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Today’s news cycle mirrors that of the ’80s, when America was running undisputed as the “biggest police state” in the world, and we’re just two weeks away from the election that will dictate what life in the U.S. will look like for the next four years.
In 2016, minorities made up 34% of all nonvoters. As confused citizens began to dig into the WTF-ness of Donald Trump winning without the popular vote, we learned Russian-led operations on social media were used as a long-range chess game to influence the American elections. University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson told the New Yorkerthat the country “persuaded enough people to either vote a certain way or not vote at all.” Ultimately, the magazine wrote, these strategies amounted to a “technological and political coup.” Voting indifference hurt the elections more than deep-rooted anger from either side. This is why being heard at the ballot box matters possibly more in this moment than any other time in the history of the country.
At the same time, 2020 has been nothing if not disturbing. It feels like every month or so, news—and, increasingly, footage—of yet another death cycles through our timelines, turning another American into a hashtag and symbol of police brutality resulting in peaceful demonstrations. Still, nonviolent protesters are often caught between militarized police forces and masked agitators seeking to provoke police responses, only igniting more chaos.
Sprinkle in the COVID-19 pandemic, and living has become even more stressful.
After the police killing of George Floyd, the children who grew up during the so-called “post-racial America” took to the streets. The killing of Breonna Taylor only added more emotional fuel to the fire raging inside of so many seeking justice, and here we stand at an impasse. American democracy remains divided, and the stakes are high.
With those stakes—and the next four years—in mind, and with November 3 approaching, we’ve compiled everything you need to know about the leading presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and where they stand on America’s most pressing issues.
Racial Equality and Justice
Racial injustice has defined the history of this country, and this year the conversation came to the fore and stayed there. The civil unrest created by Taylor’s and Floyd’s murders has only been heightened by the lack of justice in each case. The police involved in Taylor’s murder were not charged for her death, while the officers who murdered Floyd are currently out of jail on bond. With systemic racism on the rise and affecting the polls, it’s important to take a closer look at where each candidate stands concerning racial diversity, immigration, and LGBTQ+ issues.
Diversity
Biden: The former vice president says he will make sure that his top advisers reflect the country’s current intercultural reality. Biden made history with Kamala Harris—the first Black woman on a presidential ticket—at his side. He says his judicial appointments, cabinet, and running mate will prove his commitment to diversity. In theory, this should help ensure that the progressive agenda of the Democrats will shine in the policies coming from the courts and lawmakers.
His commitment to diversity extends to people with disabilities as well. Biden seeks to ensure they are taken better care of within America’s healthcare system and he wants to aggressively enforce civil rights for all disabled citizens. He has also angered many police unions by demanding an end to excessive force on the part of police and overhauling no-knock warrants—though he’s stopped short of calling for police departments to be defunded.
Trump: The current president gave the Republican Party (the party of Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass) a serious black eye (pun intended) by failing to denounce white supremacy in his first debate against Joe Biden. Trump later condemned white supremacy on Fox News, but the damage was done. He has consistently promoted a militarized police response to nonviolent protests for racial justice, and Republicans seem more focused on the American people’s response to racism than racism itself. However, on June 16, 2020, President Trump did sign an executive order for police reform. It failed to address no-knock warrants, but it banned chokeholds unless an officer's life is in danger. This is a hard point of contention for many Americans, in light of the killing of Breonna Taylor.
Intensifying things further, the president moved to stop diversity training for federal employees. Add in that Trump is trying to fast-track conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett onto the Supreme Court, and some Americans fear that could set back racial, gender, and economic progress several decades. Barrett said she wept over the death of George Floyd but could not say if racism is systemic.
Immigration
The American legend has always been one in which people arrived here with nothing more than a dream and some drive to make it. Images of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty come immediately to mind. Sadly, for many non-whites, that dream has been hijacked. American diversity is one of our best assets and a tremendous talking point in the upcoming election.
Biden: Biden has been deeply upset at the Trump administration’s treatment of families seeking asylum from oppression in Latin America. Many are detained not far from the border, housed in subhuman conditions, and separated from their loved ones. Biden says he will stop the prosecution of parents for minor immigration violations. He has also pledged to work hard to reunite the families that have been split up by President Trump’s policies.
