A Note to My Fellow Progressives Hesitant to Vote for an Imperfect Kamala Harris

Before Barack Obama ran for president, I remember thinking there would never be a black president in my lifetime. And I remember feeling overwhelmed, even tearful, when I watched on television as the new First Family walked on the stage at Grant Park in Chicago. It wasn’t so much the sight of President Obama that got to me. It was seeing Michelle and the girls, and Barak’s aged mother-in-law who would be living in dignity and esteem in the White House.

I was born in the segregated south, and there black women were mainly consigned to domestic work. But back in 2008, a majority of Americans voted to elect a young black man with a foreign-sounding name, and then four years later re-elected him.

Now we have the question—in a time of heightened stress and deepened divides, and a time of post-pandemic malaise, social isolation, an affordability crisis, and a corrupted social media—can we take another step forward in our democracy and elect a black woman as president?

Watching the DNC renewed my hope. So many men stood up for one black woman brave enough to run for the highest office in the nation, but also for each woman and girl of all colors who face the terrible vulnerability of simply having a body that can both bring new life into the world and endanger her life with a pregnancy, voluntarily and otherwise, that can end her life. So many of these men said that they would use some of their political capital to make right for women what the Supreme Court made wrong.

Change takes bottom-up organizing, building a base, doing the hard work of governing locally and building up to national participation, not parachuting in during razor-thin elections.

But the dread has crept back in recently as I hear people say they don’t really know Kamala. Is the real question about whether she is like me and, perhaps even more to the point, would she like me? Would I still belong, as a white person, or as a man, if a black woman holds the highest office in the land?

Or would I be reminded that our nation has not always been kind or just to people who look like her? Might her presence force me to question where I stand given our nation’s legacy of exclusion and violence directed at women and people of color. Will I feel uncomfortable or even shame?

Since the pandemic, so much of our anxiety, political and otherwise, has centered on the question of belonging. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared loneliness a public health crisis. Perhaps that contributes to the fear, especially In places with large immigrant populations, where some long-time residents wonder if they will still belong in their communities, or if they will feel excluded, not able to understand an unfamiliar language or new cultural norms.

So what do the two candidates offer the public in terms of belonging? Kamala Harris has promised to govern for everyone, and instead of giving priority to the rich, to especially focus on those who work hard to support their families. Those who see her in person or on the media often speak of her personal warmth.

Donald Trump’s track record shows he will govern not based on policies or the best interests of the country, but based on what benefits himself and favored members of his family and inner circle. Billionaires and right-wing ideologues are salivating at the money and power they can extract from Americans when given the green light by Trump. All they have to do is turn on the flattery.

Trump gives some people a sense of belonging—wearing those red hats, laughing at his jokes about who he is going to rough up, creating an out-group—all that seems to scratch the itch for many people who are angry and feeling excluded. But the truth is that he has nothing but contempt for people who aren’t wealthy, and for men and women who served in the military (who he calls suckers), especially if they had the misfortune of being wounded, captured, or to have died in the line of duty.

Yes, his thirst for power and flattery, his threats of violence against those who fail to follow his most unhinged directives, and his ugly rhetoric mark him has a fascist.

The truth is that we create belonging at the local level, not by vilifying our neighbors but by fostering relationships of mutual respect, supporting small business, civic groups, and other local institutions that keep us connected, and showing up for one another during times of need.

We need the political space to do this work, and we need leaders willing to be swayed by the things we the people (not the billionaires) are asking for.

Belonging is, of course, just one of the issues raised by Kamala’s candidacy. What about Gaza? This is the most painful question for me. I was hoping for a much more robust commitment to stopping the killing and starvation in Gaza, and preventing the war from spreading through the region.

But a vote for Trump will not help Palestinians. Recall that Trump was the one who moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, turning their back on hopes for peace with Palestinians. And he told Netanyahu, “Finish the problem” in reference to the sustained killing which some now are calling genocide.

Harris has at least said that the killing must stop. A vote for her is not a vote for everything I would like, but I believe it is a harm reduction strategy compared to the alternative.

And here is the bottom line for me. Voting for Harris is not a vote for a savior who will make everything right—anyone who claims to be able to do that is a cult leader or a demagogue, not a serious political leader.

Voting for Harris is a vote for someone who authentically cares about people, and is a smart and capable leader.

To get the deeper changes we need to make housing and child care affordable, to straighten out the mess in our health care system, to combat the climate crisis, to bring peace to the world—all of these and so many other changes will require work by “we the people.” Even if we have an ideal candidate, the future is largely up to us. When we fight, we win. Or more specifically, when we organize and mobilize, we can get real change.

A vote for Kamala is a vote for someone who will not direct the National Guard to shoot at demonstrators, as Trump has tried to do.

Third party candidates rightly point out ways both of the two parties fall short. But change takes bottom-up organizing, building a base, doing the hard work of governing locally and building up to national participation, not parachuting in during razor-thin elections.

A vote for Kamala is a vote for someone who will not direct the National Guard to shoot at demonstrators, as Trump has tried to do. Under her presidency, we can do our work as the people of this nation to build powerful social movements that empower people to make change.

We need the political space to do this work, and we need leaders willing to be swayed by the things we the people (not the billionaires) are asking for.

Under a Kamala presidency, ordinary people can be heard, even if we make powerful interests uncomfortable, and we can achieve real wins for ordinary people and for our future. And as imperfect as it is, democracy of and by the people has a chance at working.