Dear Trump Voters of My Acquaintance
I know you, and I love you. I love that we grew up together, at a wonderful time in a wonderful place, that we are in many cases, kin, that you complete my life in so many ways. I know that you are deeply concerned about what might happen if Hillary Clinton gets elected President of the United States. A woman President? More of the shifty Clinton cabal? The people who destroyed working class America with NAFTA? Who got rich on government salaries? Won’t Slick Willie be pimping the Lincoln Bedroom? It’s enough to make your blood boil, I know.
I know that electing another Clinton makes as much sense to you as putting a saddle on a milk cow. It defies your common sense. I get it. So I'm not trying to sway you. Vote for the guy with the TV show because he says what you are feeling. Do it to register your discontent with the way you think things are going. Your concern is real, and I respect it. My love for you will not be diminished by your discontent, or by the outcome of this election.
First we elect a black man President? And now maybe a woman? I know, what is the world coming to? Everything feels out of your control, as if your very lifestyle is under siege. With Terrorists lurking at ever turn. Muslims plotting behind mosque walls. Cops getting a bad rap. Immigrants flooding the borders. The Chinese challenging our economy. ISIL threatening and recruiting and beheading. And Big Government making it impossible for things to be the way they used to be, when the little guy had a fighting chance to make something of himself. You want a guy repping you who promises to make it all right, and right away, like a product you’d buy on an infomercial that promises border control, global dominance, and winning! Who promises he’ll get things back to the way they used to be. I promise you this--because I love you and would not lie to you--it is only the illusion of control you are voting for. Please believe me when I tell you Donald Trump is chaos, ego and insecurity masquerading as an angry know-it-all, and that he respects you only to the degree that a con man respects a mark.
I know you are speaking your truth when say you are aware of all this, and you’re voting for him anyway, that’s how pissed off you are about the way things are going, and how much you want to throw sand into the gears of the current system.
Here’s an analogy you may find useful: Hillary Clinton claims she’s a Chicago Cubs fan. We know she grew up in Park Ridge, which is solid Cubs territory. Harry Caray loved her, we have The Kiss to prove it. Being a politician, though, she cannot resist saying she is a Yankees fan, too, probably because she calculated it would win her votes when she was running for Senator in New York. It offends me personally that she claims to be Cubs fan and a Yankees fan, too, because as any true Cubs fan will tell you, there’s really only room for the Cubs in any true Cub fan’s heart. So is Hillary lying about being a fan of both teams? Or is she being political and pragmatic? I don’t think the answer to either question matters as much as the fact she is good for the game. I feel the same way about her candidacy, and her work in government. She has always been good for the game.
You may believe she let four people die in Benghazi, but that's because you want certainty, accountability and closure, we all do, but we have to recognize that sometimes the game is bigger than any of us. Sometimes confusion and ‘not knowing then what we know now’ are the only relevant truths. Sometimes the game itself is in control, and the best anyone can do is respond to it. 3,000 Americans died on our soil on Bush’s watch after he’d been handed a memo predicting it would happen, and you re-elected him, so it’s probably best to pipe down about the Benghazi.
Have you studied Hillary’s performance on C-Span during her time as a Senator or Secretary of State? I have. The woman would fly all night to be at a Senate hearing, sit through an hour or more of droning, super-boring testimony, fighting off sleep, and then be razor sharp when her time came to ask questions or testify. And they were the best, most pointed questions anyone asked. It was incredible, and I'm betting you missed it.
Do you know the cameraman who was setting up to videotape an interview with Hillary when she got the phone call from Bill, during his 1992 campaign, that the Gennifer Flowers story was about to break? I do. He knelt outside the door of her suite pretending to pack camera equipment and listened in, and heard what he heard because a lighting cable would not let the door to the suite close all the way. And I can tell you, according to what my friend says, she handled it way better than you or I would have.