Trump: Under the Trump administration, a wave of “zero tolerance” oppression crashed upon families immigrating from Mexico and South America. Children were separated from parents, with seemingly no intention to reunite them. Horrific images of children in cages and reports detailing unchecked sexual abuse of children and forced hysterectomies of women emerged. Despite signing an executive order to stop the forcible separation, to date, there are virtually zero signs it has ended. Additionally, Trump’s immigration plan aims to end so-called chain migration and eliminate the visa lottery in order to “secure the border and improve American job security.”
LGBTQ+ issues
American views on LGBTQ+ civil rights issues have evolved. Joe Biden has arguably become vastly more progressive, while many members of the LGBTQ+ community have questioned the current president’s commitment to the cause, beyond his own self-interest.
Biden: When Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 (defining marriage as an institution between man and a woman), Joe Biden was one of 85 senators who voted for it. He also wondered if LGBTQ+ service people were potential security threats to the nation. However, by 2012, Biden had changed his perspective. “Who do you love,” he asked sincerely, “and will you be loyal to the person you love? And that’s what people are finding out is what all marriages, at their root, are about.” In 2017, he officiated a same-sex wedding, and he recently celebrated the Supreme Court decision protecting LGBTQ+ workers from job discrimination.
Trump: As he does on other issues, Trump remains slippery when attempting to account his position regarding the LGBTQ+ community. On the one hand, he nominated an openly gay Filipino-American, Patrick Bumatay, to be a judge to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. However, GLAAD noted that the Trump administration filed a 36-page brief with the Indiana Supreme Court to support a school’s alleged right to fire a teacher for being gay. President Trump also barred trans people from serving in the military—an order Biden has pledged to overturn.
Money
In America, you quickly learn that cash rules everything around us. President Trump was born into money, and he made it appear as though he were a master at understanding it. This made Trump a favorite to many people from daytime TV and elite hip-hop circles. Joe Biden was born and raised in the blue-collar town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He did not grow up super rich. To exactly no one’s surprise, he and Trump have very different ideas about how money works and who should have access to it.
Biden: The Democratic nominee seeks to make it easier for wronged Americans to sue over wage discrimination. Biden also wants to host a group study about paying cash reparations to Black Americans to counterbalance the impact of slavery and segregation. The former VP said he will give $300 million in grants to cities that proactively reduce discriminatory zoning regulations (impacting lots of Black and Latinx communities) like redlining and greenlining. This could be a long-awaited relief for minorities who are too often victims of economic abuse under the current system. Additionally, Biden seeks to ensure minority businesses get more access to compete for state and federal contracts.
Trump: Trump has promoted the Platinum Plan for Black Americans. Some of it is apparently influenced in part by none other than N.W.A’s finest, Ice Cube. Cube has been working on a proposal called the Contract With Black America, elements of which are meant to have informed Trump’s plan. It proposes a $500 billion infusion capital for Black Americans meant to actualize 500,000 new Black-owned businesses. Additionally, Black unemployment reached a record low of 5.4% in August 2019, but shot back out to 12.1% later, due to COVID-19. Beyond that, Trump is pushing hard to make sure American businesses get significant tax cuts. Maybe this is why the ultra rich, like 50 Cent are endorsing him? Those not among the moneyed have more to consider.
Health Care Issues
The emergence of COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of health care and the economics surrounding it. The haunting images of freezer trucks packed with bodies leaving hospitals in New York City scarred many. President Trump knew more than what he shared at the beginning of the pandemic—he told journalist Bob Woodward how dangerous COVID-19 was before conveying the opposite to America. Moving forward, Americans are looking for a leader who has a thorough approach to get America healthier quickly and with more transparency.
Biden: America has become the eye of the storm for COVID-19. Biden’s solution is to supercharge the Affordable Care Act (ACA). His plan would cost $750 billion over 10 years. The bulk of the money would be raised by heavily taxing people who make more than $400,000 a year. Biden doesn’t support the idea of a single-payer system to create a Medicare-like public option serving as an alternative to private insurance. As hard as things are in the health care space, this is a crucial linchpin for all Americans.
Vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was crystal clear about the health care approach of the Republican Party: “If you have a pre-existing condition, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, they’re coming for you,” she said in her debate with Vice President Mike Pence. “If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition, they are coming for you.” That matters a lot in the middle of a pandemic that shows no signs of abating.
