Monday, October 31, 2016

To My Progressive-Minded Friends Who are Planning to Vote 3rd Party

If Donald Trump becomes our next President, tens of millions of Americans you care about are going to get hurt, some of them badly and in ways from which they will never fully recover. 

     -- Immigrants, who will constantly be required to prove they belong, yet never treated as if they do

     -- People of color, whose skin will make them targets for those who believe their race or ethnicity makes them inferior and not true Americans

     -- The GLBT community, who will face legally permissible discrimination in every aspect of their daily lives

     -- Women, who will be forced to bring unplanned or unwanted pregnancies to term

     -- The Poor, for whom life will be harder, sicker and shorter -- and for whom opportunities will be fewer

     -- America's school-age children, whose Presidential role model will be a proud poster boy for misogyny and male chauvinism


These tens of millions of tragedies in waiting, are the human costs of a 3rd party vote in 2016.

And do not overlook The Supreme Court, whose beliefs will bear Donald Trump's thumbprint for decades to follow, putting progressive ideals further out of reach for at least another generation.

You've spent your life standing up for social justice.  Standing up for equal rights.  Standing up for fairness.  Now is NOT the time to abandon the people whose rights you have fervently championed; whose lives you have saved.  Now is NOT the time to allow this country to be led by those who would undermine all you have worked to achieve.


I get it.  Hillary isn't Bernie Sanders.  I wholeheartedly agree.

But she isn't Donald Trump, either. 

And no matter what we do or say, either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will become our next President.  It's one or the other.


On November 8th, this country will either embrace a movement that is based, in no small part, on people whose beliefs are defined and measured by who they hate -- or they will rebuff it.  
  
You have the ability to decide that outcome.

In fact, at this point in time, you are probably the only ones who still can.