I think Biden was too far down the path of cognitive decline, and I think Harris is incompetent and only fell into this opportunity as a combination of DEI and a political party completely blind to the obvious truth that Biden is dealing with health issues and allowing him to serve another four years is both dangerous for the country and borderline elder abuse in my opinion.

I won't vote for whoever the Democrats propose simply because I dislike Trump. I can't vote for anyone I think will make our country worse, and if Harris is selected I do feel that way about her as well.

You don’t have to like Harris - it’s very understandable - but she is not a “DEI” hire as you’re claiming. Look into her record.

A hire is a DEI hire based on the intwnt and process they were chosen. Biden made it clear he was going to select a woman, and unless I'm mistaken I thought he specified a black woman.

A person being a DEI hire doesn't say anything about their ability. You could be a DEI hire that is also good for the job, but you're a DEI hire because the pool of candidates was purposely limited based on certain diversity factors.

> A person being a DEI hire doesn't say anything about their ability.

You literally just used it as a way to disqualify her as a valid candidate. You said nothing about her skills or accomplishments, merely that she had certain demographic characteristics and therefor wasn't a good candidate.

If that's not what you actually meant, I suggest thinking about what you're trying to say in the future and phrasing it differently.

I reread my comments and don't see how it reads that way, but that wasn't my intent regardless.

I don't view Harris as competent or fit for duty. We have quite a few issues coming to a head, from economic problems we keep sweeping under the rug to geopolitical challenges not seen in decades. I have no faith that she will be able to steer us through without making things worse. None of those concerns have anything to do with her being a DEI hire, I just view it as fact that she was.

If you don't have any concerns, if it's not an issue, why bring it up in the first place?

Also, of course, if she's the democratic nominee then you're going to get either her or trump, so, dunno, make choices based on this decision? Do you really think trump and the republicans are ever going to care about people refusing to vote?

> If you don't have any concerns, if it's not an issue, why bring it up in the first place?

I don't have any concerns with being a DEI hire alone, it really doesn't say anything about the candidate. In the context of a person I already view to be a bad fit for the role, the fact that the person is in the role partly due to the DEI model of selecting candidates is important in my opinion. Its important not because she was a DEI hire, its important because a DEI approach out her in a role she isn't fit for and she's now potentially being offered a promotion.

> Do you really think trump and the republicans are ever going to care about people refusing to vote?

I don't have any expectation of either party actually caring how I vote. I'm just one voter living in a non-swing state. I have effectively no say what happens at the federal level, and my whole point at the beginning is this comment chain was simply that I won't be voting for President if the choices were Trump/Biden or Trump/Harris. I don't expect that to have any meaningful impact unless I'm part of a much larger group of voters who feel their best choice is to opt out.

How did the last years with Biden and Harris made the country worse? What about the CHIP act or the infrastructure bill and many other examples. Those things made the country worse?

How is Harris the same as Trump? Trump a convicted felon and rapist and god knows what he did on Epstein's Island. Trump said he will be a dictator for one day (hint: it won't be just a day) vs Harris a criminal prosecutor who understands the importance for upholding law & order.

How is Harris going to be bad for the country?

This is not about voting for Harris or whoever will be nominated. This is about voting against a wanna be dictator who wants to dismantle our democracy and constitution.

Both the CHIP act and the infrastructure bill spent money we don't have. I am of the opinion that the federal government should be required to run a balanced budget just like local governments are. So yes, I do view both of those as having made us worse off.

I didn't say Trump and Harris are the same. I think both will be bad for our country, but for very different reasons.

I haven't seen anything from Harris that makes me believe she is competent or fit for office. While in Congress I was never impressed by her public hearings, she either stayed silent or meandered through very lazy arguments that were often illogical and surprising coming from a lawyer. As VP she has either been completely absent or ineffective. She was tapped to be in charge of correcting our immigration issues for example, other than a single photo of at the border I haven't seen anything come of it.

I don't expect I need to lay out why Trump is dangerous for our country. We may disagree on details like whether his felony conviction was unbiased or if you can be labeled a rapist without a conviction, but functionally we're very much on the same page of who he is as a person and why he shouldn't represent the country.

> This is not about voting for Harris or whoever will be nominated. This is about voting against a wanna be dictator who wants to dismantle our democracy and constitution.

This is where we really have different opinions. My while point in starting this comment thread is that I am sick of having to pick between the least shitty option. It isn't sustainable and ultimately there are very bad scenarios that can play out if voters allow two parties to offer whatever choices they want us to pick between. If Trump wishes to dismantle democracy and our constitution I'll never see that day anyway, I'll either be dead in a battlefield or on the other end of an absolutely terrible, horrific war that never should have happened.

