Okay, I Get it... You Don't Like Hillary.

I get it, you don’t like her…

You “feel” she is dishonest, you say she lied, (about what exactly, you never actually specify…but I get it..) Setting aside the fact that she is the most investigated Presidential candidate in American history, by both the Media, and her political opponents.

Setting aside Millions of Dollars and hours of government resources have been spent repeatedly investigating her and had found no crimes, ever. Setting aside that she sat and testified for 11 hours about a tragedy that happened on her watch, and yet the men whose lies took  America into the war that created the terrorists responsible for that tragedy,  have never even been questioned under oath.

Setting all that aside… I get it, you don’t like her.

Setting aside the fact that there has been an entire cable news network that for the last twenty years has been near singularly dedicated to accusing her (with no evidence or proof whatsoever) of everything from bad fashion sense, to first degree murder. Setting aside the fact that she is the most experienced and qualified candidate to seek the Presidency in a generation. Setting aside the fact that she is held to a standard of public transparency and critique that NO male candidate for the same office, has ever been held to…

Settling all that aside… I get it, you don’t like her.

I know you feel Bernie was robbed, and you know what? He wasn’t. I have a news flash for you . The overwhelming majority of American voters don’t do what the DNC subliminally tells them to. Hillary Clinton won more votes. It’s not a rigged system it is math. Even without “Super-delegates” (Which we all agree are stupid and are now being reformed, thanks to Senator Sanders…) She still would be the nominee, because (again.. math,) she won the most delegates.

Setting ALL that aside…. I get it, You don’t Like Hillary Clinton

I know you feel both parties are part of a rigged system that deliberately excludes third and more parties. You are right. It does, and you are correct in saying it is wrong. But guess what? There is no way whatsoever that this system,( rigged against the Libertarians and Greens though it may be), is going to change in the next 84 days between now, and first week of November.  So the reality is, neither Gary Johnson or Jill Stein have a snowballs chance in hell of winning the election, assuming even they are able to get on the ballot in all 50 states.   

So like it or not the choice is between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Who, I get it… You don’t like. ) But it doesn’t change the fact that, these are your choices. 4 years (at minimum) of President Clinton or President Trump. Where there will be at the very least one, if not two or more appointments the United States Supreme Court, in addition to the current vacancy. 

I know you tend to tune out when people talk about the Supreme Court, because it is very abstract. But as you apparently are willing to accept at least 4 years of a Trump/Pence administration, you should at least be intellectually honest about that means in real life terms.

The following are taken directly from the 2016 Republican Party Platform:

Appoint anti-choice Supreme Court justices:

"Only a Republican president will appoint judges who respect the rule of law expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including the inalienable right to life and the laws of nature and nature’s God, as did the late Justice Antonin Scalia.”

Appoint anti-LGBT and anti-Obamacare justices:

“Only such appointments will enable courts to begin to reverse the long line of activist decisions — including Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases — that have usurped Congress’s and states’ law-making authority.”

Legalize anti-LGBT discrimination:

"We endorse the First Amendment Defense Act, Republican legislation in the House and Senate which will bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

Make Christianity a national religion:

"We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country's Judeo-Christian heritage and further affirm the rights of religious students to engage in voluntary prayer at public school events and to have equal access to school facilities."

Privatize Medicare, the health plan for seniors:

“Impose no changes for persons 55 years of older. Give others the option of traditional Medicare or transition to a premium-support model designed to strengthen patient choice, promote cost-saving competition among providers."

Support traditional marriage but no other families:

"Children raised in a two-parent household tend to be physically and emotionally healthier, more likely to do well in school, less likely to use drugs and alcohol, engage in crime or become pregnant outside of marriage. We oppose policies and laws that create a financial incentive for or encourage cohabitation."

I could go on and on.   This stuff  is just the tip of the right wing fundamentalist iceberg. But I hear you cry that Trump, really doesn’t believe all that far right claptrap, so we don’t have to worry about it! So…. You are saying Trump is lying when he says he supports the GOP platform “100 Percent”. Funny, I thought it was because she was liar you didn’t like Hillary?

Then there is the fact that Donald Trump has already indicated he cant be bothered with the day to day aspects of being President. All that stuff he plans to farm out to the Vice President, while he is busy “Making American Great Again”

From the New York Times:

One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio… according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

So it is not an unreasonable assumption to make, that it is a Vice President,  Mike Pence who will essentially be picking who fills any vacancies on not just the Nation’s highest court, but up down the federal judiciary.  Where you may like to think Trump doesn’t really believe the right wing stuff in the GOP Platform , you can be sure Pence is a true believer, and he will want the populate the federal bench with like-minded gargoyles

Setting aside all the other issues we could talk about, like immigration , climate change, consumer protection, or the fact that a Trump / Pence supreme court would issue rulings that make Citizen’s United look like child play. Let’s just take one issue; Donald Trump has pledged that, if elected, he would appoint justices who would reverse the landmark Supreme Court decision establishing marriage equality nationwide. "It has been ruled upon. It has been there. If I’m elected I would be very strong in putting certain judges on the bench that maybe could change things, but they have a long way to go," he said on Fox News Sunday. "I disagree with the court in that it should have been a states' rights issue.

I get it, you don’t like Hillary Clinton, but how do you feel about me? 

Because voting for Donald Trump, or voting in a way just to vote against Hillary Clinton, you are either way, voting FOR Trump, Mike Pence and the entire GOP platform. Which in turn is a full throttle commitment to use the power of government to dissolve my marriage, and declare that discrimination against me in  public accommodation is a protected form of Religious expression.

In very real and practical terms you are voting to put my civil rights up to a public vote, and even if that vote in your state says I should have equal rights, discrimination against me in employment, housing or any other sort of public accommodation should be perfectly legal, if someone feels their “God” thinks Gay people are icky.

But I get it, the fact you “feel” you can’t trust Hillary is waaaayy more important than my being able to one day move back to the US with my Spouse,  or my having the same civil rights as you ... I get it, the fact that a Trump Presidency would do untold damage to our nation’s economy, global standing, national security, and environment is just the price we need to pay to give the Libertarian Party a serious shot at 2020!

I get it, the fact that women’s reproductive rights, minority voting rights, and consumer protection rights and access to affordable health care for millions of Americans will all be wiped away in the first year of a Trump Administration isn’t nearly as important as showing you didn’t “Sell out the Revolution!” and were not co-opted by the party machine!

So by all means, “be unsure” of whether or not you can “bring yourself to vote for her”. I get it… you don’t like her…. Or lots of other Americans either, ...apparently,