The Closing Argument

Today we decide the future of this country.

by Justin Rosario

Today is it. Today we decide the future of this country and both candidates have already delivered their closing statements. Trump delivered a six-hour Nazi-themed rally complete with screaming misogyny, racism, and vows of violence. Kamala Harris delivered a message of hope and inclusion and an end to the constant chaos of Trumpism.

I am going to deliver my own closing statement today, a fleshed-out version of the statement I gave on my podcast last week. I think it’s important we understand what we can do once we’ve broken the 40-year stranglehold the GOP has had on American politics. What is really at stake in the 2024 election is not just flushing Donald Trump down the drain once and for all, but driving a stake into the heart of the cancer that is the modern Republican Party. 2028 will be the final blow and then everything changes forever.

A critical miscalculation

It’s true that voting against Trump is an act of immediate self-preservation. There is a fascist demagogue desperately trying to destroy American democracy to keep himself out of prison. His cult is with him because they crave the misogyny, racism, and violence Trump promises. They want retribution for decades of oppression. “Oppression” in this context means “steadily losing their unearned privilege and having to play on an increasingly level playing field.” 

The Republican Party itself, on the other hand, follows Trump for a very different reason. Elected Republicans and Republican operatives do not feel oppressed (they just play one on TV). They do, however, feel threatened, and for good reason: The End is Nigh, and they brought it on themselves.

Pushing Joe Biden out may be the worst political miscalculation in all of modern American history. There was a very real chance Trump could have beaten Biden. Even if he hadn’t, the plot to steal the election had a real chance of working because Biden’s win would have been very narrow. Neither will be the case now. Despite what the polls say, Trump is not only on track to lose, he’s on track to lose by an unusually large margin. Large enough that Florida and Iowa, of all places, might be in play. 

Even if Biden won and “Plan C for Coup” failed, all was not lost. Biden would have served his second term as an unpopular and aging president with an increasingly hostile media undermining him every second of every day. By the time the 2028 election rolled around, the public would be very sour on Democrats no matter what Biden accomplished in office. We know this because Biden beat Covid and delivered the strongest economy in over half a century, the literal envy of the world, and was still kicked to the curb like a date who wouldn’t put out.

That would have given Republicans an opening to win in 2028. But no more. Now, they will be facing an incumbent President Kamala Harris. There will be no divisive Democratic primary of our rather large and strong field of contenders vying for the top spot leaving the eventual winner weakened. It will be Harris with all the cachet incumbent presidents have, making her extremely hard to dislodge. There will be no question of her age or mental acuity for the press to weaponize. 

It’s possible Kamala Harris will be terrible at her job. It’s possible she’ll be scandal-ridden. It’s possible the economy will implode at just the wrong time. It’s just as likely, more so based on Harris’ history, that she will excel in her position. With the slim pickings among the GOP to replace Trump, who will still maintain his death grip on the party from Russia or whatever country with no extradition treaty he flees to, Harris will not have much of a challenge to overcome in 2028. Ron DeSantis, JD Vance, and Glenn Youngkin are hardly a threat. 

That means we are looking at eight years of President Kamala Harris.

I’ve talked about this before but every year, around 2.6 million Boomers die. By 2028, there will be 10 million fewer Boomers. By 2032, the end of Harris’ second term, over 22 million Boomers will be gone. That’s almost one-third of all currently living Boomers, the core of the GOP’s voting power.

By then, Millennials will be well into middle age. Voting is like peeing in the middle of the night. The older you get, the more you do it. Zoomers, now all of voting age, will be voting in the tens of millions. Gen Alpha will just be starting to vote and they’re the largest cohort of all. All three of these groups may not love Democrats but they are progressively more diverse and they really do not like Republicans. Republicans, now trapped in a fascist death spiral, will be unable to broaden their appeal. Alas.

My generation, Gen X, has become very GOP-friendly (I’m so disappointed in all of you) but it won't matter. We’ll be vastly outnumbered and ignored. Don't feel bad. We’re used to it by now. That means the demographic doom the Republican Party has been fighting against for the last quarter of a century is here. Now.

Here’s what becomes possible

For starters. A Harris presidency keeps the GOP from weaponizing the Supreme Court for the next 30 years. This cannot be repeated often enough: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are in their mid-70s. By 2032, they’ll be in their 80s and the Republican Party will have lost a huge number of their strongest voters. Even if both Thomas and Alito make it to the end of Harris’ second term, they won't make it through another 4-8 years of President Pete Buttigieg. 

Before we even take back the Supreme Court from the most corrupt justices in American history, we have the opportunity to rid ourselves of the filibuster. No more Manchin and Sinema. That paves the way for Puerto Rico and Washington DC to become states, adding four more Senators and several more representatives to the Democratic column. Breaking the Republican stranglehold on the Senate would be almost as useful as breaking their stranglehold on the Court. Stripping Republicans of their ability to obstruct everything, even bills they agree with, a lot of longstanding problems can be solved. That’s the very last thing Republicans want but something the majority of Americans, including Republican voters, have been demanding for longer than I’ve been alive.

With Republican obstructionism gone, we can end the GOP’s war against the right to vote which will pay immense dividends. Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, voter suppression tactics, all of that goes away. That is all that’s been keeping the GOP in power long after their expiration date. After that?

• We will have some form of universal healthcare.

• We can remove the income cap on Social Security and keep it solvent for decades.

• We could Invest in public education and claw back the dollars wasted on charter schools.

• Unions will continue to grow and rebuild the middle class.

• Monopolies will continue to be broken up.

• Tax cuts for the rich will be ended and the rich will pay their fair share.

• The government will target price gouging.

• Civil rights across the board will be protected.

• The shift to green energy will become unstoppable.

Just this one election starts a domino effect that ends with the utter destruction of the Republican Party and their half a century long campaign of sabotage.  

But really, the crown jewel here is taking back the Supreme Court and ending the judicial tyranny they have been planning for 40 years. We are less than a decade from breaking the Republican Party’s stranglehold on America forever. If you are impatient and think eight years is too long, allow me to remind you that Donald Trump waddled his treasonous bulk into the Oval Office eight years ago. Yeah, that’s all it was. It feels like an eternity but it was just eight years ago. Barack Obama was elected eight years before that. George W. Bush stole the 2000 election and sent us into two disastrous wars just a scant eight years before that.

Eight years is nothing. Think about what we could have done with eight years of a liberal Supreme Court and compare it to the devastation wrought in eight years by this infinitely corrupt Court with its infinitely Corrupt Republican majority. Eight years is nothing. Or eight years is everything. We elect Harris now and then reelect her in four years? We win. And that’s more than enough of a reason to go out and vote today.

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