Tag: Hillary Clinton

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Politics

Today I Mourn

The long battle has ended, and the forces of darkness have won. None of us can even imagine the devastation that lies ahead during the next four years, and right now I don’t even want to try. I don’t want to tell myself that we’ll survive the way Americans always have, I don’t want to give myself a pep talk about how everything will be okay, and I don’t want to see any more ignorant social media posts from Trump voters gloating because their side won. None of us won. We all lost. Yes, we’re going to somehow get through the next four years, but today all I can do is cry. Tomorrow I’ll make a plan for going forward, but today I mourn.

As the shock set in during the wee hours of November 9, I finally had to turn off the TV, and then I had a few moments of inconsolable weeping. I’ve been on the losing side of presidential elections before; and everybody knows from the outset that one side is going to win, one side is going to lose, and we may or may not be lucky enough to be on the winning side. Those are givens. This election, however, was not the same; this election was not about which qualified candidate was better qualified to lead. This election was a referendum on the American way of life, on our collective American values, and those things lost. The worst thing that happened this election was and is trying to treat it like a normal election. It’s not just the Democrats who lost Tuesday night. We all lost. We lost our country and our self-respect, and we can’t even begin to comprehend at this moment the far-reaching consequences of our fellow citizens’ actions. I’m heartbroken not because my side lost but because my country lost.

I mourn today for my country. The America that elected Donald Trump as president is not the America I thought I lived in, and it’s not the America I want to live in. The America that listened to an emotional and intellectual toddler insult women, minorities, Muslims, the handicapped, veterans, heroes, heroes’ families, immigrants, people of color, and anyone else who got under his very thin skin and decided he’d be perfect for the job of the presidency is not the America I thought I lived in. The America that sold out our country to the most vulgar person ever to apply for the job of being president is not the America I thought I lived in. By vulgar, I don’t mean just his language; I mean his coarseness, his lack of class, his lack of dignity.

The America that heard him talk about building a giant wall and deporting millions of people who are living peaceably among us and thought those were good ideas is not the America I thought I lived in. The America that sold out our country’s values and their own values because they wanted someone who professed to share their views on abortion to make the next several Supreme Court appointments and were too conned by the con man to realize that this person lacks the judgment or self-control to make wise choices, and lacks the honesty even to make the choices he promised them he’d make, for our high court is not the America I thought I lived in. The America that listened to a presidential candidate stand on a debate stage with the whole world as witnesses and threaten to jail his opponent and who led chants at his rallies to “Lock her up” is definitely not the America I thought I lived in. My America is not a banana republic!

I mourn today because I no longer know my country, because the values I’ve been taught during my decades as an American citizen have all been reversed, because the people who are my neighbors, friends, family, co-workers voted that they don’t respect those values any more. They voted to erase 240 years of progress in the “great experiment” and to say to the whole world that our “city on a hill” is a sham, that we are really just a bunch of ignorant, bigoted, misogynistic cretins who can’t even pick an intelligent leader for ourselves much less for the rest of the free world.

I mourn for my black friends, my Latino friends, my LGBT friends who now fear for their lives and livelihoods. I lived through the ‘60s and all of the years since then when my country made remarkable strides to reverse the sins of our past and to make life safer and more fair for all the people. We were still working on it; we hadn’t gotten it just right, but we had come a long way from the America of my childhood. Now millions of my fellow citizens have voted to reverse those decades of progress and return to an America even more bigoted than the period when I was growing up.

I mourn for my grandchildren who will read about this dark moment in their history books and will try to make sense of what their parents’ and grandparents’ generation did to the world they were born into. Their teachers will tell them how America used to be, and they’ll wonder why anyone would have interrupted that progress and would have been ignorant enough to elect a fascist demagogue to change their world into something dark and scary. I held my 7-month-old firstborn son on my lap and cried as I listened to Richard Nixon’s resignation speech, unable to believe what I was hearing. Presidents don’t resign; presidents don’t commit crimes. What kind of world were my son and his siblings yet unborn going to grow up in? Now I weep for the world in which my 11-, 8-, 5-, and 3-year-old grandchildren will grow up. My only consolation, and it sounds hollow right now, is that I’ll be able to look each one of them in the eye and say “Your Mimi did her best.”

