America, the Beautiful?

Yesterday a friend of mine made this poignant remark:

"The day may come when your grandchildren ask you what you did to stop Trump." - Jeff Zentner

Of course I've done a lot of bellyaching about Trump. You know all the usual stuff the left rolls out against him. I don't know if it's worthwhile rehashing any of that here because it still leaves me feeling like I haven't really done anything to stop Trump. I'm part of an echo chamber and I'm likely not changing any minds. Could I wander into the den of lions that is the comment sections of foxnews.com or alexjones.crazy.org? Even those options feel like jumping on a live grenade in an otherwise empty house.

The first thing I have to do is take a step back and honestly ask myself, do I only dislike him because he's the Republican front runner? I'll no doubt be accused of this. I think I can honestly answer this question as "no" based on two reasons. I'm no old man but I've been eligible to vote and paying attention to politics now for four presidential elections. (If you're doing the math you'll know I've been eligible to vote for five such elections but I shirked my duty that first election (Gore Vs Bush and the Supreme Court)). In that time I've had various reactions to the republican nominees. Bush vs Kerry made me the saddest; it seemed so plain to me that Bush wasn't up to the task of being President, it was heart breaking that we'd re-elect him. But he was only dangerous in his bumbling sort of way, we could suffer through another four years of him. He left us with a pretty sad economy and two stupid wars we didn't have the money for, but thankfully America is resilient. McCain I had some appreciation for and I suspect if he had won the election he would have shifted back to his more central position and away from the far right appearance he had to put on to get the GOP nomination. Romney was probably least offensive of all. I suspect he would have made a perfectly fine President, he was disillusioned about the plight of the poor in this country but he wasn't mean-spirited nor unscrupulous. Secondly, I think I can answer "no" to the question because I've tried the following mental exercise. Would I rather have Trump win the nomination and have a poor chance of beating the democrat in the general election or would I rather Cruz or Rubio win the nomination if they had a better chance of beating the Democrat in the general election? It's not an easy choice, but I bend toward taking Cruz or Rubio over Trump even if that decreases the chance of a democratic victory in November.

Some on the left might wonder if Cruz and Rubio are actually better options. I have a canned response to that these days with a single example. I'd take Rubio over the other two clowns. Ultimately Trump is worse not because of policy but because of personality. Take for instance the recent encounter with Iran and the American sailors that were gathered up near or in Iranian waters. Obama made that a non-incident with his diplomacy. Trump would have--without a doubt--started a war over that relatively unimportant B.S. Cruz and Rubio, I believe, would be more measured in their responses to such an encounter, probably not as great as Obama handled it but their stupid little fingers wouldn't have hovered over the red nuclear button the entire process. The man is simply too bombastic to be the most powerful human on this planet. There are literally hundreds of millions of people in this country I'd probably rather have as president than him.

Some on the right might wonder if I expect them to vote for Hillary or Sanders. It's probably not too surprising that I think both are infinitely better suited to the job than Trump, but that probably doesn't sooth anyone who thinks Hillary is (x) and Sanders is (y) (sorry to not be more specific but I'll leave slandering my potential vote getter to others). Regardless of how terrible you think either of them are I think you can rest assured that neither of them will draw us into a war (even if it is just another cold war) with Russia after a visit with Putin doesn't go well. And neither are going to be so regressive that they'll bring us all the way back to 1963 or 1864. I won't ask you to vote for my choices, but staying home might have the same effect. I know everyone is suppose to vote, etc, etc, but honestly I'll respect any republican who doesn't vote at all rather than vote for Trump. Or vote for some other third party or pencil your favorite conservative in. Just don't lend your support to him.

To my liberal friends who say they won't back Hillary, they'd rather stay home than vote for her, I offer this personal introspection. Back in 2008 I was heartbroken when California's Prop 8 wasn't passed. Being a progressive means watching progress move slowly. Sometimes it's really painful. It makes your insides hurt. It makes you cry. It makes you wonder about humanity. It surely makes you want to rage against the machine. But there is a far greater pain I'm newly realizing. In the distance, merely a speck on the horizon, I see it, the skull and cross-bones of a pirate ship: regression. When Trump says he wants to make "America Great Again" you can be certain there are those who hear that and believe what Trump intends to do is make America a place where we can again freely disrespect people of color. A place where grown white men can push teenage black girls around without fear of repercussion. A place where we can bomb the families of our enemies. A place where we number and register a group of people based on their religion. Hillary might not be Bernie Sanders but frankly the worst she does is keep us where we already are. She appoints a left of center Supreme Court justice (if Obama loses this particular battle), rather than who knows what crazy Trump pulls out of his past to sit on the bench. There are other liberal justices of very old age that likely will get replaced in the next four to eight years. Hate Hillary, that's fine, but plug your nose as you mark the box next to her name, and sooth yourself by remembering those justices will have a longer lasting effect on America than her four or eight years in office would. But if you want to "feel the bern" of regression, if you want to feel the ache of watching the arc of the universe bend (even temporarily) away from justice, then stay at home and let the Supreme Court become a 7-2 conservative majority. Say goodbye to women's rights. Say goodbye to healthcare reform. Say hello to Citizen's United forever. Say goodbye to same-sex rights. Say hello to a future America that looks more and more like religiously controlled Iran and less and less like the home of freedom. Sure, sit at home feeling smug about your abstinence. Feel justified in penciling in some other name. But the rewards of such actions aren't just for others to reap, you too will be sucked into the chaos that is Trump as President. So I implore you, don't stay home. Don't condemn us all because we can't offer perfection.

Here I expect the complaints about "but what if Sanders wins?" So let me just address that briefly. I haven't heard anyone say they'd stay home if Sanders wins the nomination. So I don't think Hillary supporters need the same motivation, but if they do, please read the prior paragraph and flip the names around and go vote for the man in the general election.

So what am I going to do to stop Trump? I still don't know exactly. I'm going to go out and vote for whoever is against him. I'm going to not belittle either of the democratic candidates because they are our last best hope. They are the firewall and I don't see any point in trying to burn the firewall down as we witness a massive fire approaching. I have a few people in mind who I think might vote for him and I'll pester them until November. I'll write big blocks of text and send them off into the internet in hopes that they'll touch some random person, change one heart. And for my children and grandchildren I will pray. I'll pray that America of tomorrow looks no worse than America of today, that we as a country still have goodness in our hearts, that we can see ugliness when it gets up on a platforms and declares itself before the whole world. I'll pray we do the right thing and not make Donald Trump the most powerful person in the world, not even for a single day, much less four years. Be wise America.