You Need to Fucking Vote For Hillary Clinton
She ain’t perfect, but she should be the 45th President of the United States. (Despite what some people may have told you, it’s not because she’s a woman.)
Hillary Clinton is not perfect. She’ll never be considered a saint — and don’t get me started on how many saints need to have their honor revoked — and we shouldn’t expect her to be one. Despite her imperfections, she is the best qualified candidate to be the President of the United States — not just of the two who actually have a shot of winning, but of all of the candidates, including all of the third-party candidates.
In a little over 24 hours, many people will be casting their vote, so this may be my last chance to tell you why you need to fucking vote for Hillary Clinton:
1 Hillary actually has policies laid out and can explain them. Her policies can not only be explained, they’ve been checked out by experts. Cyber-security workers from the public and private sector have said her plans on that issue are better. Her tax plan, which would cause a $200 billion increase in debt, would not have as severe of a debt increase as Mr. Trump’s $5 trillion increase in debt. Yeah, when it comes to keeping the motherfucking debt down, let’s just say we all should be with her.
2 Hillary is pro-choice and opposes unnecessary legislation of abortion. Access to reproductive healthcare is an essential right. Mr. Trump wants to punish people seeking abortions. He wants to appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn Roe v. Wade and would take the rights out of the hands of pregnant individuals, and put them in the hands of the government. Laws that restrict abortion access cause abortions to become less safe and they cause rates of abortion to go up. If you want to make abortion something that is more infrequent, then you need to vote for the pro-choice candidate every time. If you believe that 47,000 people dying from unsafe abortions and 22,000 dying from complications of unsafe abortions worldwide every year is a high enough toll, then you need to support access to safe, legal abortions. It may seem fucking antithetical, but it’s the goddamn truth.
3 Hillary understands anthropogenic climate change is real & wants to stop/slow it down; she also wants to expand green energy. I know that the GOP’s party line is that the science isn’t all in on climate change. I know that they claim that legitimate experts doubt the reality of anthropogenic climate change. The people that they are talking about are often either not actually climate scientists or they’re outliers within their field. Green energy may sound like a scary thing. Or maybe it sounds like it’s a scam, but guess what? It’s something that needs to be done to save this planet, not just for us and for our children, but for their children and grandchildren. Future generations deserve to have breathable air and drinkable water. They deserve to not have to deal with erratic and violent weather patterns. They deserve to not have to worry if the pollution this year is going to cause so much ice to melt that it kills off polar bears or wipes out the city of Miami. The decisions that we are making now about pollution and about climate change have serious repercussions.
4 Hillary supports enforcing equal pay, not just for women, but for minorities and the disabled. If you’ve ever talked to someone from the alt-right, they may have told you that we already have equal pay. We don’t. Paychecks are lower not just for women, but for members of other marginalized groups. An able-bodied white man makes more than an able-bodied black man; an able-bodied man makes more than an able-bodied woman; an able-bodied man makes more money than a disabled man; a disabled man makes more than a disabled women; a straight man makes more than a gay man; a straight woman makes more than a lesbian; etc. Biases are impacting what people are being paid, and it’s impacting what jobs people are able to get. If you think that it’s no big deal, then think about the fact that people who make less will live in lower income areas, contribute less in taxes and consume fewer goods, and end up receiving lower quality education for their children. They will have less money to retire on, to take vacations with, etc. That takes away the ability for other businesses to succeed, and that takes away from the pay that their employees would have received. Allowing pay gaps to continue within a society allows for lower standards of living in that society. Even if you are the most selfish person on this damn planet, you need to make sure that everyone is being paid equally and fairly. If you don’t give a rat’s ass about your neighbor or your mom or your gay best friend, then do it for your own ass.
5 Hillary believes implicit bias & systemic racism are real, and that we need to work toward lessening them so that civil rights aren’t violated. Have you been paying attention over the past few years? Have you heard about people like Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner who have either been killed by cops or died from negligence at their hands? Have you heard about how minorities are unjustly detained? Have you heard about the protests and riots within the prison system over the unjust use of prison labor, aka slave labor? Did you know that it is completely legal to use slavery as a punishment and that’s what’s going on in the American prison system? Hillary wants to end the unjust incarceration of people for non-violent offenses, specifically she wants to increase treatment and rehabilitation programs for non-violent drug offenses. She supports reforms on mandatory minimums, and believes that the courts should be less concerned with marijuana possession and more concerned with more serious crimes.
6 Hillary understands anti-discrimination laws need to be expanded to protect LGBTQ rights. Hillary has been working on advancing LGBTQ rights for years and she will continue to do so as President. I know you’ve heard that once upon a time Hillary wasn’t for marriage equality, but guess what? People can change. Most of society changed their minds on marriage equality in the same segment of time that Hillary changed hers.