I mourn for my faith, that anchor that has grounded and sustained me throughout my life, which I see now turned into a political weapon not in any way reflective of the humble teachings of Jesus. Jesus’ love has been replaced by hate—hate for the “other,” whoever that may be at any given time—Jesus’ compassion has been replaced by disgust and cruelty, Jesus’ “cup of cold water” has been replaced by a cup of bitter gall. Donald Trump would not be our president-elect today were it not for the evangelical vote. I’m not an evangelical, but I’m a Christian, and today I’m ashamed of those with whom I share that name.

I mourn for President Obama who has given us eight years of an intelligent, moral, scandal-free presidency; who has led with warmth, love, and compassion; who has made errors in judgment but not in character. Now he must graciously receive his polar opposite and hand the baton to the vulgarian who will shred his legacy without thought or discretion and will implement and validate everything the Do-Nothing Congress has done to him for the last eight years. He doesn’t deserve this.

I mourn for Hillary Clinton, a woman who has given her entire life to public service and without whose service and spirit the world would be poorer. With all of her flaws and errors in judgment, she did not deserve to be subjected to the mean-spirited campaign she has just endured. She did not deserve to stand on a debate stage and go through the motions of having an intellectual debate with a person so much her intellectual inferior. I wept again watching her graciously concede defeat to a person not qualified to iron her pantsuits. Nobody feels good when your team loses; but if you know you got outplayed by a team with superior skill and strategy, at least you know you lost “fair and square.” What really hurts down deep is losing to a lousy team because you had an off day, the weather was bad, the field was wet, or the officials made unfair calls. Hillary Clinton did not deserve the humiliation of losing to a loud-mouthed, vulgar ignoramus.

I know I will find the spirit to accept the reality of this nightmare and to live through the next four years with all the energy, grace, and strength I can muster. I know I will use my white privilege to support my friends who will be affected in ways I can’t imagine. I know the sun will rise every day for the next four years and I will still have love and friendship and faith, but I’m not ready to think of those things yet. Today all I can do is mourn.

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Politics

Democracy in Immokalee

Immokalee, Florida, is one of the more unlikely places on the planet where one might expect to have a soul-impacting experience; but that’s just what happened to me on Tuesday of this week. As I was standing in the second row from the fence separating the waiting crowd from the speaking area set up for the feature attraction—a campaign speech by Hillary Clinton’s number-one surrogate, former President Bill Clinton—my feet were firmly planted on the spot of soil which I had claimed to place me in a prime spot for at least a handshake and hopefully a selfie after the speech. Alas, only the first row got selfies, but I did succeed in getting the treasured handshake. While I was waiting for the event to begin, my eyes scanning the growing crowd, the gentleman behind me suddenly voiced the thoughts that were spinning in my mind: “LOOK at the diversity in this crowd!”

Indeed, it would be almost impossible to conjure in your mind the diverse group gathered there. For those unfamiliar with the Florida map, Immokalee is just under an hour’s drive from Fort Myers; it’s an agricultural community east of Naples. Both carved out of the Florida Everglades, and both in Collier County, the differences between Naples and Immokalee could not be more stark. Naples is the Palm Beach/Grosse Pointe/Hamptons of Southwest Florida. Many homes in downtown Naples could cover football fields, and there’s that “certain something” about the people one meets there on the streets.

Immokalee, on the other hand, is an unincorporated community, belonging to the Naples-Marco Island Statistical Area. It is home to a large migrant population: farm workers and produce pickers, whose main crop is tomatoes. The poverty and human rights abuses have for decades been the subject of documentaries and calls for change.

Since Collier County sits on the edge of the Florida Everglades, the county also remains the home of some Seminole Indians, who were forced to move south during the Seminole Wars in northern Florida during the early 1800s. Thanks to the Seminoles, Immokalee is not without its bright spots, especially the large Seminole Casino where people from all of South Florida enjoy gambling and dancing.

