I’m with her.  Those three words are harder for me to write than many people who know me may believe.  I am not a fan of Hilary Clinton.  Hilary Clinton is a neoliberal; a term which for me represents token support for social liberties without real action, reckless foreign adventurism, and the abandonment of needed social safety net policies in exchange for better election chances.  Democrats are losers, they lose at the state level, they lose at the congressional level, and sometimes they lose presidential elections even when they win.[1]  And they are losers who stand for nothing but winning elections.  Hilary Clinton opposed gay marriage until a majority of Americans supported it, then she did.  Ditto for Obama.  Climate change?  Well that’s not even worthy of being brought up at a debate.  The Trans Pacific Partnership?  Clinton has always opposed this trade agreement, except when she was supporting it.[2]  And yet I will likely vote for every Democrat on the ballot in Oklahoma.  Because I enjoy losing.  And because I think Republicans are monsters.  But before we advance to why I am voting for Hilary Clinton, let us good reader discuss why I find Hilary Clinton a shall we say less than ideal candidate.  It is mostly about foreign policy, but also about corruption, the social safety net, and all the problems with politics as usual.  And it has very little to do with emails.

I studied International Studies at the University of Oklahoma.  That is the extent of my authority on the subject of foreign policy.  I am not an expert, I do not have some innate understanding of the workings of the various state, multinational, non governmental, rogue actors, or natural factors whose interactions create the human world in which we live.  That said, I believe the foreign policy theories that Hilary Clinton and her advisors subscribe to are disastrously counterproductive to almost anything resembling positive development in the world.  Unsurprisingly, she has a very similar foreign policy approach to George W Bush, one of our nation’s foremost authorities in disastrous foreign policy. Under her stewardship as Secretary of State we left Libya a failed state where daily life is somehow more dangerous and difficult than it was under a maniacal, fanatical dictator.  We have allowed the same thing to happen in Syria.  We have failed to end disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  She helped shape the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement so bad she now has to disavow it.  We did finally kill Osama Bin Laden, the very definition of a moral victory.  The desire by neoliberals to fix the world would be admirable if it wasn’t so arrogant, imperialistic, and historical ineffective.  Yet still she and her advisors carry on, ready to invade the next foreign state and make it safe for democracy by bombing back to the stone age.  Sometimes when I play Civilization V I realize that I have fucked up and need to start over.  This is a good strategy for a video game.  This is a war crime in the real world.  At least if she is elected we won’t go to war with Russia.  Oh Goddammit.[3]

Then there is corruption.  Accusations of corruption against the Clinton’s are as old as the Clintons.  Most are nonsense or ridiculous conspiracies.  But some are more alarming.  The Clinton Foundation allegedly does real charity work, though I have my doubts.[4]  But charities doing little charity work is nothing new.[5]  But the concern over who donates to this foundation is real, even if some try to downplay it.  When Saudi Dictators and other notorious human rights violators donate to a humanitarian foundation in exchange for meetings with its leaders, and those are leaders are a former President of the United States and potential future President, I think asking why is the most logical response.  When the answer is basically “I don’t know but I’m sure they don’t get anything out of it” excuse me if I have doubts.

I voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primary.  Seeing as how I am basically a Marxist, this should come as no surprise.  But in the ranking of Democratic candidates for President this year, I would have put Hilary Clinton only above “I have killed a man” Jim Webb.[6]  The reason is because I doubt her commitment to the social safety net.  “What is the social safety net?”  you probably did not ask but knew I would explain anyways, well let me tell you.  It is a simple concept.  The world sucks, capitalism, even in its most altruistic forms (which are probably a contradiction and definitely aren’t what we have in America anyways) leaves some behind.  Some will not prosper, some will make bad choices, some will have bad choices made for them, and some will never have access to the capital necessary to make it out of poverty, and some will literally be born unable to function in modern society due to disabilities they had no control over.  The social safety net insures that those people will live in relative poverty as opposed to abject, moral shattering, I could starve to death tomorrow poverty.  This is what welfare is for.  Also Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, foodstamps, unemployment assistance, disability insurance and countless other government programs designed to make sure the least fortunate among us are not left to simply die.  Republicans hate these programs.  Yet no one has done more on a national level to harm the people who benefit from these programs on a national level than one William Clinton.  His welfare reform act did more to guarantee that poor people would stay poor and starving children would continue to starve than anything Paul Ryan could conjure in his wettest dreams.[7][8]  Is it wrong to hold the failures of her husband against Hilary, possibly, but she did campaign for them at the time.[9]  Welfare reform failed miserably, made the lives of many of our poorest citizens even worse, and has yet to be addressed in any substantial way.  My faith in Hilary Clinton fixing this is limited.  Or to use the modern vernacular so popular among the “YASSS HILARY” contingent, I have my doubts.

