If you need help convincing people in your life to vote for Hillary, I'm here to help.
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From the Right
If you are on the right/conservative/Republican, check out this list of high-ranking Republicans who have endorsed or expressed support for Hillary. - Voting for Hillary because she is a woman is sexist.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you are a high school guidance counselor. One day, one of the best students in your high school comes into your office and tells you that he has been struggling with classes lately. You ask him questions about his life at school, home and his part-time job. After a few minutes, he reveals that his grandfather – with whom he was very close – died a few weeks ago, and he hasn’t been able to concentrate on anything since. Other than that, everything else in his life is the same as before.
Clearly the death of his grandfather is the reason why your student isn’t doing as well. But instead of helping him cope with the death, you tell this student that he just needs to work harder. Other kids are doing well in the same classes, and so should he. He needs to spend more hours studying, work more closely with teachers, and spend less time socializing. His grandfather dying has nothing to do with his performance, you tell him.
Sounds stupid, right? Well, that’s also one way to look at systemic discrimination, including
patriarchy. Patriarchy is the idea that males dominate society. Indeed, by every measure, America always has been and is still a patriarchy. Everything equal other than sex/gender, men are paid more for doing the same job as females. Women are the disproportionate victims of domestic violence and sexual assault that males commit. (Male victims of violence are overwhelmingly victims of other men, not of women.) Women account for 51% of the American population, yet there are significantly more men in Congress. Every single one of our 44 presidents have been male. Women only received the right to vote in 1920, meaning that men had a 144-year monopoly on political governance in America.
When women or men talk about the significance of Hillary Clinton achieving her success as a woman, they are not saying that men don’t matter. What they are saying is that considering the history of patriarchy in America, what Hillary Clinton has done is remarkable. When women and men take pride in Hillary Clinton being a woman, they are acknowledging her success at breaking down systemic discrimination, and in this case, that discrimination is patriarchy.
Going back to our example, acknowledging the role of patriarchy is important for the United States to progress as a country. If you as the guidance counselor of that student ignore the big and obvious problem of his grandfather dying, are you doing him any good? Does it do any good to tell him to work harder? No. Should you encourage him, his family, his teachers, and his friends to address the problem that is holding him back? Of course. Likewise, we need to acknowledge the significance of Hillary Clinton achieving what she did because it is addressing a systemic problem in our country. It is not sexist to acknowledge the significance of Hillary Clinton being a woman.
As for the idea that people are only voting for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman – that is simply ridiculous. She started her career as a civil rights advocate for disability rights of children, and essentially helped rewrite how the law perceives kids with disabilities. Her work on this issue has been used around the world. She brought to light systemic and violent discrimination of women in international law. She was an agricultural and educational transformer, advocating for small farmers and all children in Arkansas. She attempted the first comprehensive, universal healthcare reform for all Americans. Literally every other industrialized nation has already implemented universal healthcare for their citizens. When a Republican Congress blocked her plan, she compromised and expanded healthcare to 8 million children, a program that still exists today. She was then a Senator for eight years and Secretary of State for four years, and has popular support among colleagues and staff from both parties in both positions. Most of her current fiercest critics started criticizing her during this election.
Saying people are voting for Hillary Clinton only because she is a woman is like saying Serena and Venus Williams are hugely successful tennis players only because they are black. People are voting for Hillary because she is incredibly well qualified, just like Serena and Venus won a lot of Grand Slam titles because they are really talented players. Hillary being a woman is inspirational for a lot of people, sure. Serena and Venus being black are inspirational for a lot of people, absolutely. Hillary’s sex is not what qualifies her. Serena and Venus’ race is not what qualifies them.
It’s no coincidence that the countries that have the most
equality between males and females also have the highest quality of life, meaning everyone lives longer, healthier, less stressful, safer and more fulfilled lives. If you ignore your student’s problem and let his grades slip, his opportunity dies. If you do the same thing to other students, collectively, everyone suffers. Similarly, if patriarchy and unfairness towards women – again 51% of the American population – continues, then everyone will suffer.
Acknowledging the accomplishment of Hillary Clinton as our first female nominee for President from a major party is not sexist. It’s acknowledging the struggle of women in a historically patriarchal society. People are not voting for women because she is a woman; they are voting for her because she is extremely qualified, the best candidate, and because they are inspired by her achievements in a society that has always discriminated against women professionally and politically.
- I like Trump because he says what he means.
