Why I Won't Waste My Time with Those That Still Are Pushing Third Parties and Other Presidential Truths You Don't Want To Hear

For those of you (not many of you, but some of you sometimes wander into my sphere somehow) still pushing for a third party choice or (shudder) Trump, here's the nutshell version of why I'm not "listening" to you or why I'm not wasting my time reading your resources and stuff or arguing your nonsensical statements point by point There is, of course, the obvious answer that a protest vote this year works to elect Cheeto Hitler, which should be reason enough for anyone who might care about any of the millions of vulnerable people put at risk by Trump presidency to vote for Hillary, but, even if it's not for you, I'm not listening because, even if a protest vote didn't scare me this year, the third party candidates don't make any sense to anyone with a modicum of critical thinking skills. 

[Note, since I'll be mentioning Trump, some of this will be crass. You've been warned]

Gary Johnson - well, he totally wants to do the stupidest thing ever when it comes to the economy (bend over for big business and trust the states to look out for you because that's worked so well the past twenty years) and, of course, he's clueless on foreign anything.

 

Voting for Jill Stein and any other third party candidate that has zero experience or expertise (or support structure) or viable plans, etc, amounts to effectively offering the most important, critical job to a total amateur. The notion that a job as nuanced, complex, delicate, and important as the Presidency of the United States with literally millions of people and their livelihood at stake should be in the hands of an amateur is mind-numbingly stupid. That's like handing a power drill and a butcher's knife to your trash collector and going, "I think I have an aneurysm because my head hurts. Open her up and check it out, will you?"

To think I should entertain such notions in all seriousness when I understand how important this job is argues you're just not smart enough for me to talk to. Or at least you don't really appreciate the importance of what's at stake.In fact, I think this whole notion is somewhat racist and I don't think it used to be nearly as prevalent as it became when an accomplished, well-educated, highly intelligent black man took the Presidency (when the country was aflame in more ways than one) and tamed the nightmare. For some, still steeped in the Jim Crow thinking that apparently leads to brain atrophy, if a black man can do it, anyone can. Guess, what, buddy, you're wrong. I've said we were lucky as hell to get President Obama into office when we did, and I still think so.

So, since Trump's a know-nothing (and he is), does he fit that last scenario, a well-meaning trash collector with a drill on your cranium? No, because, though he's dumb as a stump, unlike Jill Stein and company, he doesn't even have good intentions. It's important to realize what Trump is doing is not any different than what the GOP top guns have been doing for years, telling you how badly you've been done wrong, while bending you over without even the courtesy of lube. But they mostly still pretend that's not what they're doing. All that racism and misogyny and homophobia has been prevalent and used mercilessly by the GOP for decades now, but they wouldn't admit that's what they were doing. They called it pretty names like family values and traditional roles and historical norms. Status quo. Harking back to the golden days. But they have no problem screwing you over totally and then, when you wake up from a bender, bruised and bleeding, telling you Obama did it.

Trump fits in with that nicely, if crassly, which is why the GOP had no real way of stopping him from being their leader because he spoke to every angry what-about-me, every they're-not-like-us, every [white male] America Firster directly without the hedging and subtlety that allowed the GOP to hold on to a few rational people over the years despite their excesses. He used the same methods, blaming the poor and immigrants and gays and Jews and blacks and women for everything wrong with this country and he made it work because that's what he's been doing his whole life, not just putting himself first but misusing other people successfully. Even wrote a book on it. He's the living embodiment of the very worst of the Republican Party from the way he disregards facts and logic and judgement to his complete preoccupation with self and the assertion that whoever gets screwed as a result had it coming anyway.

So, if you're not already disgustingly rich and therefore stand to take a short term boon from his policies or a foreign tyrant who'd love nothing more than his own puppet in the White House, and you're supporting Trump, you're like a not-too-bright girl, turning around to the man currently sodomizing her and saying, "I've had this horrible pain and lesions in my nether regions. Fox news keeps telling me I'm getting screwed but I can't catch anyone but you GOP folks around me. Could you check it out for me?" With Trump responding, "Absolutely. Why, that's exactly what I came her for; I'm here to examine you closely, possibly for hours [though chances are you'll barely feel it]. I'm sure you have been screwed, but, of course, I can be trusted to protect you since I always wear a condom and pull out in time and will definitely hunt down whoever's hurt you and take them down. I could have been a proctologist any time given how smart and caring I am. I'll let Putin take a good look, too. No one knows assholes like Putin. Believe me. I'll never let you get screwed again because I'm the only man you can trust."

So, yeah, if you're voting for Trump, you're either the scum of the earth or dumb as dirt. Probably both. If you're a Trump supporter, you're probably insanely angry at me by now. Good. Right back atcha. When someone's holding Trump's coat while he's trying to screw a whole nation's worth of people, you don't get to pretend you're any better.

"But, but," you cry, "Hillary's so evil!" Sorry, you're just wrong. She's not. She never has been. There is, in fact, not a shred of evidence that she's ever had so much as an evil thought. She's been at the forefront of getting things done (unlike every other single candidate this year) since long before she had a political position that gave her power. And in between. You may not agree with all her choices, but that she was working to what she felt was the greater good is pretty damn evident if you're not pulling all your sources off of Breitbart or aren't part of the alt-right conspiracy where treating non-white males like human beings is some sort of crime.

Yeah, even those few instances where she suggested military aggression, because it's not a black and white situation. Maybe getting involved wasn't the best plan in Libya. The folks can tell you in Aleppo that hands off isn't doing them a lot of good either. Best intentions often mean you do the best you can with the information you have and hope what you choose is better than what you didn't – and no one may ever really know for sure whether it was. Much of what she's done is unabashedly good: real achievements for children's health and well-being, especially some of the most vulnerable children like foster children, poor children, black children and handicapped children. Between that, her efforts for women, her humanitarian and much maligned work with the Clinton Foundation, there's far more good than all the other candidates combined. Easily. No question. Could some of what she's done it have been done better, could we have made better choices? Perhaps. Hindsight can sometimes show us what we couldn't know before. Sometimes there is no way of knowing what the right answer was. But making mistakes that's also one of the side effects of actually doing something. The only people who never make mistakes are those that aren't doing anything. For those who insist she's evil incarnate, I don't expect to change your mind, but, I think you're wrong.

And the good she's done, the knowledge and know-how she undoubtedly has, the details and methods she's built that served her well in the Senate and equally well among the leaders of the world, mean that, even if she's not the standard bearer you would have chosen yourself, she's the best bet to keeping it all from coming down around our ears, as George W. Bush proved is all too easy to do.

She's got a message, too. She's the new school mistress who comes into the sloppy mess of your boarding school, where some are mistreated and some are just whining and they're better off than they were before but damn, why can't they all have a Daddy Warbucks and make it all better. She comes in and says, "Well, we can make this better, but isn't going to be easy and it isn't going to be quick and you'll have to actually get your hands dirty and do your part. We'll make mistakes but we'll learn from them and I'm hoping we'll all be better off and even a better community when we're done. That means everyone has to be treated with dignity and respect, not just those that have been bullied but even the bullies from before. We're going to get smashed thumbs, and scrapes and bruises. We're going to get sweaty and tired and may even think it can never get done. And, when I'm through here, it won't be the Taj Mahal, but more of you will be comfortable than when I came and I hope you'll be thinking about how to make even more of you happy."

And, in the end, it's really a testament to who you the voter are if that last one is the one that scares you the most.