Karen E. Bender

Because Trump does not respect voting or the electoral process

There have been, particularly in the Trump era, moments when there is a crushing, rotten helplessness to being American. But then there are the days when you can vote. When you go into a school cafeteria or a gymnasium and press a name on a screen or fill in a box with a pencil, and suddenly you have power. It is the quietest, loudest form of power; it is one that anyone can hold. It is saying: “I have a role in creating the government, I want the world to be this.”

In 2000, voting was the power that elected Bush over Gore, by a few hundred votes in Florida. Voting is what brought us the Iraq war, and what denied us a focus on climate change.

In 2016, voting is the power that elected Trump over Clinton, also by a handful of votes. It brought us SCOTUS that has decimated women’s rights and civil rights. That elected a man who was impeached twice, and who incited an insurrection.

And this year, the choice to vote, the choice to relinquish your helplessness, is here for you. And I am proudly casting my vote for Kamala Harris.

Because ask yourself: What do you want the world to be? Harris is the candidate who believes that democracy is an institution that should be respected. She believes in the basic issues (revealed as fragile, that can be ripped from us at any time) of women’s rights, civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights. She believes in protecting this fragile planet, she believes in affordable housing, in an economy that can lift the working and middle class not crush it, in a government built of care; a candidate who believes that votes count, that democracy will move us forward.

If you vote for Trump or a third-party vote that enables Trump, your vote will elect a man—a felon!—who has said, clearly, that he is an authoritarian. Who wants to round up millions of migrants and deport them, or worse. Who will dismantle all the rights we have fought for. Who does not respect voting or the electoral process. Who would use the power of his office to quell dissent, meaning free speech, journalism, protest. Who would join with other authoritarians across the globe not to forge peace but to inflame more violence, war, suffering. Whose hero is Putin, who holds fake elections to maintain his vicious regime.

A vote is a precious form of power that is not guaranteed. A vote for democracy allows you to continue questioning, to protest, to shout back, to disagree. A vote that elects Trump—by voting for him, or voting third party, or abstention—means that you support the authoritarianism that Trump will bring. It means that you are willing to allow him to dismantle this democracy, disregard your vote. Do you want to give in to this helplessness? Voting for Kamala is a vote for your own voice, your power. Who do you want to be?

Karen E. Bender is a fiction writer and National Book Award finalist.