There is one other subject I want to touch on that troubles me about Hilary Clinton.  It is not emails, which are an issue worth discussing, but everyone is focused on the wrong things and at the end of the day the FBI made its ruling.  Or not.[10]  It has to do with politics as usual.  Donald Trump is basically running his whole campaign as a referendum against politics as usual.  Donald Trump is a buffoon that I will discuss shortly.  But I am against politics as usual, and Clinton is the very embodiment of politics as usual.  Clinton would have you believe that her experience will allow her to reach across party lines to make compromises.  This is ridiculous.  It just is.  Obama could not get Republicans to compromise on such issues as “let’s make sure the government doesn’t shut down” until the government literally shut down.  Clinton is historically unpopular (we will address this shortly).  What on earth makes one think she will be able to get this government to function.  Obamacare was a flawed but very, very, very[11] necessary reform to our national healthcare system.  It was passed by a Democrat controlled house, Democrat controlled senate, and signed and named after a Democratic President.  It still contained compromises meant to appeal to Republicans.  Republicans opposed it anyways, and Republican controlled state governments refusal to accept money for Medicare expansion has left many of the poorest Americans worse off (I will briefly touch on Oklahoma politics later, but FUCK Mary Fallon).  Our government doesn’t functioning.  Each side is so preoccupied with purity that we can’t tackle a subject such as “let’s help Americans get affordable health care so they don’t die of things we can easily cure” without somehow making the situation worse.  I don’t want someone who knows how to work in this system to be president.  I want someone to burn down the system.

And then came Trump.  The man who said he would burn down the system.  And here I am, saying I won’t vote for him.  I will vote for Hilary Clinton.  I will vote for her because despite all of my reservations I think she is the best available candidate for President of the United States of America.  That is how dangerous I think Donald Trump is.

I would love to be able to vote for the person that so many of my peers think Trump is.  The anti-establishment, say what we all are thinking, rabble rouser who uproots the political system and changes America and returns government to serving the interests of the common man.  But that is not Trump.  Donald Trump is a populist, authoritarian, lying bully.  I have no respect for the man, and very little for his followers, some of whom I call family.  Donald Fucking Trump.  Donald Trump is failed businessman turned reality TV star turned Presidential candidate.  Donald Trump while involved with the USFL suggested that they should go toe to toe with the NFL.  The USFL no longer exists.  Donald Trump used to own the Taj Mahal Casino.  It is now bankrupt.[12]  Donald Trump had filed for corporate bankruptcy four times.  Donald Trump, business genius, has made $10 billion less than he would have by simply investing the money his father gave him in the same funds you and I invest in.[13]  Donald Trump’s catch phrase is “YOU’RE FIRED!”  Have you ever fired someone?  It is not a catch phrase.  It is one of the worst things you can do to person.  I have fired several people, and lost sleep over it for days.  I was fired once and the next thing out of my suddenly former bosses mouth was a list of ways he would help me get on my feet.  To fire someone is to say to them “the way you thought you would pay your bills, eat, support your family, save for retirement, simply get by, that is all gone.  Until you find another job, you will experience a wealth of emotions such as depression, uselessness, worthlessness, inadequacy, self doubt, fear, panic, and even impotence.”  You’re fired is not a catchphrase.  It is one of the worst socially acceptable things you can say to a person.

