This November will be my first time voting in a presidential election. I was 17 in 2020, a less-read, more bubbly and frankly individualistic young girl, consumed by my personal dramas. Outside of passive liberal engagement in social justice issues, there was a lack of genuine understanding of or appreciation for politics, let alone meaningful, well-articulated thoughts about voting and the future of the country. Despite the tension of the month, the air of apprehension, the alleged existential threat that Donald Trump posed to this country, to democracy, to world order, I would have dropped my ballot in while holding back a yawn in the booth. Whatever doom or dread I felt during the time was largely encouraged by and easy to find in my immediate environment.
Four years later, I’m all the smarter for it, and I’m bored, tired of the boogeyman of fascism, baffled by the fear mongering facilitated through the language of crisis constantly employed by politicians and absolutely exacerbated by this endless American compulsion and need for illusion, delusion, dissonance and medication. The willed ignorance, the wretched sentimentality, it’s not only lacking charm, but at this point in history, is painfully disappointing. My fellow Americans, fascism is already here, has already been here, in both your Red and your Blue! Believe there’s a problem? Properly identify the cause! Want change? Actually push for it! All to say, despite our claims, I don’t think we care about the future, and regardless, you are so not going to enact democracy or defeat fascism with a vote!
The present and future of this country, the well-being and quality of life for the people who reside here, is presented to us in a decontextualized and ahistorical way. We are given incomplete and false frameworks for perceiving and understanding the reason and rhyme that underwrite our lives. What’s lacking is honest inquiry into the nature of the State as a whole — how and why it was built, what its function is and who it is functioning for. As far as I can see, the United States has never been concerned with democracy or the public, but with conquest and profit. A country founded on the extermination of the Indigenous population, whose economy was built on the enslavement and exploitation of Black bodies and natural resources. A country that, today, continues this legacy of abusing the Global South through neoliberal policies that parade wealth while millions of its citizens live paycheck to paycheck without secure housing or access to clean food and water, without a reliable health care system or obtainable education. This is why talk of “the lesser of two evils” strains my eyes and stiffens my neck — both Trump and Kamala Harris are devoted to this State’s project, the perpetuation of the American empire, the violent accumulation of capital and the maintenance of the wealth of the few. So long as that is who or what they serve, they are equals in my eyes.
But we don’t want to talk about this — how the issues at home are of home, if we are genuinely invested in improving the standard of living here and abroad, how the two are absolutely interconnected — a serious transformation and restructuring of political and social structures needs to be initiated. This would require continuous engagement, active struggle and personal sacrifice. It would demand us to confront not only the host of external ills that plague this country, but the ways in which we as individuals have internalized and thereby exacerbated these ills.
In their essay “Harris, Palestine, and the Spectacle of Liberation,” Ismatu Gwendolyn emphasizes two key parts of American psychology — our immersion in and addiction to comfort, grounded by liberal individualism and the resulting passive disposition that plagues us. We talk about politics, but how many of us lead political lives, dedicating time and energy to work toward progress. Claims of concern and vows of justice are easy to say, but most people aren’t compelled to move until the fire is under their ass, until they feel there is a potentially direct and immediate impact on their lives. This is a significant part of how we perceive Trump, how he is represented in our minds — as a danger to us.
As middle-class college students, we may not feel threatened by Harris because, to borrow a phrase from TrueAnon, she is a “peloton fascist.” She’s not sloppy, but refined, not vulgar, but clever, not erratic, but trustworthy. She wears her well-fitted suits and a nice string of pearls, shakes hands, knows the right people. She’s worked her way up, held various respected positions of governance, has thrown down the hammer, shown strength and commitment. She smiles and laughs, she tries to make jokes, she collaborated with Realtree for her presidential merchandise! We deem her respectable, and this conclusion is arrived at without any substantial attention given to her policy, a proper identification of the Democratic Party’s role in Empire, and without honestly confronting the rotting core that is this country, the rotting core that threatens the livelihood of humanity. Gwendolyn says it as it is, “Harris is only the better choice because she’s prettier, and more relatable, and has the right sort of gravitas. She doesn’t embarrass us.”
The fact that Harris doesn’t embarrass us is abhorrent. This is a person who, as attorney general of California, after the Supreme Court ruled that California’s incarceration levels were so problematic, that prison populations were so high it was a danger and whose office argued for the essentiality of prison labor. This is a person who supported truancy laws which, regardless of their intentions, ended up primarily persecuting and criminalizing poor families of marginalized races. This is a person who argues for the revival and significance of border policy that gives $20 billion to security measures, looks to expel all migrants arriving at the southern border after a loose quota has been met and restricts the system of legal immigration. This is all not even addressing that this is the person holding the position of vice president and is standing proudly by and actively choosing to co-sponsor Israel’s genocide through unwavering military and political support. The active extermination of an Indigenous population should be the sole reason why you do not support the Harris-Walz ticket.
It is my personal belief that what needs to be addressed is this country, the terror that it incites globally and domestically. I want to see and be a part of a movement that works toward rapid demilitarization, the end of all aid to and diplomatic ties with Israel. I want to be a part of a movement that supports the working class by seizing corporations and transforming them into public property, banning eviction and capping rent at 10 percent of your annual income and providing free child care. I want to be a part of a movement that is ready to empower Indigenous and Black communities in America, shift to sustainable and renewable production and build infrastructure that serves the public. And that’s the platform that Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia are running on, the respective presidential and vice presidential nominees for the Party of Socialism and Liberation. There will be no loose jaw or fluttered eyes at the ballot box.
Claudia came to Binghamton earlier this month, and she was specific in noting that a vote for her was not about the victory of the PSL or supporting her as an individual, but about inspiring and mobilizing people to begin addressing, looking at alternative ways of living, different ways of organizing society and new approaches to building relationships. That is the way of ensuring and building our future.
Kyriaki Yozzo is a senior majoring in philosophy, politics and law.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.