Let’s say you’re a small business owner and you’re looking to hire a new office manager. You have two candidates – one is a guy that has a lot of the same interests as you. The other is a woman you don’t have a lot of things in common with. The guy seems like the kind of person you’d be friends with, so you consider offering him the job. But before he leaves, he says to you, “You’re f*cking ugly, this office looks like a piece of sh*t, and I’m the only one who can fix this.”
Would you hire him? Of course not.
Like every social, professional and personal relationship, we have to be decent and tactful when we say something. Shouting at everyone does nothing except turn people off. Why would we ever allow President of the United States be an exception to this basic rule of decency?
How would our kids react? What will our allies abroad say? What would people who do not agree with Trump think? Why would intentionally hurting people ever be a good idea?
Trump is allowed to have opinions. But as a Presidential nominee, he cannot be allowed to say whatever he wants however he wants. Not even your office manager can do that. Why should your president?
- Hillary wants to take away my guns and repeal the 2nd amendment.
Her actual words in her DNC Convention acceptance speech, “I am not here to repeal the 2nd amendment. I am not here to take away your guns. I just don’t think you should be shot by someone who shouldn’t have had a gun in the first place.”
- Hillary wants to let terrorists into the country from Syria.
No, she doesn’t. The overwhelming majority of victims of terrorism are Muslims. Hillary wants to let
refugees from Syria into the country.
The process to enter the United States as a refugee is long and extremely thorough. In 2015, Hillary said she wanted to allow 65,000 Syrian refugees,
which is about 1% of total Syrian refugees (people forced to live outside of Syria) and about 0.6% of the total Syrians that have been forced to leave their home. That means America will have a massive selection pool to ensure those who come here are neither terrorists nor have a history of violence. 10% of Syria’s 22-million population is Christian. Half of all Syrians have been forced out of their home, so it’s even possible (not likely, but possible) that all Syrians that come to the States are Christian.
Hillary obviously doesn’t want innocent people to die because of terrorists. Plus, the topic is so controversial that Hillary would destroy her own career if any refugees that settle in the States were terrorists or violent.
- Why won’t Hillary and the Democrats say radical Islam?
There are more than 1
billion Muslims worldwide. Muslims live in every country in the world and are of
every race, including white. According to the US State Department, which keeps track of all
known terrorists organizations, a high estimate of terrorists worldwide is
132,000. Even if you were to double this number, and assuming that all terrorists worldwide are Muslim, the
total number of terrorists is less than 0.03% of the entire Muslim population. Remember, these are not based on biased media figures. These are based on the best data the US government has.
Meanwhile, a very common theme among people who commit acts of terror against Western countries – from the
Boston bombers to the attacks in Paris – is that racism and discrimination push men (only 1 known terrorist attack in the West was committed by a woman, who was a San Bernardino shooter) in the States and Europe to radicalize and join a terrorist organization. Further, the French government has estimated that 50% of the people who have left Europe to join ISIS or another terrorist group in the Middle East identify as Christian or atheist.
So, what good does referring to terrorists as “radical Islamists” do? Not much. People who identify as part of a religion commit acts of violence all the time.
Non-Muslims kill far more people in mass shootings in the States than Muslims. But monitoring all non-Muslims doesn’t help identify potential mass shooters because the percentage of mass shooters among the total non-Muslim population is too small. Likewise, monitoring all Muslims in the States or worldwide is pointless when the number of Muslim terrorists is so tiny compared to all Muslims. In saying the phrase “radical Islam”, you are equating terrorism as a version of Islam, even though statistically, the chance any given Muslim in the world is a terrorist is zero, and even though
Muslim religious leaders around the world have condemned terrorist violence. Meanwhile, no one is saying “extremist Christian” to refer to the many mass shooters in America who identify as Christian. It is actually more correct to assume any given Catholic priest is a pedophile than to assume any given Muslim is a terrorist.
The term “radical Islam” also has a big negative effect. As already mentioned, people who grew up in Western countries and then become terrorists are often subjected to extreme racism and discrimination where they grew up. The term “radical Islam” equates a very tiny portion of the total Muslim population as representative of all Muslims. It denigrates the 1 billion+ Muslims who are not terrorists and it makes Muslims in the West feel isolated. This has repeatedly shown to help the appeal of terrorist organizations grow.
So the reason Hillary Clinton and Democrats don’t say the phrase “radical Islam” is because they want to defeat terrorists groups. Republican politicians and pundits use the phrase to appeal to conservative, uneducated constituents, not because there is any evidence it helps us identify terrorists.
