I'm With Her

Oldster Endorses Kamala Harris for President. Plus, an open thread for those who plan to help mobilize voters. And my answer to your questions about the media's handling of Biden's age.

Erin Schaff/Getty Images

Readers,

I mostly try to avoid polarizing politics here at Oldster, but we’ve arrived at a terrifying juncture in the American Democratic experiment that leaves me no choice but to speak out on this platform with nearly 50K subscribers about my presidential candidate of choice: I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris, and getting to work supporting her in any way I can over the next 100 or so days.

Earlier this week I made a donation to her campaign via Act Blue. Soon I’ll look for an organization to do postcarding and canvassing with, (probably Field Team 6, with whom I’ve volunteered before) with an eye toward registering and mobilizing voters of all ages. I’ll be sure to let you all know about it.

I’ve volunteered many times before, and I know it helps. When it leads to your candidate being elected, it feels great. When your candidate loses despite your best efforts, you can at least console yourself knowing you did what you could.

In the comments, I want to hear from those of you also plan to volunteer this election season. ***But I don’t want the comments of this post to be a place where we argue about the merits or “electability” of this candidate, or others. I just want to know what you’re planning to do, and what you’ve done in the past, to support a candidate.

Please tell me:

How old are you? In what state do you live? How do you plan to get involved this election? Have you ever volunteered in support of a candidate before? What did you do? How did it go? How did it feel? (Reminder: We are not arguing about candidates here, just talking about what it means to volunteer for one.)

President Biden’s endorsement on Sunday, followed by an unprecedented wave of campaign donations, then the capturing of key delegates, has been a mood-changer for me and so many others who’d been so feeling hopeless before. I’m now feeling so much more upbeat. And I’m sure of this: It’s time to put a woman—a Black, AAPI woman; this woman, who can effectively “prosecute” her criminal opponent—into the White House.

I know there are people on the Left who take issue with Harris’s past as a ruthless, sometimes unfair prosecutor. There are some who fear she won’t be pro-Israel enough, and others who fears she won’t be pro-Palestinian enough. Some say electing her will only lead to a continuation of capitalist/corporatist business as usual in politics, and its stultifyingly slow progress. Don’t get me started on the people on the Right, attacking her on racist, sexist terms, calling her a “DEI” candidate, a “slut,” a “Jezebel,” and a “childless cat lady.” (As a childless woman, I take particular offense to those echoing Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance on this.)

I harbor no illusions that Harris is capable of being all things to all people, or even to me, because no candidate is. But I like what she stands for on reproductive rights, LBGTQ rights, DACA, opposing a border wall, climate change, universal health care, free tuition at public universities and preschools, tax breaks for the middle and lower classes, gun control, and more. I believe she is more than qualified, and the president we need right now.

It’s crucial that Harris win this election, for many reasons. At the top of my list: We need to keep Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and the Heritage Foundation’s reactionary Project 2025 away from the White House, at any cost. They want to control every aspect of women’s lives. They want to turn back the clock on all the progress this country has made on rights for women, people of color, the LBGTQ community, migrants, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups. Trump has already been a wrecking ball on this front. With his three appointments to the Supreme Court in his first term—Justices who all lied at their confirmation hearings about accepting Roe v. Wade as codified—he already managed to eliminate abortion and other crucial health care and reproductive rights in many states.

A further reversal of rights and bodily autonomy for anyone is unacceptable. We cannot allow this happen. I have begun the process of applying for citizenship in Portugal through my Sephardic heritage in case Trump wins, but I don’t want to have to leave my country. I want my country to be a safe place for me to live, with the full compliment of civil rights.

Harris must win, and win big. This needs to be such a decisive landslide, the electors in red states can’t deny it, and the right wing majority on the Supreme Court—plus the corrupt, partisan judges Trump installed around the country—have no way to rule in Trump’s favor.

It’s going to take work, and I’m prepared to roll up my sleeves. It’s going to mean not letting myself get discouraged by sensationalist click-bait, or access journalism that flatters Trump so he’ll keep feeding those reporters stories rather than banishing them from the White House press room, should he win.

Your turn. Please tell me:

How old are you? In what state do you live? How do you plan to get involved this election? Have you ever volunteered in support of a candidate before? What did you do? How did it go? How did it feel? (Reminder: We are not arguing about candidates here, just talking about what it means to volunteer for one.)

---

Now onto how the media treated Biden before he dropped out of the race, which several of you had emailed me about, asking if I thought it was a case of ageism:

Was it ageism? I’m not entirely sure. It seemed as if Biden was legitimately struggling in ways consistent with age-related cognitive decline. Nevertheless, the coverage was unfair.

On July 5th I sent a letter to the editor of the New York Times, taking the paper to task for its slanted coverage—attacking Biden for his apparent decline, while giving Trump a pass on that front, despite credible evidence that Trump might be in the throes of dementia. Here’s what my letter said:

To the editor,

Recently, the Times published an editorial and several op-eds calling for Joe Biden to leave the presidential race, citing aging-related cognitive decline. I’m concerned, too.

However, it’s troubling that the paper hasn't similarly addressed Donald Trump’s apparent loss of mental acuity. At 78 he’s just three years younger than Mr. Biden, and has had many worrisome incidents—confusing Mr. Biden with Barack Obama; referring to Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, as the "leader of Turkey"; issuing an incoherent rant about sharks and batteries, to name a few.

As the editor of  Oldster Magazine, I frequently showcase people pushing back against ageist tropes and achieving great things in old age. But while I'm thrilled to celebrate, say, 98-year-old Mel Brooks getting started on the sequel to Space Balls, and people becoming first-time authors in their 80s, I'm not sure that's the best life stage at which to be Leader of the Free World. 

In any case, if the Times is going to call upon Mr. Biden to leave the race because of his age, it should similarly call upon Mr. Trump—not only because, as some have suggested, Mr. Trump might be in the throes of dementia, but also because he is a confirmed rapist and unrepentant convicted felon who tried to overturn an election. 

- Sari Botton, editor of Oldster Magazine, Kingston, NY.

The Times didn’t publish my letter. But I felt validated when a few days later,

Margaret Sullivan

—who from September, 2012 to April, 2016 served as the Public Editor of the Times—published similar sentiments in her column in The Guardian: “The media has been breathlessly attacking Biden. What about Trump?” (And I felt relieved when, on July 11th, the New York Times editorial board published a piece entitled “Donald Trump is Unfit to Lead.”)

For the record, despite my concern that he might have been losing some mental acuity, had he stayed in the race, I would have voted for Biden. (I applaud him for backing out, and passing the baton to his very capable V.P.) Hell, I would have voted for a bag of potato chips with Biden’s face on it, rather than allow Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and the Heritage Foundation to strip me and so many others of our rights. A presidential election is never about just the candidate, it’s also about that candidate’s team, and their ideology.

The Trump team’s authoritarian ideology is abhorrent to me, and terrifying. He must not win. If he does, he’ll likely never leave, per his own promise to supporters:

Read the New York Times article…

That’s right. If he wins, we might never have a meaningful election ever again. It’s time to put an end to the Right’s slow-motion coup, their long-game strategy to solidify minority rule. So, I’m getting behind Kamala Harris and her team. As they say, #IUnderstandTheAssignment.

Okay, now you. Please tell me:

How old are you? In what state do you live? How do you plan to get involved this election? Have you ever volunteered in support of a candidate before? What did you do? How did it go? How did it feel? (Reminder: We are not arguing about candidates here, just talking about what it means to volunteer for one.)

Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting thoughtfully, and for all your support.

-Sari