In October 1963, the liberal president John F. Kennedy argued that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Probably without knowing it, 61 years later, Donald J. Trump, one of the most conservative presidents, is making the same argument. But while Kennedy was justifying the building of the Greers Ferry Dam in Arkansas, Trump believes that putting nation in the hands of the super-rich will have the same effect.

Trump is proposing, among other things, further reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from its current 21 percent which he set during his presidency when it was 35 percent. “I am promising low taxes, low regulations, low energy costs, low interest rates, secure borders, low, low crime and surging incomes for citizens of every religion, color and creed,” Trump said in an address to the Economic Club of New York earlier this month. The specifics have not been made clear.

Trump said he will appoint a commission to oversee federal spending to recommend ways to save “trillions” of dollars for “the same service we have right now.” That idea came from Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, who is worth $219 billion and is the riches person on the planet. That should indicate what its priorities will be.

Musk, incidentally, said he finds “interesting” a theory posted online that women cannot think freely and leftist are controlled by a “low T” – low levels of testosterone – as Arwa Mahdawi pointed out in the Guardian. Trump’s running mate JD Vance said three years ago that top Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” This all fit nicely into the Trump’s views of women and signal what their place will be if he wins in November.

Trump claims that his economic package will help Americans in need, such as parents burdened with the cost of childcare: “We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people.” That is, lift all boats. But the “boats” are leaking for many Americans and some have no boats at all.

Harris promises an “opportunity economy” which will not be drafted by yet another commission and will be devoid of the often bizarre ideas of the super-rich. Rather than giving them another tax cut, she wants them to pay more, with the corporate tax rate increased to 28 percent. She also supports President Joe Biden’s 2025 budget proposal calling for a 25 percent minimum tax on all income of the richest 0.01 percent of Americans.

Harris will also tap into the COVID19 era American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act to provide economic relief to those most in need. Her initiatives will be directed at childcare support and further reduction in the cost of prescription drugs.

She will also tackle the housing shortage, focusing especially on firsttime home buyers to boost their number by a million per year. She will also provide incentives for building starter homes for them and anticipates three million units will be built by the end of her first term. She will also eliminate tax incentives for landlords who buy up properties and mark up rents in bulk..

Harris also plans to boost small business development, including dedicating one-third of federal contract funds to such enterprises, to encourage 25 million new small business applications by the end of her first term, which would break the 19 million record set by the Biden administration, with a focus on rural communities.

Similar sharply contrasting positions exist on two other issues of importance to voters. One is immigration, with Trump promising to deport all estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

Most recently, he has said that his deportation policy will be “bloody.”

Harris has not engaged Trump on that plan and the disruption which it will cause for millions of families and the economy. That tactic has given Trump an opening to attack her as Biden’s vice president for the crisis on the southern border. She has noted, however, that Trump influenced his allies in the House of Representatives to block a bipartisan bill that would have closed the border if crossings reached a set threshold and pay for thousands of additional border security agents and asylum officers. “This issue cannot be reduced to a political issue,” Harris has said. “We’re talking about children, we’re talking about families, we are talking about suffering.”

The other key campaign issue is abortion. Trump engineered an end to Roe v. Wade when he appointed three conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court chosen specifically because of their anti-abortion stand. He initially boasted of that achievement but has been exhibiting political remorse, which is not surprising. A Gallup survey in May found that 35 percent of Americans support abortions "under any circumstances," 50 percent say “only under certain circumstances,” and only 12 say it should be “illegal in all circumstances.”

Harris has a long record of promoting the right to an abortion, which she sees as a matter of freedom to choose. She places it in the context of democracy which she maintains, as Biden did, is under severe threat from Trump.

During a campaign rally, Harris noted Trump’s claim that she is unqualified to be president. Her response: “If Donald Trump wants to say something to me, he should say it to my face.” That was expected to happen during Tuesday night’s debate.

“Before I was elected as vice-president,” Harris has said, “I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.” Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts for business fraud and also for sexual abuse and he faces dozens of charges in three cases still to be tried. The campaign remains a choice between the prosecutor and the felon.

But that has never seemed to bother Trump or his supporters and he brushes off his legal troubles as “political witch hunts” spearheaded by a “weaponized Justice Department.” His support remains strong as he maintains an almost steady lead or close to Harris in national polls and some election watchers continue to give him a good chance to win re-election.

So, besides highlighting the stark contrasts in the two candidates’ economic platforms and Trump’s role in ending abortion as a constitutional right, Harris has continued the assertion of Biden, who withdrew from the race and endorsed her, that Trump poses a threat to American democracy. Evidence: the 920-page Project 2025 “mandate for change” which will inform an at least illiberal – if not autocratic — regime in a possible second Trump presidential term.

Whether the debate will make a difference remains to be seen. It certainly was vastly different from the June face-off between Trump and Biden in which the president mumbled and was mostly incoherently and the consensus was that he lost.

This time, though, it was not an 82year-old man facing off against an opponent four years younger. With Biden out of the race, Trump became the oldest person to run for president with a record of being unable to keep his thoughts straight. His opponent during the debate and in the campaign is a vivacious 59year-old woman certain of herself, electrifying her supporters with her rhetoric and telling them that “we will not go back,” captivating them with her infectious laugh and ready to seize the moment to make history.