I’m going to start with Harris, only because I don’t think this is going to take very long to research. I don’t mean that in a snarky way, either. I just don’t believe she’s actually accomplished all that much.
According to the official WH website: “As Vice President, she has worked to bring people together to advance opportunity, deliver for families, and protect fundamental freedoms across the country. She has led the fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies, the freedom to live safe from gun violence, the freedom to vote, and the freedom to drink clean water and breathe clean air. While making history at home, she is also representing the nation abroad – embarking on more than a dozen foreign trips, traveling to more than 19 countries, and meeting with more than 150 world leaders to strengthen critical global alliances.” Semantic content, zero. This is literally more of the word salad she uses in her speeches.
To be clear, women can already make decisions about their own bodies. People are already free to live safe from violence of all kinds, not just gun violence, and we have a whole police force to take care of it when violence becomes a problem. If anything, Harris made the country MORE violent by bailing out violent offenders who burned the country during the riots. Everyone has the freedom to vote, and there’s been not one whiff of a smidgen of a hint that anyone’s interested in repressing that right. Drinking clean water and breathing clean air is a function of many things, and if you want to do it you have to move out of the cities. There’s nothing a VP or President can do about it. And in four years, Madame VP has made “more than a dozen” drips. Wow. In what way did she “strengthen critical global alliances,” pray tell? Again, this has no actual content.
On the dot gov website, her crowning achievements seem to be presiding “…over the unprecedented vote to confirm the first Black woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court while working alongside President Biden to achieve historic representation of women and people of color among nominees at all levels of the federal government.” (White House) I won’t say what I think of Jackson because it’s rude and … let’s just move along. I believe Trump brought in more people of color and women to the Federal government than anyone else, but maybe I’m wrong.
Okay, the official website doesn’t have much. Let’s go check out other places to answer the question of what Harris has done (that’s worthy of touting). The Week has a long article that basically says Harris hasn’t done anything, but it’s okay because a VP really doesn’t do much anyhow. It’s a fair article, and politely written, and backs up the idea that she really hasn’t done much at all.
USA Today has an article which goes into various aspects of Harris’s career. Regarding immigration, it says she did a call to action to, “…support the creation of local jobs and other measures in order to slow the flow of mass migration.” I tried to find out more information about that, but all of it is rather vague. Creating more jobs in America is supposed to “slow migration” somehow. I’m not sure how. She never explains the way that this works. Considering the border mess belongs squarely to her, this is disappointing. She is touted as attempting to “enshrine voter rights,” though again, she never really explains this. She wanted to make sure there were Federal protections to stop places from changing their voting laws. I could be wrong, but I believe the Constitution rules over that, not Harris. She’s standing up for abortion access, and is the first VP to visit an abortion clinic. I’m not entirely sure that’s the legacy she wants to be known for, but… oh well. She’s been behind putting laws into place that are entirely against the Constitution, such as restricting the buying of guns to those over 21. She’s “worked on” enacting legislation to lower maternal mortality rates, something that definitely needs to happen (our infant and maternal mortality rates are currently second last only to Costa Rica, which is horrendous — World Health Systems Facts), but nothing has actually been done.
All in all, her time as a politician seems to encompass very little actual work. When the best stuff that the media can dredge up is an old push to expand broadband access, you know there’s a problem.
And then there’s Trump. We have four years of a Trump presidency to look at, and while he was blustery and mean tweeting through all of it, he accomplished a LOT. I’m going to do a handful of points here, and leave links for those interested in reading, at the end.
- installed 200 federal judges
- Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
- First Step Act
- new immigration restrictions
- strengthened ties with Israel
- highest estimated turn out rate of voters in US history
- overhauled financial crimes safeguards
- Defense Department audit
- made cruelty to animals a federal crime
- helped fix the Flint, MI water situation
- enacted laws to stop sex trafficking
- enacted several laws to help clean up land and oceans we control
- lowered the price of prescription drugs
- helped our veterans in many ways
- added jobs and lowered poverty rates
- the stock market hit record highs several times
There’s a lot more. Most of these accomplishments were lost because of mean tweets and negative media spin. I know that, even though I was aware of them, I still had problems accepting Trump was accomplishing anything. All these things Trump did, they are actual THINGS. They aren’t vacuous ideas, like Harris is touting. It’s easy to point at the acts he put into place, and the money that he redirected to various important places (the VA, historically Black colleges, etc.).
I really think this is a clear win for Trump. When you look at accomplishments alone, there’s no denying it. But he has to fight “the momala” and that positive media spin that Harris has. If he could just … keep the tweets under control and stop with the direct insults and name calling, I think he’d be an easy shoe in. As it is, we’re headed again for one of those “coin toss” elections. I look at it, and to me it seems like such an easy thing to “not insult people” for a couple of months. I think if he could rein that in, it would cause most of the Dems to implode. People would be forced to look at actual accomplishments, and again, that leads to a clear winner.
I continue to be worried that his ego and bluster and words are going to tank the Right this election. I’m buying a lot of beans this month… how about you? *sigh*
Articles to look up info about Trump:
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