I remember America before Kamala Harris became President.
I remember both the hope and dread we all felt in 2024, before we knew who would win the presidential election.
In 2024, we knew that America was at an inflection point, one that could lead to three possible outcomes:
- The end of our 248 year experiment in democracy and the beginning of an era of dystopian autocracy; or
- Preservation of democracy but with continued governmental dysfunction and gridlock; or
- A new era of American progress and prosperity.
We knew that electing Harris was absolutely necessary, but not sufficient. Alone it wasn’t enough to really change America. Sure, it was enough to keep the treasonous, criminal, psychopath, felon, racist, grifter, rapist out of office. It was enough to stop the dystopian nightmare of Project 2025. It was enough to save our democracy and prevent the United States from becoming Russia 2.0.
But enabling America to truly move towards a better future required more. It required electing a blue House of Representatives and a Senate that would end the filibuster and give President Harris the ability to enact meaningful legislation.
Sometimes life’s decisions are complicated amidst situations that are full of shades of grey. The 2024 election wasn’t one of those situations. While the times that we were living through were extraordinarily challenging, and often quite frightening, we were at least able to take some joy and solace from the knowledge that we were able to make one of the easiest electoral decisions in the history of American elections.
In 2024, it was heartening to see voters overwhelmingly reject the grossly false narratives regarding the economy and immigration that had been promoted by the extreme right during the 2024 election campaign.
The reality was that under the Biden/Harris administration, the United States had achieved the best post-COVID economic recovery in the world. Businesses had rebounded from the economic challenges they faced during the previous administration and during the COVID shutdowns. Employment increased at an astonishing rate. The stock market repeatedly broke new records as 401k and IRA retirement savings vastly increased in value. After so many years of neglect, a significant array of more than 60,000 projects aimed at repairing and improving core transportation and communications infrastructure across the United States began to be implemented.
The expected post-COVID recession, resulting from the vast deficit spending of the previous administration, was averted. Interest rates began to decline, as did inflation. Policies were put into place to make sure that the most wealthy individuals would pay their fair share of taxes. It certainly wasn’t perfect… many Americans still struggled. But the contrast was clear… the incumbent administration was making substantial efforts to improve the economy, while the opposing political party was discrediting the economy through disinformation, while simultaneously promoting policies that, if implemented, would make the economy dramatically worse for the vast majority of Americans, instead of better.
The reality was that under the Biden/Harris administration, we saw a substantial decline in illegal immigration. We saw violent crime rates drop to a 50 year low. We saw crime rates from immigrants that were actually lower than the crime rates from non-immigrants. And when a bi-partisan agreement was reached to make substantial improvements and provide additional security at the border, the legislation was killed by Congressional Republicans at the request of the Republican presidential candidate, who was more interested in making the border situation worse to help him in spreading fear and disinformation about a problem he had not the slightest desire to actually help solve.
In 2024 there were those two weird guys running around seeking office while telling really strange and imaginary stories about single cat ladies, sharks, batteries, Hannibal Lecter, cancer causing windmills, crowd size, and immigrants who were supposedly eating cats and dogs. They often embraced nonsensical conspiracy fantasies, were hostile towards scientific and evidence-based decision making, pledged to require federal officials to give them personal fealty rather than acting to uphold US law, and promised to remove non-partisan civil servants and replace them with unqualified ideologues. On the one hand, it was sorta funny to see these two people making a public display of how disassociated they were from reality. But on the other hand, it was pretty scary that there were voters out there who didn’t see this unhinged behavior as immediately disqualifying.
Yet for all the positive things happening in America in 2024, it would be inappropriate to imply that everything was better than it had been in 2020. There were some challenges in 2024 that were still deeply problematic for America:
- In 2024, our children and citizens were still dying from gun deaths and mass shooting massacres, with a lack of meaningful gun safety measures put in place to help prevent them.
- In 2024, without sufficient efforts put into place to curb global warming, we were experiencing increasingly frequent fires, storms and droughts causing massive loss of life and property that foreshadowed much, much worse conditions still to come due to increasing global temperatures and rising sea levels.
- In 2024, the fundamental right of women to make decisions to control their own bodies had been rescinded, and women were dying needless deaths because of it.
- In 2024, the US Supreme Court had become corrupted by ethical scandals and radical extremist justices, to the point where it became an obscene mockery of an organization supposedly responsible for upholding the rule of law.
- In 2024, too many of our children were still not receiving a quality education grounded in truth and reality.
- In 2024, United States medical care was the worst and most expensive in the world among developed nations.
