Marxism, fentanyl, immigrants eating pets—oh my! All of this comes up on the worst game show in the history of mankind: the September 10th presidential debate.
To give some background on who is winning in the polls: it’s pretty 50/50. According to the NBC News poll, taken through September 13-17, and surveying 1000 registered voters, Harris has a little more momentum over Trump—she’s got 49%, while he has 44%—the other 7% don’t want either of them, or were undecided.
With that out of the way, it’s time for the fun stuff: the debate.
They discuss a multitude of things: the main things being their stances on the economy, abortion, immigration, fracking, January 6th, hacking the vote, the war in Israel and Palestine as well as the war in Ukraine, pulling out of Afghanistan, racial injustice, healthcare, climate change and environmental issues.
Harris’ policies are more democratic—she tries to blend in with the crowd and “prove her humanity,” so to speak. Unlike Trump’s blatant, histrionic complex, she more so tries to talk like she’s “one of the people.” Her stance on the economy is…she doesn’t really say, thinking of it. She prattles on about how she was a “middle-class kid” and how, if elected, she’ll give a $50000 tax reduction to small businesses as well as a $6000 tax cut to new parents. Oh, she’ll also lower grocery prices—she didn’t say by how much, though. She agrees with abortion, giving rather gorey examples of how the lives of the people who’re affected would change if Roe v. Wade got overturned. Her stance on immigration isn’t really touched upon—when prompted to talk about border control, she kinda just talks about the importation of fentanyl and human-trafficking rather than immigration. She does not want to get rid of fracking, or so she says. January 6th and hacking the vote more so pertain to another candidate, so Harris can have a pass for those two subjects. She supports Israel but disagrees with the literal war crimes they’re committing, so is in favor of the two-state solution. She sides with Ukraine and agrees with the pulling out of Afghanistan. Her view on racial injustice is that it’s bad and that we should view people as people regardless of their skin color—very elementary-level “Don’t hate each other!” stuff. She agrees with private healthcare, but also endorses the Affordable Healthcare Act—aka Obamacare. Regarding climate change and environmental issues: she’s already invested a trillion dollars to try to fix the damage climate change has caused, and is very proud of the United Auto Workers and American factories. All around, if she became president, it’d pretty much be the same as Biden’s run—we might get involved in World War 3, but oh well! We’ve done it twice already and turned out alright (getting rid of the whole Great Depression thing); we’ll probably be fine.
Alright: onto the other candidate, Trump.
His views on the economy are that we should implement tariffs on other countries—well, not really “other countries,” he only uses the example of China—because they need to “pay us back for all we’ve done to the world.” Oh, he also accuses Harris of being a Marxist because her father’s a professor who teaches Marxist ideology; that’s kinda significant. Trump then says he’s gonna fix inflation…and then he does a 180° and starts fear-mongering about immigration. He can’t do that for too long, though, since the topic of abortion is before the one about immigration: he disagrees with abortion…kind of? He agrees with the six-week ban (Republicans claim the fetus develops a heart at six weeks, therefore making it immoral to kill it), and also to have exceptions to the abortion-rule (i.e. for cases of rape or incest), but also equates abortion to baby-murder if it goes over the six-week thing. Onto immigration, Trump’s favorite subject: he, instead of giving concrete issues that have arisen from uncontrolled immigration…uh…says that immigrants are eating pets, and that’s why we must have a better grip on border control. He never says how he’s going to deport these pet-eating fiends; he simply uses the issue of immigration much like how Harris uses climate change: a great, looming threat which’ll only be satiated by your taxes; pay-up, pretty please! He likes fracking, much more than Harris does (in fact, he’s insistent she’ll ban it in Pennsylvania.) He agrees with the blueprint of the January 6th riot—to do it “peacefully and patriotically.” It was not, in fact, peaceful; literally five people died, or so the New York Times article “Capitol Attack: the Five People who Died” says. He claims that the bringing in of immigrants was the Democrat’s big, foolproof plan to win the election, therefore hacking the vote. He likes Israel,, but does not mention how he’ll stop what they’re doing to Palestine, or if he’ll do anything about it. Unlike his buddy-buddy stance with Israel, he doesn’t really like Russia or Ukraine, nor does he gain anything from them, so he just wants what Russia is doing to Ukraine to “stop.” He says he would’ve done a whole lot better than what Biden did to Afghanistan, and that the Taliban…hah! Those guys would be gone if he was president! He brings up Harris’ race, which is about all he does in the racial injustice part of the debate. He does not like Obamacare; he wants to improve on it, but those dang Democrats just won’t let him! He doesn’t say a lot about climate change—he likes solar…that’s about it. If he became president…also prepare to go into World War 3—we just might be a little more active, though. Go off to fight for our country, you high schooler whose only military experience is playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 at 4 a.m. during summer break!
I am not particularly obliged to either candidate, but I have a relative who is very very obliged to Harris. When asked why she loves her so much, she had this to say: “I think Harris is simply brilliant. She is one of the people. Unlike Donald Trump, she is nurturing and cares for the people.” Her opinion on the other candidate is as follows, “Donald Trump is effectively Hitler. He’s been compared to him before and will be compared to him again because the description just fits.” So, this relative of mine is obviously a part of the Democratic party, so why does she support them rather than a lesser known party such as Libertarianism? “I think they are the best option by far. The Conservatives want to take away our rights, while the other parties simply don’t have as much traction as the Democrats.” is what she had to say about that.
To gain a different perspective, I interviewed another one of my relatives, who shares that same politically zealous sentiment, but regarding Trump. Here’s how he responded to the same questions. “He is the only competent politician left in America, at least for right now. Kamala will send us into war, I guarantee it. Recalling when Trump was President, we got into zero conflicts with other countries—that will change with Kamala. It already has under Biden.” is why he likes Trump so much. He doesn’t think of Harris very lightly, saying “I think Kamala is an absolute dunce. She doesn’t even know how to say her own name!” His opinion on the Republican party is as follows, “Republicans are the only ones who know how to rule things—they prioritize America and freedom over everyone and everything else, and I think that is what makes me proud to be an American, thinking of it.”
So, with the election coming up upon our poor civilian souls, all we can really do is vote and wait it out—whether you align yourself more with the Left or the Right. Either way, save up your cash and hope for the best.
