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The time comes every four years that Americans go to the voting polls to cast their votes in the presidential election. The upcoming 2024 election is proving to be one of the most tense throughout the history of our nation with the Donald J. Trump/J. D. Vance campaign calling Nov. 5, 2024, the “most important day in history.”
When I examine presidential candidates I look at the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness and how the candidates plan to afford us those rights in that respective order. I tend to look at a candidate’s stances on abortion; indigenous sovereignty; the second amendment (2A) and the two spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus (2SLGBTQ+) community.
Both nominees for the two major parties, Trump of the Republican Party and his opponent Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party, are not looking favorable to me on many of the issues that matter to me most.
As someone who stands firm in a pro-life position believing in no exceptions for an abortion, defined as any procedure that would be considered a failure if a baby were to live, I strongly disagree with Trump’s stance on the issue. Trump has recently seemed to become very pro-choice in comparison to when he was President. He opposed a six week abortion ban in his home state of Florida for being too restrictive and his current platform only states that he opposes late term abortions.
I also disagree with Harris’s stance on the issue. Harris has always been an advocate for abortion rights.
“Vice President Harris and Governor [Tim] Walz trust women to make decisions about their own bodies, and not have the government tell them what to do,” Harris’s campaign website says. I think when it comes to killing innocent humans, the government should definitely be stepping in to stop people.
I also disagree with both candidates’ stances on the 2A issue. I am very much pro 2A and believe that the right to keep and bear arms is the most important right afforded to us in the Constitution. The 2A is what allows us to protect and defend ourselves against tyranny in the U.S. and makes the U.S. truly free as opposed to other countries.
Trump is and has been pro 2A, however, an article from The Week reports that while Trump has opposed assault weapon bans and promised voters their 2A rights, he has also opposed strengthening background checks. I believe that background checks are absolutely vital to combat gun violence and make sure that firearms don’t end up in the hands of criminals. Trump’s opposition to strong and strict background checks makes him seem a bit reckless on the 2A issue.
Harris has supported mandatory gun buyback programs. These programs would force gun owners to surrender their firearms which they would be financially compensated for. More recently Harris has talked a lot about the fact that she is a gun owner herself. According to her campaign site, Harris still supports banning “assault weapons and high-capacity magazines” as well as requiring “universal background checks.” I don’t think that banning any specific types of weapons that someone wants to classify as an “assault weapon” will help to combat gun violence as handguns seem to be some of the most commonly used firearms in mass shootings in the U.S. Statista reports that handguns account for roughly 78 percent of firearms involved in mass shootings.
As a person of Aniyvwiya ancestry, the rights and sovereignty of indigenous peoples matter a lot to me. I support the restoration and protection of sites considered sacred to indigenous peoples, the Land Back movement and honoring of the many broken treaties between indigenous nations and the U.S.
Trump does not have a good track record when it comes to his support of indigenous people. A memo from the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs details many of Trump’s policies, decisions and actions that have negatively affected indigenous people. Some of these actions include attempting to remove Tribal lands from federal trust and destroying burial sites and generally sacred sites to build a border wall. Trump also pushed for the Dakota Access Pipeline to be put through sacred sites of the Lakota and Dakota peoples of Standing Rock.
Trump has also publicly expressed his distaste for “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” as an alternative to “Columbus Day” bashing Harris’s support for the alternative holiday. Trump clearly has very little respect for indigenous people or the things that they hold sacred. Trump’s actions and policies regarding indigenous peoples would definitely need to change if he wanted to win a vote from me.
Harris, in her term as Vice President, has helped in taking action to put indigenous people in positions of power, protect Tribal lands and sacred sites, push for the revitalization of indigenous cultures and languages, and even uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act. Harris’s campaign website lists many other actions that she and Walz have taken to uplift indigenous people.
My opinion on the 2SLGBTQ+ community is in many ways very complicated. I support a federal right to same-sex marriage and think that gender transitions for adults with gender dysphoria should be covered by medical insurance. I also support the implementation of gender neutral restrooms designed specifically to prevent assaults from happening in the restroom.
My problems with the 2SLGBTQ+ community lay with minors undergoing irreversible medical procedures, such as double mastectomies, or undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) which can cause adverse effects on them and their physical health; transgender individuals competing in certain sports; transgender individuals being allowed into sex segregated spaces, especially locker rooms and some ideologies regarding gender being taught to young children in schools.
Trump has made it part of his campaign to “keep men out of women’s sports.” While I don’t think of transgender women as men, I agree with Trump that transgender women should be barred from competing in sports such as swimming or boxing where there is a clear biological advantage for the transgender women that hormones cannot change. As an example, people assigned male at birth are naturally more hydrodynamic than people assigned female at birth due to their bone structure. Hormones cannot change a transgender woman’s bone structure.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, Trump is also against minors undergoing irreversible medical procedures and HRT. While much of the rhetoric that Trump pushes in regard to the 2SLGBTQ+ community is harmful and distasteful, I do agree with him on most of his main issues and current policies with the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
I agree with Harris on many 2SLGBTQ+ issues as well. Her campaign site says that she will “always defend the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride” and that she will push to pass the Equality Act which would ensure that members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community could not be discriminated against for their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. I do not fully support the Equality Act as it would allow for transgender individuals to enter sex segregated spaces.
With both of the major party candidates not looking too good for me, I turned to look at third-party candidates. The candidate that I have found I have the most common ground with is Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party (ASP).
The ASP is a Christian Democratic party and shares many of my values. Their policy page details the ASP believes in protecting unborn children’s right to life, abolishing capital punishment, the right to keep and bear arms and upholding treaty obligations with indigenous nations. They also promote anti-war and immigration reform policies which I quite like.
The ASP does not support same-sex marriage rights. Being a Christian-based party, the ASP upholds that marriage should only be between one man and one woman. I do not agree at all with this policy, but I would be willing to compromise on it.
Though I am not actually of legal voting age and will not be voting in this presidential election, if I were to be casting a vote, it would go to Sonski.
