Election anxiety? Try some mindful Democracy – vote

Rolls of I Voted stickers that were designed by students as part of a contest are ready to be given out to voters at an early voting center in Albuquerque, N.M., on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

First off, breathe.

And then, if you haven’t, please vote.

There’s still time if you’re reading this by Nov. 5.

And before you vote, turn off the media and the internet for a period.

Not because much of it can’t be trusted, but because you already know all you need to know.

Is Trump really a fascist who’d compromise democracy, round up the undocumented and put some of us in camps?  Yes.

Is Kamala Harris capable of leading the country in a new positive direction, to improve the economy for regular middle-class people? Yes.

If at this point, you’re still undecided, it’s clear another sound bite from a Trump or Harris rally isn’t necessary.

Over the weekend, Trump expressed regrets that he left the White House without a fight, even though there was no proof the 2020 election was rigged against him or stolen.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump wraps up a campaign rally at J.S. Dorton Arena, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump even said he wouldn’t mind shooters going after the media: “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don’t mind that so much,” Trump said as a rally crowd in North Carolina laughed.

Laughed.

All this comes after Trump statements against the conservative GOP leader Liz Cheney, who has formed a coalition with Harris.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels together,” Trump said of Cheney in an interview with Tucker Carlson. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know when the guns are trained on her face.”

Then he called her a stupid person. Just as he called Harris.

Take Trump’s threats of violence seriously. He keeps talking about “the enemy from within.” It’s not just undocumented immigrants, or people like me, who could be mistaken for one. Trump’s enemies list is real. It includes anyone who dares speak out against him.

Fight back now with the biggest weapon you have.

Your vote.

But if you’re still on the fence, and according to Pew Research, there are still about 13 percent of the electorate who can change their mind or are leaning but not committed to one candidate or another just yet.

Is that you?

Then turn to the late monk Thich Nhat Hanh, the venerable Buddhist peace and social justice activist nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by no less than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A monk’s message

Thich Nhat Hanh  taught me how to breathe and keep breathing. For love. For gratitude. For peace. The Nobel Peace Prize wasn’t awarded in 1967, so it really was something just to be nominated by Dr. King.

In his recommendation letter for Thich Nhat Hanh – then an activist against the Vietnam War – Dr. King said: “I do not personally know of anyone more worthy than this gentle monk from Vietnam…His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”

Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh (AP Photo/File)

And what were his ideas? To be in the present moment where life is. Deeply. To let go of the past. To not fret about the future. To just be in the now to experience a true calming sense of self. And perhaps just to be, and not think. A simple notion, but one that could enable you later – in a new moment – to think about your situation and make the best possible decisions in life for you, and for others.

Thich Nhat Hanh called it being and living free, when you are “free from anger, fear, hate, the past, the future, and then you can make the best kind of decision.”

That’s how you know you’re ready to cast your vote in this historic election.

Think about not just your place in society, but others too.

Can you vote for a lying Trump who is vengeful and self-aggrandizing, and who would deport your brother, sister, or mother?

Who is the candidate who is looking for a real solution to our immigration problems, and who on the important economic issues is speaking for all the people – the fortunate and the less fortunate?

When Kamala Harris gave her closing argument on the DC Ellipse last week, she drew 75,000 people, more than Donald Trump did in 2021, when he urged his followers to commit an act of insurrection.

Harris mentioned Jan. 6, but she didn’t have to.

That’s when Donald Trump showed Americans how little he cares about the country and our democracy when he stood back and watched the violence he instigated on TV.

Six people, including one police officer died because of that day. 174 police were among the injured. Trump dishonored the presidency and doesn’t deserve your vote. A Trump ad running on TV says, “Donald Trump will keep us safe.” Don’t count on it.

At the Ellipse, Harris once again talked about how Trump has an “enemies list” and how she, in service to all voters, has a “to-do list.”

Voters should make your own list comparing Harris and Trump. Check it twice.

Here’s mine:

She’s Asian American like me, born in the Bay Area, from middle class Oakland. He’s privileged and white from Silver Spoon, New York.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Memorial Hall at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

She’s a former top cop and prosecutor. He’s the convicted felon, 34 counts.