- We should monitor all Muslims and not let any more Muslims into the country.
One of the founding principles of the US Constitution is freedom of religion. A ban on people based on their religion is a direct violation of the Constitution, even if the ban is temporary. Enacting any legislation that bans Muslims for any period of time will be struck down in any federal court. Were Trump to enact legislation that that violates freedom of religion, other amendments in the Constitution are fair game, including the other parts of the 1st amendment (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to peaceably assemble) and the 2nd amendment (the right to bear arms).
Even if it were constitutional to monitor people based on their religion, there is no clear way on how to do so. Muslims are from every country in the world, are of every race (including white), and speak every major language in the world. So determining who identifies as Muslim in America based on nationality/origin, appearance or affiliation is impossible. Monitoring or surveillance of a person is also a complicated, as there are
new encryption methods and apps that encrypt end-to-end invented on a daily basis. The sheer amount of time and resources it would take to monitor all Muslims in America makes the very idea completely logistically unreasonable.
Like all groups of immigrants, Muslims contribute a lot to this country. As much as
5 percent of all Muslim-Americans are doctors; Muslim immigrants/Muslim-Americans fill in major gaps of professional services required and demanded in the States that are not met through its local/non-Muslim population alone. Glossing over the critical contributions of Muslims in the States not only demeans great members of American society, it deters future immigrants that fulfill a need that cannot be met at home.
- Hillary and the political correctness war is killing America.
To some people, saying something “politically correct” may be annoying and stupid. To others, it’s just being polite and accurate. No decent person goes around calling black people the N-word, so what’s so different about learning how to better communicate in a diverse society? Cars today are much more complicated than cars in Henry Ford’s era. More goes into a car, and there are therefore more words we use to describe different parts of a car. It’s a car mechanic’s job to learn the names of these different parts, not stop at the number of parts of a Model T car. So how is learning better language to describe different people any different? We have more races, religions, and ethnicities of people in America than ever before. We are a more advanced society that understands more about bigotry and human rights than ever before. Our language should reflect that. It’s everyone’s responsibility to be decent and learn how to refer to one another properly.
Political correctness goes both ways. Democrats don’t refer to the base of Trump’s constituency as “Fat, gross, uneducated white people that turn to heroine because they are too lazy to go to college and get a real job.” They don’t refer to the base of Ted Cruz’s constituency as “People who are too stupid to think with their brain instead of the Bible”. They don’t do that because it’s disrespectful, hurtful and doesn’t address the real challenges facing real communities.
Trump, on the other hand, loves to insult people, places and companies. He could come for you next.
- Only the political elites like Hillary.
Based on the endorsements at the DNC Convention alone, Hillary supporters include average people, Michael Bloomberg (who is 10+ times richer than Trump and a truly self-made billionaire), Republicans and 90+ percent of all Bernie supporters, the overwhelming majority of whom are not part of any elite establishment. Though they are heavy political influencers, it’s important to note The Washington Post is keeping
a list of Republicans supporting Hillary.
There’s clearly a racial and class divide that has permeated the American political right in the past few decades, as one Republican intellectual explained,
starting with the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964. After years of appealing to people motivated by racism, sexism and bigotry, yet not addressing concerns of poor white people in America, Donald Trump found fertile ground to make his campaign and appeal to disaffected white people. One of his initial campaigner advisors explained that the strategy was based on the rhetoric the far right (many of whom were self-proclaimed white supremacists) has used in recent years. This is where ideas like building a wall between the US and Mexico, banning Muslims in America and emphasizing “law and order” came from, even though all of these are unconstitutional and/or have no policy backing.
What’s especially worrisome is that a significant portion of the American population (perhaps even half) has seemed to disown the ideas of having even a basic understanding of the major issues, and accepting scientific reason and intellectual thought. Since its inception, Fox News has been widely criticized for “
dumbing down” the news and intentionally misrepresenting information, because the network knows its viewers are the least informed and the least inclined to research anything further. While it’s understandable to not want a small elite of the country run the entire political system, it’s also the responsibility of the American people to actually take the time and stay informed. As President Obama famously said, “
Ignorance is not a virtue.” It’s shameful to be purposely misinformed or under-informed, especially considering the vast amount of information and analysis that is available online for free.
- Trump is a man of God. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine push policies that are against God’s will.
Not a single public figure of faith has confirmed Trump’s claims he is or ever was a regular churchgoer. Considering how much he loves media attention, we can safely assume he would have had a public figure of faith in his life were he ever religious.
