Dear Editor:
Not since Barack Obama became our 44th president have I been filled with such unbounded hope regarding our nation’s future. Former President Donald Trump’s deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and delayed attempts to hold him accountable had caused me to sink into the murky waters of pessimism.
My despondency vanished when President Joe Biden commendably ended his campaign and then endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. It was as if my hope, once on life support, had been resuscitated. While a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for fear and division, a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for hope and unity.
Kamala Harris’ candidacy is rooted in hope in three ways:
Hope that we can protect our democracy
While serving as district attorney of San Francisco, attorney general of California and as a member of the U.S. Senate, Kamala Harris demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law and our long-established democratic norms.
She is keenly aware of the existential threat Trump and his loyalists pose to our constitutional republic. She knows Trump is campaigning to take his brand of fascistic demagoguery back to the White House, with Project 2025 in view.
“She is keenly aware of the existential threat Trump and his loyalists pose to our constitutional republic.”
Some prominent Republicans with conservative bona fides understand that Kamala Harris is the only pro-democracy presidential candidate put forward by the two main political parties. Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney all have endorsed Harris.
Additionally, Jimmy McCain, lifelong Republican and son of the late Sen. John McCain, has endorsed Harris — among many other such conservative endorsements.
Hope that we can reject all indecency
The Republican Party has been remade in Donald Trump’s image and corrupted by his indecency. A recent display of indecency involved the Trump campaign’s total disregard for the rules governing Arlington National Cemetery.
Trump’s smile and thumbs up in the photo taken at the graves of fallen service members bespeaks political opportunism rather than of genuine sympathy for grieving families.
In a despicable display of misogynoir, Trump made a post on his Truth Social platform in which he implied Kamala Harris rose to her current status by doing sexual favors for others.
By contrast, when it comes to decency, Harris is the antithesis of Trump. That stride across the stage to shake hands with Trump at the beginning of their debate was emblematic of her decency and integrity. Trump, caught off guard by her gracious gesture, was unable to respond with the same graciousness. He showed in his debate performance an inability to take Harris as anything other than someone challenging his feelings of superiority.
Malignant narcissists like Trump often expect their enemies to come down in the mud with them. But wallowing in the pigsty is beneath Harris. Even when firmly rebuking Trump during the debate, she did not resort to dehumanizing language. Should Harris be elected our 47th president, she would help make decency normal again. We wouldn’t have to worry about her spreading baseless and racist conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants eating peoples’ pets.
Hope that we can reflect true diversity
True diversity is not merely the presence of different types of people in one place. Instead, the display of diversity is seen by the value we place on each person as an important “patch” in our national mosaic.
However, Trump and his white evangelical supporters do not embrace diversity as a strength; they see it as a threat to the established social order. They would rather maintain a homogenous status quo in which whiteness, or specifically white maleness, is valued above everything else.
These same white evangelicals have been complicit in turning Critical Race Theory and diversity, equity and inclusion into the “Leftist” boogiemen of the day. Further, they have advocated for banning books by Black authors and eliminating African American studies courses at state-funded colleges and universities.
Public Religion Research Institute found that white American evangelicals, writ large, are more open to political violence to maintain the status quo than their non-Christian counterparts. The attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol is “Exhibit A” in this regard.
Like Harris, I see pluralistic democracy as the ideal to which we should aspire as Americans. E pluribus unum (“Out of many, one”) beautifully encapsulates how the American experiment must involve diversity to be successful.
Harris envisions a presidency that leads us closer to “a more perfect union,” in keeping with the preamble of our Constitution. Harris has made it clear she does not want to be a president who pits the blue states against the red states. She desires to be a president who is for all of the American people, and not just herself, like Donald Trump.
Harris understands when a president focuses on the common good rather than the interests of the privileged few, national unity is the result. As she so eloquently stated during her debate with Trump, “True leadership is based on who you lift up, not who you beat down.”
Hope is a good thing
One of the most iconic lines of cinematic history occurs in The Shawshank Redemption: “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
I contend that when it comes to this election cycle, hope is not only a good thing, but the best of things. Since the onset of Trumpism, our nation has been imprisoned by fear and division across the ideological and cultural spectrums. If Donald Trump is once again elected president, more fear and division are sure to come. Our freedoms would continue to be decimated, and oppression would be normalized.
Conversely, if Kamala Harris is elected president, a sense of hopefulness would return to our shores. I also believe the cool breeze of unity would blow upon the populace. That would not only be a good thing, but the best of things.
We can make history by electing Kamala Harris, a Black woman who is also of East Indian descent, as the 47th president of the United States. Harris is continuing the legacy of powerful Black women, like Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Patricia Roberts Harris and Carol Moseley Braun. These luminaries and many others strongly impacted the body politic and paved the way for Harris to become our first female president.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his “I Have a Dream” speech, “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”
I am voting for Kamala Harris, and therefore, I am choosing hope and unity. I encourage you to do the same.
Joel A. Bowman Sr., Louisville, Ky.