Caroline Giuliani, Daughter Of Rudy, Endorses Biden To ‘End This Nightmare’
Reprinted with permission from DailyKos
Children of prominent Republicans are breaking generational bigotry and encouraging individuals to end Trump's "reign of terror." First, the daughter of former White House aide Kellyanne Conway, Claudia Conway, made headlines for exposing her mother's COVID-19 diagnosis and depicting her hate for Trump. Now Trump's personal lawyer's daughter is also making headlines for expressing her lack of support in addition to endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
In an editorial published in Vanity Fair, Caroline Giuliani, the daughter of racist former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, penned why she will be voting for Biden this year and encouraged others to do so. She expressed that as a child she saw the "cruel, selfish politics that Donald Trump has now inflicted on our country," adding that "the only way to end this nightmare is to vote." "There is hope on the horizon, but we'll only grasp it if we elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris," she wrote.
The young filmmaker shared the injustices Trump has "already permeated" in American society and noted that another term of his presidency and "inhumane policies" would further harm women, immigrants, people with disabilities, people of color and the LGBTQ community. "It's taken persistence and nerve to find my voice in politics, and I'm using it now to ask you to stand with me in the fight to end Donald Trump's reign of terror," she wrote. She shared that she has consistently debated with her father on political and social issues to no avail and struggled to declare her last name however can no longer "afford to be silent."
She wrote: "It felt important to speak my mind, and I'm glad we at least managed to communicate at all. But the chasm was painful nonetheless, and has gotten exponentially more so in Trump's era of chest-thumping partisan tribalism. I imagine many Americans can relate to the helpless feeling this confrontation cycle created in me, but we are not helpless. I may not be able to change my father's mind, but together, we can vote this toxic administration out of office."
Adding that Biden is not her first choice, Giuliani expressed the importance of removing Trump from office and having a president that would advocate for inclusivity. "In Joe Biden, we'll have a leader who prioritizes common ground and civility over alienation, bullying, and scorched-earth tactics," she wrote.
At the beginning of the piece, the younger Giuliani also noted and accepted that most people would read her piece noting her father's last name. "I accept that most people will start reading this piece because you saw the headline with my father's name," she wrote. "But now that you're here, I'd like to tell you how urgent I think this moment is."
Giuliani's personal essay follows multiple reports on her father, including an incident in which he mocked Asians in "accidentally" uploaded footage. Additionally, The Washington Postreported on Thursday that the White House was warned that Rudy Giuliani "was being used to feed Russian misinformation" to the president. "If being the daughter of a polarizing mayor who became the president's personal bulldog has taught me anything, it is that corruption starts with 'yes-men' and women, the cronies who create an echo chamber of lies and subservience to maintain their proximity to power," she wrote.
But this isn't the first time she publicly supported different candidates than her father. According to CNN, Guiliani voted for Barack Obama in 2008 while her father sought the GOP nomination, and she also openly supported Hilary Clinton against Trump in the last presidential election. "In 2016, I realized I needed to speak out in a more substantial way than just debating my dad in private (especially since I wasn't getting anywhere with that), so I publicly supported Hillary Clinton and began canvassing for congressional candidates," she wrote in Vanity Fair.
Her words give hope that generational bigotry and violence in politics can come to an end. "It is more important than ever to avoid complacency. This election is far from over, and if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that anything can happen."