If we wake up on Wednesday morning and Donald Trump is elected president, our world will fundamentally change for the worse. When we wake up a year later and lament the damage, what will we say we did to prevent it?
On Tuesday, America faces a clear choice between a historic visionary or an authoritarian demagogue. While I’d assume the right choice would be an obvious one, in all seven swing states, the election is needlessly nail-bitingly close. To my progressive friends who care deeply about climate change, abortion rights, immigration policy, criminal justice reform and the humanitarian catastrophes in Gaza and Lebanon, I say to you that sitting this election out is profoundly misguided.
Donald Trump is wholly unfit to lead this country. He is a twice-impeached convicted criminal with a troubled relationship with the truth. He brags about sexually assaulting women. He has called to “terminate the Constitution,” referred to his fellow Americans as “enemies from within,” suggested journalists should be investigated for treason and vowed to prosecute his political opponents. In the words of his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General and Vice President, he is a “fascist” who puts “himself over the Constitution,” is “unfit” for the presidency and “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”
Trump poses an extreme threat. But in reconnecting with many of my progressive classmates back home in Michigan, I’ve encountered an unparalleled sense of pessimism about the Democratic party that stands in stark contrast to the hope we felt just four years ago. For many, particularly my Arab American and Muslim friends, the current administration’s overly accommodating policy toward Israel is a decisive factor influencing their decisions to vote, to stay home or even to vote third party. I share these same frustrations. Yet I urge us to see past our anger so that we do not enable ourselves to elect Trump, who will discard these concerns and only exacerbate the suffering.
Young voters have the power to decide this election. They have historically been a key constituency within the Democratic coalition, which has become increasingly fractured as America is whipped up by populist fervor. Rather than working to reform the Democratic party, many are increasingly turning to the Greens or even Trump as an outlet for their disillusionment. This would be a historic mistake. Despite disingenuous overtures, Trump is not a friend of progressives, Palestinians or their supporters. He has called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish the job,” reversed US opposition to illegal Israeli settlements and vowed to reinstate his un-American Muslim ban.
We have seen this story before. In the election of 1964, President Johnson won a decisive victory and enacted a bold liberal vision for America. In the run-up to the election of 1968, anti-Vietnam War protests sprung up on college campuses across the nation. Sound familiar? While good in intentions, the protests catastrophically backfired, ushering in the election of Richard Nixon who dragged out the war for years and caused the deaths of many more Americans and Vietnamese.
For a more recent example, we can look to the election of 2000 in which the number of votes Green Party candidate Ralph Nader received in Florida could have secured Democrat Al Gore’s victory. A Gore presidency, perhaps, could have allowed for decisive action on climate change and avoided two devastating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And once again, history repeated itself in 2016 when the Greens cost Hillary Clinton Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, delivering Trump his first term. This is the very reason Trump himself signaled his enthusiastic approval of the Green Party candidate Jill Stein at a rally in June, saying she “takes 100 percent” from the Democrats. Regardless of their purported values, the effect of the Greens is notably illiberal.
Many feel that voting for the Green Party is their only avenue for signaling discontent with the Democrats, but this is not the case. The rise of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez as a mainstream voice and the future of the Democratic party provides a pivotal example of how working within the system can shift the balance of power. Rather than tear everything down, we as voters have immense power to create the kind of party we can be proud of, particularly in primary elections. If every single young person voted, we could tip the outcome of any election and bring our priorities to the forefront.
Make no mistake, if you are a single-issue voter acting in protest and the other guy is worse on the very issue that you’re protesting, your single issue is that you’re shortsighted. If you’re willing to accept a worse outcome for Palestinians because no candidate exactly supports your position, then it was never about Palestinians in the first place. Voting pragmatically might not feel as gratifying as a protest vote, but if you waste your vote, all I ask is that you prepare to look into the eyes of the people for whom a second Trump term will hurt.
I am voting for Harris not because she was my first choice or represents everything I stand for, but for the people who don’t have the same rights as I do and who will suffer the consequences of our inaction. I hope that you’ll join me.
‘Tas Rahman ’26 can be reached at tasawwar_rahman@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
Tas Rahman is a staff columnist at the Brown Daily Herald writing about issues in higher education. When he's not coding or studying biochemistry, you can find him hiking and enjoying the great outdoors.
