President for Everyone

When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, I waited for him to pivot from campaigning to being president. Take the win and move forward. I was shocked when he chose to keep doing his rallies. Now we know the rallies feed his self-definition. The adulation, the cheering at his remarks. He loves his rallies. It quickly became clear back then he had no interest in being president for everyone. He only wanted to be president for those who gave him that adulation. He did not want to be my president.

So forgive me if Vice President Kamala Harris’s current ad does something for me. She looks into the camera and declares that as a prosecutor she never asked a victim or witness if they were Republican or Democrat. She only asked if they were okay.

It’s so basic. Of course, a president intends to govern for everyone. Except Trump didn’t. It’s not surprising. Experts told us his business governance style was to pit everyone against each other. That’s the way he governed the country too. He spends his time defining who is “in” his group and who is “out,” and he only cares about those he considers in.

He’s still doing it, causing violence in Springfield, Ohio by bellowing age-old racist tropes against immigrants. This is who he is. Remember “s**thole countries,” anyone? When he wondered why the US couldn’t get more immigrants from Norway instead of Haiti and Africa? Or when he said all Haitians have AIDS? He is a disgusting racist, and racists cannot govern for everyone because they don’t want to. He doesn’t even want “those people” in “his country.”

Harris does. She is running on it, campaigning on it. “That’s the kind of president we need right now. Someone who cares about you.” You might scoff, but can you imagine those words coming out of the other candidate’s mouth? This is how low he has kicked the bar. It’s a breath of fresh air when a candidate says they want to be president for everyone.