Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

It is hard to believe we’ve gotten to the eve of the election, and we still have a toss-up. Social media, especially the mess named “X” that has evolved from Twitter since Elon Musk bought it, is full of reports claiming that Donald Trump has a commanding lead. These are fake. The posts often point to polls which have no attribution or to polls which are unknown or clearly partisan. These deceptive posts sow the seeds for what will be Trump’s end game strategy, to claim victory based on alleged “cheating”. Don’t be fooled.

The half dozen reputable polls I follow all show exactly what they showed when I last wrote on this subject. The final tally in the Electoral College will come down to the results in seven key “swing” states and in each one of the seven the election is too close to call. A long night may turn into several days.

I find it hard to believe half the people who say they will be voting are willing to support Trump. I know those voters find it hard to believe half the people are supporting Harris.

I wish the Republican party had rejected Trump from the get-go. We could have had a serious primary season with the best conservative voices in the nation vying for the party’s nomination. It would have been an educational and enlightening debate. Instead, the Republicans have morphed into the party of Trump. The great party of Abraham Lincoln is no more.

I also wish President Joe Biden had done what he promised four years ago he would do. Announce that he had reversed the disasterous effects of Trump’s four years in the White House and would now step back, assuming the role of elder statesman, ready to help his successor continue the progress. We could have had a serious primary season on the Democratic Party side with the best progressive voices vying for that party’s nomination.

Then, one way or another, we could now be ready to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders. Instead we have a last minute switch and a candidate untested in the primaries.

While I wish Vice President Kamala Harris had gone through the primary process, I am confident she can handle the job. She has been included in key decisions and been present in the situation room during crisis throughout the Biden presidency. She knows what she will face, she is intelligent, and she will surround herself with smart experts who will advise as needed. I believe her when she says she cares about people and intends to be a president for all Americans. She has the empathy the job requires.

Former President Donald Trump is the deciding factor. He is not fit to be president. We have as evidence the record of his four years in office and the record of everything he has said and done in the four years since. Many psychologists believe that Trump suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. He cares only about himself, his own image, his own fortune, and his own wellbeing. His actions are transactional. Every issue is reduced to who wins and who loses.

Trump is ignorant of the nation’s history, the structure of its government, and its system of checks and balances. He never understood why federal employees were loyal to the Constitution rather than to him. Trump repeatedly says he wants to use the U.S. military against Americans who oppose him, calls his critics “the enemy from within,” and declares they are more dangerous than America’s greatest foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and North Korea. He threatens critics with jail and encourages violence against them. Trump charged, “Any Jewish person who votes for Democrats hates their religion”. He suggested former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, a prominent opponent, face combat with “nine guns” pointed at her.

Trump will surround himself with sycophants. There will be no guardrails to block his most extreme actions. He will turn the federal workforce into a giant patronage army of people loyal only to him. He will sell out America’s allies and its best interests to foreign powers with which he personally does business. He is a walking conflict of interest. He might be able to pick another two Supreme Court justices, guaranteeing the right-wing majority for another generation. He will block abortion at the federal level, forcing medication used in more than half of all abortions off the market. He will kill the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. His acolyte, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, has promised that. Obamacare has insured millions who otherwise could not afford medical insurance.

He plans to put Elon Musk in charge of cutting government regulation. Musk has paid for that job by contributing $75 million to the Trump campaign. Musk’s business concerns are regulated. Regulators insist Telsa‘s cars are safe on the road. Regulators require that SpaceX take care its rockets do not explode and fall on communities near the launch sites. Musk is constantly complaining about the constraints of regulation. This would really be putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.

Trump plans to put Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., into a “big role in the administration”. Kennedy says he’ll be in charge of all the nation’s public health agencies. Kennedy paid for the job by ending a third party run and endorsing Trump. Kennedy is well known as an anti-vaxer and Trump would end the requirement that school children be vaccinated. That long standing policy has virtually eliminated many major childhood diseases. Trump is even talking about banning fluoride from drinking water. It is a wholesale plan to attack public health.

These are just some of the reasons a long list of people who served in the first Trump administration have warned against sending him back to the White House.

Trump lies with impunity. He has always been a fraud, a manufactured character developed by NBC to front a television program. He was in fact a failed, frequently bankrupt snake oil salesman. His four years in office were a disaster. Donald Trump didn’t lower your taxes. He didn’t get your roads fixed or your bridges built. He didn’t get you healthcare coverage, lower the price of your prescriptions, decrease the deficit, didn’t end the opioid crisis, revive the coal industry, he didn’t make “covid disappear”, didn’t make Mexico “pay for the wall”, he didn’t “put America First”, he didn’t make it “great again”, and he didn’t “drain the swamp”. So if he “fought for you”, you mean he validated your hate. Because that is the one thing he does do.

Trump has run a campaign of hate. His strategy has been to convince voters their life sucks, that they have been screwed, and that they are right to hate the people responsible. Trump has a lengthy list of people he says are responsible including Democrats, elites, the media, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and the “deep state”. He promises he shares the aggrieved voter’s rage. He understands their hate. And he will be their avenger and seek retribution on their behalf.

I have a colleague who prefers Trump’s plans for government over Harris’s. He does not dispute my complaints about Trump’s character, but observes that his vote selects a president, not a dinner guest. I thought about that long and hard. At the end of the day, character is exactly what determines my vote. I would not invite Trump to my house for dinner. I would not even shake his hand. I certainly would not put him back in the oval office. More than anything else, character matters.

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