John,
The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund is proud to endorse Kamala Harris for president of the United States.
Harris has the potential to be a transformational leader and true environmental champion during the most critical time in our history, when time is desperately short to end the extinction crisis and avert climate catastrophe. Her record as California attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president, her environmental platform in the 2020 presidential primary, and our conversations with her team make clear that Harris understands the gravity of the environmental problems we face and will rise to the challenge with bold action.
A second Trump term would be an unmitigated catastrophe — much worse than the first. He’s promised to “drill, drill, drill” for oil everywhere on our precious public lands and destroy international agreements to thwart global warming. Following the Project 2025 manifesto, he’ll strip life-or-death protections from gray wolves, grizzly bears, salmon and countless other endangered species. He’ll roll back regulations banning wealthy trophy hunters from massacring elephants, lions, leopards and other wildlife around the world and importing their heads and skins back to the United States. He’ll unleash corporations to pollute our air and water with pesticides and chemical waste.
Trump will escalate the war on women’s right to choose when and if to have children. Access to contraception will be cut. Victims of rape, no matter how young, will be forced to bear the children of their rapists. Women will die from lack of access to medical care.
American rights, freedoms and expectations of fair, nonpartisan courts were torn apart more rapidly and fully than anyone imagined by Trump’s first-term judicial and Supreme Court appointments. A second term will install dozens more partisan federal judges, end the budding movement to reform the Supreme Court, and increase the Court’s power by weaponizing it and aligning it with the Department of Justice. It may also result in even more Trump-appointed justices.
To be sure, Harris is not perfect. No presidential candidate has ever been or will be. We will undoubtedly have policy disagreements with her administration, just as we’ve had with every Democratic president. But we fatally misconstrue the purpose of elections when we treat them as ideological purity tests of the candidates…or of ourselves.
When we vote, we vote for the wildlife that will live or die depending on the outcome of this election. We vote for the women and girls whose fundamental rights are at stake. We vote for poor communities and communities of color that will suffer more pollution, loss of healthcare, loss of education equality, and even loss of voting rights if the wrong candidate wins. We don’t vote to preserve the imagined perfection of our personal consciences.
Our work in the coming months will be to promote Kamala Harris, whom we wholeheartedly endorse for president of the United States, and to educate those who may be inclined to sit out the election.
Sincerely,
