I live in Harlem in New York City where Clinton is going to stomp Trump and I’m very likely going to vote for Jill Stein. She is a terrible candidate and won’t win. I know. But if she can get 5% then Green gets a line on the ballot here for five years which potentially allows for more progressive candidates to run against the Democratic machine here or get Democrats to make their positions more progressive to earn the line — similar to what Working Family Party has done to great effect. I want more progressives in the political dialogue.
I don’t hate Clinton. She’s not evil and I even find her likable. She’s not corrupt in any nefarious way but she is friendly with the establishment of a corrupted system. Additionally hate dynastic politics and she is too cozy with big money and not nearly as fervent on issues of climate change as I want.
This is just to set the stage for when my UPS delivery guy rung my bell yesterday he handed me my package he just jumped right into a conversation about how he thought Trump wasn’t actually that bad.
I have known Bobby for years and we have chatted about watches, weather, sports, favorite shoes. Pretty friendly and fairly pedestrian.
It was surprising because Bobby is African American and just went off on “moochers” and how corrupt the system is and for him in Harlem an issue was “African immigrants taking all our jobs”. And that Trump might be the best guy to just switch everything up because he was a such a good business man.
He went on for a few minutes and I listened holding my package in my hand and this was our dialogue —
“Bobby, do you think Donald Trump is a nice person who cares about people?”
”I don’t know. Not really.”
”Bobby, he has said that his going to use the presidency to take revenge on his political and personal enemies. Do you want someone like that for president who is more interested in settling political scores than actually trying to do something for the country? And you heard what he has said about women. It is awful. I’m not a huge Hillary Clinton fan but she isn’t mean and has plenty of caring instincts. Would you agree?”
”Yeah. True but it is just that he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to business and taxes. And shit is hurting in the economy man.”
“Bobby, Donald Trump is a terrible business man. If he had just taken his money that he inherited from his father and invested it in the regular stock market and left it alone he’d have more money than he does now. Paris Hilton has done better with a smaller inheritance.”
Bobby was incredulous and I ran to get my iPad and showed him the numbers and he was amazed. Bankruptcies. Never heard of them. Trump University — had never heard of it.
”Yo. Donald Trump is a fucking fraud, dude!”
“Yeah he is the worst, Bobby. You can’t vote for him.”
”So what is Hillary going to do?”
”Honestly Bobby she’s going to be okay in some ways and is probably going to frustrate you in other ways. She’ll basically continue being the type of president Obama was. How do you feel about Obama?”
”Well he’s a cool dude but I didn’t like everything he has done. But he ain’t crazy.”
”Exactly. Hillary Clinton isn’t crazy. She’s basically going to be a pretty normal president inching some things along.”
”Dude, now that I know more about Donald Trump — there is no way I can vote for that motherfucker.”
”That’s great Bobby. See you soon!”
And we hugged/shook hands and he was off.
Good deed done, right?