By Ernie McCray
I don’t usually run scared but it frightens me to the bone when I hear so many people say that there’s just no way they would ever vote for Hillary Clinton for president.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m voting my conscience too. But I’m doing it on behalf of children, people like my little three-year-old grandson and his contemporaries.
My vote is based on what’s in front of me as possibilities, like the possibility that Donald Trump could, in reality, become the president and set the tone for how things are going to be in a society wherein my grandson is going to learn about his world. Well that’s terrifying to me – especially considering my 78 years of struggles in this country.
I see this coming election as a referendum on who we are as a nation, or who we want to be. I wish we would, in order to be able to look ourselves in the mirror and not make Tuesday, November 8, 2016, a day of infamy, defeat this man by the largest margin in our country’s history – as a way of saying loudly and clearly to the world: “This buffoon in no way speaks for us!”
Elevating a 3rd Party candidate (and I love Jill Stein) as a serious contender in our politics, I think, is for later in the “revolution” and not voting at all is like playing Russian roulette with our children’s future.
In California, of course, we’re so blue, that we could most likely give a vote to Jill and not change the outcome of an election. But I’m not willing to gamble with my descendants’ well-being even a tiny bit. I’m in a “Mama said knock Trump out” frame of mind. I’ve lived in the kind of world that this heartless man promotes.
When I was my grandson’s age it was okay to call Japanese Americans “Japs,”because they were seen as the enemy. In Trump’s mind, today, Muslims are the foe.
When I was my grandson’s age black people had very few rights. Trump has demonstrated that he’s not an “affirmative action” kind of guy, declaring at a time when black people are seemingly regularly shot down unarmed in the street, that “The police are the most mistreated people in America.”
He’s refused to rent to blacks in his buildings and has stripped them of job security in his casinos and refused to disavow the KKK and white supremacists. White flight from people of color makes sense to him.
When I was my grandson’s age the country, although it had no great love for Mexican Americans or Mexican nationals, initiated a Bracero Program wherein Mexicans could work in the country and make up for labor shortages in agriculture created by the war. Trump brags about a mythical wall that will be built between the U.S. and Mexico. By Mexicans. “English Only” folks love this.
When I was my grandson’s age Adolph Hitler tried to conquer the world and our country helped defeat him with the help of other nations. There’s a war going on now against ISIS and Trump is talking about divorcing ourselves from NATO, our friends, and points out the “good” side of people like Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin.
He makes off the cuff comments about our country seizing oil refineries and halting the purchase of oil from allies like Saudi Arabia – with no more knowledge about how the oil markets work than I have, and I have none.
My point in all this is when a tone of disrespect and hatefulness is set in a country it lasts for generations. So many people of my era have fought mightily against every progressive step America has taken in the areas of human and civil rights because it doesn’t fit with how they want America to be.
To them the likes of Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez and Black Muslims and Harvey Milk and Gloria Steinem are trouble makers. It’s hard getting rid of negative belief systems.
Slowly, over time, however, their antiquated ways of looking at the world have been voted down. But they are as persistent as those of us who have engaged in struggles against them all our lives. And, like us: still they rise.
And they have a hero in Donald Trump who they see as making America like those “good old days” again. He speaks to their kind of anger. That’s scary.
But not all of his followers are necessarily raving racists. There are people in his camp who are angry very justifiably. They’re poor white people who have been ignored by both the left and the right; people who are unemployed or underemployed; people dealing with drug addictions and broken homes and losing their children to foster homes and living in multiple rundown homes – like so many depressed poor folks of color.
As to what to do about such a situation in our country, Trump doesn’t have a clue and, worse, doesn’t really give a hoot.
The choices for dealing with this mess that is America are: Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
The man who would be our “voice” has nothing but madness to offer the world and Hillary, no matter what has been thought of her, has sat down with Bernie and come up with a progressive platform unlike any we’ve ever seen in our country, one we can work together on, one that can greatly benefit my grandson’s generation as they grow up.
