Do you remember when you and I could have reasonable disagreements about a wide range of issues, such as parenting, business, cats v. dogs, feminism, the stock market, the banks, the GOP, and even civil unrest?

However, there were always issues that formed the third rail of our relationship (like the one that caused my parents to disown me…but we made up once we stopped talking about it). You and I were never going to come to any agreement or compromise. And now Donald Trump has inserted himself into our discussions like a rail splitter, widening the gap between us, exploiting our vulnerabilities, and ensuring that we cannot find common-sense solutions to the issues that divide us.

Donald Trump and I both lived in New York City during the 1980’s, the era when the city was rebounding from being told to “drop dead” by the sitting President of the United States. Trump, the son of a prominent real estate developer, began his rise to fame. He and his first wife, Ivana, were the splashiest and most ambitious of splashy and ambitious couples. They were insufferable and impossible to ignore in a New York kind of way.

Coincidentally, shortly after I left New York for the wilds of Pennsylvania, Donald and Ivana divorced and Donald filed for the first of several business bankruptcies. By then, I did not really care the Trumps because I had come to the same conclusion as most people in New York: that Donald Trump really only possessed the talents of the carnival barker, the con man, and the scam artist. We all knew that this very loud and brash emperor had no clothes.

However, Trump’s darks talents are unparalleled. He claimed the title of “billionaire” and remade himself as a reality television star. In 2016, he was able to convince almost 63 million voters not only that he wore clothes, but that he wore the best and most beautiful clothes. And here we are, voting on whether our experiment with a naked emperor living in the White House will come to peaceful conclusion or the continuance of the Reign of Emperor Trump.

As we approach November 3, 2020, allow me to perform an appraisal of this emperor’s clothes. In Part 1 of this series, we paraphrase fashion arbiter Tim Gunn and ask, do Trump’s clothes “make it?”

Part 1: Trump’s Tie: When Women are Labeled as Murderers

Since 1980 the number of abortions in the United States has decreased dramatically even while our population has grown by more than 100 million. Life in the United States is definitely winning. Hooray!

The biggest impact on reducing the number of abortions is reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. The keys: access to good information, access to health care, and access to contraception. Far less influential: legal restrictions and clinic closures. Programs that promote the keys have been working!

I understand that pro-life folks hate abortion, but I hate that civilians can walk unmolested into the Michigan capitol carrying long rifles. I don’t expect that guns will be banned in our country. Do you really expect abortions to disappear?

Do you know what both pro-life and pro-choice people love? Having children they planned and want.

So, what do we do about it? Maybe we could stop with the name-calling and work together to reduce the number of abortions by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. However, the Trump Administration is cutting funding for programs designed to prevent these pregnancies.

Instead, Donald Trump’s approach is to reducing abortions is to overturn Roe v. Wade and outlaw abortion by naming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, foster abstinence programs that sound good but do not work, cut women’s access to health care, and punish women who have abortions.

• What Would Tim Gunn Say about Donald Trump’s tie? He’s not making it work.

Trump’s approach is to wish that abortions would just disappear, like the coronavirus. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, Joe Biden clearly has a better understanding of how to reduce abortions.

Please vote for Joe Biden. Thanks for your consideration.

Next: Trump’s Jacket: Where the Democrats are Not Coming for Your Guns

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The author served as Director of Communications for the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities under Republican and Democratic administrations from 2008-2018. His opinions do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of the department or those of current Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf.