With just three weeks to go before the most critical presidential election of our time, the Wall Street Journal reports that voters in America’s battleground states “see Donald Trump as better equipped than Kamala Harris to handle the issues they care about most — the economy and border security.”
However, we should hope voters recognize what’s really important. We can fix inflation and immigration. In fact, both are moving in the right direction. What’s far more important is the character, trustworthiness and stability of the person we choose for America’s top job.
Congress has more say over immigration than the president. The Federal Reserve, which operates independently of the White House, has greater influence over the economy. And neither issue is as critical as Trump has led voters to believe.
The economy, which has suffered its own version of long COVID, is doing well. Inflation is down to its lowest level since President Biden took office. Interest rates have come down, wages have outpaced inflation, the stock market keeps setting records, and the jobless rate is around 4 percent today, compared to 6.4 percent when Biden took office. The average monthly unemployment rate is lower under Biden than in any administration going back to Gerald Ford.
Biden used his limited power over immigration this summer to crack down on illegal entries. The result has been a dramatic reduction. Last month, the number of illegal migrants crossing into the U.S. in September reached its lowest point in Biden’s term. His vice president, Kamala Harris, has promised to sign the bipartisan immigration reform bill languishing in Congress after Trump ordered Republicans to kill it.
As important as they are, issues like these come and go. But candidates for high office either have integrity and high moral standards or they don’t. We must be able to trust presidents to be factual and honest, to obey the nation’s laws, and to keep their oaths to preserve and defend the Constitution. We need a mentally acute, emotionally stable president who is willing to put the nation’s well-being above personal and political gain. We need a president who will protect and preserve democracy.
Over the last decade, Trump has proven repeatedly that he does not possess those qualities.
The danger is that voters will be distracted by short-term concerns at the expense of the long-term, and by superficial issues rather than what’s far more important. Last week, Gallup reported that voters find Harris more likable, moral, trustworthy and caring, yet consider Trump a stronger leader who can get things done.
Brashness, braggadocio, mockery and brutishness are not strengths. They reveal a fragile ego. The value of “getting things done” depends on what a person wants to do. Trump, who exhibits little or no grasp of policy, wants to use the presidency to punish his enemies, throw away democracy, sabotage its institutions, and assume unchecked power.
Analysts detect a substantial gender gap in this election. Brookings reports that most male voters favor Trump in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. However, Harris could still win the Electoral College because there are more female than male voters in the U.S., and women traditionally vote more than men.
“The bottom line is this,” according to Brookings analyst Elaine Kamarck. “If the gender gap in presidential preference remains the same but men’s turnout increases dramatically relative to 2020, it will be good for Trump; if women’s turnout stays the same as in 2020, it could be a good year for Harris; if it increases, it could be a very good year for her.”
However, the deeper issue is why the gender gap exists at all. The presidential glass ceiling is an obvious explanation. But another factor is how men define strength.
Men should be forgiven for being confused about what masculinity means. It started with the course correction of the women’s liberation movement. As Tony Campolo, a pastor and adviser to former President Clinton, has said, “If a guy is intimidated by a woman in leadership, he has real problems with his own concepts of masculinity.”
Psychologists use different adjectives for Trump. He is “bold, impulsive, turbulent, and divisive” as well as “outlandish, brash and belligerent.” He associates the strongman image with selfishness, aggression and manipulation. Shortly after Trump entered national politics, 60,000 mental health professionals signed a petition warning that he is potentially dangerous. Various mental health experts have said Trump’s personality is typical of narcissistic, antisocial and paranoid disorders.
These are not the characteristics of admirable masculinity. They are not the characteristics voters should want in any elected leader, male or female.
If a team of doctors were asked to diagnose what’s wrong with politics in America today, they would identify an overdose of testosterone. They would prescribe less Mars and more Venus and, in the words of filmmaker Ken Burns, more Pluribus and less Unum.
We need a president we can trust and respect, who serves rather than rules the people, tells us truths rather than lies, protects our freedoms rather than subverting them, and who learns from critics rather than jailing them.
We are three weeks away from the big reveal. We will soon find out who will be president. More importantly, we will find out who we are as a nation.
William S. Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project and a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.