Here are 6 reasons why I would never vote for Trump — and there are many more

Andres Oppenheimer

There are more than a dozen reasons why I would never vote for Donald Trump, but let me share with you six big ones that led me to conclude that he is the worst candidate in the Nov. 5 election.

First, Trump is an authoritarian populist who openly scorns America’s basic values of democracy, the rule of law and racial tolerance. He is an English-speaking version of the Third World demagogues that I hoped to leave behind when I moved to this country four decades ago. Trump is essentially un-American, which may explain why he so eagerly wraps himself around the U.S. flag.

He is the first U.S. president in recent memory who encouraged a coup d’Etat after he lost the 2020 elections, and more than 60 courts ruled that his lawyers’ claims of fraud were unfounded. On Jan. 6, 2021, he sat for several hours at his office watching Fox News instead of stopping his followers from attacking the Capitol in an effort to overturn the election.

About 140 police officers were injured, and several people died during and after the attack. But, to this day, Trump not only continues to falsely claim that he won that 2020 election, but calls the Capitol attackers “patriots” and “hostages” of the Biden administration. He said earlier this year that he may pardon all of the Jan. 6 attackers.

More than half a dozen former top members of Trump’s cabinet and closest advisers, including his longest serving chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, are publicly warning that Trump has no respect for the rule of law.

“He’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators,” Kelly said. Kelly added that the former president told him that “Hitler did some good things,” and that he wished U.S. generals were more like those who served the Nazi leader.

Even Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence has condemned the former president’s contempt for the Constitution. Mind you, these are not “socialists,” or “communists,” as Trump likes to brand his critics, but hardline conservatives.

Trump’s lies

Second, while most politicians lie, Trump is the king of falsehoods. Like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio once famously said before he threw away his democratic principles and embraced the former president, Trump “is a con man.”

Trump’s entire 2024 campaign pitch is based on two big lies: that undocumented immigrants have “invaded” this country and are mostly criminals, and that America’s economy is in shambles.

On immigration, Trump is conveniently omitting the fact that unauthorized crossings fell by 70% this year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency figures. And several studies have shown that undocumented migrants on average commit fewer violent crimes than U.S.-born Americans.

On the economy, Trump’s claim that the United States “is a failing economy” is ridiculous. The International Monetary Fund reported on Oct. 22 that the U.S. economy is the best-performing of all rich nations, and is set to drive global growth in 2024 and 2025. The respected British magazine The Economist reported on Oct. 19 that the U.S. economy is “the envy of the world.” As I’m writing these lines, the conservative daily The Wall Street Journal is carrying a front page headline reading: “The next president inherits a remarkable economy.”

An immigrant’s point of view

Third, as an immigrant from Argentina myself, I could never vote for a man who has said among other things that immigrants “are poisoning the blood of this country,” and that most Mexican undocumented migrants are “criminals” and “rapists”. Or, for that matter, I can’t support a candidate who is supported by Neo-Nazi groups, or whose fans applauded a comedian who said last Sunday at a Trump rally that Puerto Rico is “a floating island of garbage.”

That’s not just plain wrong, but dangerous: it encourages racial hatred and hate crimes against immigrants who, in most cases, came to America to make a better living, and do jobs that most Americans don’t want to do.

Economy

Fourth, on the economy, Trump’s presidency was very bad, and his current economic plans are even worse. During his term in office, the U.S. economy grew less than under Biden, and the national deficit reached a record high. Trump left office with three million fewer jobs than there were when he started his term, while the Biden administration added 16 million jobs to the U.S. economy, according to official figures.

Granted, Trump’s bad economic numbers were partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but so was the rising inflation during Biden’s first two years in office. The U.S. stock market is at a record high, and inflation is now virtually back to its pre-pandemic levels.

Convicted criminal

Fifth, Trump is at the center of four criminal cases related to his business deals and political actions, and has been unanimously convicted by a jury partly selected by his own lawyers in one of them. And yet, the former president attacks his prosecutors saying he would fire them “within two seconds” if elected — and derides the U.S. justice system almost daily. Is that a role model we want to set for our children?

Sixth, Trump is 78 years old and is not immune to cognitive decline. He is already mixing names and making incoherent statements, and would end his term as the oldest president in U.S. history. Just as I wrote about Biden before he stepped aside as the Democratic nominee, there are reasons to think he no longer has the mental agility to perform what may be the world’s most demanding job.

It may be no coincidence that Trump has not accepted a second presidential debate with his Democratic rival and Vice President Kamala Harris, and why he has declined an interview with “60 Minutes” and other news outlets that may ask him hard questions.

Many of my Republican friends concede many of these points, but say they will vote for Trump anyway because he supports the one cause they care most about, be it Cuba, or Venezuela or Israel.

I don’t buy that line of reasoning, because Trump has no moral compass. As his former chief of staff Kelly and other former aides have said, his admiration for dictators such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un prove that he could easily change course on Cuba, Venezuela, Israel or any other issue if it suits his interests.

In short, Trump may win the election, but I don’t see any reason — including his stands on abortion, climate change and automatic weapons — to wish for that outcome. On the contrary, I see plenty of reasons to hope that he’ll lose, and that the Republican party can go back to its tradition of defending democracy, the rule of law and individual freedoms.