(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Between 18 hours and a week from now, one of either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will be president-elect of the United States.
Neither deserves the honor; and neither can be trusted with the responsibility he or she will inherit.
For his part, Trump has disqualified himself time and time again. His irresponsible rhetoric is appalling and often cited by his critics as one of his principal chief defects, but that is a symptom of a larger, more insidious disease.
Donald Trump is a narcissist who will go to lengths almost no one else to ever live would to satiate his ego. He lied about the winnable election he lost in 2020, inspired a mob to march on the Capitol as Congress fulfilled its constitutional duty to certify the results, and egged that mob on as they threatened the life of his vice president. On that basis alone, he is unsuited to serve his country in any capacity, much less as commander-in-chief again.
But even if the January 6 Capitol riot had never happened, Trump would be an unworthy occupant of the Oval Office. Character is destiny, and if it wasn’t his sore loser syndrome that disgraced the nation it would have been or would be something else. There’s more to the case against Trump, but he fails the most basic threshold question so miserably as to render the rest of it superfluous.
Harris, meanwhile, is an inveterate liar who has spent nearly 8 years in federal office and has no accomplishments to show for them. A mostly empty pantsuit with some radical leanings, she would say anything, do anything, and be anything to take the next step up the ladder. In 2020, Harris ran for president on what would have been among the most radical platform of any nominee in American history, promising to, as a start, abolish private health insurance, ban fracking, open the border, and pay for illegal immigrants’ gender transition treatments.
It was embarrassing. And if her 2024 campaign is any indication, she’s embarrassed by it. Harris has spent her second bid for the White House kind of, sort of backing away from her previously expressed positions, one unsigned statement or dodge at a time. On Sunday, Harris was asked how she voted on a California ballot proposition to impose harsher sentences on those convicted of theft or narcotics-related crimes.
She answered, “I am not going to talk about the vote on that because honestly, it’s the Sunday before the election, and I don’t intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it.” At least she was honest about her dishonesty — Americans aren’t always so fortunate. Axios has reached out to see if the vice president stands by 18 different policies she advocated in 2020 only to receive 18 brazen “No comment”-s. Who knew cowardice could be so insulting?
Oh, and all that’s to say nothing of the damning roles she played in the failed Biden administration: “last person in the room” and border czar (de facto or de jure).
Of course, to condemn these candidates is not to condemn the voters who will pull the lever for them. America’s two major parties have asked the rest of the country to make a choice, you can’t blame them for doing so. The most notable virtue of a Trump victory would be his thwarting of Harris and vice versa. It ain’t much, but it’s something.
All of this is to say the following: Whoever loses will have only themselves to blame.
Republicans renominated a man who tried to overturn the results of the last election and with less impulse control than the 8-week-old puppy this author brought home last weekend.
Democrats tried to trot out their rapidly declining failed president to take him on and replaced him with a far-left incompetent.
When the results are in, the loser will inevitably blame some nebulous force for their defeat. Trump would double down on the voter fraud lie; his supporters would cry about the media; Harris and her supporters would blame every “ism” in the book.
But the hard truth is this: While the winner will have hardly earned their victory, the loser will richly deserve their fate.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