You may believe she is a criminal, but I believe this is your fear and your lack of ease with uncertainty playing tricks on you, filling in gaps about which you or I have no knowledge. Hillary Clinton has lived one of the most public lives of any woman in history, and all the evidence points to hard work, loyalty, resilience, decisiveness, and a heart of care for those who cannot help themselves.
You may have no idea how antiquated and gerrymandered the federal government’s computer systems were when Obama took over, and how even logging in a laptop to give a PowerPoint presentation could take half an hour or more, and a visit from IT. You understand, don’t you, that government, in general was eight years behind at that time due to lack of infrastructure investment during the Bush years. They were too busy spending every spare dollar we had on wars they’d been planning for years, never mind that the enemy had no hand in 9.11. And as an encore they crashed the global economy. And your candidate wants to make it about email? Nice trick. Why are you falling for it?
You may not know that government bids were ‘black boxed’ during the Bush years, meaning no one knew how or why they were awarded, except for the inside players who did the black boxing, ensuring that the process was opaque. And how this was the special expertise that long-term black ops goons like Cheney and Rumsfeld used to hold power. And that Obama, Hillary, and many other public-service-minded folks like them have had to spend most of the past eight years untangling the mess left by the previous tenants, creating transparency where there was none, and upgrading a system that lagged behind the tempo at which the rest of the world was moving. And that losing emails, trashing them on purpose, and using non-government servers and Blackberries as work-arounds for malfunctioning firewalls was a standard M.O. for Clinton and her predecessors?
Who is in a better position to fix a thing than the person who broke it? Isn’t this just the kind of common sense you pride yourself in? If you believe Hill and Bill broke the working class with NAFTA, doesn’t it make sense that she will be in the best position to fix it as President? I believe your votes will serve the purpose of holding her accountable for doing so. And also for improving on the Obamacare model as a necessary first step toward universal health care.
Conversely, if you believe the banking system is rigged in favor of the rich, why would you ever believe a rich guy like Trump would fix it? He didn’t break it, he only took advantage of it, like an arsonist collecting on fire insurance. You know who knows the people who broke it and can hold them accountable? That’s right. Hillary. Your votes will send a clear message that she needs to hold the bankers accountable, and keep legislators like Elizabeth Warren hot on their twitchy tails.
Maybe you don’t see that this is a woman who has been running for President of the U.S. for her entire life, that’s how long her real campaign has been. She may not be the best campaigner over the short term, as with tan 18 month run-up to a Presidential election, but over the long term, who has ever had a stronger game than Hillary Clinton? Who has ever been better prepared for the role? She had to first get her husband elected President just so she could be in position to run one day. Then she had to have the patience to bide her time until a once-in-a-lifetime rival held the stage for eight years. All so that she could make a run that is even more profound that a black man breaking the white man’s streak. It is more profound because it completes us, in a way that a more superficial matter of skin pigmentation cannot. It completes us because we are all, every single one of us, no matter what our gender assignment, a combination of male and female energy. In electing a woman, we are finally making ourselves whole by honoring both the energies that brought us all into this world. In honoring Hillary, we honor all women. And why would we not want to do that? I don’t see women starting wars, killing people en masse, or crashing the world’s economy. It’s all the work of men. And a few women who sell out to it, and lose their own femininity in the process.
I believe you are better people than your man Trump, and that we’ll see proofs of it after the election.
You’ll discover that having your man’s nameon something is no guarantee of quality, but merely another expression of his ego.
You may see that Ayn Rand authored a philosophy that does more harm than good in the world.
That hating on people is no way to feel better about yourself.
That saying no and shutting down the conversation is not nearly as helpful as saying yes, and adding something to the conversation.
That you are in the minority and that can be cool, as long as you don’t get mad about it, and celebrate your uniqueness instead of lamenting it.
That so few people in the world who look, act or believe differently than you are out to harm you that it’s absolutely no use worrying about it. That, on the contrary, most people are friends and allies waiting to happen, if you’re open to it happening. Which you currently are not.
That you will find ways to channel your discontent into productive avenues for political change.
And that, even though it may take awhile, we will walk again in the light of understanding, and move together in the direction of love.
