One of the great moral, ethical and philosophical conundrums we face is the concept of ‘the Other.’ The Other is someone in your environment, either intellectually or physically, whose thoughts, opinions, religion, skin color, mode of dress and other characteristics differ from your own and other members of your community. The Other represents the unknown, someone outside your immediate frame of reference, who challenges your existence and behavioral norms on many levels.

Traditionally, the outsider is regarded with suspicion. Even in an egalitarian society such as the United States, every new influx of people from outside our borders can raise suspicions and alarm. Even if their appearances are similar, there can be resistance, as when Irish immigrants began coming to America in the 1840s to escape the potato famine that was devastating their home country, and when German Jews began coming here during World War II to escape the Nazi pogrom against their people. Generally, with time and repeated exposure, we stop seeing the Other as alien and threatening, and the process of acceptance and friendship can begin.

The key to acceptance is not just the ability to see another person and see how their life-struggles are similar to our own, but to enjoy and celebrate their differences as examples of life’s great diversity. Once you realize another person has similar problems and concerns, you begin to see more similarities than differences and realize we are more alike than unalike, while at the same time embracing the mysteries of different world views–vive la différence.

The need to empathize and make community with others is more important than ever before. The recent incidents of harassment and violence against Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, makes that crystal clear. And it is to the credit of the citizens of Springfield that, with few exceptions, they have welcomed these newcomers into their hearts and homes and are defending them against the cruel and disgusting lies of Donald Trump and JD Vance.

Trump and Vance play upon humanity’s darkest instincts when they refuse to recant their lies about Haitians eating their neighbors’ pets. They know that “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes,” as Mark Twain observed. In fact, they count on it, as Trump has since the beginning of his first campaign in 2015. And even though the speed of communications technology has vastly improved since Twain’s day, there are still too many credulous souls willing to believe this absurd story, even after numerous corrections and recanting.

To Donald Trump, immigrants, the homeless and liberals can be lumped into one category of otherness: vermin. And vermin are not to be coddled, helped, or understood: they are to be removed, exterminated. That is why he has made numerous declarations that, if elected, millions of immigrants–legal and illegal–will be kicked out of the US, the unhoused will be sequestered in camps far from cities, and liberals–or anyone who dares to criticize his actions-will be subject to harassment, imprisonment or worse. In no significant way does this differ from Adolf Hitler’s proposals to deal with immigrants, Jews and people found to be mentally unsound.

JD Vance used to understand this. In fact, he called Trump “America’s Hitler” in 2016, which only makes his MAGA conversion that much more baffling. His experience with the Other is as personal as it gets: he married a woman from a culture–India–vastly different from our own. That example alone should have kept him from making the unforced mistake of giving credence to the Haitian story, which was based on one fabricated Facebook anecdote. The price of Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus Christ was 30 pieces of silver. One has to wonder what Vance’s price was.

Trump has never really had to deal with the Other. His wealth and his father’s wealth kept him largely insulated from such experiences. When he began his campaign in 2015, some of his first statements were against immigrants, making no distinction between their legality or lack thereof. “They’re not sending us their best…They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.” He was also prone to astonishing gaffes like pointing to someone in a crowd and saying, “Look at my African-American!” Over time, his rhetoric has clearly been cherry-picked from “Mein Kampf” and Hitler’s speeches, referring to immigrants as “animals” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

If you are reading this and haven’t decided who to vote for President, I submit that there is only one sane, rational choice, and that is Kamala Harris. She is the only candidate who will represent ALL Americans, not just Trump and Vance’s chosen few. And she is the only candidate who won’t take this country back more than a century, back to race hatred, eugenics and discrimination against women and minorities. I’ve been voting in elections since 1984, and never has the choice seemed so chillingly clear and monumental. It is a choice between democracy and sanity, or fascism and insanity.