Tonight was the night:
THE DEBATE
The "debate", also known as the tantrum-throwing-talking-over-show, was unlike any I'd heard in my life. For years, I had been raised to be a good Republican because that's what a "Christian" was, switching between altars of Jesus and St. Ronald himself. Being homeschooled didn't help this cause but in fact exacerbated the "brain-washing" that occured in my formative years. I do not think my parents ever meant this to harm me but I do believe they would die if they knew my deepest, darkest secret.
I'm with her.
I mean, I guess. She was never my first choice, for many reasons, but those reasons are now minute compared to the outrageous toupee'd pumpkin who parades himself as a yuuge success. I'm really with Bernie and think what the Clinton campaign did to him was obnoxious. Very House of Cards, if you will. However, I love my country enough to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
There have been many things that have not felt right about Drumpf's campaign, message, or personality. He's brash and narcissistic at his best; mean, incompetent, and dangerous at his worst. In fact, the thing that made me 100% for Hillary (I mean, like, buying a car magnet and stuff 100% for) is Drumpf's character...or really the fact that he hasn't got one.
Political television ads are ridiculous, ranking up there with used car places or mini-malls in annoying factor. A poorly edited video with a microscopic budget is not a proper way to run your campaign, nor is an all out bloodbath, dumping everything on the other candidate as if they are the anti-Christ. Oh, do I remember my parents talking about that 8 years ago.
Clinton has an elegance about her campaign and its attack ads. In fact, when I first viewed this one about a WWII Prisoner of War, I was stunned. Secretly hoping for a mini-documentary about this hero's life, I was shocked to see it was a tactfully done ad by the Clinton campaign. It was not vicious; it was truthful. Drumpf is his own worst enemy.
The second ad I watched has been playing over and over in my mind and I cannot ignore it.
Can we ignore a man who degrades women? As a woman, one who has been considered "fat" or "chubby" or "overweight" by many people over her lifetime, I cannot. I cannot support him, cannot believe he is representing a party that I so closely associated rather foolishly with my religious convictions.
It is not just that he degrades us, it is that he would never see us as equal. What kind of world would I wake up in thinking that the President of a country I love, that my father and my grandfathers fought for, my grandmother emigrated to, would not see me as a valuable asset to the country? He would not see me as a person, rather as a piece of meat.
His comments tonight regarding "home grown terrorism" involved some pretty derogatory language, including a person who would be considered a deviant of society (a hacker) would be 400 lbs. Why is it necessary to: 1. bring up a person's weight in a political debate and 2. associate obesity with being a "bad guy"?
This isn't just about me.
This is about my mom.
She was brilliant in her top form, educating me every day while juggling managing my dad's business. In the 1980s, she was even an engineer of sorts without ever holding any type of higher degree. This woman is my hero. She left an abusive relationship to raise her son, gave up a promising career to make sure I became an educated person, and always tried to make sure I did my best.
Would he see her as a woman, a person, because of her condition? What kind of rules would he make to rid the earth of the disabled or people who couldn't contribute? This worries me greatly.
Because of the feminist my mother made me, believing I was equal to any man, any person at all, I will break her heart and vote for a Clinton. There is no way that I would ever put any support, ideological or monetary, behind such a hateful fascist.
My mom did not raise a fool. I have changed; I do not believe I am a Republican or Democrat. I try to remember what she taught me, about God being the one whom I truly adhere to, to be kind, to be loving, to resemble Christ in his compassion and love. Hell, they even named me after him.
It is because I value myself, my mother's legacy, and my grandmother's legacy, that I firmly will say:
I'm with her.