She’s been a DA, AG, U.S. Senator, and Vice President, more than qualified to lead our country. He was the unqualified winner of the presidency in 2016, and has been deemed by historians as the worst, most ill-informed and stupidest president in U.S. history.

She has received the endorsement of the president she hopes to replace. Trump has the majority of his top aides, including his former vice president voting against him.

She wants to work with Republicans toward building a real consensus.  Trump doesn’t know that word and wants to use the military to round up those who disagree with him, “the enemy within.”

But maybe the most shocking comparison?

Kamala Harris is is not a fascist nor a would-be dictator. Trump say’s he’d be a dictator on Day One. And now his former chief of staff General John Kelly says Trump fits the definition of a fascist,  one who has praised Adolf Hitler, and said the Nazi leader “did some good things.”

Who is better to be the next president of the United States? You know the answer already.

And still we’re tied?

Surprisingly, the race remains in a virtual tie in most all the latest opinion polls. A tie implies that Harris and Trump are so alike there’s no discernable difference between the two.

We know that isn’t true.

The one big difference is a poll from the Des Moines Register on Saturday.

Recently, I talked to one of my in-laws who is a Trump voter. I asked him about all the negative hateful things coming out of Trump, from fascist to Hitler to all the garbage talk, the past ten days.

His response: “Has it moved the needle?”

Iowa poll

On Saturday, that Iowa poll moved the needle.  Instead of a 1 point plus or minus, Harris is up 3 points among likely voters in Iowa. It was the first sign that the gender gap was having a real impact. Critics were quick to point out it could be due to an oversampling of Democrats or women, especially senior women.

But it was the first poll to maybe pick up on a hidden group left out of polling models in the same way 2016 polls were off and underestimated Trump support.

This time the gap looks more real than anyone thought. Driven by Trump’s anti-reproductive rights stand, the signs indicate an historic male/female voter gap that could sway the election.

In Iowa, women aged 65 and older were for Harris by 2-1.

Harris won independent women by a 28 point margin.

That’s Iowa, another poll showed the gap nationwide.

Among all voters Harris is up 11 points among women; Trump is up 5 points among men, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll.

Harris getting more women by 6 points may be enough to give her the race.

And the gap is more pronounced among independent women who were 18 percent more for Harris. Trump is only 4 points up with men.

Among young voters, Harris gets 40 percent more women. Trump is only up 5 percent with men.

The gap could sink Trump who has bet his election on luring young male, “low propensity voters,” trying to get them to get off the X-box and move toward the ballot box.

That may have been a bad strategy if women turn out en masse.

They don’t seem to take to Trump’s coarseness in his “bro campaign” approach. Trump could have apologized for all the hate he’s spewed recently. But he hasn’t.  That Madison Square Garden event, that launched a nasty joke about Puerto Rico as “floating garbage,” Trump called “a love fest, an absolute love fest.”

He said the same thing about the Jan. 6 insurrection.

He did say, he would protect all women.  But then added a repulsive phrase: “whether they like it or not.”

Sounds like the guy found liable for sexual assault in the E. Jean Carroll case.

Trump adds to his delusions by calling Harris the candidate of hate.

The man is not well.

Certainly, we’ve all seen enough to break the tie.

At the Ellipse last Tuesday night, Harris talked about “pleading to seek common ground and common-sense solutions to make your life better.”

She tied it in to her vision of “those united  in our pursuit of freedom, and our belief in fairness and decency, and our faith in a better future America.”

When does Trump talk like that? Or like this.

“America, for too long, we have been consumed with too much division, chaos, and mutual distrust, ” Harris said in her appeal to undecided voters. “It doesn’t have to be this way…We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms.”

If you haven’t already voted, or aren’t registered, you can still vote and register on election day in California, and in many other states. (Check your secretary of state’s web page for details).

Move the needle. Take a deep breath. And vote.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He writes a column for the Inquirer.net’s US Channel. See his micro-talk show on www.patreon.com/emilamok.  On election eve, he performs an excerpt from his Emil Amok Monologues, “Transdad,”  Nov. 4 and 18th at the Marsh, 1062 Valencia St.,  San Francisco. Tickets here: https://themarsh.org/monday-night-marsh-stream/