I do NOT endorse Donald Trump. I am Green. I hope and expect Jill Stein to be the Green Party’s nominee for president, and I heard a hashtag idea I like, #BernieOrGreenIn2016.
I despise Trump’s (and anyone’s) blaming of immigrants for everything from terrorism to bad schools to lack of jobs and lousy economic conditions. If this causes you to ask, “Why are you writing this blog?” you will see that addressed further down.
What DO I like about Donald Trump?
Social Security and Medicare. Unlike Republicans who have gone off the deep end after Democrats drifted into their conservative waters, Donald Trump does not attack Social Security and MediCare. He has said, “It’s not unreasonable for people who paid into a system for decades to expect to get their money’s worth — that’s not an entitlement, that’s honoring a deal.”
Wealth Tax. Once upon a time Trump said, “I would impose a one-time, 14.25% tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth over $10 million.” I like that, except for the “one-time” aspect. Since then, however, Trump has dumped the wealth tax idea into the same trash bin he placed estate tax. How then can we stop the stupefying inequality of wealth that we can’t even fully grasp, no matter how many staggering statistics we see and hear?
War in Iraq. In the South Carolina debate in February, Trump said, referring to the George W. Bush administration, “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none.”
No Corporate Money. Whether I agree with a candidate’s values or not, I am happy whenever they reject corporate and PAC money. If candidates take that money, what they SAY to people to get their votes will be “trumped” by what they DO for corporations and the super-rich to get their money. A no-corporate-money trend has begun that includes presidential candidates Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Jill Stein as well as all Green candidates, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, and others.
“Why are you writing this blog?”
I am fed up with our two-party system and so are a majority of Americans. My biggest wish for this 2016 election year is that the two-party system breaks up. Sickening swirls of enormous campaign contributions, reductive if not ridiculous debates, and unaccountable super-delegates are demonstrating the corruption of our elections.
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are surprising a lot of people with the strength of their “populist” positions, and they are not fully toeing the line in their “corporatist” parties. I expect that Green Party candidate Jill Stein will also surprise a lot of people before the year is out. These candidates are questioning such things as Democratic-Republican support for the Iraq war, capitalism, and private-over-public banks, education, and healthcare, and the list goes on. There are alternatives.
Maybe this will be the year that we do not let the 1% and their corporations dictate to us the all-important list of “who can win.” Maybe this time we’ll vote, in the primaries and in the November elections, for what we want and need to make our lives and our communities better, healthier, and happier.
No, I do NOT endorse Donald Trump — immigration, inequality, foreign hostility — but I welcome the opportunity to truly look at his and all candidates’ positions, and see if they match what we want and need.
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