Before first Harris-Trump debate, party platforms offer insights into policy differences

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — As former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris prepared for their first debate of the 2024 presidential cycle, their party platforms shed light on some key areas of difference between the candidates’ policy agendas.

Although the debate will be the first between the pair, it is not the first debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle. President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid in July after a disastrous debate performance the previous month that polls showed solidified voters’ concerns about his ability to serve a second term and his age. Harris shifted from the vice presidential candidate to the top of the ticket with Biden’s endorsement the same day he announced his decision and formally securing her party’s nomination in a matter of weeks.

Questions remain about where Harris’ policy positions would differ from the Biden administration if she would become the 47th president. At its August convention, the Democratic Party rolled out a new platform, with some significant changes from previous iterations. The party’s pivot to Harris occurred on a short timeline, evident in its 2024 platform, which references “a second Biden term.”

Likewise, the Republican Party also unveiled a platform at its July convention, the first such document directly overseen by Trump.

Hosffman Ospino, a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College who researches the dialogue between faith and culture as well as Hispanic Catholics, told OSV News that “taken side by side, both platforms offer starkly different pictures of a nation that ironically has served as home for both Democrats, Republicans and others for many generations.”

“Anyone who takes the time to read them may conclude that there is no common good in our nation,” Ospino said. “I refuse to believe that such is the case.”

Ospino said each party “seems to be envisioning a very different country.”

“Immigration, labor conditions, racial equality, climate concerns, religious freedom, access to basic social services, safety and the guarantee that the judicial system is always fair, among others, are life-or-death realities for most people living in the United States,” he said. “Neither platform is completely satisfactory, yet Christian citizens have an obligation to consider each platform from the perspective of the impact that it can have in the lives of most rather than on the individual benefits that they can generate to the few. It is the least we can do as people who proclaim that the most important commandment is love.”

Ospino offered critiques of both platforms, arguing the Republican platform “demonizes and threatens the well-being of immigrants and their families, scapegoating a population that is making major contributions to the building of this nation,” while the Democratic platform falls “mightily short” from its pledge of social justice “by choosing silence on the death penalty, making of abortion a political flag rather than speaking about creating conditions for every human life to be respected at every stage.”

Stephen Schneck, a Catholic activist and retired Catholic University of America professor, argued in comments to OSV News that “the Democratic Party has long been the party of those struggling to achieve the American dream, those living paycheck to paycheck, those who are still working for the rights and equality promised by the Constitution. It’s no surprise that the 2024 platform reflects that tradition.”

“Both American political parties fall short of the ideal for political life envisioned in the church’s magisterium,” Schneck said, arguing it is difficult to “measure a political platform against that.”

“Still, I do appreciate the Democratic platform’s greater emphasis on lifting up the most vulnerable in our society and its emphasis on what we Catholics would call ‘care for creation,'” he argued.

The Democratic platform states the party’s position on expanding access to abortion and comes as Harris has made increasing access to abortion a key part of her presidential campaign.

The document states the party will oppose “extreme and dangerous abortion bans” and that it is “committed to restoring the reproductive rights Trump ripped away.”

“With a Democratic Congress, we will pass national legislation to make Roe the law of the land again,” it said.

But in July, members of the Republican National Committee, at the direction of Trump, removed a long-standing call for federal restrictions on abortion after 20 weeks over the objections of pro-life activists who previously asked delegates not to strip the call from the platform. That ban would have attempted to protect nationally about 1% of unborn children who are victims of abortion annually. Pro-life activists were critical of that change, but Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, argued in a July statement that “the Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level.”

“It is important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment,” she said. “Under this amendment, it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions.”

Schneck said that “as a pro-life Democrat I oppose abortion, but am heartened by the platform’s promotion of expansive policies for maternal care and strengthened support for early childhood health and education.”

Among other changes to the Democratic agenda was the elimination of a call to end the federal death penalty. The 2020 version of the party’s platform stated, “Democrats continue to support abolishing the death penalty,” but the 2024 version makes no mention of the practice.

Asked about the removal of the call to end the death penalty from the Democratic Party’s platform, Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that opposes capital punishment, told OSV News, “What we know about the federal death penalty is this: it’s fallible, expensive and racially biased. Just like state-level capital punishment, federal executions do not make communities safer and they do not deter future instances of crime.”

“As Catholics, we are called to oppose the death penalty in all instances and at every level,” she said, citing recent writing by Pope Francis, in which the pontiff said, “Capital executions, far from bringing justice, fuel a sense of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison for the body of our civil societies. … Indeed, the Jubilee should commit all believers to collectively call for the abolition of the death penalty.”

Vaillancourt Murphy added, “The federal death penalty has no place in our society. We continue to work with steadfastness for its abolition.”

On immigration, the Democratic platform calls for expanding legal immigration and deterring illegal border crossings.

“A robust immigration system with accessible lawful pathways and penalties for illegal immigration alleviates pressure at the border and upholds our values,” it stated.

The platform also endorsed the U.S. Citizenship Act, which it said if passed “would permanently increase family-sponsored and employment-based immigration.”

The RNC platform calls for mass deportations, stating, “We must deport the millions of illegal Migrants who Joe Biden has deliberately encouraged to invade our Country,” and lists “SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION” as among promises for a second Trump term.

However, the platform’s call for mass deportations runs contrary to the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes” condemning “deportation” among other actions, such as abortion, that “poison human society,” a teaching St. John Paul II affirmed in two encyclicals on moral truth and life issues respectively: “Veritatis Splendor” (1993) and “Evangelium Vitae” (1995).

The Democratic platform pledged that “Democrats will protect the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion for everyone, and we will maintain the separation of church and state.”

It argued that in contrast, “the Trump Administration attacked religious freedom by demonizing some faiths and preferring others.”

“We will advocate for religious freedom across the world,” it said. “And, we will continue to honor both religious freedom and other civil rights, not put them at war with one another.”

The Republican platform stated, “We are the defenders of the First Amendment Right to Religious Liberty. It protects the Right not only to Worship according to the dictates of Conscience, but also to act in accordance with those Beliefs, not just in places of Worship, but in everyday life.”

The document also said, “Our ranks include men and women from every Faith and Tradition, and we respect the Right of every American to follow his or her deeply held Beliefs,” but said Republicans support “a new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.”

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