There in the middle of the Roberts Ranch, all of those wildly diverse populations were represented in what almost felt like a scene out of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.” But instead of highlighting the dark heart of human nature as in Hawthorne’s fiction, this gathering highlighted the very best, most enlightened impulses of our common humanity: love and respect unbounded by skin color, race, age, or socio-economic status. With one voice, Naples elites, Immokalee farm workers, local politicians, old people, young people, black people, brown people, red people (Seminoles), and white people peacefully chanted “I’m with her!”

When President Clinton appeared, he seemed every bit as much at ease on a makeshift stage at the Roberts Ranch as he would have been at a white-tie dinner with high-rolling donors. He spoke lovingly and kindly to the audience, making every individual feel the same warmth and good humor as if he were speaking only to them.

He spoke with great knowledge and command of fact on the economy, health care, gun concerns, and other issues of significance to all; but his central theme was something even more important. He said he began this campaign expecting a “normal” scenario of two candidates stating their different views on issues and choices facing Americans; but as the campaign progressed, he said, he became increasingly aware that this campaign was going to be about far more than issues and choices. It was going to boil down to what it means to be an American.

Simple yet profound, that phrase—“what it means to be an American”—has occupied my thoughts these last few days. And here’s what I’ve decided: To me, being an American means living life on the Roberts Ranch. Oh, not literally, of course. I like my creature comforts too much, and I have no desire to start picking tomatoes. But I’d like to see that gathering become a microcosm of our country at large. Yeah, that’s idealistic, and that kind of goal will never be fully realized; but here are some things which I think are doable and which I think we must do if we are to reverse the damaging legacy of 2016.

The subculture which has found legitimacy and a public voice through the Trump campaign must be sent back to the underbelly where it belongs. According to an investigative report by Luke O’Brien (http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/alt-right/), the alt-right movement was only a loosely connected group of white supremacists and violent Neo-Nazis until Trump came along and saw a chance to latch onto a strong support group. Thanks to Trump, Steve Bannon, and the communication technology of Breitbart, this group has now infected the mainstream and has been emboldened to pursue their twisted dream of forming white ethno-states. They have even identified their “next David Duke,” a 25-year-old man named Matthew Heimbach who aims to lead the group forward toward a “future of organized hate.”

Sadly, racism is written into America’s DNA: the kidnapped Africans were here before the Pilgrims, and the white Europeans’ (from whom most of us are descended) genocide of the Native Americans is a national disgrace. But those better parts of our nature had gone a long way toward rectifying our original sins until this ugly uprising. We all have to be the people we want our fellow Americans to emulate. More than ever, being an American means being informed. We no longer have the luxury of living with our heads in the sand and assuming smart people will lead us in ways of righteousness. We must accept the responsibility of being part of the solution.

Americans of the present and the future have to heed the advice of President John F. Kennedy:

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

Party loyalty must give way to a vision for the common good. The last decade has demonstrated the dire consequences of fierce party loyalty: obsession with obstructing our president has become the driving force behind every decision in Congress, rather than accepting the mandate of constituents who elected those representatives to legislate solutions to problems facing everyday citizens. Millions of the people voting to elect a demagogue as president are doing so simply because he is the nominee of their party. That doesn’t work any more! Better for your party to lose the White House, the Senate, and the House than for all of us to lose our country! Unlike Trump’s bigoted “America first” mantra, we need to be Americans first.

More than anything else, having a Roberts Ranch culture requires all of us to look around us and truly believe that we are stronger together—not just repeat it as a catchy campaign slogan, but really internalize the fact that cracks and divisions weaken any vessel. The glue that can keep us all in one piece is love and compassion, not hate and desire to conquer and destroy. We don’t need any more David Dukes! We need some more Martin Luther Kings who believe

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil –hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars –must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

John Winthrop, one of the leaders in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and its governor for 12 of the first 20 years of its existence, said in 1630:

For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world . . .

Now 386 years later, the eyes of the whole world are still upon us; and what they’re seeing is pretty embarrassing some days. They’re seeing an emotional toddler impersonating a presidential candidate, they’re seeing huge rallies where angry people spew hatred for our democracy, they’re hearing angry white people calling for the incarceration of their leader’s political opponent, they’re hearing a “presidential candidate” threaten his opponent with investigation and incarceration if he wins the high office, they’re seeing the rise of a subculture that could destroy everything the last 386 years has established, and they’ve heard a candidate threaten not to accept the voters’ decision in a major election. In other words, the whole world is seeing the United States of America do the unthinkable: give serious consideration to electing a demagogue who has no respect for our history and our institutions.

