Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Every argument used to justify not voting for Hillary Clinton today, could have been used to justify not voting for Al Gore in 2000. The Republican, George W. Bush, became the 43rd President of the United States. Supreme Court malfeasance aside, do you imagine America was actually better off after eight years of Bush vs. how it might have been after four or eight years of Gore?
Donald Trump appears to be a competent pitchman and crook. Trump has a keen interest in ruling, but no interest in governing. He will be George W. Bush on steroids. He is a Republican and will surround himself with Republicans who have been working to destroy the New Deal and obstruct social progress for eighty years. Trump will be happy to let them accomplish that as long as they don't ask for too much involvement from him. He will have his interests, he will build a golden bully pulpit and a parts of a platinum plated wall, but most of that policy stuff can be left to lobbyists, staff and to Congress.
When Republicans control the majority of states, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, even if is only for two years, what could possibly go wrong? They will not destroy America, but they will try to do to America what they have already done to Kansas.
Republicans, in absolute control, will do everything they can to prove that government that serves people doesn't work. They will deregulate, privatize and staff every agency they don't cut with under-miners, incompetents and corporate grafters. Education, environmental protection, health care, welfare, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, voting rights, labor rights, freedom of the press, religious freedom, Internet freedom, science research, public health, public housing, child services, food security, sexual freedom, clean energy, veterans services, corporate regulation, banking regulation, and on and on will all be on the block. Taxes will be cut even more to under-fund the government and balloon the debt. The more debt, the less can be spent on "entitlements" that help real people.
America will go deeper into debt to spend more on war, policing, prisons, drug interdiction, immigration control, and building a giant stupid wall that will never be completed. All of this will still be being paid for when our great, great, grandchildren enter the workforce. George W. Bush pushed a phony war, bankrupted the Treasury and left us with a six plus trillion dollar hole in our economy and millions of dead and ruined lives around the world. Real people will be paying for that waste in blood and treasure for generations. Imagine what the Bankrupter-in-Chief will accomplish with his fellow Republicans.
Look at one great loss that was handed down by the Supreme Court, the gutting of the voting rights act. Give Trump two or three Supreme Court picks and imagine how many other rights they can undermine? How much closer can we return to the economic and power inequality of the Gilded Age? Sure, American voters might wake up in four or eight years, but the damage that will be done will be real. It will be devastating. It will take generations to undo and it could be even worse.
Republicans politicians are masters of lies and projection. They whine that the left wing media is against them, while the corporate media actually gives them a platform to project their lies. They scream that government is being used to undermine religion, take away their guns and harm their marriages, all without evidence. They construct videos about Planned Parenthood selling fetuses. They pretend that ACORN is stealing elections with phantom voters. They whip up media storms with false claims about the IRS being used to hurt fake right wing charities. Republicans WILL use government to hurt Democrats and progressives and feel justified, because they are just doing what they have been accusing Democrats of. It will be payback time.
Remember the real harm done to our Democracy and the harm to rights of Americans during the McCarthy era, the Nixon era and post 9/11 Bush era. If Trump's administration is guided by his compulsion to demonize, belittle and bully his opponents, and guided by his compulsion to seek vengeance and hurt his enemies and you give Trump control of the IRS, the Department of Justice, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, just imagine what could possibly go wrong. How many lives will be ended or destroyed in the Trump era? How many generations will be paying the price?
The Democratic establishment have become a disappointment. They are not defending the Constitution and the American Dream with the passion and vigor I believe is required. Some of them have sold out to corporate interests to cling to power, rather than promoting policies like those of Bernie Sanders and earning power through the respect of citizens. They also have to deal with perhaps the most obstructionist Republican Congress in history. But compare the trends in the state of our union between Bush and Obama. Compare the death toll and the real harm to real people. Sure, Obama's record could be much better, but it could have been George Bush worse or Donald Trump worse.
If progressives really want to make change, then we need to keep working after the Presidential election to change our local governments and representatives. We can't build a progressive movement from the President down. We can only build it from the citizen up. It is not enough to show up every four years and complain about our choices. We have to put ourselves into a position where we have the power to demand better candidates and better outcomes.
That is why I am voting for the Democrat Hillary Clinton over the Republican Donald Trump on November 8, 2016 and why I will continue to push for progressive change on November 9.
Clinton keeps the Supreme Court sane. Divided government is better than Republican hegemony. America has not been perfect under Obama, but it has moved in the right direction. Hillary Clinton won't have much of a honeymoon from progressives. Unlike Obama, Clinton will be held to account from the left from day one.
I am voting for the Democrats over the Republicans because you can measure the improvements in lives of real people under Democratic presidents vs. Republican presidents. Also, I don’t want to explain to my great, great, grandchildren why they are still paying for a stupid wall that was never completed.
Not convinced? Listen to Bernie Sanders from MSNBC:
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) adapted from Creative Commons licensed images from Gage Skidmore's Flickr photostream.
