It’s your life — but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.
–Eleanor Roosevelt
I read a comment by someone on social media that tried to defend their possible vote for the president*** in the upcoming election by saying that who they voted for did not define them.
In normal times, I might agree with them to a point. I know plenty of folks who voted for Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes along with John McCain and Mitt Romney and their values were not so different than my own. We shared some beliefs on some things and had different viewpoints on others. But we didn’t live on different planets, didn’t hold beliefs that were against every fiber of our moral selves.
However, these are not normal times, as you may have noticed.
Things are spiraling quickly with a deadly pandemic.
The forests burn, the rivers flood and hurricanes wreak havoc as we experience more and more dire climate crises throughout the land.
The streets are filled with protesters fighting for justice and racial equality. Opposing them is an armed legion devoted to open white supremacy that we are finding extends deeply into law enforcement.
There’s an economy that is staggering from job losses and business closings along with an exploding budget deficit.
Forgotten immigrant children and families are still in detention centers with allegations of sexual abuse and forced sterilizations coming out in recent months.
Our longtime and sworn foes around the world openly interfere in our elections.
I am sure I am missing some awful aspect here but none of it is normal.
And leading us is a man*** who seems almost pledged to making every one of these situations worse. He refuses to take any responsibility for his actions or inactions.
He has no plan for dealing with the pandemic. There was a plan early in the pandemic but it was set aside for political purposes because they believed the virus was only affecting the more populated Blue states. He then refused to take all the actions available to him because he felt that by passing responsibility for action on to the governors, they would be held accountable for a virus he knew was deadly even as he publicly said was not much of a threat.
A man who refuses to criticize our longtime enemies even as they pay bounties, on which he also refuses to comment, on the heads our troops. The are the same troops he calls “suckers” for serving and “losers” when they are captured or killed. In fact, he fawns over despots and dictators, often subjugating himself and our nation to them. All of this while he spurns and alienates our longtime allies.
A man who openly foments racism and uses it as a pry bar on our population. Who refuses to criticize the white supremacists even as the FBI and other agencies point out that they are the most deadly and dangerous terrorist group at play in this country. In rallies, he talks about the “good genes” in states that are homogenously white and uses racial buzzwords when describing people of color. This racism extends to his immigration policies.
He has openly invited foreign interference in our elections and in recent days has set the stage for creating a crisis around the election, negating the ballots and sending the election back to state delegations that would be allowed to set aside the actual votes and choose the president as they see fit. His campaign has called for an army of able-bodied patriots to volunteer to surveil polling places during the election.
He speaks openly of ruling after a second term, much like his Russian mentor.
His actions are those of a dictator.
He is corrupt. He is dishonest. He is immoral. He is a racist. He is hateful and vengeful. He is weak-willed. He is beyond selfish. He is loyal to absolutely no one and no country.
There is no gray area here this year.
You are defined more than ever by this year’s vote.
In this election, if you stand with this man***, those are the values you are adopting.
I will forever define you by your vote this year.
If you vote for this man***, I will forever see you as racist, as morally bankrupt, as dishonest, as weak-willed, selfish, bitter, mean-spirited and stupid as the man*** you chose. That is the definition you choose.
You may think that is wrong or harsh or that I am somehow being hyperbolic.
Maybe so.
But I stand by it. Especially in this year, this terrible mess we call 2020. Nothing I have seen in the past four years has given me pause or proven me wrong. You have had more than ample time and evidence to see what he truly is.
If you can’t see that, I can live with this judgement. Both mine of you and you of me.
There is a line in the sand. This is a binary election. Yes or no.
Yes to America. No to Trump.
Our future depends on it. Try to have a good day and keep this in mind: this might be the best chance you will have to have a good day if he*** is somehow reelected or subverts or outright steals the election because it will never ever get better with him.
So, remember that today might be as good as it gets for a long time to come.
Redtree Times 