To be very clear, I will be voting for Kamala Harris in November, and I encourage those who value a reality without Donald Trump to do the same. However, I also want to be very clear on another point: I will not be celebrating my vote. And I will not be bragging about the fact that I voted for someone who is part of an administration that has fueled the mass execution and starvation of innocent populations in the Middle East. 

I imagine that there will be a lot of people who scoffed after reading that paragraph. These are the same people who will be dancing in the street if Harris wins come November. And trust me, if that happens, I will be jealous of that feeling.

I also know there are a lot of you who share my feelings. It has been a grim year. We have heard stories that make us want to scream and smash things. Stories of countless children who have been shot in the head. Stories of entire families being disintegrated in their own homes. Compounding this rage is the fact that our tax dollars are funding these stories. 

I have felt these feelings intensely, but I know there are many more in this country who are feeling something even more pronounced. These are the same feelings of rage but mixed in with the feelings of trauma and grief. These are the feelings associated with understanding that people you relate to and love are the victims in these stories. 

To those experiencing the grief and rage of what our military-industrial complex and neo-colonial system have subjected scores of innocent lives to, do not let anyone make you feel guilty if you do not vote. People in our polarized political climate, especially in the context of this election, are already preparing to blame you if Democrats lose in November. But never forget that you do not owe politicians anything. Your vote, just like anyone else’s vote, must be earned, and it will be nobody’s fault other than Harris and her team if she loses. 

This twisted expectation among Democratic elites of how people should vote is infuriating in itself. They are too blinded by the power of negative partisanship to understand that the root cause of this grief and trauma many people are experiencing is not coming from Republicans. It is the result of a Democratic administration. Joe Biden will go down in history as the main benefactor of this genocide.

Democrats will see this fact and then point to the possibility of it becoming even worse. How is that the case when there is already nothing left of Gaza except for the strength and fortitude of those struggling to stay alive? Everything that can be taken away from Palestinians has already been taken. 

I have struggled over the past couple of months with the fact that I will be voting in this election. There have even been a couple of points where I have told myself that I won’t. It’s been a dizzying experience, but the inkling of hope I have left tells me that there is a greater chance of something changing under a Harris administration. It may be the tiniest drop of hope, but it is still hope. 

I also know what I have witnessed watching Harris’s campaign. And I have yet to see a point where she has sternly stood up for human rights. This is the case with Palestine and Lebanon, but it is also the case with immigration. She is fearful of standing up for what is right because she is too worried about satisfying those who lean conservative. All of this is at the cost of taking the considerations of left-leaning voters seriously.

She is too scared to look us in the eye and say that she will fight for us. That she will fight for the families being killed by Israel’s military and that she will fight for those who are looking for a better life. Yet all we hear is that the Democrats are the only party that cares about humanity. 

The hardest part of voting this year, however, is having to show those who are too distraught, too traumatized, why I am voting. There is no other cohort in this country that I care more about right now, and I hope I can get you all to see where I am coming from.

Democrats scare me these days, but another Trump administration terrifies me. The bottom line for me is the protection of everyone’s basic human rights, above all the right to life. Right now both parties are throwing the right to life in the trash. But I also care about the secondary rights. And when it comes to these rights, Trump and JD Vance don’t care about any of them. 

Trump and Vance do not care about reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. They cringe and laugh at the notion of racial and gender-based discrimination still existing. They despise organized labor and those fighting for better working conditions, and they spew conspiracies that put the lives of sexual minorities in danger. 

I will be voting for Harris because it is hard for me to ignore these other facts. This is not to say that Harris will be a perfectly staunch defender of all of these issues, but she will be better. It is a tragedy that as a voter I am having to work down from the right to life to see if there are other rights I can protect, but I fear that will always be the case for me in American politics.

We do not live in a country that values human life to the degree that it should, both domestically and abroad. It is for that reason that I will not blame anyone who does not want to participate in this political system. It requires a form of mental gymnastics to be able to consciously participate in our politics, and the mental gymnastics I have been doing for the past year is leading me to vote for Harris, and it does not feel good.