Authored by Jenna McCarthy vua Jennaside.rocks,

As unfathomable as it may be for folks on the farthest sides of the aisle to believe, there are American citizens who right this minute cannot decide who to vote for in November. Some days their most pressing political need is for abortion to be regulated at the federal level, and other days they remember they need to put gas in their cars and food on their tables. They like open borders and free speech. They want equal, unfettered access to guns and gender affirming care. It’s just impossible to choose. Could go either way, really.

In one corner, you’ve got a joyful, cackle-happy, mixed race, assigned-female-at-birth *can you hear the highest, thickest, most impervious glass ceiling of them all shattering?* DEI hire former prosecutor whose “tough on crime” approach disproportionally impacted minority communities and who will, in fact, tax Americans—to use the technical, politico-scientific term for it—up the wazoo. Across the ring you’ve got a boastful business tycoon with a bit of a tremendous superiority complex (Let me tell you folks, he’s positive he’s the best. Unbelievable, really. Just ask him. No one else comes close.) who wants to deport millions of illegal immigrants who are burdening our systems, raping and murdering our citizens (not all of them obviously, but isn’t one one-too-many?), and may or may not be eating our pets.

Anyone have a quarter I can toss?

She was ranked more-progressive-than-Bernie-Sanders before the media decided to rewrite history and cast her as just a smidge left of center hahahahaha. She promises to pursue green energy investments, expand affordable healthcare, ensure federal protections for reproductive health services, and reduce “voter suppression” (by making voting less racist, i.e. requiring an ID to do it). He is a famously mean tweeter who swears he’ll resuscitate the economy, rebuild our military, finish the border wall, and make America energy independent again (most of which he actually did last time around, FWIW).

The thing is, they’ve both spent roughly the same amount of time in the White House. There’s no wild card in this deck. We know pretty much where each candidate stands and what he or she will be most focused on and committed to if (re)elected. So ask yourself: Are you better or worse off today than you were four years ago? Are your basics like food, gas, rent, insurance, and entertainment more or less affordable? Do you feel safer or less secure in your home or in your community? Are you saving for the future or struggling to make ends meet? Joy and humility and kumbaya aside, which presidential hopeful is more likely to march us straight into WWIII?

Let’s look at where the candidates stand (and how they’ve fared) on some key issues that directly impact your day to day life:

HEALTHCARE

In a recent report looking at the ten most advanced economies in the world, the US healthcare system came in dead last on all metrics. We spend the most on healthcare, have the shortest lives, suffer the most avoidable deaths, and our infant mortality rate is among the worst. It’s actually embarrassing, when you think about it.

Harris champions “healthcare for all” which would expand the role of government in healthcare funding, eliminate private insurance, and sounds an awful lot like socialized medicine (you can ask folks in the UK and Canada how that’s working out). With RFK Jr. on his team, Trump will address the rise of chronic conditions like autoimmune disorders, autism, and obesity, and eliminate the chemicals in our food and the corruption in our health agencies. Basically, she’ll keep you sick but possibly make it cheaper to go to a doctor (that you might have to wait eighteen months to see); his team wants to make you healthier so you don’t need to see the doctor at all. Tough call, I know.

TAXES

In 2022, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on a bit of legislation that allowed the IRS to track and tax tips. (I know, she later flip-flopped to “no taxes on tips” right after Trump announced “no taxes on tips,” but her plan was very different in that it was the exact same.) She’s proposed a terrifying plan to tax unrealized capital gains (which admittedly would only impact the wealthiest at first… exactly as the Alternative Minimum Tax was designed to do in 1969—literally targeting 155 households—and which ultimately affected millions of people). It’s easy to sit back and declare “the wealthiest should pay more” until they change the definition of “the wealthiest” to include you.

This week, the IRS wholeheartedly endorsed the democratic candidate (could that have anything at all to do with Harris casting the deciding vote to boost the IRS budget by $80 billion?), which basically translates into as MSNBC put it, ‘get ready to be taxed to death.” Conservative strategist Greg Price added, “If the IRS, the FBI, Wall Street, Iran, Putin, the military industrial complex, the New York Times, Iran, 100 former McCain interns, and Dick Cheney all want one candidate to win then, for the love of God, vote for the other one.” He’s got a point.

