Vice-President Kamala Harris has the vision, the intellect, and the heart to lead a conversation about how to preserve American democracy.

As a country, we are still struggling to make this “a more perfect union”. We are an incredibly unique and beautifully diverse nation, blessed in so many ways. However, our history of cultural cleavage and racial unrest still plagues us. At times, the ideological divide seems to be an unbridgeable chasm. There are those who would use political power to exploit our differences and undermine the very democratic institutions that have held us together as a nation.

So America is at the crossroads. What we choose to do between now and election day will determine our destiny. Will we work hard to keep our democracy, or will we be seduced to accept authoritarian rule? Let there be no doubt about it, the choice is upon us, and we will have to live with the consequences of our collective decision for years to come.

As providence would have it, the American people are now being offered two very different candidates for president: one who is the embodiment of democratic norms, individual liberty, and a respect for the rule of law, the other, a candidate who has not sought to hide his vision for America: a welcoming of authoritarian rule. He and his cohorts will work through a master plan (Project 2025) for gutting the federal bureaucracy with its system of meritocracy, replacing it with one that favours cronyism and dictatorial decision-making.

As an example of how Trumpism would fundamentally change the American political system (with its checks and balances), one need only observe how Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has already transformed the Supreme Court into a vehicle of his power-grabbing. In its recent ruling on presidential immunity, six of the justices, disregarding precedent, placed the president above the law. These political appointees — parading as jurists sitting on the highest court of the land — broke with 250 years of jurisprudence to give the president powers reserved for a king. So why did we fight the American Revolutionary War?

Trump is working in concert with many others who are prepared to destabilise our sacred democracy in favour of a system that is anathema to what has made America the envy of the world: a system that celebrates the consent of the governed and the rule of law.

Yes, we are at a critical moment in American history not witnessed since the civil war. The forces of retrenchment are highly organised, well-funded, and prepared to do whatever is necessary to impose their minority will on the will of the majority. Trump has publicly stated that he doesn’t need the votes. Is that so? Then tell us, Trump, how do you intend to come back to power?

Thankfully, Vice-President Harris has prepared herself for this moment in our nation’s history. Like Joan of Arc, she has donned her suit of armour and is prepared to confront the enemies of America’s democracy. While she has announced her policy positions on a number of issues such as favouring a woman’s right to control her own body; protecting the health care of millions of Americans; calling major businesses for a summit to discuss price gouging; continuing her decades-long fight for equality for all Americans; continuing to address global warming; and protecting her fellow Americans from the insane proliferation of senseless gun violence, she knows that this election is about more than a civil debate about policy differences. She knows that this election is about protecting our most cherished freedoms as Americans.

Americans are being given the choice to continue their march towards a more perfect union or to accept a new model of governance whereby some are considered above the law and the masses are subjugated to an injudicious system where revenge, retribution, and cronyism are tolerated with impunity.

I think it is interesting that when the American family has become so dysfunctional, a house divided again, that Almighty God would send us a leader who has shown herself to be a proven guardian of what we hold as sacred: democracy buttressed by the rule of law.

Vice-President Harris has been groomed for this moment of greatness. She has walked through the burning sands of a determined Opposition for years. She knows the road ahead will be filled with land mines and treachery. She knows hers is the herculean struggle to protect the soul of the country she loves. But she is ready to accept the challenges that lie before her and, yes, she is endowed with true grit.

I believe that those who have observed Vice-President Harris as an attorney prosecuting serious criminals, grilling unscrupulous public officials, or consoling the families of children murdered by gun violence would agree with this characterisation: Her life is so gentle and the elements so mixed in her that nature might stand and say to all the world: This is a woman!

If Americans are willing to follow, Harris is ready to lead. And if we do, one day, history will record that America survived another existential threat to the republic because the people were able to join in one grand chorus of “hail to the chief”. And that chief was President Kamala Harris.

Michael A Grant is president emeritus of the National Bankers Association, former assistant professor of political science at Morgan State University, and a contributor to the Trice Edney News Wire.