Winthrop warned, “We could become a story and a byword through the world.” In today’s language, that means “We could make asses of ourselves in front of the whole f&^%ing world. Is THAT what we want?” Of course, none of us wants that, but some are hell bent on trying to make it happen. And not only do we make ourselves look foolish, but we jeopardize all of those other countries whose security is at least partially dependent on our not losing our minds.

The government our founders envisioned was a great experiment that was supposed to determine whether humans could live as equals and be trusted to govern themselves, to prove that we didn’t need a monarch. Every now and then, we have to stop and ask ourselves the question, “So, how’s that working out for us?” Abraham Lincoln did a reality check in his Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

And today we’re in another civil conflict of sorts; we’re facing another test. Can our system work in the long term? Can we be trusted to elect smart, capable leaders? Can our two-party system function for the good of all? Can we maintain the peaceful transfer of power on which we’ve always prided ourselves? Can we get along with each other even when we disagree? Can we let the better parts of our nature dictate our actions and choices, or will we live by our base instincts?

We ARE stronger together. Do you want to live in a perpetual Trump rally, or would you rather live on Roberts Ranch? I’m voting for Roberts Ranch: love, peace, equality, and cooperation. Please join me!

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Politics

Why I Will Vote for Hillary Clinton, Part Two

If there had been any lingering doubt in my mind after looking at the two candidates’ credentials, experience, and character, their respective conventions and acceptance speeches alone would have been enough to clinch my decision.

The GOP convened in Cleveland amid much turmoil because of the deep divisions in the party, and the convention did little or nothing to heal the rifts. Trump kept on being Trump, with some small exceptions for his acceptance speech. Even that was long on bluster and short on specifics and plans. As President Obama so aptly put it, “The Donald is not really a plans guy. He’s not really a facts guy either.” The Donald has had over a year since he made his announcement that he was running for president to learn some facts and to make some plans, so the only logical conclusion we can come to is that he has no desire to know any more than he knows or to be any more specific than he has been about plans. I would also conclude that he is intellectually incapable of doing either of those two things.

The president went on to say, “[Trump] calls himself a business guy, which is true, but I have to say, I know plenty of businessmen and women who’ve achieved success without leaving a trail of lawsuits, and unpaid workers, and people feeling like they got cheated . . . Does anyone really believe that a guy who’s spent his 70 years on this Earth showing no regard for working people is suddenly going to be your champion?” Good question, Mr. President!

Vice President Joe Biden said, “No major party nominee in the history of this nation has ever known less or been less prepared to deal with our national security.” California Governor Jerry Brown added, “Even the Know Nothings, anti-immigrant party of the 1850s, did not stray this far into sheer ignorance and dark fantasy as have the Republicans and their leader Donald Trump.” And Michael Bloomberg aptly observed, “Trump says he wants to run the nation like he’s running his business? God help us. I am a New Yorker, and I know a con when I see one. . . . Truth be told, the richest thing about Donald Trump is his hypocrisy.” From Tim Kaine, we have this assessment: “To me, it seems like our nation is too great to put in the hands of a slick-talking, empty promising, self-promoting, one-man wrecking crew.” And Joe Biden summed it all up as only Joe can: “That [Trump’s speech] is a bunch of malarkey!”

What was Mr. Trump’s response to these scathing accusations? How did he respond to Khizr Khan, father of a slain Muslim U. S. soldier, when he held out his well-worn pocket edition of our country’s constitution and asked Donald Trump, “Have you even read the Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words liberty and equal protection of law.” How did the Donald respond? Did he defend his knowledge of the constitution, saying he has read and cherishes it? Did he admit his knowledge is limited but he will devote his every waking moment to learning this sacred document? Did he apologize for any of his insults to women, veterans, Muslims, Mexicans, or any of the other numerous groups he has disrespected? Did he vow to help American workers and actually outline plans for doing so? Did he express sympathy for the Khan family’s loss and promise to honor their son’s life and memory? Did he promise to change his tactics to prove his critics wrong? Did he promise to release his tax returns??

