clean energy transition that even Texas and other states are enjoying, while deepening America’s dependence on fossil fuels that are causing the climate crisis and has already exploded costs for disaster response and rebuilding, insurance, health care and more.

As well, his promise of mass deportations — beyond their cruelty in separating families and likely sweeping up undocumented immigrants and legal residents alike — would be immensely costly in implementation and its effects on the U.S. labor market, leading to further cost increases for housing and food.

Among the most potentially damaging policies is his sales job regarding high tariffs as a hope to bring manufacturing back to America and increase the nation’s revenue. Trump has promised 10 percent to 20 percent and higher tariffs against most imported goods and 50 percent to 60 percent for goods from China. While tariffs have their uses, and have been used by the Biden administration, despite repeated corrections from economists, Trump insists that foreign countries pay those tariffs, when in truth those costs are passed on to American consumers.

A Wall Street Journal survey of 50 leading economists found that more than two-thirds — 68 percent — said Trump’s tariffs and other economic policies would result in higher inflation; only 12 percent said the same of Harris’ plans.

At the same time, the Committee for a Responsible Budget weighed in with what each campaign’s policies would mean for the federal budget deficit. The report concluded that Harris’ policies would increase the deficit by $3.5 trillion; not good, but still less than half of the projected $7.5 trillion price tag of Trump’s policies.

Beyond policy

Yet, comparing policies would matter only if Trump were a conventional Republican candidate.

He is clearly not.

A conventional Republican candidate — save for Trump’s obsequious running mate Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance — would not have excused the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol as “a day of love,” as Trump did this week; not when it involved injuries and deaths for law enforcement officers and protesters, vandalism of a sacred American institution, terrorized members of Congress and staffers and the unprecedented delay of Congress’ recognition of the results of the 2020 election and your vote.

A conventional Republican candidate would not call, as Trump did this week, any American — whether member of Congress or Democratic protester — “evil,” “radical left lunatics” and “enemies from within”; and justification to deploy the National Guard and even active military troops to suppress protests.

A conventional Republican candidate would not be called “fascist to the core,” by a retired Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, as Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward reported in an interview with Mark A. Milley, who served in Trump’s Cabinet for more than a year. And nor would a long list of other former Trump White House officials join in similar assessments of a conventional Republican candidate.

Fit to lead

If elected, Kamala Harris will have successes and failures; any of her ambitions and plans will face scrutiny from a Congress where at least one of its chambers is likely to be controlled by Republicans.

But Harris will lead, guided by her past and continuing commitment to the rule of law, the norms expected of the nation’s chief executive and by her enduring respect for the American people; all of them. The same cannot be said of Trump, because none of that was demonstrated during his previous term in office.

Voters should give the position of leadership to Harris.