Donald Trump is a racist.  Mexicans are not racists and thieves.  Muslims are not America hating terrorists.  They are human fucking beings.  They are my coworkers and friends.  They have been my girlfriends.  I have introduced them to my family.  They work, live, and play in America.  An America that promised them that here they would be equals.  All men are created equal.  Here we respect the content of your character.  Here you can earn your way based on your actions, not your birthplace.  I don’t want to talk about how building a wall is so ridiculously expensive as to be laughable.  How banning Muslims is profoundly against our constitution.  Because I shouldn’t have to.  Because we as Americans should be better than that.  Send me your tired, your weak so and so forth.  We are the beacon of freedom, acceptance, liberty.  The great American melting pot.  Donald Trump can go to Hell.  And I will trade any of his supporters for a Syrian refugee.  At least they struggled through unimaginable conditions seeking freedom.  Donald Trump can’t even be bothered to pay taxes, you know the things that pay for schools, roads, bridges, national parks, and even or men and women in uniform who Republicans claim so vigorously to support.  Donald Trump can’t even be bothered to release his tax returns.

Donald Trump frightens me.  He is supported by white nationalist groups.  This is the official term for these support groups.  Another name might be racist, hate groups.  These are people who believe that the white race is destined to rule over the world.  Notable supporter Dylan Roof would be proud.[14]  Donald Trump has an antagonistic relationship to the truth.[15]  He insults the handicapable.[16]  He has boasted of sexual assault on tape.[17]  He insults fellow Republican war veterans.[18]  He is by all accounts a terrible man.

But the truth is would probably have voted for Hilary regardless of who she was running against.  Because I shall very few beliefs with the Republican party.  All of the Republican candidates this year were monsters or jokes or both.  Ted Cruz is a deceptive, despicable sleezeball.[19][20]  John Kasich was a fraud.[21]  Ben Carson was an idiot.[22] (By the way, why Ben Carson failed and Donald Trump succeeded is so far beyond me that I am tempted to assume that it was because Ben Carson was Black.  Seriously.  What is Ben Carson but a slightly slightly more acceptable Donald Trump?)  Marco Rubio might have been awful, unfortunately he didn’t show up for work enough for us to find out.[23]  Jeb Bush was respectable for a guy who said his brother kept us safe.  You know, the brother under who’s watch 9/11 happened and under who we entered two wars which we are still not out of.

But those are actually minor critiques for me.  My issues are with the Republican party’s platform.  For my entire life the Republican party has sought to undermine the people I call friends.  I am the target demographic of the modern Republican party.  White, male, successful family, middle class, military brother in law.  This is not to say that the GOP does not appeal to other groups, but rather that I meet all of the criteria that traditional defines the Republican party’s core constituency.  And yet I never felt that they reflected my beliefs, not from my first trip to the polls in 2006 till this day.  I am a lover of history and political science, and I believed then and believe now that the GOP is on the wrong side of both.  And that leads us to Her.

The reasons to not vote for Donald Trump are so clear that my brief recount here seems still redundant.  If you are still supporting Donald Trump it is because you are either a white supremacist, lover of authoritarianism or have been brainwashed to believe that somehow an email scandal is worse than outright disrespect for our constitution.  But there are reasons to vote for Clinton beyond that.  Reasons that resonate deeply with my beliefs, if not my personal livelihood.  Let us, me and the two of you who have read this far, explore those.

Minorities.  America is many great things.  It is not, by any stretch of the imagination an example for how to treat minority groups.  We have enslaved, interned, sent to reservations, denied rights, denied voting, segregated, impoverished, forcefully assimilated, and done countless other awful things to non white male groups in this country.  We cannot take ANY steps backwards.  Black Lives Matter.  The reason we are just now realizing that Black people are killed by police at alarming rates is because for the first time in human history everyone has a camera.  Some of you want to make recording police illegal.  You are monsters.  A force of control set free from public retribution and retaliation is a force of authoritarianism.  We know big foot doesn’t exist because we gave everyone a camera phone and no one recorded it.  We gave everyone and camera phone and we found police officers abusing minorities.  This is not complicated.  We have a problem.  We need to fix it.  I honestly don’t think Clinton will, but I think Trump might make things worse.

