LaVozColorado Publisher
Are you better off today than you were four years ago’ is a question regularly posed before presidential elections. In the opinion of LaVoz Colorado, the answer is clearly, unequivocally ‘Yes.’ But we believe the reason we are better off today than four years ago is because Donald Trump is no longer president. And that affirmation is based not only on kitchen table issues but for reasons that go far deeper.
The race between the two nominees for the nation’s highest office, Vice President Kamala Harris and ex-president Donald Trump, represents a contrast unlike almost any other in our history. And it is not simply a matter of favoring a tax policy or one of the many domestic policy positions one candidate offers over the other.
This election represents a dark moral, political and philosophical clash between the two candidates that may very well decide the future of our republic.
We hold this position based on a number of factors. But we begin with the words spoken—loudly and unabashedly—by Donald Trump as he began his quest for the presidency in 2015.
From the day he first announced his candidacy, when he labeled Mexicans as “rapists,” to his more recently documented Oval Office outburst the ex-president has not changed. A recent Atlantic magazine publication confirmed it.
Trump, recalled retired General and former Chief of Staff John Kelly, was told that the funeral costs—costs he promised to personally cover—of murdered Army soldier, Vanessa Guillen, were $60,000. Trump was outraged. “It doesn’t cost $60,000 bucks to bury a ******* Mexican,” Trump shouted. “Don’t pay it!”
But Trump’s bookended racism, while beyond troubling—and disqualifying—is but one reason we believe this man has no right to ever lead this nation again.
His economic policies, which include tariffs and mass deportation of potentially millions of undocumented immigrants, millions of whom perform some of this nation’s least desirable jobs, could cut the nation’s GDP by 9 percent. It’s a figure, economists, including Nobel Prize winning economists, say is essentially twice the hit the economy took during the financial crisis of 2007-2009.
Another reason to oppose a second Trump presidency is healthcare and specifically women’s healthcare. Younger women are already being victimized by a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended Roe v Wade, the constitutional right to reproductive rights.
Since then, 21 states have enacted restrictive abortion laws or banned it entirely. While Trump has boldly taken credit for ending Roe v Wade, he has also hedged when asked if he would endorse a national ban on this crucial women’s health care issue.
Not to be overlooked is the fact that Donald Trump is the only American President to face two impeachments, including one for inspiring the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump is also the only candidate of a major American party who is a convicted felon and who also faces additional federal and state criminal charges related to his business and political activities. He is set for sentencing November 26th in New York for falsifying business records and for concealing payments to an adult film star. He also faces charges for pilfering and stashing classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago home.
The fact that Trump now owns a criminal conviction was also the reason for the Colorado State Supreme Court’s ruling that his name be stricken from the 2024 state ballot. The case, Trump v Anderson, which was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, was based on the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and his involvement in the insurrection.
The state’s highest court said Trump engaged in the crime by encouraging a mob to ‘walk down to the Capitol…and fight like hell.’ Trump has bizarrely characterized January 6th as “a day of love.”
But more importantly, in endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President, LaVozColorado strongly believes that she is eminently qualified to lead the nation.
The Vice President has a lifetime record of exemplary public service as a prosecutor, district attorney, state attorney general, U.S. Senator and now, for nearly four years, as second in command of the country.
We offer this endorsement because Ms. Harris is the ideal candidate for the nation’s highest office. We encourage a vote for her because there are a number of critical issues plaguing the country that remain unsolved, including immigration, housing, public education and gun violence. We believe that she will address these pressing issues intelligently, pragmatically and democratically.
It should be noted matters that await the next President are neither new nor unique. There are wars, Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza, imminent threats with China and North Korea, and the critical challenge of climate change that must be addressed. But we believe that it is her resolve to address these matters in a cogent,thoughtful and responsible manner.
We also are firm in our belief that by word and deed Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger to a Union that has survived wars, economic spikes, pandemics and more for nearly 250 years. Electing him to the nation’s highest office holds peril, not promise.
Our belief is bolstered by the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling granting a president nearly unfettered immunity for any action taken while in office. With unbridled power, we fear an exploitation of recklessness by a man who is unfit for office.
The ex-president has already promised a draconian crackdown on immigrants and immigration, including rounding up and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of men, women and children; upending the civil service by firing as many as 50,000 workers arbitrarily deemed disloyal; using the U.S. military against Americans for quelling civic and constitutionally protected protest; enacting economy-wrecking tariffs and more.
We believe that Donald Trump envisions a second term in the Oval Office not as an opportunity to lead and create an America that embodies the lofty words of the Declaration of Independence but as both a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ ticket and a vehicle to serve the interests of a single person, Donald Trump.
“We have shared with you the many negative reasons former President Trump must not and cannot lead our nation. He sadly represents hopelessness, inequality, division, revenge and a threat to the nation we know today” said LaVozColorado publisher, Pauline Rivera. She adds, “Kamala Harris’ experience, intellect and hope bring the promise of solutions and fairness to middle America, and a president for all Americans.”
For these reasons and many more, LaVozColorado endorses the election of the first woman, Kamala Harris, as the next President of the United States.