ECONOMY

Author and sociologist Michael G. Zey explained the state of American finances succinctly in an article in the American Thinker (and these are but a few highlights; I encourage voters to read the whole piece):

“When Americans elected Biden in 2020, their message to him was clear: Trump handed you a booming economy.  Just don’t do anything to ruin it! Unfortunately, Biden has done just that, and Americans have taken notice.

“The Trump economy Biden inherited in early 2021 was expanding at a 6.7% annual rate.  Unfortunately, in less than three years, Biden’s war on fossil fuels, overregulation of industry, and wasteful government spending has driven the country into financial hell.

“Trump slashed regulatory costs by $11,000 per household. Biden’s regulations cost Americans a total of $10,000 per household.

“Trump’s energy policies drove gas down to $1.87 per gallon.  Biden’s climate policies resulted in a record $5.02 in June 2022.  Gas hit $7.00 per gallon in some areas.”

But gender equity and social justice! It’s another tricky decision undecided voters will have to think long and hard about.

IMMIGRATION

Trump wanted to build a wall. Harris wants to use your taxpayer dollars to give illegal immigrants food, housing, cell phones, healthcare, cash, interest-free loans, and gender reassignment surgeries, should they (the illegals, not the surgeries) fancy them (the surgeries, not other illegals sorry but pronouns are confusing).

Sure, you’re pinching pennies to put food on your table and walking around with a cracked iPhone SE and paying 7% interest on your home loan—just kidding who can afford a home anymore?—and recently cancelled Netflix to save $10 a month, but you know what? Complaining about any of that is obviously racist. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

AMERICA FIRST

The US has provided more than $174 billion in aid to Ukraine alone since February 2022, money that could have been used to repair and improve decaying infrastructure in this country (which would also create jobs and boost the economy, BTW), provide tax rebates to American families (increasing disposable income and stimulating spending), provide affordable childcare to working families (duh), fund mental health programs in schools, and much more.

Democrats will say it’s our global civic duty—our humanitarian responsibility—to help other countries in need. Why do the millions of Americans in need not exist on their own neighbors’ radar?

Imagine a couple who has four children, two of whom are emaciated, barefooted, and infested with lice. Now imagine the couple is donating thousands of dollars a month to the neighbor’s Pool Party Fund (even though those kids don’t lift a finger to help around the place and barely even show up for school and they don’t even invite the starving barefoot children to their stupid party). If that makes sense to you, you’re technically not an undecided voter. #You’reWithHer

FREE SPEECH

During the pandemic, if you said something controversial online—you know, like “hey, look, this super safe drug is treating Covid with remarkable efficacy” or “my husband/wife/sister/daughter/friend died an hour after being vaccinated”—you were silenced. Your social media accounts were immediately shut down. If you were on the side of safe-and-effective-and-everything-else-is-disinformation, maybe you even gloated or cheered when you saw this happen. But what if the next big controversy is something less fringy? What if the thing you suddenly can’t say online is “The sky is blue,” or “Twizzlers are better than Red Vines,” or “folding a fitted sheet is the awfulest of all the awful household tasks”?

Not a real headline but damned funny and also accurate.

Here’s the thing: Without the ability to express (possibly dissenting) beliefs and ideas and challenge authority, democracy collapses. Free speech is how we hold the powerful accountable. A society without it is a dictatorship in disguise. And it’s a slippery-as-hell slope from “we’re protecting you from this harmful opinion” to “this is what you will think, say, and do, and nonconformists will be severely punished.”

Kamala Harris has promised a Brazil-style crackdown on free speech if elected. If that doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you, kindly move to North Korea or Cuba and take your vote with you.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”
—Orwell

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
—Evelyn Beatrice Hall (conjuring Voltaire)

“The freedom of speech may be taken away—and, dumb and silent, we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”
— George Washington