- In 2024, US support had averted Russian victory in its war with Ukraine, vastly weakening Russia in the process. But Putin’s efforts to invade Ukraine, as well as his efforts to destabilize the west through disinformation, were still ongoing, with devastating consequences. Too many members of the US Congress, along with the Republican presidential candidate himself, had effectively become Russian assets and “useful idiots,” spewing Putin’s toxic propaganda.
The choice in 2024 was so easy. One side was mired in lies, hatred and denial. When the time came to take action, they offered thoughts and prayers. They put forward the dystopian nightmare of Project 2025, and advocated social and economic strategies that would make America’s problems significantly worse rather than better. The other side embraced scientific and evidence-based decision making and technology while articulating ideas and polices that would address difficult issues in a positive and constructive manner.
One side advocated the betrayal of democratic alliances on a global scale while embracing totalitarian dictators around the world and offering to end the war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to effectively surrender to Putin. The other side supported democratic allies around the world, helping Ukraine to defeat Russia while simultaneously vastly weakening Russia’s ability to inflict mayhem upon the west. One side expressed no interest whatsoever in supporting humanitarian aid and the rebuilding of Gaza, while the other side reacted to the tragedies in Israel and Gaza with compassion and advocated for a two state solution.
In 2024, our ability to put the dominoes into motion that would finally address these difficult challenges required not only electing Kamala Harris as President, but also electing a blue House and Senate that would give her the support she needed to enact meaningful legislation, unobstructed by a senate filibuster.
Once that happened, the Harris administration was able to move quickly to enact significant gun safety reform; pass legislation that would reduce environmental and climate risks while promoting clean energy; codify Roe vs. Wade into law; enact Supreme Court reform; substantially enhance our educational, medical, transportation and communications infrastructure; and give Ukraine everything it needed to finally defeat Russia. Once we started moving forward instead of looking backward, our world became safer, saner, and full of promise of a future far better than our past.
While Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were the standard bearers for the transformation of America that began in 2024, they were not the real heroes.
The people who worked to get out the vote for democracy in the “swing states” of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia were true heroes.
In 2024, we saw Florida and Texas, two of America’s greatest states that had been mired in darkness and radical extremism, begin a path of transition. Those states had a history of electing radical extremists who were pretending to be conservatives, but in reality advocated and legislated against freedom and secular democracy… the fake patriots who waved flags, guns and bibles while supporting corruption, book banning, treason, sedition and theocracy along with the myth that the American dream should primarily belong to white, wealthy, Christian men.
In the 2024 election, it was heartening to see the people of Texas and Florida take action to end their states’ eras of darkness. Those in Texas who supported Colin Allred’s efforts to remove Ted Cruz from the US Senate were heroes. Ted Cruz had backed a coup to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Those in Florida who supported Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s efforts to remove Rick Scott from the US Senate were heroes too. Scott had implicitly and explicitly pushed the conspiracy theories that spurred violence at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Those who supported Sherrod Brown over Bernie Moreno in the Ohio US Senate race were heroes, as were those who supported Slotkin over Rogers in Michigan; Gallego over Lake in Arizona; Casey over McCormick in Pennsylvania; Tester over Sheehy in Montana; Baldwin over Hovde in Wisconsin; Rosen over Brown in Nevada; and Lucas Kunce over insurrection and coup supporter Josh Hawley in Missouri.
The heroes were each and every US citizen who got out to vote and support what those candidates represented, while encouraging their friends, acquaintances and colleagues to do the same.
The heroes were each and every person who used their wits and donated time, energy and resources to help give the House and Senate the blue majority it would need to enact meaningful change.
Also heroes were each and every individual who helped spread the word by taking the time and making the effort to share pro-democracy content (perhaps even this essay!) on their social media profiles and pages.
We owe a debt of gratitude to each and every one of those heroes. Since 2024, the future has held so much more promise.
Now you can proudly tell your children and your grandchildren that you were here at the start of a new era of American progress and prosperity, and that you knew the heroes who made it happen.
Perhaps you can even tell them that you were one of them.
The Domino Principle’s “Future History” columns provide perspective on possible future outcomes for America based on key inflection point events that are likely to significantly change the course of American history. This column looks at possible future outcomes based on Kamala Harris winning the 2024 presidential election with the support of Democrat majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate. Our previous column, “How I Spent America’s Last Independence Day,” looked at possible future outcomes based on Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.
- Remembering the Heroes of the 2024 US Election - September 23, 2024
- How I Spent America’s Last Independence Day - July 4, 2024
- Real Americans - June 30, 2022