Compass Counterpoint

21 September 2024

Questions for Kamala that No One is Asking

• You’ve said that Trump’s way is not the American way

  Then how come roughly half of the American people support him?

• America spends more time than any other nation identifying itself with democracy in the school classroom and on the world stage.

  How is it possible, then, that half the population is poised to vote for a candidate contemptuous of so many democratic principles?

• If this election is really one where democracy is at stake, isn’t there much more you can do to distance yourself from your opponent?

  The electoral college is an absurd relic from the 1700s that undermines true democracy and baffles all other democracies. Are you prepared to abolish it?

• In every other western democracy, more than two parties enjoy a proportion of representation … from greens to socialists and libertarians.

  Why are Americans denied a wider political landscape?

• Which US party do you feel ideologically closest to: the Republicans, the Greens or the Libertarians?

• The total cost of this election is over ten billion dollars. Will you work towards publicly funded campaigns instead of a handful of the wealthiest people being allowed to spend millions and millions on the candidate of their choice? Or both of the candidates, for cynically maximising potential influence?

  A case in point is that Trump donated to Hillary Clinton in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007, gave at least $100 000 to the Clinton Foundation and you received from Trump $6000 to support your bid for re-election as Attorney-General of California in 2014. You gave that money to charity the following year, but doesn’t it prove that something is very wrong with the system?

• Democrats have held the presidency for 12 of the last 16 years.

  If social justice has any meaning, how come that today three individuals have more wealth than the poorest half of the entire US population?

• In the world’s richest country, half of the households have no retirement savings, and one in five struggles on less than $13 500 a year.

  Will you lift the cap on social security tax so that the very wealthy pay the same tax rate as working class families?

• A new report by the Commonwealth Fund shows that the US health system came last in an international comparison of ten peer nations.

  Despite Americans paying almost double that of other countries, the US ranked at the very bottom on health equity, access to care and outcomes. Bernie Sanders has proposed urgent major healthcare reforms but, like Donald Trump, you haven’t. Why not?

• You’ve flip-flopped over fracking, and also the death penalty.

  A declared abolitionist, you overturned a 2006 court ruling that might have paved the way for the abolition of capital punishment in California. Are you for the death penalty remaining a judicial option, or are you opposed to it?

• According to the UN, since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2023, more than 41 000 Palestinians — most of them innocent civilians — have died, with tens of thousands lost or injured.

  You’ve said that “too many” innocent Palestinians have died. What would be an acceptable number?

• How can you be seriously concerned about the ongoing suffering of Palestinians, without advocating the only means of immediately stopping the torment: a ban on US weapons sales to Israel?

• Is it possible to loathe Donald Trump without loving Kamala Harris?