Donald Trump cannot win this election. Full stop.
Right now, we have the power to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Not exercising that power only gives him more. And it will result in the loss of power for many of our communities.
As the head of this publication, dedicated to young readers, I have been closely following younger generations’ collective disbelief at the Biden administration’s support of the Israeli government during its all-out assault on Gaza, following the brutal terror attack from Hamas last Oct. 7 — including the horrific killing of civilians in Gaza, the targeting of journalists and aid workers, and the reports of children being shot in the head.
The Democrats’ policy on Israel has been disastrous. What is also true: Trump would, somehow, be even worse.
The biggest piece of evidence for this is that Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing prime minister of Israel who is hellbent on the destruction of civilian life in Gaza as well as subverting democratic processes in Israel itself, almost certainly wants Trump to win. After meeting with Kamala Harris earlier this year, Netanyahu was reportedly “furious,” including at her statement that the Israeli military should withdraw from Gaza entirely.
Trump has said Gaza could be beautiful beachfront property — for his rich oligarch friends, we can assume, not for any Indigenous peoples living there. He’s called Biden a “Palestinian” like it’s a slur. His running mate, JD Vance, has said they wouldn’t “micromanage” Netanyahu the way Biden and Harris have been. What’s worse than the horrors we’re currently seeing? More, more, and more of it, if Trump wins the presidency again, with truly no end in sight, giving Netanyahu a blank check for continued destruction. (Remember that Israeli families of hostages still held in Gaza are also deeply angry with Netanyahu and have been protesting his actions and demanding a ceasefire for months.)
Bernie Sanders, the most vocal anti-war senator, a Jewish American, and avowed critic of Israel’s current government, said in a video this week: “Let me be clear: We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing U.S. policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right-wing, extremist ally.”
The Muslim-American columnist Wajahat Ali wrote this week in The Guardian, “Yes, I think Democrats are complicit in genocide. But Trump would be far worse.”
Pro-Palestinian voices have no chance of being heard in another Trump administration. While it’s the bare minimum, Harris has spoken of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, dignity, security, and a two-state solution, and supports getting humanitarian aid into Gaza — while congressional Republicans have blocked funds for rebuilding in Gaza. Trump has previously outlined a “Vision for Peace” that would supposedly include a Palestinian state while also giving the green light for Netanyahu to annex portions of the West Bank. He would embolden Israeli settlers already responsible for horrific violence by lifting current U.S. sanctions against them.
Allowing Trump back into the White House would create another five-alarm fire every day, making it impossible for us to effectively organize. In his inauguration speech in Jan. 2017, Trump spoke about “American carnage,” laying out a dark vision for the country, one ruled by fear without any basis in reality. Seven days later, he instituted his “Muslim ban,” and mass protests erupted immediately. Community organizers rushed to airports in New York where hundreds of travelers were stranded upon landing in the U.S.; immigration lawyers did the same. Refugees couldn’t get in. Legal immigrants couldn’t get in. It was chaos, and the first week of his presidency.
Trump went on to forcibly separate parents from children at the U.S.-Mexico border; ignored a deadly public health crisis with the onset of COVID-19; held congressionally approved aid to Ukraine ransom while he tried to blackmail their leaders into opening investigations about Biden in 2020, in an attempt to help Trump win re-election; and appointed three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, paving the way for unnecessary deaths and the criminalization of abortion.
Autocrats thrive on overwhelming people. President Trump overwhelmed us every single day.
“To stop crises like genocides, climate change, and pandemics, we need strong mass movements,” writes Dr. Lucky Tran, a science communicator based in New York City. “But when more people are vulnerable to deportation, sickness, poverty, discrimination etc, it’s much harder to build strong movements. The living conditions under which we organize matter.
“Allowing far-right governments to hold power harms people and greatly weakens social movements. Voting alone is insufficient to win justice, but ignoring its importance makes it much harder to achieve. To win, we need to use all the tools available, including strategic voting.”
Dr. Tran is elucidating a conclusion many progressive activists and organizers have come to: that we must view voting as a chess move to get us closer to the outcome we all want.
Chase Strangio, a lawyer and trans rights advocate, posted on his personal Instagram recently about voting for Harris: “I do not give my vote to a candidate as a prize. Only as a measured act to preserve my ability to engage in the work I believe in.” In another post, he wrote that he is a “reform worker.”
“I undeniably work within a violent system,” he continued. “But I do not feel comfortable abandoning that work now.”
This is our reality. One of two people can win the presidency this November — a symbolic vote for a third-party candidate won’t lead to a different outcome. Electing Harris and continuing to demand a ceasefire or that the U.S. enforce its own policy regarding foreign assistance to Israel could.
I do not feel comfortable watching things get worse for women, LGBTQIA+ communities, Palestinians, Ukrainians, and more when I know I have the power to affect that outcome.
The Biden-Harris administration has already made progress on eliminating student debt, and Harris has worthwhile policy proposals on abortion, housing, childcare, eldercare, and more. The vice president cast the tiebreaking vote in the passage of the Biden administration’s signature achievement on climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act. If you think any of that isn't good enough — join the activists voting for her while vowing to continue pushing for better and more comprehensive policies.
We would be constrained in even expressing dissent in a Trump administration. He has talked about shooting protesters, jailing his opponents and critics, and taking action against media who dare to report honestly on him, including revoking licenses for broadcast news he disagrees with. Teen Vogue itself could be held liable under a Trump administration — there is a world where we could face punishment for publishing something like this.
I feel pretty confident that a majority of Americans do not support Trump. He’s lost the popular vote twice now; it’s why he’s set the stage for baselessly claiming election fraud or encouraging political violence as a means to hold onto power.
But that majority will only make a difference if we turn out to vote and organize.
It’s not enough to beat a fascist with razor-thin margins; ideally, we need to run up the margin of victory so high it becomes that much harder for Trump and his cronies to claim they represent the will of the American people. It’s why voting even in “safely blue” or “safely red” states matters. To achieve a more equitable America, we need to pay attention to the democratic popular vote — and if Harris wins, we’ll have Vice President Tim Walz, who believes, as so many of us do, that “the Electoral College needs to go.”
I know we’ve all compartmentalized in various ways to even make it this close to Election Day. We’ve avoided the news or ignored headlines and stories because we need to get on with our lives. But democracy is not guaranteed. It is a group effort that requires we all be involved.
Right now, we have the power to stop Trump. Should he win, we may not have these tools at our disposal again. Trump is on the record telling conservative Christians he just needs them to vote this year and then they won’t have to vote again. “Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” he said this summer, one of many comments that should have set off a weeks-long scandalous news cycle but got subsumed by, well, everything else. He has an army of election deniers ready to do his corrupt, anti-democratic bidding.
There are any number of things you can do right now through Election Day: volunteer, phone bank, canvass or knock on doors, write postcards or letters, offer to drive people to the polls, volunteer as a poll worker. If you’ve never called voters in your life, now is the time to try it. It can be challenging, but life under a Trump-Vance administration would be infinitely more so.
Hillary Clinton comfortably won the popular vote in 2016 — by millions — but lost the electoral college by razor-thin margins, in part because people thought they couldn’t make a difference, or that it was work best left up to somebody else.
No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves, and each other. Any of the issues you care about will be impossible to fight for under a Trump administration.
If you’ve got any anxiety or concern about this election, I urge you to channel that into action. There’s no more putting it off or tuning it out. This is it.
Don’t wake up on Nov. 6 and wish you had done more. Do it now. You still have time.
This article has been updated.
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