Finally, after viewing this week's Republican National Convention, I'm With Her.
Last edited Thu Jul 21, 2016, 04:52 PM - Edit history (1)
During the primaries, I was very vocal about being extremely conflicted about voting for Hillary Clinton, considering her past support for the 1994 Crime Bill, support for the Iraq War, support for Welfare Reform, support for deregulating the financial industry, her conduct during the 2008 Democratic primary, and a good number of policies that she supported that I am diametrically opposed to, and for good reason. I'm a black male.
I could rehash everything that was said during the primary about her (most, if not all of which, can be supported by either video or textual evidence).
However, after viewing portions of this year's Republican convention, I'm here to say that while I will not be making calls, or phone banking, or canvassing for her, I will, WITHOUT A DOUBT, vote for her in November. A quick review of the last three days has yielded the following:
- a potential First Lady plagiarizing almost two paragraphs (verbatim) from Michelle Obama's 2008 DNC speech, with so many media and Republican operatives contorting their language like pretzels to defend her that Cirque du Soleil would blush;
- a sitting U.S. Congressman adopting white supremacist language (Steve King - IA) and being allowed to spew it openly in the mainstream press without much pushback;
- a Sheriff's officer (David Clarke, Jr.) being allowed to spew so much anti-black vitriol that I can only hope to make as much money as what will be in the contract he'll receive from Fox after this convention;
- Laura Ingraham engaging in a Nazi salute to a jumbotron image of Donald Trump;
- a delegate suggesting that Hillary Clinton should be subjected to being killed by firing squad;
- a sitting governor suggesting that she should be locked up ...
... and other behavior which should be revolting to any self-respecting Democrat or liberal.
I understand that she's not perfect. FAR FROM IT. Yes, she has huge issues with trust (some of it earned, some of it a result of continuous Republican witch hunts). However, no candidate is ever perfect, and with the system that we have in place, until we have multiple parties that are able to sustain themselves and multiple political positions that can be adequately represented in our government, it is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that we keep the fascists, authoritarians, and totalitarians out of office. That's what the modern Republican Party has become. There is no compassionate conservatism here, at all. The party is anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, anti-black, and not one thing was done by the Republican Party this week to counter that narrative.
That's what Hillary Clinton isn't, and to any Bernie Sanders supporters that are reading this OP, now is not the time to stay on the fence. Flash back to 2000. How did it feel for you to go to bed election night thinking Al Gore won only to wake up the very next day and an opposite result flashed across your TV? How did it feel to have the SCOTUS decide the election? How did the disaster of 2000-2008 feel? How did 9/11 and the ensuing demonizing of liberals feel after that? How did Iraq feel? How did losing everything that you'd worked so hard for in the Great Recession feel? If you seriously consider sitting out this election or voting third party, there's a possibility that these same gut-wrenching feelings will be there this November.
Fellow Bernie supporters, I'm not asking for you to sit down and shut up. Of course you should still continue to work for the progress Bernie campaigned on during the primary. Of course you should remain engaged in the process to gain more progress for working families and the poor. Of course you should continue to fight against the corporate influence in the party. No one (and I'd even wager that even Hillary supporters would agree) is asking you to stop doing that. Healthy parties are able to consider all political viewpoints. There's still down ticket Democrats running on progressive platforms that can help push the party to the left. We should work even harder once she's elected to push her and the party back to where it should be.
Sometimes progress is a slow process. We absolutely cannot afford to get November wrong. Yes, we have to do something about trade deals and job offshoring and outsourcing, but there are are at least 3-4 SCOTUS justices that will be appointed by the next President. There's far too much to protect for Democrats (ACA, voting rights, women's rights, etc.) to sit it out or vote third party.
Because of this (and because of the last three days of the RNC), I can confidently say, I'M WITH HER.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Amongst all the craziness, it is great to read this!
With all of us united, there's no way we won't win in November! 
the RNC has been more effective at "unifying the party" than anyone realized... maybe just the wrong one