NO. The answer to each of the above questions is NO. Here is how he responded to his chastening at the DNC: “You know what I wanted to. I wanted to hit a couple of those speakers so hard. I would have hit them. No, no. I was going to hit them, I was all set and then I got a call from a highly respected governor. I was gonna hit one guy in particular, a very little guy,” he said. “I was gonna hit this guy so hard his head would spin and he wouldn’t know what the hell happened.”

I guess this must be that pivot we’ve heard so much about. You know, the pivot he would make when he entered the general election season to more presidential behavior. It should be abundantly obvious by now to any thinking person that Trump is not going to pivot. He can’t. If I were asked to pivot and start acting like a genetic scientist, I couldn’t do that because I know very little about the science of genetics. It’s just not in me to act like that. And it’s not in Donald Trump to act like a president, because he knows nothing about what presidential behavior is. When did we parents begin teaching our children to find ways other than physical violence to resolve conflicts? When they were toddlers! The first time one of them hit a sibling in anger or retaliation, we started the conversation. Donald Trump is an emotional toddler. What we’ve seen so far is all he has. That’s it. Ain’t nothin’ else ever going to emerge because it’s not there.

Hillary Clinton also entered her party’s convention with deep and potentially disruptive divisions. Bernie Sanders had not completely yielded to her victory, and he had some strong Bernie or Bust supporters who did not want to let go. The first day started out pretty rocky, but by the end of the evening tempers had settled and there was the beginning of party unity. And by the end of the roll call on Tuesday, most of the dissension had been quelled and the convention was ready to go forward pretty smoothly. I credit both Bernie Sanders and the Clinton campaign for the quick restoration of party unity. Sanders acted as the adult and made the motion to elect Clinton as their candidate by acclamation, and the Clinton campaign and convention organizers gave Bernie Sanders his due respect and credit for the work he did during the campaign. Mutual respect, something completely missing at the RNC, saved the day. Oh, I didn’t see Bernie smiling or putting his hands together during Hillary’s acceptance speech. It was a crushing loss for him; he’s allowed to grieve his loss. But what’s important is he did the responsible adult thing, and his party is more unified because of his actions.

What the DNC did for Hillary Clinton is introduce America to a different person than the caricature which has so dominated public opinion for decades. As one commentator put it, “She is the most famous person in the world that no one knows.” On Wednesday evening, following Bill Clinton’s speech, the talking heads—many of them seasoned political pundits who’ve been covering presidential elections for decades—were genuinely surprised, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, over the things they had learned that evening about someone they thought they already knew. As Van Jones put it, Bill Clinton had “put together the dots” to make a surprising picture of a “workaholic do-gooder chick.” That sounds a lot like her personal motto, learned from her Methodist faith, which we heard more than once: “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can.”

Then how did it happen that a “workaholic do-gooder chick” who lived by the motto ““Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can” ended up with the nickname “Crooked Hillary” and a reputation for being a liar and a criminal? According to President Obama, it was because “That’s what happens when we try.” He said you have to get into the arena to make a difference, and those who are in the arena, the people who are trying, will make mistakes; and “Hillary Clinton is that woman in the arena.” The president went on to say, “Democracy isn’t a spectator sport.” Hillary has never settled for being only a spectator. From her college days until today, she has been an advocate for children’s and women’s needs, she has served her country as governor’s wife, president’s wife, senator, Secretary of State, and numerous other jobs where she was less in the national spotlight. She has stood by hurting people and been their voice wherever she has served.