Trump: The president has aggressively sought to dismantle “Obamacare” since he got into office. At the same time, he has proposed nothing concrete to help those already covered by the plan. This could leave many Americans to die without care, or drowning in debt after getting care they cannot actually afford. In Kansas, one judge is sending those with outstanding medical debts to debtors’ prison. The president’s vision is to create a plan with an “expansion of health savings accounts to further help Americans pay for health expenditures by allowing them to save more of their own money free from federal taxation.” With the COVID-19 death toll over 210,000 and counting, shoring up health care for America somehow isn’t a priority for the current administration.
Cannabis
Just a few years ago, most of us would have gotten serious time for having weed on us or growing it. Few saw medical marijuana as more than a hoax. Today, though, it is a lucrative business that has turned many “criminals” into entrepreneurs almost overnight. So many Black and Latino victims of the prison industrial complex were trapped by the laws that gave far too much time for a low-level “crime.” In light of the rapid changes, more states are getting on board—and the president and Joe Biden are a little closer on this than one might think.
Both candidates: As far as alternative medicines go, Trump and Biden are not big fans of weed use despite the documented health benefits. Between the two, however, Trump seems to be much more aggressive about shutting down the use of weed. The president was sued after he moved to have medical marijuana users barred from having access to guns. Biden seems to have evolved over time (similar to his evolution on LGBTQ+ issues), seeking to decriminalize use of weed and give states power to expunge past convictions.
Education
The right to a quality education is one of the most important aspects of what drives American potential forward. The president appointed Betsy DeVos as the Secretary of Education in 2017. Her arrival, to some, seemed to be solely with the purpose of gutting public schools and empowering charter schools. Even if you don’t have children or aren’t in school yourself, you need to pay close attention to the charged politics surrounding America’s classrooms.
Biden: In 2018, teachers made 21.4% less than other professionals with the same education and experience. Biden wants to increase teachers’ income because he believes they are a crucial part of the American experience. He also wants to create a pipeline for more Black teachers by “supporting dual-enrollment classes that give students an edge in teacher preparation programs ... and working with HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions to recruit and prepare teachers.” The former VP wants to reinvest in having more mental health professionals on campus to help students cope with the stresses they face. He also says he wants to “ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code, parents’ income, race, or disability.” To that end, he pledges to close the estimated $23 billion “funding gap between white and non-white districts, and rich and poor districts” and “build the best, most innovative schools in the country in low-income communities and communities of color.”
Trump: The president appears to give conflicting perspectives in regards to education. His Platinum Plan for Black Americans says in four years he will deliver access to “better education and job training opportunities.” At the same time, the Trump Administration is proactively pressuring universities to drop diversity programs on campus. He also created the 1776 education plan to celebrate what he called “American heroes,” in direct opposition to an education outline created by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nikole Hannah-Jones called the 1619 Project. Hannah-Jones’ framework intends to give a more balanced and holistic view of the founding of this country. Trump also worked hard to block the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which assures that children brought here by their parents are eligible for federal student loan aid for college and a path to citizenship.
The Environment
In the late ’80s, climate change was largely considered a joke. Most politicians who spoke up about preserving the oceans and clean energy were written off as goofball hippies. Today, we can see that the joke was on those who did not heed the alarm of the past. Biden and Trump, naturally, have wildly different views on this issue.
Biden: With the goal to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2035, Biden is looking to spend $2 trillion in his first four years to develop technologies and practices that help the environment. He hopes to slow down fossil fuel dependence. Biden wants to study renewable nuclear energy (though some people are a little scared of that). He is also driven to help the largely forgotten people of Flint, Michigan, get clean water, and plans to take on companies relying on fossil fuels.
Trump: Climate change? What climate change?! After breaking away from the historic Paris Climate Accord, Trump has made his environmental concerns (or lack thereof) clear. The president has eliminated Obama-era rules on lower carbon electricity and cars while expanding big corporations’ ability to drill for oil and mine. On the other hand, Trump signed an executive order to plant 1 trillion trees as a conservation effort.
Adisa the Bishop is an old-school hip-hop journalist and author from the West Coast. He is the host of the Bishop Chronicles Podcast (@bishopchronicles) on YouTube and is known in the hood as the Black Ron Burgundy.
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