Gamers 4 Harris consists of gaming professionals from video games, board games, and tabletop games. They represent the creators behind the puzzles, board games, card games, roleplaying games, and video games we love, as well as game journalists and reviewers. They are artists who bring imagination to life and the people who help run the businesses that produce these games. They are storytellers, organizers, journalists, and reviewers. They also endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States.
You can find their site here and look at their efforts on behalf of the Harris/Walz campaign.
It’s rare to see people from various gaming industries come together to endorse a candidate. We here at Gnomestew try to keep our content focused on gaming, but in this election, the stakes are unlike any other. One of the things we’ve learned from gaming is to make sure the stakes are understood before anyone commits to an action. So let’s do that.
When the 45th president was in office, he stacked the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court with judges who blatantly ruled in favor of political ideology over the law. They dealt a massive blow to the bodily autonomy of women across the United States by striking down Roe v. Wade. Not only did this open the way for multiple states to enact “trigger laws,” which were passed in advance so they could go into effect if Roe v. Wade were ever stuck down, but it has emboldened many of those states to enact laws that let them harass women and criminalize their ability to leave their states. Far beyond allowing states to make abortion illegal, many of these laws have made every pregnant woman a potential criminal if she dares to cross state borders.
Upon hearing about the Roe v. Wade ruling, Trump said, “I killed Roe.” He was referencing the fact that it was his additions to the Supreme Court that allowed Roe to be overturned. If Trump returns to office, he will appoint even more judges to the federal court. Three justices are in their 70s, and it’s conceivable that Trump would be able to add even more justices.
The reversal of Roe v. Wade has caused members of other marginalized communities to question whether or not their own rights will be taken away with the stroke of a pen. Justice Clarence Thomas has indicated that he is willing to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that granted LGBTQIA+ people the same rights of marriage that straight people have enjoyed. If you’ve never woken up wondering if a handful of people in DC have decided that you’re no longer married to your spouse or no longer eligible to be a parent to your adoptive child, then we are glad for you, but we also ask you to have empathy for the people that will wake up wondering that every day if Trump is in office.
Do we know what we would face if our 45th President became the 47th? The Republican party let Trump guide their platform at this year’s convention. Trump outlined 20 tenets, including:
- Three that demonize immigrants
- Two exuberantly promote deportation
- Two on reversing the minimal gains we’ve made in environmental policy
- Two on suppressing trans people and making it illegal to acknowledge their existence
- One threatens to deport people for protesting, without mentioning their citizen status
Trump has said he would be a “tyrant on day one,” that the solution to crime is to give the police 24 hours of unaccountable violence, and that the military should be used to handle “radical left-lunatics.” Some claim this is hyperbole, but remember the following: Trump openly encouraged a riot to keep the 2020 election from being ratified, once said he was so popular he could kill someone in Times Square and still get elected, and had his lawyer argue to the Supreme Court that he could order the assassination of a political rival, and should be immune to prosecution.
Our former president has already stated his intentions of crying foul about the election and has begun building a narrative of election fraud. Those judges appointed by Trump could rule on some of the cases he’ll undoubtedly try to bring to court. That almost feels like the rules are stacked against us, which is why it’s crucial for Harris not just to win but win by a decisive margin, making it hard to deny the election results.
Gaming means so much to us. Role-playing games allow us to express our creativity, socialize with friends, and are a fantastic tool for promoting empathy. We play for hours and hours, putting ourselves in someone else’s place and picturing what it would be like to be someone other than ourselves. That empathy is more valuable than ever. The world needs us to feel connected to one another and support those who need it most.
We have found so many friends through roleplaying games. We know people staying in this country, wondering if their next comment will get their papers revoked and see them deported. We have friends who would not have been able to be married years ago, some of the most loving people we have known. Their families are threatened. We have friends who already struggle to live their lives the way they should be able to, and they’re scared that they’ll need to spend the rest of their lives afraid to talk about who they are.
We agree with Gamers 4 Harris, and we hope they can reach out to the audiences that appreciate what they do, helping them realize how important this election is. This action has consequences; it doesn’t look like we’ll get to attempt it again if we fail.
What can you do to help? The simple answer is to vote on November 5th. Unfortunately, the actual act of voting has become more difficult. Voter rolls have been purged and tampered with over the course of the last year – in Texas alone, 1.1 million voters were removed from the registry. That’s why it’s vital you confirm your registration status before November. Even if you’ve been removed, there’s still time in most states to register before the elections.
Thank you for speaking out at this critical time!