According to Politico Magazine, “On the whole, Clinton’s misstatements are those of a typical politician. She has changed her position on a number of issues, and some of these reversals—like her newfound opposition to the Pacific trade deal she championed as secretary of state—rise to the level of flip-flops or, perhaps, insincere electioneering designed to obscure what she really thinks. In defending her use of a private email server, Clinton has clearly stretched the truth, though whether she grasps the fallaciousness of her statements or believes herself to be giving straight answers is impossible to know.” This doesn’t exactly award her Sunday School teacher status, but it also does not justify William Safire’s 1996 accusation that she is a “congenital liar.” On the other hand, Politico Magazine says of Trump: “Three Politico reporters fact-checked Trump’s statements for a week, [and] found he had uttered ‘roughly one misstatement every five minutes.’ Collectively, his falsehoods won PolitiFact’s 2015 ‘Lie of the Year’ award. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks has judged Trump ‘perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes.’”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/2016-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-us-history-presidents-liars-dishonest-fabulists-214024#ixzz4FoiFjIAI

Mrs. Clinton’s biggest enemy is just pure sexism, in the same way President Obama’s is racism. Yeah, I said it! Hillary Clinton has been put through “scandal” investigations for things which men in high position have done without a fraction of the consequences. Emails have been in the news before: George W. Bush, David Petraeus. Even her husband has not suffered the same long-lasting attacks she has over the Whitewater scandal. And for evidence of the different standards to which men and women are held, we need look no further than Mrs. Clinton’s opponent, Mr. Trump. Legal actions are pending against him for fraud and rape of a minor. He spews insults at every demographic; childishly and maliciously lashes out at everyone who disagrees with him; mocks people with disabilities and veterans who were captured; responds to normal political speeches by wanting to punch those who spoke about him; appears to be colluding with a foreign leader to tamper with our election. And where’s the outrage? Where are the investigations? Does anyone believe that if half these charges could be made against Hillary Clinton she would still have won her party’s nomination? Does anyone really believe there would not be a far greater outcry?

Society has strictly defined parameters for what is acceptable behavior. Whenever anyone steps beyond their designated boundaries, they are viewed as presumptuous, arrogant, uppity, ungodly, and generally suspect. They are also intimidating. And what do we humans do when we are intimidated? Why, we attack, of course. We attack the person who has violated our norms, who has raised doubt in our minds about the validity of those norms, who has shaken our world view, and who has made us feel less secure in our own worth and understanding. How dare those persons cross our lines? Who do they think they are? How dare they think they’re so smart or so powerful? A black man wants to be president? Who the hell does he think he is? We’ll show him; he might be president, but we won’t give him the respect due the office, and we’ll jeopardize our country just to be sure he doesn’t succeed. A woman wants to be president? Who the hell does she think she is? We’re just going to pick out every little mistake she’s ever made in her lifetime of service to her country and magnify it as if she were Satan personified. We’ll show her!

Shirley Chisholm, in 1968, became the first African-American congresswoman. In 1972, she became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. She had this to say about her experience: “When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black.” Well, that sounds like sexism to me.

In her acceptance speech, Mrs. Clinton humbly acknowledged voters’ distrust and dislike of her. She said in essence, “I’ve heard you. I know how you feel about me. Let’s have a conversation about that.” Instead of talking about punching people, she pledged to take people’s feelings seriously, to be more open, and to work on gaining voters’ trust. That won’t erase all that has caused people to have those feelings, nor should it; but a head-on, straightforward conversation is a lot more honest and trustworthy in my book than doubling down when confronted and threatening to punch someone hard enough to make his head spin. The things I’ve heard this week have made me willing to give her another chance, to view her through a different lens.

Trump’s acceptance speech was all about what HE will do, single-handedly: “I alone can fix it”; all of our problems will magically disappear as soon as I walk into the Oval Office. (This attitude, by the way, further demonstrates his ignorance of how government works.) His speech was the “I” speech. Clinton’s acceptance speech was the “we” speech: what we can all do together to address our country’s needs and problems. She said, “We’ll fix it together.” Hillary Clinton’s speech beautifully described what a democracy is and made me proud to be part of the greatest democracy on earth. Donald Trump’s speech was the ranting of a demagogue: this country is dark, scary, and doomed; and you need me to fix it and make it great again.

News flash, Donald! This country has always been great. It’s never stopped being great. We don’t need you and your childishness, your ego, your anger, your insults, your pettiness, your divisiveness, your misogyny, your xenophobia, your lies, or your threats. What we need is a president, not a demagogue.

So you can just take your big orange self back to Trump Tower, because we’re with her.

