Election Day is in one week.
Iām literally begging you, if I know you: Please, PLEASE get out and vote for Hillary.
I donāt like her. Anyone who follows me probably knows Iām exceptionally critical of Hillary, and I remain so. I donāt want her to be President. But PLEASE vote for Hillary.
You have to understand there are no other choices. I donāt care what color Jill Stein makes her Facebook portrait, sheās a bad candidate and she isnāt going to win. Neither is Gary Johnson. Both of them are jokes, and you canāt vote for them just because you donāt like Hillary or Trump, because that will mean Trump wins.
This election is critically important. Trump winning wonāt just saddle us with 4-8 years of an awful President; it will validate all the terrible people who support him, who think like him. Theyāll feel like winners. Things are already awful; if you donāt know how awful, then that puts you in the category of the only people who are going to safely weather a Trump Presidencyā¦assuming thereās anything left, after that.
People who are going to vote Trump are going to do that no matter what. Their minds are made up and nothing is going to change them. Votes for 3rd party candidates are only going to come from Hillaryās pool, so in the realest possible sense, staying home or voting for Stein or Johnson is voting for Trump. Iām telling you this as a sociologist, as a scientist with experience in this field, and as someone who lived through the Gore/Bush fiasco, when those who voted for Ralph Nader cost Gore the election and stuck us with Dubya. And you canāt write Bernie in; he didnāt register as a candidate, so your write-in vote will be invalid. He doesnāt want you to vote for him; he understands that, now heās been cheated out of candidacy, Hillary is the only choice. Sheās the only road forward, from here. Electing her means we have a window to change things down-ballot and to implement progressive agendas before leadership moves on to somebody else.
Thereās so much at stake: A Supreme Court position, education, reproductive rights, the economy, police reform, civil rights reform, and so much more. Jill Stein will not be President. Gary Johnson will not be President. Hillary or Trump will be President. Only with Hillary can we address these issues for the better. We all need to vote Hillary and we need to vote progressives in down-ballot, too, like Jim Gray and Nancy Jo Kemper. We need to get people like Rand Paul and Andy Barr and Mitch McConnell and these other self-serving conservative clowns out of office before things get worse.
Please, PLEASE, if you actually care about literally any aspect of life in America, put your feelings aside in exchange for sense and vote for Hillary. Thereās only a week left; the fight isnāt about Bernie and Hillary, any more; there will be other chances for that, or for other progressives like Bernie. Itās about literal life and death, now. If Trump gets elected, things are going to get a lot worse for real people like me; having him as President might just be the catalyst folks like our confederate-flag-waving, homophobic neighbor need to finally build up enough courage that they come visit us in the middle of the night with a gun or try to set our house on fire. These are real stakes.
Your Black and Latinx and Asian and Native friends and family, your gay and lesbian and bi and trans friends and family, your female friends and family, your poverty-stricken and your veteran and your young friends and family, are all begging you, and you need to listen:
On November 8th, get out and vote. Vote for Hillary. Vote for progressives down-ballot. Vote AGAINST Trump in a way that matters. If not for you, then for us.