In contrast, Clinton was raised Methodist, regularly held Bible studies during her time as First Lady of Arkansas, and had three priests speak at the DNC, all of whom have a personal relationship with Clinton. Kaine is a devout Catholic and has attended the same Richmond, VA church for 30+ years. Many members of his church confirm he is a regular attendee and attended very consistently long before he became a figure in national politics.
There is no single way to interpret the Bible or any religious doctrine. As one priest who spoke at the DNC Convention said, recurring and prominent themes in the Bible are the importance of people taking care of others, ensuring no one lives in poverty, and being kind to one another. With policies that place poverty reduction, economic prosperity and dignity for all, the Clinton/Kaine platform fulfills these important lessons of the Bible.
From the Far Left, Bernie Bros, and Third Party SupportersPresident Donald Trump would be devastating for foreign policy, causing mass instability abroad and, inevitably, many more wars. Trump is highly likely to suppress domestic human rights, freedom of speech, disregard good governance and rule of law, all of which will destroy progress, and law and order Stateside. History has told us that once a human right is realized, countries become highly unstable if that right is revoked – look at what is happening now in Turkey and what happened in Iran in the 1970s. History also tells us that gross income inequality and a population with a high opportunity cost in staying complacent leads to civil war. That is exactly the situation we’ll have if Trump wins the election.
Meanwhile, Hillary has the most progressive social platform in the history of the Democratic Party and really, the history of American politics. People may not agree with her policies, but there will be no coup or civil war under her presidential term(s). There is so much left to do for comprehensive foreign policy reform, and for this election, your only viable option to have a real, responsible and safe discussion is to elect Hillary.
Regardless, there is no disputing Hillary is a waaaaaay better candidate on the environment compared to the vague policy statements Trump has ever said. So far, he said he will shut down the EPA (as Bush did in the early 2000s). He also said he will try to revive the coal industry, which while extremely unlikely, is demonstrative of how willing he is to put aside environmental concerns for short-term gains in the polls.
The DNC made some mistakes, sure. The leaked emails exposed bias among 7+ staffers, and there is of course a chance if the leak were bigger that it would have exposed more bias. But to call the entire primary “rigged” or “institutionally corrupt” based on mostly those emails is presumptuous. By all means, if you want to do the hard, repetitive and gritty work of reforming the system, please do. We will get more diverse candidates and a better understanding of our constituents with a more transparent, easier to understand primary process. But do not equate Hillary’s thorough understanding of the existing system, ethical use of earned relationships within the party and among constituents, and a well-mobilized campaign as the same as corruption, especially considering Bernie has been in Washington for nearly two decades and had plenty of time to reform or better master the primary system. Ultimately, Bernie’s platform did not win popular or delegate votes among Democrats, period.
Hillary and Bernie overlap on the overwhelming majority of the issues, no matter how you dissect the ideas. In terms of policy, Hillary already had expanded social safety nets in her platform. Bernie said that he and his supporters were able to further expand those as part of the official Democratic platform. He also confirmed she agrees Citizens United should be overturned and that the nation’s biggest banks that use monopolistic and predatory lending practices will be reformed and/or broken up.
Hillary is a strong advocate for equal pay for equal work, meaning no social construct (i.e. gender, sex, class, race, orientation, etc.) can unduly influence workers’ compensation, which will further empower marginalized voices. As a lawyer, Arkansas state advisor, US First Lady and Senator, she also has a strong lifelong track record of actual implementation of social equity that Bernie cannot claim through the results of his Congressional record.
To realize Bernie’s idea of a socialist society, the vast majority of the American public needs to be convinced. Just eight years ago when Obama ran in his first presidential election, the word “socialist” continually tested as one of the most negative, toxic and poisonous words among the general electorate. Many people still feel that way.
Bernie continually cites Scandinavia as an example of an ideal economic society. Obviously, the US is not Scandinavia. Of the two biggest countries in Scandinavia, Sweden has a population of about 9 million people; Norway has about 4.5 million. Convincing an American populous of 310+ million people and that by every measure is more diverse that an economic system in Scandinavia will work for the States is a massive task. It’s a fundamental cultural shift. It would not have happened even if Bernie had been elected. By increasing voters rights (i.e. power of collective voice), tackling economic and social discrimination, and addressing long-standing gender inequality in this country, Hillary is working towards a future in which a serious discussion on economic restructuring would be an option. Don’t underestimate what she will do for the long game in achieving a post-capitalist society were popular consensus to be achieved.
