“If my disdain for Kamala is a Category 1 hurricane, my disdain for Trump is off the scale.”

Hannah Vincent is a sophomore and biomedical engineering major at UWM. Vincent is not thrilled with her options in the 2024 presidential election, but still will be voting.

Jack Laude: How do you feel about the upcoming election?

Hannah Vincent: Bad. I have to vote for Kamala.

Jack Laude: What gives you pushback about Kamala?

Hannah Vincent: I don’t like her because she’s a Democrat, and I don’t like Democrats in general. I want to see an actual leftist politician in power, and we have not had that in so long. She sucks, just like basically every Democrat does. Literally nothing about her is left. She’s pro-fracking, she’s always talking about securing the border. Also, she’s terrible because she’s a Zionist and just continuing Joe Biden’s genocide of Palestine because it’s profitable. If we just want to say Kamala says that she cares about the environment; war is terrible for the environment. In general, war is terrible for the environment. All of the smoke, all of the stuff from the bombs, all of the waste that goes into materials that get shipped over to Israel to drop on people, and then it just gets left there after they’ve decided that they’re finished. She’s not even good at that one aspect of what should be a slam dunk for leftist politics. She can’t even do that. I hate her.

Jack Laude: What are some issues or things that are important to you policy wise?

Hannah Vincent: I believe we absolutely need to raise the quality of life for all our people in America, because we absolutely could. We could end homelessness in this country. We have enough money for it. We could fix all the roads and everything if we taxed rich people as much as we taxed the middle class. But, you know, nobody cares about that because it’s going to be hard to implement.

Jack Laude: You talked about your feelings on Kamala, what are your feelings on Donald Trump?

Hannah Vincent: Even worse, I’m disappointed in Kamala because she pretends to be a leftist, and in general, the Democratic party needs to do better on being democratic. Obviously, Trump is exponentially worse. If my disdain for Kamala is a category one hurricane, my disdain for Trump is off the scale. So, I think that if Trump gets elected, we’re all absolutely screwed. We won’t have any access to abortion, we won’t have any LGBTQ rights. Also, he’s probably not going to be making many of his own decisions, which was the gripe about Biden too. Now that Biden dropped out of the race, I’m glad that people are starting to see that Trump is like only a nanosecond younger than he is.

Jack Laude: You talked about what features you don’t like about these candidates, what features, characteristics or policy would you like to see in a candidate?

Hannah Vincent: Someone who’s actually a leftist and believes in universal healthcare and actually taxing companies and believes in workers rights. I would like to see unions being fortified, and not just the police union. I would like to see more training for the police, but in the way of teaching them to be helpful and not stand around in cars all day. I would like to see someone who works on fixing problems that the people of America face in their day to day, and not just maximizing profits for companies and corporations.

Jack Laude: Are you optimistic about where this country is headed?

Hannah Vincent: At the current rate? No, extremely not. I am very disappointed in a lot of our current politics, and I think that something needs to change extremely soon. Otherwise, we will literally run out of resources in the world. We will literally run out of money if you’re not already a big corporation or affiliated. I think that the world is going to actually just become an oven… the world is just going to become unlivable because of climate change. It’s already terrible with how many hurricanes we’re seeing. I think that if nationalism and extremism in this country are allowed to continue on the route they are currently going down, we’re just doomed.

Jack Laude: Did you have anything else to add one the election?

Hannah Vincent: If you don’t like either candidate, I get it, I don’t either. I will be voting for harm reduction, which means Kamala. Obviously, I criticize her and the Democratic party a lot. Even though I slam Kamala really hard, it’s because like a disappointed mother, I want her to do better and better.