Harris 4 Harris

It's not just the name, either

William Shakespeare wrote so many things that, all these centuries later, still make great sense. And perhaps one of the most well known of these comes in what could be his most well-known play, Romeo and Juliet. And please notice that I didn’t say his best play, because there’s no way that I’m wading into that discussion here.

When Romeo, who is part of the House of Montague, falls in love with Juliet, who is part of his rivals’ House of Capulet, he wonders “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose would, by any other name, smell as sweet.” And so it is in the year 2024, where my presidential candidate of choice just so happens to have the same last name as I do.

I’m not going to deny that this life-long Harris wants to hear the words “President Harris” over and over again in the forseeable future. It does have a certain ring to it, after all. But in the end, it has nothing to do with why she’s the only candidate worthy of being chosen as our country’s next president tomorrow.

I don’t want to see this nation divided, any more than it already has been. And yet for one of the two candidates running (and everyone reading this knows exactly who that is) division is exactly the point. To that candidate I am “the enemy within,” simply because of my opposition to all of the scapegoating and the name-calling, the othering and the gaslightling, and the lies and self-aggrandizement that have poured forth as if from an open firehose. The only way to turn it off is to reject that candidate, and his all-too-eager heir apparent, at the polls and then let them do their worst when it’s over.

This isn’t the sort of thing I normally write, at least on this Substack, but there’s no reason for keeping quiet at this moment of national decision-making, either. America must continue on as we’ve always known it, and that can only happen if the all-but-certain winner of the popular vote is the winner of the Electoral College, as well.

I’m currently reading an excellent book by Erik Larson, detailing the period surrounding the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the beginning of the Civil War in April of 1861. I’ve been a Lincoln all my life, as well as a Harris, and so some of the story I was already familiar with. But so much of that time period was fraught with the same sort of difficulties we are facing today. At bottom was a presidential election which ended up in a way that some people weren’t willing to accept.

Lincoln’s election was rejected by the slaveholding states of the Deep South, who refused to even wait until he took the oath of office before they resigned from the Union. Lincoln, for his part, refused to accept secession as being legitimate, and he all but dared the South to start something, which they did by firing on Fort Sumter in the harbor near Charleston, South Carolina.

Walking inside Sumter’s walls last month was quite a humbling experience for me. Watching as the American flag waves inside the fort is an experience every American should have for themselves, but only a small fraction ever will. It made me realize that this nation’s course has never been smooth or effortless, and while the outcome might feel pre-ordained when it’s only learned through history books, that isn’t ever how it’s going to be. Our nation becomes what we decide it will be, at the ballot box and—if circumstances should require it—in other places, as well.

I strongly hope that the Harris/Walz ticket will emerge victorious tomorrow, though it might take some time to count all of the votes and confirm this result. I also expect there will be a wave of litigation to challenge this result if it should come to pass, since the 2000 result of Bush v. Gore handed the presidency to a candidate who had lost the popular vote. And who knows what other January 6-type mayhem will be in store after those court challenges fail?

But as Lincoln said in his address to Congress in 1861, “when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.” May it not come to that, but the first step in the process is the ballots, and that happens tomorrow. Choose wisely, everyone!