LGBT rights.  LGBT is an acronym that encompasses several groups that have been forced together in a shared goal of not being entirely denied rights by the government.  They are a diverse group of people who share one goal: acceptance.  Gay people should be allowed to be married.  This is so simple a concept that defending it literally annoys me.  No one, not one single person, has ever had their personal happiness threatened by another person being gay or lesbian or bisexual or transsexual or anything else.  These are people born a certain way, the same way we are, except that their way is slightly less common.  Two gay men getting married and adopting children had never affected me other than to slightly decrease the number of men I am competing with in dating circles and to help foster children get a solid home.  And I have no idea what the hell happens in public bathrooms where you live but I could care less what the other person in there looks like.  Pedophiles could get to your children just as easily beforehand and rarely are they gay, lesbian, bi, or transsexual.  They are freaks who are rarer than the disturbed people who freely by guns and use them to kill other people.  I don’t even want to go into detail here so let me say this last thing: LIVE AND LET LIVE YOU SELFISH MOTHERFUCKERS.  Clinton is our best hope for progress.

I have spoken about my reservations regarding Clinton and the welfare state/social safety net.  That said I think Trump would be a disaster in this area.  Trump is actually one of the most progressive republicans when it comes to social security, by that I mean he doesn’t want to completely do away with it.  That is not the same as supporting help for the less fortunate.  Our poorest Americans deserve the right to live without fear of starvation, death from common illness, or imprisonment for being homeless at every corner.  Clinton is our best hope for fixing this.

Let’s talk about abortion.  I am pro choice, but I understand those who are pro life and respect the GREATLTY.  I think women have a right to an abortion for many reasons.  One because it is their body that is going through this process and they deserve the right to control their own body.  Two because men can freely decide to abandon a child and at worst, WORST, they have to pay child support.  I dare any man to compare that to pregnancy and child birth.  Three we do not provide good alternate solutions.  Poor and keep the child: good luck fighting the almost non existent social safety net to provide your innocent child with necessary things like food, let alone a good education.  Adoption: hope your child is in perfect condition because otherwise no one will take it.  Foster care: bad for the children.[24]  Want to just not have a kid?  Well long term birth control is very effective, unfortunately we don’t help obtain that to poor people.  Want access to very basic women’s health care and short term birth control from an organization that DOES NOT RECEIVE FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ABORTIONS?  Sorry about that.[25]  I’d vote against Republicans for lying about this alone.

Then there is the environment.  You know the one that is causing it to feel like September where I am even though is currently November.  You know the rising tides threatening to literally bury Miami under the ocean.[26]  Or has led to an island in Louisiana almost completely disappearing.[27]  The world is changing, if not dying.  We have to do something.  This is not normal.[28]  Are planet is experiencing unprecedented warming.  To be honest this alarms more than anything else I have mentioned.  This is not your world, or mine.  It belongs to our children and grandchildren.  Unfortunately for them, it is us who have to do something.  The change in climate is irreversible, but we can slow the progress.  Republicans ignore this crisis.  I don’t know why.  Clinton is problem or last chance to elect a president who can make meaningful changes.  Also if you don’t believe in climate change please never visit a doctor again.  I you can’t accept the science of the earth you don’t deserve the science of your body.  Harsh?  Tell that to these people.[29]

Then there is one other issue.  I spoke earlier about Clinton’s historical unfavourability ratings, which by the way are still better than Trump’s.[30]  The truth is I am among those who view her unfavorable.  Yet at the same time, I view her no more unfavorable than most Presidential candidates.  Hilary Clinton has one thing that no other Presidential candidate has had: a vagina.  To act like that does not play into this election is either blind stupidity or serial denial.  Clinton is a politician, you know like son of a former President, Ivy league educated George W. Bush.   Clinton’s favorability ratings while Secretary of State were high.[31]  We are uncomfortable with a woman seeking power.  Once she has it, different story.  But seeking it is against our fabric.  This should not be surprising; we didn’t let women vote universally until the 20^th fucking century.  We let African American males vote before white women.  Hilary Clinton is woman, running for President of the United States of America, and she might win.  That means something.  I don’t have daughters.  But if I did, the ability to point to Hilary Clinton and say “she became President, so could you” means something.  It means something for this country.  If you don’t think so ask the first African American you see what it means that Obama became president.  When someone tells me they are voting for Hilary because she is a woman I do not scoff.  I nod and say good on ya.  Because Goddammit, women have earned it.  It means something.  Do I wish she was better?  Yes.  But I wish Obama had been better, and Bill Clinton way better.  They are politicians, and this is our children’s future.  Not ours.  Let us set an example.  Let us elect an example.  And vote for an actual progressive in 2024.