 

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Politics

Why I Will Vote for Hillary Clinton, Part I

In this long, contentious year of campaigning for the presidency, there is only one thing just about everyone agrees on: we don’t like either of our choices. Oh, there are exceptions to that generalization: many Donald Trump supporters are so blindly loyal they would probably validate his boast that he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone without losing support. I don’t even know what to say to those people, and obviously nothing will get through to them anyway, so I’m just going to focus on folks who think. We thinking folks see two flawed candidates, and some think that makes for a tough choice. For me, the choice is as clear as a blue, sunny Florida sky. Hillary Clinton must be our next president.

I say that not because I think Mrs. Clinton is an ideal candidate or because I’m blind to her flaws. I say it because she is the only person who can save our country for a Trump presidency, and a Trump presidency is unthinkable. Both candidates have high unfavorability ratings, both are intensely disliked by many, and both have questionable items in their past records. That may sound like a wash, but it’s not. The thing I think we must do right now is stop thinking of Donald Trump as just another presidential candidate and stop thinking of this election as the usual weighing of one knowledgeable candidate against another or Democratic platform vs Republican platform. That is NOT what this election is about. This election is a choice between a president and a demagogue, a team builder and a narcissistic strong man. This is the most frightening presidential election of my lifetime or in the history of our country.

I will vote for Hillary Clinton because—in spite of her negatives—she has the relevant knowledge and education for the office, she has the relevant experience for the office, and she has the temperament for the office. Donald Trump has none of those qualifications, and he has shown no interest whatsoever in learning or even admitting what he doesn’t know.

I spent my career teaching English. I loved the classroom so much I never wanted to move into administration, so I’ve never been the “boss” in charge of hiring. I did, however, serve on my share of search committees at the college where I spent my last 26 years; so I know a little bit about the process, and I’m sure some of you do as well. When a position opened at the college, it first of all had to be published so that people could know of the opening and apply for it. After applications were closed, the division dean would collect all of the applications and resumes, make copies, and distribute them to those who had been selected to act as the search committee. The committee members then had to review the stack of applications, make our individual selections, meet to put our choices together, narrow down the composite list to a short list of candidates who would be given phone interviews, then decide on two or three to be brought to campus for in-person interviews, and then make our final recommendation to the dean.

In reviewing the resumes, the first thing we looked for was the proper academic credentials. At the community/state college, a candidate had to hold a minimum of a master’s degree and a Ph.D. was a plus. Having a bachelor’s degree, or no degree, obviously would be a disqualifier. It was also essential that the degree be in the field in which the candidate was applying to teach (duh!). If we were hiring a philosophy professor, a candidate with a Ph.D. in math or psychology would not be considered. Then we looked at experience. Every young person knows the dilemma of having the education and training for a job but no experience because they’re applying for their first job or perhaps making a career change. All of us are grateful to those employers who gave us our first break and allowed us to gain experience, and it helps that sometimes relevant experience can be considered. Perhaps in our case a candidate had never taught before but had served as a TA in college or worked in a different position where the same skill set was required. And then we considered temperament, how compatibly the candidate would fit into our faculty, and whether he or she seemed to be a person of character and ethics.

I imagine the process at your work place is similar.

The United States has a job opening. As of January 20, 2017, the presidency will be vacant. WE are all the bosses responsible for hiring President Obama’s replacement. We’ve looked at the resumes—about 21 of them all together—conducted the interviews, in the form of televised debates and campaign speeches. And now we have our short list: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Next step.

Let’s look at these two candidates’ credentials. Hillary Clinton has a degree in law and is thoroughly familiar with the U. S. Constitution. Donald Trump has a bachelor’s degree in business. He has demonstrated his utter lack of knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, government, and history and his utter lack of motivation to learn about them. Credentials: Hillary.

Except for presidents seeking a second term, no one comes to the presidency with first-hand experience, so we have to look at relevant experience. Hillary Clinton was active during her husband’s presidency, served as a United States Senator, and served as Secretary of State. She is one of the most experienced candidates ever to apply for this job. Donald Trump has built buildings, run companies, organized beauty pageants, and worked as a reality TV star. Some argue that his business acumen is a transferable skill set, but I think making deals—the skill on which he most prides himself—is not really applicable to being a leader and diplomat. Moreover, four bankruptcies do not speak well of his business smarts or ethics. And if you don’t believe me, ask Michael Bloomberg. Therefore, I’m also going to award experience to Hillary.

