In less than three weeks, we will elect a new president. The stakes are high. Emotions are higher. Some of the policy issues are complex. The politics are intense.
But the choice is simple.
Character traits like morality, temperament, honesty, trustworthiness, humility and empathy all matter in life, politics and the White House. And then, of course, there’s likeability. On every score, Vice President Kamala Harris wins out over former President Donald Trump. And it’s not even close.
We don’t have to guess about Trump. We know who he is and what he is. We have already lived through the near-daily chaos of his four-year term, which was very much like an emotional roller coaster ride — sometimes thrilling, sometimes uncertain, chugging along slowly at times and at scary speed at other times, always whipping fast through convoluted turns and loops, with emotional highs and lows and a sense of relief when it was over.
We don’t need four more years of a self-centered, narcissistic leader who promotes conflict, belittles adversaries, believes he is above the law, has promised to use the levers of government to go after his opponents and appears more enamored by international bad boys and strongmen than by our more traditional NATO allies and friends.
While we may not know for sure how Harris will comport herself in office or how many of her views will play out in policy programs promoted by her administration, we have a pretty good sense of who Harris is and a lengthy record of her impressive years of public service to indicate how she will lead. While Harris will likely tilt toward progressives, she will almost certainly seek to lead by consensus.
With such a clear difference between the candidates, why are some Jewish voters still trying to decide between them?
Some wonder whether Harris can be trusted to support Israel, particularly since she has expressed empathy toward Palestinian suffering in Gaza and the West Bank and has called for an end to hostilities in the region.
Empathy for the suffering of innocents is something we all feel. And that emotion is not at all inconsistent with the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to the safety and security of Israel — an administration which has provided unprecedented levels of military aid to the Jewish state and twice deployed U.S. military assets to defend Israel from Iranian missiles.
Moreover, just last week, Harris said: “I will do everything in my power to ensure that the threat Hamas poses is eliminated, that it is never again able to govern Gaza, that it fails in its mission to annihilate Israel and that the people of Gaza are free from the grip of Hamas.” We’re good with that, too.
And finally, on the very worrisome issue of the mounting threat of antisemitism domestically and internationally, our community has an ally in Harris who has fought against hate and discrimination throughout her career, supports the administration’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism and has spoken forcefully against Jewish hate with moral clarity.
We need a president we can trust. We endorse Kamala Harris.
