If you consider yourself to be a moral person, a true progressive, then you don’t get to give support of any kind to Trump, not by your actions or inaction. You just don’t.
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I was a Bernie supporter. I donated to his campaign twice. Go look it up. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to support handing the world over to Donald Trump because Bernie lost. For the life of me, I don’t understand how any progressive can place the purity of their ideology above the very real threat of Trump ending the world. But this is how some progressives are talking. They’re threatening to let Trump win as a way to punish us collectively? I don’t know for sure.
If we have a social conscience around issues of race, gender, the environment or economic justice, or any issue dear to progressives and some of us are STILL making an intentional choice to punish Democrats and pay Hillary back for not being progressively pure, then we are indulging in the deepest kind of self-aggrandizing narcissism. We are committing an act of arrogant cultural violence, the implications of which we can not yet begin to guess.
Lets all take a moment and visualize Donald Trump being sworn in as President. His hand on the Bible, getting sworn in. Obama standing to one side, solemn. Really. Take a minute. I’ll wait…
Instead, how about this? How about we choose “the better of two evils” because, guess what? That has pretty much been the goddamn choice since Adam and Eve were tossed out of the garden of Eden..
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If any of us can even briefly entertain the kind of punitive political rationale, as famously framed by Susan Sarandon during the primary, our moral standing is absolutely in question. Not to mention our strategy for making positive political change in the world.
Yet, some are toying with the idea of protest votes for third party candidates. They’re considering staying home on election day, presumably because of some purist view of what it means to be a true progressive.
Instead, how about this? How about we choose “the better of two evils” because, guess what? That has pretty much been the choice since Adam and Eve were tossed out of the garden of Eden.
To suggest that any of us are ideologically pure, Bernie Sanders included, is simply absurd. We have to make choices between imperfect options. And believe me, regardless of her shortcomings, Hillary is miles above Trump in every possible metric by which we can judge a political candidate or a moral person.
Taking Yourself Out of the Game
• If you oppose Trump, but consider yourself unwilling to vote for Clinton, you’re out of the game.
• If you think this is the year for breaking the two party lock on American politics, you’re out of the game.
• If you think its all rigged to force you to accept business as usual, you’re out of the game.
• If you think your vote doesn’t matter, you’re out of the game.
And that’s all that Trump’s Breitbart Nazis need, is for us to take ourselves out of the game. The lower the turnout, the better it is for the GOP. Always has been, always will be. That alone should tell you something.
That’s all Trump’s Breitbart Nazis want, is for you to take yourself out of the game.
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Look, how is it that people who supposedly hold progressive ideals are declaring that they can’t vote for Hillary Clinton because they insist she’s a liar, in the face of endless and well documented proof to the contrary?
How is it that people who supposedly hold progressive ideals are threatening to just let people of color just suck it up under a Trump presidency?
How is it that people who supposedly hold progressive ideals think the Supreme Court will do fine with another generation of Clarence Thomas clones?
My friends, something is way out of whack.
We’re going to let our children and grandchildren live with the results of Trump’s denial of climate change? Really? Something he has clearly said was “invented” by the Chinese to give them a manufacturing advantage? Really?
To me it smacks of political privilege of the worst kind.
On Hillary Clinton’s Failings
Hillary Clinton is human. I’ll be the first to agree she’s made some bad calls. Hell, she’ll agree. But she’s also done wonderful work. Done deeply transformative work. Made powerful and positive change. We all know this. To condemn her as “no better than Trump” is nothing but ideological narcissism. The “me” over the “us.” The “my ideological purity” over the good of the nation. Because right now, today? This man Trump? He will destroy the world. This is not bullshit or hyperbole or drama. Wake up.
If you consider yourself to be a moral person then you don’t get to give support of any kind to Trump, not by your actions or inaction. You just don’t.
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So here is the bottom line: If you consider yourself to be a moral person, a true progressive, then you don’t get to give support of any kind to Trump, not by your actions or inaction. You just don’t.
Put simply, please, don’t punish the world.
We have to elect Hillary Clinton President. Then we’ll deal with the Democratic Party. The American political system is a mess. We MUST elect more Bernie style progressive Democrats like Zephyr Teachout. (Yes, I’ve already donated to her campaign.) We must elect more Senators like Elizabeth Warren. We’ll do this work together. We’ll even do the work to move us toward a three or four party system if that’s what it takes. We’ll do this work.
But TODAY, the wolf is at the door. Right now, armageddon is looming.
We have to elect Hillary Clinton President of the United States, because she is a smart capable, caring leader. Because her agenda is progressive and because she has the knowledge, the relationships and the political will to create positive change.
And because if we don’t, be it out of anger, or disillusionment or simple disinterest, we’ll be the people who failed generations to come. And we’ll be as responsible for what happens next as Donald Trump himself.
Sorry but no:
http://inthesetimes.com/features/voting_for_hillary_foreign_policy_militarism.html
And where is your article on Trump’s militarism? Madness.
Voter despair. That’s it plain and simple. Have you ever watched an movie or read a piece of fiction where the villain thinks that the best way to save the world is by causing some massive disaster that will wreck the world but leave it in condition to be rebuilt into something better? Along those lines I think some people (myself included) are starting to wonder if a Trump presidency would be the nuclear option where everything goes to hell and makes people recognize that things are extremely bad off and something must be done about the American political system.… Read more »