The political crossroads of 2024
My wife and I recently embarked on a road trip to see parts of this beautiful country that we hadn’t yet seen. The trip started in our nation’s capital, where an old friend and a true patriot, Congressman Anthony D’Esposito, arranged for us to take a congressional tour of the White House, followed by a tour of the Capitol, guided by one of D’Esposito’s staff members.
After the second tour, the congressman favored us with his take on the current state of politics in the country. Later we toured other attractions in the city, which I had seen several times before, but it never gets old for me.
The upshot of the stop in D.C. was a conflicted feeling. My sense of pride in our magnificent capital city and its many historical sites naturally infused me with the feeling of being lucky to have been born and to have lived my entire life in the best country the world has known. But in my hotel room, and in the car as I listened to the news, it spurred other thoughts. Just think of the momentous events of July 2024.
Since I last appeared in these pages, we have experienced the attempted assassination of a former president, the nominee of the Republican Party for the election this November; the withdrawal of President Biden, who had already virtually secured the Democratic nomination but was forced out by elites in his party; and the virtual coronation of his replacement by those same elites, who deem themselves the only people qualified to pick a new nominee without a single voter’s participation in the process.
And what a nominee! Kamala Harris has “enjoyed” a record-low approval of her job as vice president, and now feels she deserves the most important job in the world.
Consider just a few highlights of Harris’s tenure over the past three and a half years. At the outset of the current administration, she was given the task of dealing with the issue of the border, and the media immediately gave her the title of “border czar.” Obviously there is no such title, but there was no doubt that dealing with the border was her responsibility. The result was a horrendous increase in illegal crossings by unknown people from all over the world, including from countries that are sworn enemies of the United States; fentanyl pouring across the southern border, causing untold numbers of deaths in our country; and a number of horrifying murders, rapes and other crimes committed by illegal migrants.
Harris cheered the rioters in the summer of 2020, and helped raise money to bail out the violent ones. She minimizes the crimes of Hamas and Hezbollah, and calls for Israeli “restraint,” falsely accusing the victim, Israel, of causing the suffering of the residents of Gaza being used as human shields by the Hamas terrorists. She is a strong proponent of the diversity, equity and inclusion movement, even attacking the Supreme Court for its ruling that universities could not exclude students of Asian extraction who were more qualified than groups favored by the elites.
Finally, Harris has been a strong advocate of the Biden economic program, once proudly touted by the administration as Bidenomics, which has led to all of us facing enormous increases in our cost of living.
As I write, Harris has not yet named a vice presidential running mate. As an aside, I must say that I am appalled that Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, would consider, for personal political advantage, lending his popularity to someone who is clearly no friend to Israel.
I close by noting that in these columns I have generally stayed away from partisan political positions. However, this is perhaps one of the most consequential elections in my lifetime. I remind people who might dislike former President Trump’s sometimes bombastic personality that we already experienced four years of his leadership. The country not only survived the experience, but we also had a great economy, and the world was much calmer. Food for thought.
Howard Kopel represents Nassau County’s 7th Legislative District and is the Legislature’s presiding officer.