So I’m voting my conscience and I hope that we defeat Trump so soundly that we leave no doubt that we are ready to create a loving and caring world for our children.
Ernie McCray
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Hillary is at least the rational one, maybe even the only sane one. She has made mistakes, but not the ones the right wing has usually pounced on and attributed to her like the purported email scandal. That doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Noam Chomsky advocates voting for Hillary in a swing state and voting for Jill Stein in a state like California that’s secure for Hillary. That makes a lot of sense.
Hillary’s potential downfall as President is that she won’t be able to deliver for the middle class the way expectations have been built up thanks to a Republican Congress that will do everything in its power to make her Presidency a total failure in the same way they were determined to make Obama’s Presidency a failure.
Hillary won’t have the same luxury that Obama had of a Democratic filibuster proof Congress at least for a short while. If Repubs succeed in neutering Hillary while all the while continuing to demonize her, Trump could come back in four years to claim the Presidency.
Let’s think long term folks and get the Repubs out of Congress. They won’t even let Hillary put a liberal on the Supreme Court without a Democratic Senate.
It’s true, in some ways American life has declined. Hunger amidst plenty, lowered wages, constant warring, mass mailings and frequent police shootings… I don’t want to go on with the list. But I do think the population is better educated (though less likely to vote) than it was and that the Donald isn’t really fooling anybody. He’s a symbol for greed and predation, which is enough to get too, too many white people to vote for him, and that indicates to me democracy is no longer the major interest of Americans.
So… the cure is voting. VOTING. No will know you sat it out but your spouse and friends, and they might not admire the inaction. Vote with your brain.
I had the intersting expierence last night of a rather disgruntled young Marine vet calling me liberal trash and asking me if I would do hin a favor and have a stroke. And this was in Hillcrest. All because he overheard me saying I will be voting for Hillary. All I can do is pitty him.
It just goes to show that the American electorate is divided up into tribes. The military, many of those who have been through the military experience, those working in the military-industrial complex and white southerners belong to the Republican tribe and wouldn’t consider voting for anyone else. They’d vote for a madman before they’d vote for a Democrat.
The Democratic tribe consists of people of various non-white ethnicities, the young, the high techies, the college educated, those on the left and right coasts, union workers and sundry others.
Well keep in mind that plenty of people in the military and veterans are not Republican. Even progessives serve. I think this kid is likely a war vet that expierenced it first hand and is stiil going an adjustment. Or he’s just an asshole. Plenty of those everywherem
Some Trump supporters are a scarry lot.
I think the most scared person on the planet right about now might be Donald Trump. He played to WIN, but now seems to be headed for a loss of the biggest prize he ever sought. He never wanted to govern–just dictate. Now, having exposed for all to see, just how self-centered and pathologically narcissistic he is, many of his former wealthy patrons will not continue to nurture his fortunes by booking his hotels and casinos as before. How many more foreclosures are on the line? Actions have consequences–often unintended ones. He never misses an opportunity to promote his properties. People with eyes to see and ears to hear can’t ignore his blatant opportunist ploy. Free media, free advertising. That’s his game–governing be damned!
BULLS-EYE! Excellent analysis Shirley!
Are you related to Dr Sprinkles of Grossmont hospital ? My wife worked with him in the 1980’s
No. Sprinkles is a married name. We are not related.
“In California, of course, we’re so blue, that we could most likely give a vote to Jill and not change the outcome of an election.”
While there are some otherwise compelling arguments to vote the lesser of two evils in states where one’s vote actually matters, I don’t personally see myself ever voting for a member of either ruling party again unless the rules of the game substantially change. Even though my vote won’t be cast in favor of Hillary, I’m thoroughly confident it’ll be credited to her via the electoral college.
Ernie: Thank you for your clear voice. I concur with Bernie we do not want to explain to the next generations how we allowed this to happen on our watch.
Beautifully written- thank you. If you have any doubts that Trump is absolutely insane, watch his own words. Frightening and maddening…I am not putting my country or children, or yours, at risk with this insanity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSE-XoVKaXg&feature=youtu.be