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    • In Ann Arbor, Kamala Harris calls on the younger generation to vote
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    In Ann Arbor, Kamala Harris calls on the younger generation to vote

    Vaseline Posted on

    ANN ARBOR – With eight days to go until the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday night called on a crowd, including large numbers of University of Michigan students and other young voters, to help the nation turn the page of Republican former President Donald Trump said their generation is “rightly impatient for change.”

    Harris cited many of the issues that have defined a younger generation, from growing up with the threat of climate change and active shooter drills in schools to a more recent rollback of abortion protections nationally: “The issues at stake are not theoretical. problems for you. This is your lived experience… I see you and I see your power.”

    With early voting underway statewide in Michigan, Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, vowed to fight for the issues that motivate younger voters, including seeking an end to the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. At one point, when some attendees began to interrupt her, she said, “We all want this war to end as quickly as possible and get the hostages out. As president, I will do everything I can to make that happen.”

    Much of the 25-minute speech, for which she was introduced by her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, revolved around Harris’ plans to lower costs and help small businesses and first-time homebuyers, as well as for her arguments. that Trump, who is running for re-election after losing to President Joe Biden in 2020, would implement tariffs amounting to a national sales tax and implement other parts of an agenda that at least one Washington research group says could hasten a budget cut Social Security Benefits.

    Harris said that while she views Trump as an “unserious person,” she added that “the consequences of his new presidency are brutally serious.”

    “There is so much at stake in this election,” she said. “This is not 2016 or 2020. We can all see that Donald Trump is more unstable and unhinged and now wants unchecked power. This time there will be no one to stop him.”

    A few thousand people filled a large open space in Burns Park, a neighborhood park in Ann Arbor close to downtown and UM, as a warm and sunny fall day turned into a chilly evening as the sun set before Harris took the stage. Harris was joined at the park by Maryland singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers, whose hits include “Alaska” and “Light On.”

    Harris received loud cheers from the large crowd, many of whom waved corn and blue signs that read “Vote” and interrupted Harris with chants of “Kamala.”

    Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Michigan and had only about a week left of campaigning. Monday was the 15th day Harris has spent in Michigan this year, although she made four visits before launching her presidential campaign in August. Trump’s rally in Michigan on Saturday marked his 15th day of campaigning in the state this year.

    It was the first Harris rally in Ann Arbor, long a Democratic stronghold in the key battleground state of Michigan. Polls show a near deadlock between Trump and Harris, both in Michigan and across the US

    In response to Harris’ visit to Michigan on Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said Harris was trying to “gaslight” people about her “dangerously liberal agenda” and noted that most Michigan voters believe Trump ” is better suited to tackle the economy’.

    Trump campaign spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita played the title of one of the songs Rogers sang, “Light On,” in criticizing Harris, saying that if she were elected, “Michiganders cannot afford to keep the Lights On.”

    Many people who lined up to see Harris in Ann Arbor on Monday said they fully support the vice presidential candidacy but are not confident she will win the election.

    Ann Arbor residents Mitchell Silverman, a retired software developer, and his wife, Deborah Panush, a retired teacher, admitted they lacked confidence in the outcome of the Nov. 5 election, but they said they did not feel Harris could have done that. or should have campaigned differently than they did.

    “Terrified,” Silverman said when asked how confident he is that Harris will win, adding that he felt better about the outcome ahead of the 2020 election than he did this year.

    The Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol is a big reason why Silverman said he feels differently this time.

    “I don’t understand how January 6 could happen and 47% of Americans still think it’s a good idea to do it again,” he said.

    Still, “I’m hopeful because history has shown time and time again that there is potential to surprise,” Silverman said. ‘When you’re the right age, you realize you never expected the Berlin Wall to fall, and it did, without a shot being fired.

    “I never expected to see a black president in my lifetime, and I have.”

    Panush, who had never seen Harris speak in person and was happy about it Monday, said, “Being hopeful is better than the alternative,” which she said is despair.

    Neither Silverman nor Panush believed Harris should have done more to show she would be a departure from President Joe Biden.

    As vice president, “her job is to be the loyal second,” so it wouldn’t make sense for her to turn around and appear critical of Biden, Silverman said.

    Social worker Claudia Piper of Ann Arbor said her biggest concern is a Trump victory, followed by his death in office and Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, ascending to the presidency. She fears that if that happens, women could lose not only their reproductive rights, but also their right to vote, and that the US could become what she called a Christian fascist state.

    Piper said that while volunteering on the UM campus in recent days, she has encountered several young white men cheerfully voicing their support for Trump and ridiculing Harris’ candidacy.

    “I’ve never seen that kind of anger before, and I’ve been doing political stuff since I was 12,” Piper said.

    Ann Arbor resident Candace Bramson, a research physician at a pharmaceutical company, said she follows politics closely and has watched the convention speech Harris gave, her debate with Trump, and many other public speeches she has given.

    “I think a lot of it will probably be the same, but I’m still excited to see her in person,” Bramson said.

    She said she is “pretty nervous” about the outcome of the election.

    “I looked at the polls and they’re stuck,” she said. “I just hope there is an election error, otherwise they have not taken the turnout into account.”

    She said everyone in her social circle is very involved in the election and many have already voted.

    Bramson said she doesn’t think Harris should do more to show she would distance herself from Biden.

    “He has done great things,” such as passing historic climate legislation through the Inflation Reduction Act, Bramson said. “I don’t know why people are so critical of Biden.”

    Earlier in the day, Harris made a stop at a company outside Saginaw that produces materials for semiconductors, which last week received up to $325 million in funding through a Biden bill known as the CHIPS and Science Act to boost domestic supply chains. and assist in production. At Hemlock Semiconductor, where Harris met with workers and delivered brief remarks, she referenced Trump’s criticism of the bipartisan bill, saying when Trump was president “he sold advanced chips to China that helped them with their agenda to modernize their military.”

    “That is not … what is in the best interests of America’s security and prosperity,” she said, according to a press report on the event, which was not broadcast.

    Harris also spent about 20 minutes Monday touring a union training center in Warren, where students learn a range of skills such as glass fitting and industrial painting. She briefly addressed a small crowd of supporters at the end of the tour, touting her support for unions and denouncing Trump as an enemy of the labor movement. When a man said she would win the upcoming election, Harris gave him a high five. “Save our country from him,” another man present told Harris, urging others in the room to nod in agreement.

    While Harris touted federal investments in manufacturing jobs, there is more at stake in November than the current White House’s efforts to create good-paying union jobs, she said. “One of us will be elected, and one of us will be in the Oval Office on January 20th and it’s a choice on many levels, including whether you want Donald Trump to sit in the Oval Office and go through his enemies list. or what we’re going to do together… focus on American workers and American families,” Harris said.

    She expressed her confidence that she will defeat Trump. “We are going to win,” she said to applause.

    Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.

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