Hillary understands that LGBTQ rights are more than just getting the right to marry the person you love — though we all know that that was a major accomplishment, and is one that could be undermined by any Supreme Court appointments that Donald Trump might make. And God forbid if Trump were elected and he ended up giving the presidency up at some point, then we would be stuck with Pence. You remember who that asshole is the one who was running Indiana when Memories Pizza decided that, thanks to a law Pence signed, they could deny non-heterosexual couples the right to have their sanctimonious, self-righteous pizza at their weddings. (I have never been to a wedding that served pizza.) Pence’s law upheld the “religious freedom” of homophobic bigots to pass judgment on people who they didn’t like or agree with. It’s sort of like denying black people the right to sit at a lunch counter because you don’t like the color of their skin. It’s not a form of freedom, but a form of oppression…and that’s not okay. Hillary knows that. She wants to work with Congress to pass the Equality Act and end discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in all aspects of their public life. She will end conversion therapy, fund shelters for LGBTQ individuals, and take on bullying in schools. She will challenge adoption laws that deny rights to the community. She will fight “religious freedom” laws like in North Carolina (HB2) and other government actions that deny rights and the basic human dignity of transgender individuals.
7 Hillary acknowledges that stop-and-frisk is unconstitutional. As was evident during the debates, Donald Trump doesn’t realize that the tactic was ruled unconstitutional. He doesn’t realize that it violates a person’s Fourth Amendment rights and he wants to have stop-and-frisk go nationwide. Hillary doesn’t and that alone should be enough of a fucking reason to vote for this woman.
8 Hillary actually supports public education and wants to expand access to high-quality preschool for every child in America. Hillary has always been an advocate for children, and she understands that voucher programs are schemes that divert resources from financially-strapped schools. She understands that private schools aren’t subject to the same standards as public schools. She wants to do away with unnecessary testing. Hillary wants to fill gaps in education that prevent English as a Second Language, low-income, and disabled students from thriving. She wants to give students better access to computers. Hillary wants to rebuild schools that are falling apart or are overrun with pests like rodents. Hillary wants to reform overly punitive disciplinary tactics that disproportionately affect already marginalized students. She knows that these forms of discipline keep children out of the classroom and make them more likely to one day end up in prisons.
9 Hillary wants to make college affordable for all. She understands that crippling student debt actually hampers a person’s ability to succeed in life and to make this country an even better place. Students attending public colleges and universities will not have to borrow money to fund their education. She’s even declared that the truly needy will have access to free tuition. All community colleges will have free tuition. Institutions that serve minority populations, including HBCUs, will receive $25 billion in funding. People who are in default for their student loans already will get help. Hillary will also crackdown on predatory schools, lenders, and collectors. Entrepreneurs will be able to defer on loans that they’ve taken out for three years.
10 Hillary is opposed to nuclear proliferation. Who would have thought that this would be an actual concern in a presidential election? Donald Trump wants other countries to make their own nuclear weapons. Most reasonable people understand that nuclear weapons are not the answer to any problem, unless you’re a super-villain in a movie, in which case you’re not a reasonable person. Why would anyone support other countries having them? Mutual assured destruction doesn’t exactly sound like a good time to me.
11 Hillary opposes voter suppression. The first time that I told someone this, they didn’t understand how serious of a problem voter suppression can be in America. They didn’t understand that, yes, those voter ID programs that popped up after the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act are infringing on the rights of voters. She wants to undo that damage. Hillary believes that all people who want to exercise their right to vote should be automatically registered at the age of 18. She wants to set national standards on early voting. Hillary wants to restore the voting rights of people who have served their sentences.
12 Hillary supports the Brady Bill & expanding background checks for gun owners. Reasonable gun control is something that most Americans want. Even members of the NRA say that better background checks are necessary. Hillary knows that dangerous individuals are exploiting our currently lax gun laws and putting all Americans in danger, including children. She, unlike Trump, understands that massacres like what happened at Pulse nightclub in Orlando cannot be prevented by arming a room full of drunk people. Hillary wants to keep military-style weaponry off the street and out of the hands of people who could use them to hurt or kill others. She has been working to end gun violence since she was the First Lady.
13 Hillary has publicly supported a path to citizenship for immigrants. She doesn’t want to build a wall, she wants to build a stronger nation — one that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Within her first 100 days in office, she wants to come up with a comprehensive solution for immigration reform that gives people a pathway to full and equal citizenship. She wants to end family detention and close private detention centers. Hillary wants to fix family visa backlogs and the three- and ten-year bars that impact family members with differing nationalities. She wants to help eligible people in their efforts to become naturalized. She understands that a lack of immigration reform only encourages the hateful rhetoric of people like Donald Trump; that being humane in the reform is the right thing to do. She understands that the border can be secured with legal and financial reform, not by constructing some ridiculous edifice that provides no actual security. Hillary wants to create the Office of Immigrant Affairs, which will help immigrants to integrate and become more successful members of society.
