As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sprint toward the finish of the shortened 2024 presidential race, it is time to ask: What issue should be foremost in U.S. voters’ minds when they cast their ballots?
It’s not the cost of living, immigration, abortion or foreign wars, though all are critically important. Overshadowing them is this election’s meta-issue — the insistent question that just won’t go away: Can Americans entrust their democratic institutions and traditions to a vengeful Trump and a Republican Party he has remade in his image?
Trump is acutely aware of the danger in that question. He accuses Harris and “radical leftists” of posing the real threat to U.S. democracy.
With trademark disregard for honesty, civility and intellectual coherence, Trump piles on the insults, calling the vice president a socialist-communist-fascist dumbbell who’s “mentally impaired” to boot.
It’s ugly and nonsensical, but, hey, it’s Trump; in his carnival barker playbook, making sense is for losers.
