Donald Trump

Ilya Somin | 10.24.2024 4:51 PM

In this post I am going to explain why Kamala Harris is a far lesser evil than Donald Trump, and therefore, I plan to vote for her. Both candidates have serious flaws. But Trump's record of trying to overthrow constitutional democracy after he lost the 2020 election creates a strong presumption against him. In addition, he is worse on key policy issues, most notably, trade, immigration, federal spending, and maintaining the Western alliance in the face of threats from authoritarian powers.

This outweighs Kamala Harris's significant weaknesses on some other issues, especially because Trump is more likely to be able to implement his worst policies through unilateral executive action, while Harris's worst ideas require hard-to-secure new legislation. Arguments that Trump is superior on deregulation and issues related to the judiciary are greatly overblown, and nowhere near enough to offset his awfulness elsewhere.

It would be foolish to expect this piece to have any meaningful impact on the outcome of the election. I am no Taylor Swift, and my endorsement has little, if any, political value. But I hope readers might find it of value as an exercise in how to assess issues and weigh them against each other.

When it comes to public policy and choosing candidates, my priorities are promoting freedom and human happiness. Thus, I give greatest weight to those issues with the biggest impact on them. People with relatively similar values are likely to find my assessment of greater relevance than those with very different ones.

Elsewhere, I have defended the idea of voting for a lesser evil, which means the least-bad candidate among those with a realistic chance of winning the election. Check out my earlier writings on that subject if you want to know why I'm not going to vote for a third party candidate, even though Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver is far superior to both Harris and Trump on most issues (with the important exception of national security policy). The other third party candidates—RFK, Jr. (where he remains on the ballot), Jill Stein, Cornel West, etc.—all both have zero chance of winning and are absolutely terrible on policy.

The Presumption Against Trump

Before getting into policy issues, it is important to emphasize that Trump's efforts to undermine the Constitution and overturn the results of the 2020 election by force and fraud create a strong presumption against him. If such behavior is left unpunished and instead rewarded with another term in office, it creates an obvious incentive for both Trump and other politicians to engage in similar—and perhaps even worse—skullduggery in the future. If future presidents are permitted view acceptance of electoral results and peaceful transition of power as optional, that poses a serious threat to the entire system of constitutional democracy.

This danger is exacerbated by Trump's repeated promises to use the power of government to persecute his political enemies. Even if he doesn't launch another insurrection or coup, Trump could severely undermine basic norms of liberal democratic government, and his past track record indicates he has every intention of trying to do so. His authoritarian tendencies are so blatant that even many of his former cabinet members and advisers —such as Gen. John Kelly (Trump's former chief of staff) warn against them, and have refused to support him for a second term.

Libertarian political philosopher Michael Huemer cogently argues this danger is so great that it renders normal policy issues irrelevant, even though he is also no fan of the political left, which he regards as the biggest long-term threat to liberty. I wouldn't go quite that far. A sufficiently great superiority on other issues might still justify backing Trump over Harris.

But Trump's track record of trying to overthrow constitutional democracy at least creates a very strong presumption against him, one that can only be overcome by truly overwhelming advantages elsewhere. As we shall see, not only is there no such overwhelming advantage, but Trump's policy agenda is actually much worse than Harris's.

Why Trump's Policy Agenda is More Dangerous than Harris's

Trump proposes truly horrible policies on trade, immigration, and national security. And he has a good chance of being........

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