Chances are we’ve all got a few friends who are stubborn holdouts against Clinton, for one reason or another. By now you’re probably banging your head against a wall, wondering how on earth anyone can look at Trump and honestly believe the e-mail flap is a deal breaker against that. Or maybe it’s not the e-mail, but rather some pet issue or other on which they are absolutely resolute.
Such was the case with one friend of mine. WAS. What has changed that is a lesson in why people like us should never shut up about the other side’s extremism: sooner or later, it does get through to some people. Not all, but enough for us to win.
Out of respect for my friend’s privacy, I won’t go into details here on why she was so staunchly opposed to Clinton. I will say I had — and still have — respect for her reasons, although I disagree with the conclusion she drew as far as whom to vote for. That said, we have had some rather intense debates on the matter and they’ve become fairly heated a couple of times, and they did leave me wondering how it was that she — or anyone — could look at the realistic options out there and conclude that voting third party was a good idea. Especially in North Carolina of all places.
Her response was essentially that she was through with voting the lesser of two evils. My response to that was that Trump would be substantially worse than Clinton on the issue she was most concerned about. While I have no doubt at all that I’m right about that, this is where Trump’s lack of a record is something of, well, a trump card. We can point to any number of crazy, disgusting and stupid things he’s said, but, with the exception of being an unethical weasel in business, we can’t point to things he actually did. Clinton, for better and for worse, has a record to answer to.
For my friend, that amounted to a dealbreaker. Until now.
By now, you’ve surely heard about this little stunt courtesy of Grass Roots North Carolina: a raffle fundraiser whose prize is a photo of Hillary Clinton, an AR-15, and some ammunition. Lest there be any doubt as to the purpose, the website helpfully explains, “We won’t tell you what to do with the photo, but when we ran a picture of Hillary on the front of our newsletter, we heard it was very popular at the range.”
I’m as disgusted by this as anyone, but there’s a silver lining: this morning, my friend posted a link to that page on Facebook, and announced that it was the last straw for her. In other words, the alt-right’s extremism has cost them a vote that was all but in the bag for them in a state Trump absolutely positively can’t afford to lose, and where the needle has been shifting back and forth for months. (My friend wasn't actually going to vote for Trump, but I believe anything except a vote for Clinton is a vote for Trump.) Congratulations, guys.
Remember, this sort of garbage isn’t new. The far right has been this extreme and this hateful for a long, long time. What is new is that those of us who know about it now have an easy and effective way of getting the word out to those who used to just dismiss us as partisan mudslingers. Maybe those links you’re sharing are only going to change one or two minds this election, but remember: there are a lot of us. One or two new votes each will add up very quickly, especially in swing states. And this year has given us a wealth of opportunities to force people to see the light.
So whatever we do, let’s not shut up!