Joan Silber

Because Trump scapegoats immigrants

I’m voting for Harris and Walz because they actually believe in the greater good of the whole. They’re in favor of vital rights—reducing gaps between rich and poor, improving health care, restoring reproductive freedom—out of a general wish for justice.

Trump has no such motive. He believes in self-interest as the prime mover and uses the disturbingly familiar ploy of rallying fear against a scapegoated group. Immigrants are his current target, a suitably powerless group, displaced by violence and climate change.

I live in New York, a city of immigrants, whose residents love to brag that you can’t walk down a single block without hearing three or four languages. Trump’s claim that immigrants will rob us evokes no fear here. Everyday we live in a legacy of immigrant contributions and resourcefulness. As all of America does.

I’ve always hated Trump’s use of the word “loser,” as if it was the fun of the strong to mock the weak. I remember when he called John McCain a loser for having been a prisoner of war in Vietnam, despite McCain’s record of refusing to desert his men.

What beautiful sanity Kamala Harris has, what lucid poise and judgment.

My grandmother, an immigrant who marched for women’s right to vote, would be so proud to vote for Harris and Walz. And isn’t it time we had a woman president? Long past time.

Joan Silber is the author of nine books of fiction, including the PEN/Faulkner winner, Improvement.