Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

A blog about words, wordplay, and etymology, with slightly more than occasional political rants.

Friday, October 7, 2016

Just hear me out

This isn't for people who've already made up their minds to vote for Trump. If you're for Trump, you're either a bigot or you're willing to throw minorities under a bus, and I don't even know what to say to you.
This is for people planning to vote third party. This is for people who are thinking of sitting this election out. Please, please hear me out.
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The doomsday clock read seven minutes to midnight, but in October of 1962 it seemed we were in the final countdown. The Soviets were deploying ballistic missiles to Cuba, just 90 miles south of the US. The only thing standing in the way of nuclear annihilation were a couple of red buttons. But "Kennedy didn’t see the Cuban crisis as a test of his manhood," as Chris Matthews put it. He brokered a deal with Khrushchev, and that's likely the reason we're alive.
This could have been Manhattan. 
Hiroshima before and after

This could have been your mom or my dad.

This could have been the new face of humanity.

Trump wants to know why we have nuclear weapons if we don't plan to use them. Trump thinks it's important to be "unpredictable" when it comes to nuclear weapons. He's not going to rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe. He says "the devastation is very important to me."
Prominent Republican leaders say that the thought of Donald Trump with the nuclear launch codes keeps them up at night. The thought of Donald Trump with the nuclear launch codes keeps me up at night. The thought of Donald Trump with the nuclear launch codes should terrify you too.
Who do you think is more likely to bring about a nuclear holocaust? It's Trump. You know it's Trump. He couldn't stop himself going on a three AM Twitter rampage about Alicia Machado even though all of his advisers warned him to cut it out. He couldn't stop himself badgering and badmouthing Khizr and Ghazala Khan even when his employees and members of his own camp publicly disavowed his statements. The man has no impulse control, no ability to drop his own petty grudges for the sake of his campaign; he cannot stand to have his power challenged, his manhood questioned. We cannot allow him to be the man with his finger on the button.

As odious as the thought of a Clinton presidency might be to you, you know, you know, Clinton's not gonna hit the red button on some psychopathic whim. 
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It's 1963 and Lyndon Johnson has inherited a mess in Vietnam. "The battle against communism," he said "must be joined ... with strength and determination." Maybe he was right and maybe he was wrong, but he sent troops to Vietnam without a declaration of war from Congress. 58,000 of our men died, and hundreds of thousands more were injured or missing or prisoners for god knows how long. If not for that war, which Congress never fully supported, there wouldn't be Vietnam vets sleeping on grates in the freezing cold and begging for pennies because they came home from Vietnam, but they didn't come home the same. I don't know if LBJ might the right call or the wrong call, but I do know that this one man's actions changed the face of America and Congress couldn't stop him.

Of course, after Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which was meant to limit the president's ability to send troops into battle, but there are loopholes, plenty of loopholes for a charismatic psychopath to exploit. Can we really afford to take a risk on a man that Holocaust survivors have compared to Hitler?
The president is responsible for preparing the US budget; Trump has run more businesses into the ground than we can count. The president appoints Supreme Court judges, and although Congress probably won't confirm whatever Neo-Nazi flat-earther Trump wants to appoint to the job, you can bet whoever does get confirmed won't be friendly to women, minorities, or the poor. 
The man surrounds himself with Holocaust deniers, Neo-Nazis, climate change deniers, racists, misogynists, and criminals. Which is a problem because as president he'd have the power to unilaterally appoint over 300 people to various positions in the federal government. 

Look, I know I'm not gonna convince you that Hillary Clinton is a good choice for president. But I really hope I can convince you that America can't afford a Trump presidency, that the stakes are too high to sit this election out or vote for a candidate who cannot win. Vote for Clinton on November 8th and start demanding her impeachment on November 9th if you've got to. But please, please vote for Hillary Clinton for president of the United States of America. 
Please re-post if you're so moved.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dumbass. LIBERAL WHITES ARE THE MOST RACIST THINGS OUT THERE. FILTH.

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