Votes of the People

I’m a die-hard liberal and there is no denying it.  But I am so glad to see that there are a number of Republican’s that I know, who are downright anti-Trump.  At the same time, there are people who think he is the solution to all of the problems that this country faces.  In a world, where we have to worry about religious terrorists, they think that the person who wants to banish an entire religion from this country is the solution.  Well maybe, they think that he is a different solution that relates to the solution from 80 years ago.

Last night a family member, thankfully by marriage, posted this:

“I am fed up with these news shows and their take on Trump winning the primaries by saying “how do we stop him”. Also other republicans distancing themselves from Trump is pissing me off. The PEOPLE are voting for Trump. These news shows and other republicans are undermining our votes. JUST LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE. Nothing else matters.”

If the people, as a whole as this seems to imply, were voting for trump he would be receiving over 50% of the republican votes in the primaries.   Having the most of the vote does not equal having over 50% of the vote.  Based on the information at http://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/elections-results-primaries-2016/#r on 3/2 (important to note some states from Super Tuesday were not at 100% reporting when I looked at the numbers), there have been approximately 9.8 million republican votes in primaries thus far.  Of those 3.35 million votes have been placed for Trump and 6.44 million votes have been placed for all other candidates.  If we break it down more we have the following:

• Trump 34%
• Cruz 28%
• Rubio 22%
• Carson 6%
• Kasich 7%
• All others 3%

So I am curious as to how the people are voting for Trump.  And this doesn’t even look at the 6.5 million votes that have been placed for Democratic candidates.  When you look at the total percentage of the vote that Trump has received, we go from 34% of the Republican vote to 20.5% of the overall vote.  I know that this numbers will continue to change and that there is no way for us to know what Dems will vote Rep in Nov and vice versa, but in many states for primaries you only have a ballot for the party you are registered for.  But the point remain’s that Trump does not have the vote of the people, last time I checked Democrats are people too and Hillary has approximately 3.92 million votes versus Trump’s 3.35 million votes and there are been less Democratic votes placed.

What does all of this say about what will happen in November, I have no idea right now.  There is so much up in the air.  If Rubio, Carson, and Kasich were to drop out of the Republican race and their supporters started supporting Cruz, Cruz would begin to sweep Trump in primaries.  Not that I think Cruz would be a good nomination either, but there is so much going on here for anyone to really be able to say what will happen in November at this point.  I’m not really sure we will know what will happen in November until then and I should probably put in for a vacation day for Nov 9^th just so I can stay up as late as I want waiting for the results and being glued to CNN.

This morning, I saw the following meme on Facebook and it hit the nail on the head.

Speaking your mind does not make you fit for elected office.  What has he really said about policy, that isn’t questionably legal?  And he has spewed far more hatred than he has reasonably talked about policy.  Not to mention, he has had a number of business ventures that went under and that he was sued over.   This makes me think he isn’t the business man, that he lets everyone think.  A good businessman would not attack people when they question his bankrupt ventures and law suits filed against him.  We don’t need someone that thinks he can say whatever he wants, this can have too many repercussions with all allies and enemies.  We need someone who understands how the political system and works and realizes that they can’t just be a bully their way through and over the system.

We have to stand up and ensure that not only the nominees will not only protect our country but help it prosper and continue moving into the 21^st century and not back to the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Elections Upon Us

In the US, we are lucky compared to so many other parts of the world.  We are given the right to have a say in the politicians that represent us at the local, state, and federal levels.  The 2016 Presidential Campaign, started over a year before the election date.  We are 2 days away from “Super Tuesday,” when over 10 states have primary elections.  I have just over 2 weeks until my states primary election.

Things are getting hot, but I go back to something I was told last summer.  I was told by someone that I should check out Donald Trump and consider voting for him because he made sense.  This happened a couple weeks after he had announced that he was going to run.  This person has always come across as a moderate republican and has known for a long time that there is not much more room for me to go to the left.

Last summer, none of us could have imaged where the Trump campaign would go.  But now we are at a scary point.  The republican primary candidate list is long and while it has shortened in recent weeks it still has a lot of players.  Thankfully Trump has not gotten 50% of the vote in any state, but the amount of support that he has gotten is down right scary.

For generations people have fought for equality in this country.  Minorities are constantly fighting to not be discriminated against and now we have a candidate for the highest office in our country, saying that we should close our borders to Muslims, that Mexican’s are rapists.  And we have people supporting his racist rhetoric.

While we have candidates like Bernie and Hilary who want to help protect minorities, we can’t ignore the downright ugliness coming from Trump.  His rhetoric is going back to a time when only white upper class men had a say in politics.  And what gets me the most is women supporting him.  Women are supporting someone who said that if his daughter wasn’t his daughter he would want to be with her sexually.

While I have a number of republican friends, many of them can tell me why they support the candidate that they support in the primaries.  However, I have yet to hear from a Trump supporter give a political reason why they support him.  They say he makes sense, that they like that he says whatever he wants to say, and a long list of other non political things. Yet when asked why he makes sense, they have no substance behind that statement.  When asked what he says that they like, they can give no specific answers.

Earlier this week I ready this blog post, http://honestlythinking.org/if-you-are-a-trump-supporter-these-are-the-9-things-i-assume-about-you/, and it is one of the few republican blog posts that I agree with.  As I read through it, I had a sign of relief realizing that there were republicans who were just as scared as I am of what happens if Trump is elected.  I realized that we all need to come together to prevent Trump from being elected.  President Obama and his policies and cabinet have worked hard on repairing our image with the rest of the word.  When he took office, we did not have a positive standing in the world, many world leaders were still upset about the invasion of Iraq.

Organizations like ISIS get their fuel from the hatred projected on them.  From hate filled rhetoric about closing borders to all Muslims, closing Mosques, and having Muslims carry identification.  This sounds all to familiar of what the German history books talk about for the 1930s.  Hitler, fed on the Germans desire to have someone to blame for losing WW I.  Trump is feeding on the desire of some American’s to still get retribution for 9/11 even though we caught and killed Bin Ladin and others responsible for the attacks.

I know that come November, whoever is the Democratic candidate will have my vote.  It might not be who I vote for next month, but I have to make my vote count.  We all have to make our votes count.  I heard many democrats saying that they won’t vote for Hillary or Bernie come November, if the person they supported in the primaries does not get the nomination in August.  We can’t think like that.  We have to support a candidate.  We cannot afford a possibility of having Trump elected.  I and many others are terrified are what could happen if Trump is elected.

People who are still trying to protect the ideal Christian based marriage of a women or man are so fast to look away and ignore Trumps multiple marriages and affairs.  The Ten Commandants states “tho shall not commit adultery.”

People are willing to support someone that the only talks about policy when it comes to discrimination of everyone that isn’t a white male.  Can we afford to go back this far in history?