So I will vote for Hilary Clinton.  To be honest she is no worse than any Democrat who came before her.  She will be a disaster on foreign policy (sorry foreign countries I recently visited), a vanguard against social regress, her welfare policy will at minimum be less bad than Trumps.  She will do more to protect the environment, more to protect minority rights, and LGBT rights.  But most of all she will not be awful.  We will continue to creep forward, as a nation, until we get a leader who unites under the goal of not suffering.  I hope.  Or a meteor of death destroys.  Either way.

 

Addendum 1: Independent Candidates

Protest votes are dumb.  So are your options.  Gary Johnson is a LIBERTARIAN.  That is literally the opposite of Socialism so if you voted for Gary Johnson after voting for Bernie Sanders I can only conclude that you are an idiot who does not know how political parties work.  Also he is an idiot.[32]  I loved Bernie.  He lost.  Vote for Hilary.  Also Jill Stein ignores medical evidence about major conspiracies,  she is also a doctor.  Yes she is who would like to vote for, if she exhibited a reasonable understanding or politics, science, or humans.  She does not.[33]

 

Addendum 2: Oklahoma

Oklahoma is broken.  I don’t know how else to put this.  I’m not going to go into every state question here because I’ve waited to long.  But I want to say this.  Every single incumbent person in Oklahoma politics should be voted out of office.  We have created earthquakes in our state, failed to fund our schools (our fucking schools, where our children learn for God’s sake).  Our economy is in turmoil, and we fail to tax the Oil and Gas industry, who makes a significant profit off of OUR resources.  Everyone in office now, Democrat or Republican deserves to be removed from office.  They have failed us.  We need new leadership.  Oklahoma deserves better than what the current office holders have given us.  Vote for change, across the board.  I beg you.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000#National_results

[2] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trade-tpp-20160926-snap-story.html

[3] https://twitter.com/Trillburne/status/787704449342971904

[4] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/hillary-bill-clinton-foundation-president/

[5] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/philanthropy-charity-banga-carnegie-gates-foundation-development/

[6] http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/happy-trails-jim-webb-you-shiny-eyed-jackanape-1737785934

[7] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/03/the-worst-thing-bill-clinton-has-done/376797/

[8] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/moneybox/2016/06/how_welfare_reform_failed.html

[9] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/moneybox/2016/06/hillary_clinton_s_role_in_welfare_reform.html

[10] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/28/james-comey-fbi-director-reopens-clinton-email-inv/

[11] Add about 1000 more very’s

[12] http://fortune.com/2016/10/10/trump-taj-mahal-bankrupt-icahn-pictures/

[13] http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better-investing-than-donald-trump/

[14] http://gawker.com/dylann-roofs-white-supremacist-self-portraiture-1712788828

[15] http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

[16] http://www.salon.com/2015/06/17/not_classy_donald_trump_calls_fox_news_critic_in_wheelchair_a_loser_who_just_sits_there/

[17] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign.html

[18] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign.html

[19] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ted-cruz-isnt-crazy-hes-much-worse-20151204

[20] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ted-cruz-will-die-so-that-you-may-live-20160504

[21] http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/get-fucked-john-kasich-1775106445

[22] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-ben-carson-20151120

[23] http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/03/marco-rubios-senate-voting-record-much-worse-senators-says-vote-tracking-site/

[24] http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/05/12/u-s-foster-care-a-flawed-solution-that-leads-to-more-long-term-problems/

[25] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress-to-launch-first-strike-targeting-planned-parenthood-funding/2015/08/03/1d904e50-39fc-11e5-8e98-115a3cf7d7ae_story.html

[26] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620

[27] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/15/louisiana-isle-de-jean-charles-island-sea-level-resettlement

[28] http://xkcd.com/1732/

[29] https://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow/top-10-places-already-affected-by-climate-change/

[30] http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/22/politics/2016-election-poll-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/index.html

[31] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/22/hillary-clinton/hillary-clintons-approval-rating-secretary-state-w/

[32] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-you-shouldnt-vote-for-libertarian-nominee-gary-johnson-w435712

[33] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-case-against-jill-stein-w436362