14 Hillary picked Tim Kaine as her running mate. We are losing Joe Biden who has provided so much entertainment over the past eight years. Who would you rather have as Vice President: Tim Kaine or Mike Pence? Tim Kaine seems more like a lovable, goofy step-dad. Mike Pence seems like…like…uh…well, he seems like an asshole. Do we want to have a Vice President who is affable or a new version of Dick Cheney?
Now, I know there are plenty of reasons to not like Hillary Clinton. I know there is a lot of genuine criticism of her, but we need to remember that the American political system is run in such a way that there are two choices: Clinton or Trump.
Donald Trump has shown us, in at least 506 ways, that he is not fit to be the President of the United States of America. He is racist. He is sexist. He is ableist. He is homophobic. He is Islamophobic. He is a bully. He is abusive and a sexual predator.
If you don’t realize how fucked up that asshole is by now or that he isn’t just faking his rhetoric for votes — that he’s actually a self-obsessed bigot with a fixation on his daughter(s)— then I don’t know to put it plainly enough that you will finally get it. Maybe I should tell you that his words and what he’s voiced about his plans will actually endanger Americans. Hell, they will endanger the whole world. Maybe I should tell you how minorities and people in marginalized groups are terrified by this man.
Donald Trump isn’t competent for the position and voting for him is only legitimizing violence and oppression against minority groups. If you’re voting for him and you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I don’t know why anyone would have voted for Adolf Hitler” — congratulations on your fucking hypocrisy. You can tell me that he’s not just like Hitler, but he’s close enough. And if you’ve gotten your underwear in a bunch because people have called him a fascist, remember that he brought it on himself.
The world has seen the likes of Donald Trump before. We should know better. We must stop him from gaining power that we all know he would never relinquish.
A protest vote helps no one. It doesn’t show that you are sticking it to the two major party candidates. It only shows that you don’t actually give a fuck about the people who are going to be put in danger if Donald Trump ends up being elected.
If you’re an environmentalist considering a vote for Jill Stein, think of how little she actually does in non-election years. (She’s been criticized by actual environmental activists for her inaction and for her investments in companies that harm the environment.) If you’re voting for her because she is anti-war, remember that she also hung out with Vladimir Putin and didn’t understand why that was a bad thing. If you think that she’s appropriate because she was once a doctor, remember that she has fear-mongered on the causes of autism, on the validity of scientific evidence and medical agencies that endorse vaccinating children, and on the topic of the safety of WiFi. If you think that she wouldn’t kill the economy, remember that she was all happy about the outcome of the Brexit vote. If you’re voting for her because you think that her being pro-choice means that she actually has a plan to help expand women’s rights, you should know that she doesn’t consider that important enough to talk about — whether it’s family leave, abortion, or contraception. All that anyone can say for certain about her is that she likes getting attention every four years. (Stop giving it to her.) She has de-legitimized any efforts that Green Party had made in the past to be seen as a decent third-party choice.
If you’re considering voting for Gary Johnson because he’s into civil liberties, remember that as Governor, he supported a ban on late-term abortions. If you think he has any idea about foreign policy, remember that he didn’t know what Aleppo was or that it’s been on the evening news on a near-constant basis, and that he couldn’t name any foreign leader at all. He couldn’t even think of the current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — and everyone should be thinking about Justin Trudeau as often as humanly possible — or the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, who everyone should always remember for getting head from a dead pig. (Also, his role in Brexit.) Gary Johnson doesn’t believe college or university tuition should be debt-free. He’s totally into Citizens United. If you like the environment, he thinks that we shouldn’t fight anthropogenic climate change because in five billion years the Sun is going to swallow the Earth — and he’s into hastening its destruction with the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking. (I know, Hillary is for fracking, too, but at least she has some decent qualities to off-set that.) He’s into TPP — hey you know he — I mean, him. He thinks the minimum wage is a non-issue. He’s opposed to paid and family leave.
I know that some people still wish Bernie Sanders was the nominee. I voted for him in the primary and I love the dude. But remember Bernie is also aware that Hillary is the best choice that we’ve got. He’s supporting her. He’s encouraged all of his supporters to do the same.
If you care about anyone other than Donald Trump in this world, then the choice is clear. You should vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Bernie, for your neighbors, for your family, for your friends, for your future, for yourself, for Beyoncé. Hillary Clinton is the only person on the fucking ballot who deserves to get that vote, so give it to her. She’s earned it. We’ve all earned it.
Beyoncé is counting on us.
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