This is going to make some relatives and other friends of the family unhappy but I have to assume that they will forgive me in time or simply ignore this post, which is fair.
I feel compelled, however, to make a plea to my friends and readers who are either pro-Hillary or are so anti-Trump that they are compelled to be pro-Hillary by default. Assuming you have some extra time, some extra money, are you doing everything you can to stop having to say the words "President Trump?"
Evan Osnos (who I fully expect will nab his own Pulitzer in the near future) has an amazing, terrifying piece in this week's New Yorker about what a Trump presidency can reasonably look like. Among many other speculations backed by insight by US and foreign politicians and experts, Osnos talks about what the RAND corporations war games revealed if Russia attacked the most vulnerable NATO nations. "In twelve hours, more Americans die than in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined, in sixteen years,"Â David Shlapak, the co-director o RAND's Center for Gaming told Osnos. This is relevant because in July, Trump declared that if Baltic members of NATO are attacked he would decide whether to defend them on the basis of whether they had "fulfilled their obligations to us." This is the part of the story that stuck in my mind but the entire story is worth reading. If you cannot gain access to it, please email me and I'll send you the whole text.
It was back in February that Osnos reported on white supremacists' ties to Trump that personally had me going Is this really happening? I couldn't believe that there were white supremacists happy to be publicly identified as such, and that a major political candidate wasn't doing everything he could to renounce and distance himself from such people.
I am not trying to change anyone's minds here. I'm not clever enough or argumentative enough to make that happen. However, I am making an appeal to those who feel the way I feel, that, No, this can't happen. Or can it? It can't, who sometimes just feel paralyzed with anger and fear and a weird sense of hilarity that this is what's happening.
I donated money to Obama in 2008 and 2012 but now I feel that is not enough. Donald Trump cannot become our next President and if he does, I need to know I did what I could in my power to stop it from happening.
Here are some of the ways I am doing my best--
- Donating monthly to the HRC campaign
- Hosting grassroots fundraisers (which are not as scary as you'd think)
- Donating writing time to local Democratic campaigns
- Committing to phone banking, data entry, and participating in Democratic button-making parties
Perhaps you have the time or money to do similar things. It's not very hard to get involved in whatever way you feel comfortable with (and I hope that with the stakes this high, you are willing to go a bit out of your comfort zone.)
I encourage you, whether you love Hillary or are just going to accept her as not-Trump, to join in so that you too can feel like you did something. Go here to donate and here to find out ways you can use your time to help. As President Obama said: "Don't boo; vote." And if you can, do more than vote as well.