Today Is The Day

Go vote. Remind a friend. Let's finally put a woman -- THIS woman -- in the White House.

Today, dear readers, is the day Americans have the chance to elect our first female president: Kamala Devi Harris.

Harris is a competent, brilliant, and dynamic politician, lawyer, former senator, and current vice president. She is more than qualified for the job, and is far more qualified — intellectually, temperamentally, cognitively — than her opponent. Her run is historic, and her election would be tectonic. As the always-excellent Rebecca Traister put it, her campaign is the culmination of “an imaginative project that remains close to the heart of millions: doubling the size of the pool from which we fish for our presidents.”

Harris has explicitly refused to run as a woman, or to make her identity central to her campaign. It’s there; it’s obvious; it’s exciting to many voters and appalling to others (I fall in the “equal parts excited and fearful” camp). No one thinks that representation is everything, or that “there should be a woman in the White House” means that there should be any woman in the White House. But this woman? This woman should be in the White House.

She is the better candidate. She will make the better president. She was already the first female vice president (and the first person who wasn’t a white guy). She is more progressive than her predecessor, and more persuadable on the issues that matter most. She is a lifelong feminist and a career-long supporter of abortion and women’s rights. She has run an incredibly impressive campaign that has been fueled, unpredictably, by unfettered joy and a thunderous call for freedom. Let’s make American fun again. Let’s put Harris in the Oval Office.

Electing Harris will not solve gender inequality. But it will end two centuries of exclusively male rule in America. And that really is something.

No, Harris is not a perfect candidate (who is?). I hope you’ll see the case for her even despite her flaws.

And her opponent is not simply flawed: He is dangerous, incompetent, and hateful. A Trump presidency guarantees significant suffering, especially of immigrants, of women, and of vulnerable groups at home and overseas. A Trump presidency would be a disaster.

Here’s a final bit of motivation courtesy of Forward Midwifery DC and Martha Wainwright, the queen of shaming all the bloody motherfucking assholes out there:

Vote. Remind a friend to vote. Remember all that’s at stake.

I’ll be staying tuned right here with you…

xx Jill