> balanced budget

Governmental budget shouldn't be treated as your household budget.

It's different. It allows us to invest in the economy, create jobs, create new innovations etc. [0]

> If Trump wishes to dismantle democracy and our constitution I'll never see that day anyway'

This is what the MAGAs / Heritage Foundation have achieved so far:

- Take away woman's reproductive rights

- SCOTUS undid a 40 year old law that now makes it harder for federal governments to regulate, this includes clean air, water etc. So corporations can focus on increasing profits and screw the little guy.

- SCOTUS reduced the scope of the anti-bribery law - weakening democracy.

Just some examples.

Some things that will happen when Trump gets into power again:

- Women's reproductive will be further decimated

- Schedule F will be reintroduced - making it easier for Trump to replace administrative employees with Trump loyalists.

- Higher taxes for the working class - more tax cuts for the rich. That's why Elon and other Billionaires are donating heavily to Trump's campaign. Selling out the little people.

Look up Project 2025 for more.

Are you willing to gamble our rights and the rights of future generations?

What if everything or most of it comes to pass outlined in Project 2025?

Would you be OK with that?

[0] See this book: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philos...

Can you provide any evidence that Trump supports project 2025?

In April 2022, at a dinner with the Heritage foundation, he said that the Heritage foundation was going to "lay the groundwork for what our movement will do."

https://x.com/VaughnHillyard/status/1811402883604050216

"Our country is going to hell. The critical job of institutions such as Heritage is to lay the groundwork, and Heritage does such an incredible job at that. [...] But this is a great group. They're going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do, when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America, and that's coming."

Here's the whole transcript: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-delivers-k...

At the same time, Trump has been saying "I know nothing about Project 2025" and "I have no idea who is behind it."

Edit:

Also, CNN says 140 people from the Trump administration worked on Project 2025: https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/politics/trump-allies-project...

I think Trump, not really being into policy at all, just populism, really does have no idea what it’s project 2025, but he is still going to pick many of the writers and supporters of it to run his government, he doesn’t really have better choices.

Trump is the kind of guy who will say he is against abortion while asking and paying for his mistress to get one. He has a great sense on how to work populism, but doesn’t really have ideals/policies of his own.

Yeah, I agree with you. He's not super focused on policy, and he likely skimmed Project 2025, or never read it himself. But like you said, he'll still pick many people who worked on it or who will follow it while serving as part of his administration, and that's what's worrying. I have no reason to assume his administration won't try to implement it.

The guy has no intellectual curiosity, he thrives on the attention of being president but doesn’t bother with briefings, instead calling into FoxNews to complain about one vanity thing or another. That’s the problem really: the people who will work for him in a second term by now have learned how to manage him by stroking his ego, there will be much less chaos than term 1, and a lot more damage.

did he turn this country into an autocracy from 2016-2020? k

He tried to overturn the election in 2020, but he didn’t really have his ducks in a row. If he is in power in 2028, he will likely be more successful.

> see project 2025

Did you actually read the project 2025 doc or are you just parroting back what you were told to think?

https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jul/12/project-2025-...

The link you provided seems to list several rights which would be harmed

I read all 920 pages.

Did you miss the part that says that Trump had nothing to do with it?

> Did you miss the part that says that Trump had nothing to do with it?

Which page number was that?

In any case of course Trump had nothing to do with it, it was written for him not by him (as if).

Trump also didn't plan and participate in the decade+ Federalist overthrow of SCOTUS .. that was handed to him on a plate. Like Project 2025.

> Which page number was that?

The first sentence of the first paragraph:

This work, Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise, is a collective effort of hundreds of volunteers who have banded together in the spirit of advancing positive change for America. Our work is by no means the comprehensive compendium of conservative policies, nor is our group the exclusive cadre of conservative thinkers. The ideas expressed in this volume are not necessarily shared by all. What unites us is the drive to make our country better

> In any case of course Trump had nothing to do with it, it was written for him not by him (as if).

Ok great, so he's free to read it or ignore it. Let's not treat the document as if it's Trump's own stated/promised policy then.

> The first sentence of the first paragraph:

does not state that Trump had nothing to do with the document.

Which part explicity and clearly states Trump was not involved?

You know, the part that you claimed existed in your comment above.

> Which part explicity and clearly states Trump was not involved? You know, the part that you claimed existed in your comment above.

You're right I should have said that the document *shows* that he had nothing to do with it rather than *says* he had nothing to do with it. It's implicit not explicit.

The doc includes 7 pages worth of contributor names (starting page xxv) and Trump is not one of them.

So either way, it's careless to say that "Trump will dismantle our rights (see project 2025)" when he is not actually affiliated with Project 2025, as the document *shows*.