On the topic of elections, I encourage everybody to educate yourselves on BOTH dominant political parties, on all viewpoints, from a holistic approach considering both national and international implications for our country. To truly be a great American is to take our democratic principles seriously. To consider the global stage we are on, the light we guide and control the world with. To consider what kind of legacy we want to push forth.
If hearing the opposing views, or listening to the stories, or reading the statistics and seeing the media coverage is too difficult for you to confront, then you clearly are not educated enough to be voting on that topic. If you have to “mute” or “unfollow” accounts or people on social media who are actually spreading things topically relevant to them and affecting every aspect of their personal, public, and professional lives, and you consider that person a friend, then you need to stop and consider why you don’t also want to support their right to safety, adequate healthcare, and physical wellbeing. Because your vote does affect other people’s lives. Lives that have minimal or no affect on your own.
At the end of this, I don’t want to hear a fucking word about what a “snowflake libtard” I am either, because I’m about as small town, historic America as it fucking gets. I grew up just outside D.C. in a historically preserved agricultural, heavily Christian community on an appaloosa horse family farm. My maternal grandfather was a Colonel in the US Army and veteran of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, my paternal grandfather was a US Army, National Guard, and Army Reserves veteran, and NYC police officer for 27 years. My biological father was developed nuclear weapons as an aerospace engineer in the Pentagon. My stepfather is career Navy and flew drones in the Gulf War. I bleed red, white, and blue and won my third grade talent show after 9/11 singing the National Anthem. So get the fuck out of here and don’t you dare try to say voting for him is a vote for Democracy.
This is also one of the reasons I’m so passionate about how it absolutely is our responsibility as American citizens to actually consider the wider spectrum of views than just the ones we were born into. I watched my grandfather refuse to die, desperately clinging to life for years as a result of the horrors of living with his life choices. I watched him drink gin from the minute he woke up to right before bed because his decisions under pressure cost thousands of human lives, for the good of our country. Even his most justified decisions rang heavily on his conscience. Considering the value of a life is never an easy decision to make. Sure, it is necessary, but it is just as important to remember that
“you have a moral obligation not just to limit your own casualties and casualties of nonparticipants, but also those of the enemy itself”
as Annie Jacobsen so pointedly writes in “The Pentagon’s Brain”.
There are consequences to our actions.
Ignorance has never been a valid excuse for breaking the law, so why do we allow it when creating them, voting on them?
Seriously though, whether you support Trump or not, you owe it to yourself and your country to actually be aware of how close his leadership style is to fascism or the mindset of Nazi Germany.
And I say that as a blonde-haired, blue-green eyed German. Trump is also of German descent, for the record.
Let’s dive right in.
And as fearful as Trump is, I’m more fearful, in this moment of truth for our nation, that there is a significant proportion of my friends who I would normally consider reasonable, well-educated, and respectful, who I value dearly, and who I THOUGHT valued me, and the world, dearly, who are still planning to vote for him.
So I’m coming to you now, as someone who (embarassingly) actually refused to see the greatness that is Barack Obama speak at UNC during my undergrad, based almost exclusively on the principal mentality that “being liberal is evil” and “anti military”, and I implore you to actually consider the weight of your actions when you mark that ballot.
Any true American who legitimately wants America to be great will vote for Joe Biden.
Anything else is leaving the door open for Adolf Hitler 2.0 to stroll through.
Sources
“A 1938 Nazi Law Forced Jews to Register Their Wealth—Making It Easier to Steal.” Smithsonian Magazine, 26 April 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1938-nazi-law-forced-jews-register-their-wealthmaking-it-easier-steal-180968894/. Accessed 12 October 2020.
Hart, Bradley W. “The Nazis and the Soviets both tried to put a candidate in the White House, too.” Business Insider, 27 January 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/the-nazis-and-the-soviets-both-tried-to-meddle-in-us-elections-2019-1. Accessed 12 October 2020.
How did Hitler Happen? World War II: The National WWII Museum of New Orleans. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-did-hitler-happen.
Long, Heather. “Trump just crushed stimulus talks, endangering the U.S. economy and 26 million on unemployment.” The Washington Post, 6 October 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/06/trump-stimulus-economy-unemployment/. Accessed 11 October 2020.
McCarthy, Niall. “U.S. Billionaire Wealth Surged Since The Start Of The Pandemic.” Forbes, 22 June 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/06/22/us-billionaire-wealth-surged-since-the-start-of-the-pandemic-infographic/#4e84deb83f8b.
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. “Incarceration.” HealthyPeople.gov, 8 October 2020, https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-health/interventions-resources/incarceration. Accessed 12 October 2020.
Pappas, Stephanie. “Hitler’s Rise: How a Homeless Artist Became a Murderous Tyrant.” Live Science, 18 April 2016, https://www.livescience.com/54441-how-hitler-rose-to-power.html.
Seema Mehta. “Trump’s touting of ‘racehorse theory’ tied to eugenics and Nazis alarms Jewish leaders.” Los Angeles Times, 5 October 2020, https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-10-05/trump-debate-white-supremacy-racehorse-theory. Accessed 11 October 2020.
Snyder, Timothy. “How Hitler Pioneered “Fake News.”” The New York Times, 16 October 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/opinion/hitler-speech-1919.html.
Wikipedia. “Economic Policy of Donald Trump Administration.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_Donald_Trump_administration. Accessed 12 October 2020.
Wikipedia. “Economy of Nazi Germany.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 20 September 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany. Accessed 12 October 2020.
Wikipedia. “Incarceration in the United States.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States. Accessed 12 October 2020.