I’d rooted for Mark Kelly’s selection as Kamala Harris’ running mate partly on the grounds that an astronaut would complement Harris’ space enthusiasm and expedite infrastructure-building on the moon. Still, I wasn’t surprised or displeased by her choice of Tim Walz, as the Minnesota governor’s blue-collar Mr. Fix-It persona likely will be an asset, and he’s shown a penchant for discombobulating the right. Whether the Harris-Walz ticket will broadly emphasize more-progressive policy positions than I’d like, or mainly dispense with such positions as Harris has lately taken, remains to be seen. Realistically, though, there’s no scenario where I’d refrain from voting in this cycle, let alone switch sides.
This election poses a stark choice, by my lights. One presidential candidate relentlessly seeks to degrade institutions into subservience to his untrammeled personal interests; and chose a running mate who’s stated he’d have abetted overturning an election, including by disregarding the Supreme Court. The other candidate, if losing the election, promises and can be expected to fulfill the ceremonial duty of counting electoral votes in the U.S. Senate affirming that loss. When there’s a president whose goal is not just particular policies, but undermining elections and other checks on power, even people who approve the policies, or like watching the other side suffer, will see erosion of their own freedoms too.
Walz’ characterization of the Republican ticket as “weird” was surprisingly effective. I’ve written about weirdness in a positive context, but I can see how characterizing the Republican ticket, and perhaps J.D. Vance more than Donald Trump, as reflecting right-wing enthusiasms that a broad swath of the public would find abnormal, was an astute move. Walz’ tendency to fix things, such as car parts, reminds me of an anecdote about Sally Ride, with whom I worked long ago at Space.com, founded by the late Lou Dobbs. Ride was once driving through the desert with a friend, and the car broke down. The friend fell asleep, feeling there was nothing to do but wait for help, but woke up to the car moving. Ride had fixed whatever the problem was with whatever was at hand, including a cardboard toilet-paper tube.
Incidentally, Walz’ surname, pronounced “walls” in America, is itself suggestive of a facility with mechanical issues; the German phrase auf der Walz sein, “on the roll,” refers to a tradition where young craftsmen have several Wanderjahre (travel years) to gain knowledge of their field post-apprenticeship. The waltz has a similar etymological background, from the verb walzen, to turn, roll, glide.
In any case, it’s American democracy that needs to be fixed. In recent months, the Brennan Center, a law and policy think tank, hosted table-top simulations in which various people played roles in scenarios that could arise during a second Trump presidency. The simulations underscored the difficulty of restraining an administration that has authoritarian inclinations. Various putative checks and balances, from Congress, the judiciary, state governments or non-governmental entities, have weaknesses that a determined autocrat could overcome. A particular concern is that an executive branch ignoring court orders—precisely what Vance has advocated—doesn’t have any clear countermeasure in our system.
Winning elections against candidates who can’t be trusted with power is crucial, but ultimately institutional reforms will be needed to limit the dangers. Among needed measures, in some cases requiring constitutional amendments, are: limiting the pardon power (so that presidential pardons deemed corrupt can be overturned by judicial or congressional action; and expressly prohibiting presidents from pardoning themselves); removing the sweeping presidential immunity for criminal actions in official capacity that was recently conferred by the Supreme Court; and setting up severe legal penalties for any president who ignores a court order, with federal enforcement agents tasked to switch from executive-branch control to judicial control under specified extreme circumstances.
Such measures shouldn’t appeal only to those alarmed by a possible second Trump presidency. If you distrust Harris-Walz, or the Democrats more broadly, such reforms should still appeal to you as a brake on the power of a Democratic administration. For the record, I think Trump-Vance is going to lose, but our institutions need to be reformed regardless of which side might abuse power or when.
—Follow Kenneth Silber on X: @kennethsilber