The Wise Responsible Adult Choice

If Donald Trump is elected president next Tuesday it will be as much the fault of progressive Democrats who insist on "voting their consciences" as the fault of the bigoted, clueless bunch of bozos who currently call themselves Republicans. There, I said it. Please, please, please. Don't throw away your vote.  Swallow your pride, put your fragile little egos on ice for a while, and vote for Clinton. Bernie Sanders supports her and so does Elizabeth Warren.

Don't stay home. Don't vote for Jill Stein (or, God help us, Gary Johnson!). She can't win, but voting for her might take enough votes from Clinton to put a unstable, narcissistic, fascist demagogue in the White House. A Trump presidency would be the death of the progressive movement and of everything Ms. Stein and her Green supporters hold dear. If you care about your country you'll vote Democratic. Strike a blow for American democracy and make the wise, responsible, adult choice.

You're good people, I know you are. You have live hearts and active brains and you want to do the right thing. Don't do the wrong thing for the right reason. The only effective way to stand up to an evil sonofabitch like Trump is to support the one person with a legitimate shot of stopping him and his legion of racists, misogynists, homophobes, religious bigots, and gun toting douche bags from taking over the United States government, and that person is Hillary Clinton. It is not the choice between the lesser of two evils, it is the choice between a great evil and someone you've been taught and trained to dislike over the course of twenty-five years by the right wing media..

Of course, I'm not telling you anything that you don't know already. This is not your ordinary, run of the mill election. If things turn out badly we won't get Mitt Romney or John McCain or George W. Bush or Bob Dole, we will get Donald Trump. Think about that for a moment. Think about the last eighteen months. Think about every nasty, vindictive, misinformed, ignorant piece of verbal vomit that has ever fallen out of this man's big fat stupid mouth. Do you really want to say that you didn't do everything possible to prevent such a disreputable piece of human garbage from becoming the most powerful person in the world?

Whatever mistakes or missteps a Clinton administration might make, the country will survive. In four years there will be another presidential election and you can choose someone better to your liking to be the leader of the free world. If Trump is elected I'm not so sure that will be the case. Clinton isn't perfect -- she's a hawk militarily and she's far too cozy with Wall Street -- but she's intelligent, experienced, hardworking, and a believer in democratic government. And, at the moment, she's the only viable option sane voters have. It isn't rocket science, guys.

Politics is the art of the possible. Don't throw away what little power you possess on a Utopian dream. The Green Party will never hold a single reign of power. Not this year, not next year, not in a hundred years. This is not the time for a protest vote or to reject the system outright. Moral victories are illusionary victories at best and of no use whatsoever to those of us who live in the real world. To hell with your conscience. And to hell with Susan Sarandon. I'm sorry to be so blunt -- I actually like Susan Sarandon -- but I get like that when I'm frightened. And at the moment I am scared shitless.