So far, we have a clear winner; but we still have to look at the questions of character, temperament, ethics, and history. And this is where things get muddy; here’s where our front runner loses ground. Many voters question her character, don’t care for her temperament or personality, don’t believe she’s ethical, and have a long list of concerns about her past. Fair enough.

Hillary Clinton’s negative reputation began even before her husband became president. She was not the traditional First Lady. She didn’t, as she said, want to stay home, bake cookies, and have teas. She was a smart professional woman, and she chose to do First Lady her way.  According to the National First Ladies’ Library http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=43, her image problems began during the primaries. Among other things, according to this site, Bill Clinton announced from the get go that his wife would be an equal partner in his presidency, that they would be a “two for one deal.” The biography goes on to say, “Hillary Clinton was the only First Lady to keep an office in the West Wing among those of the president’s senior staff. [Because of] her familiarity with the intricate political issues and decisions faced by the President, she openly discussed his work with him, yet stated that ultimately she was but one of several individuals he consulted before making a decision. . . . When issues that she was working on were under discussion at the morning senior staff meetings, the First Lady often attended. Aides kept her informed of all pending legislation and oftentimes sought her reaction to issues as a way of gauging the President’s potential response.” This is starkly different from the usual role of First Lady and earned Mrs. Clinton many early critics and enemies.

Then there was a long investigation on Whitewater, involving both of the Clintons. Later, she scored her own ethics investigations with Benghazi and her infamous emails. The FBI declined to bring charges against her for the emails, although not without some pretty harsh words: “extreme carelessness.” Even so, emails have often been an issue for other people in government, yet without anything close to the level of media attention. Benghazi was a tragedy, but seven investigations—led mostly by congressional Republicans—failed to turn up enough evidence to convict Mrs. Clinton of wrongdoing. All of this attention would make one think the Benghazi incident was the first time a U. S. ambassador had been killed. Politifact, however, has a detailed analysis of embassy attacks and deaths under other presidents and other secretaries of state: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/may/12/john-garamendi/prior-benghazi-were-there-13-attacks-embassies-and/.

So far, our candidate who nailed credentials and experience may appear to be faring not so well on the character issues. These are the facts, and no one can argue with them, and no one should attempt to whitewash them. But we still have to compare these facts with facts about her opponent’s character. Donald Trump has regularly been labeled liar, misogynist, xenophobe, and inciter of violence, among other things. He has ridiculed people with disabilities; he has ridiculed prisoners of war; he has made irresponsible public statements about his opponents, an opponent’s wife, an opponent’s father, all women, all Mexicans, all Muslims. It’s well documented that he refuses to pay many of the people who do work for him or at least pays them less than he originally agreed to pay. His steadfast refusal to release his tax returns makes it quite clear that there’s something or some things he doesn’t want us to know. He has barred members of the press from his events and has whined about his treatment by them. He has five children by three different mothers, whom he admits were raised mostly by the mothers. He has described his older daughter as “hot,” has repeatedly said he’d date her if she were not his daughter, and patted her ass on national TV. Eeewwwwwww! He has made irresponsible charges that his opponent (HRC) was responsible for Vince Foster’s death as well as some others and has led his supporters in the chant “Lock her up!” He has lawsuits pending against him for fraud and rape of a minor. He says wages are too high and would even allow states to lower the minimum wage. He is delusional enough to think he can build a wall on a 1989-mile border and make the other country pay for it. He appears to be in collusion with a foreign government not friendly to our democracy. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but these are enough for me.

To summarize, Clinton takes credentials and experience. Clinton and Trump both have some negatives on character, but I think his negatives are worse than hers. Hers have at least been investigated; and even though the court of public opinion is keeping the cases open, they’ve been closed in courts of law. She has actual plans and proposals, and she explains how she will accomplish them; he has a few vague ideas (mostly the stupid wall) and in a whole year has given no indication how he intends to accomplish anything he’s mentioned. So I’m going to say his negatives are far worse than hers. Final score: Clinton 3, Trump 0.

I’m with her.