****** GIGANTIC TRIGGER WARNING*************
THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC PERSONAL INFORMATION WHICH IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN AND MAY CAUSE PTSD FOR THE READER. IF YOU CONTINUE, YOU ARE PROCEEDING AT YOUR OWN RISK. 1. Donald Trump makes a habit of picking on people he sees as weaker, uglier, lesser, poorer, disabled, etc. There are videos, soundbites, quote after tweet of him making fun of or tormenting or scorning another human being because he sees them as lesser. My mother is mentally ill and every single one of her internal demons that tells her why she's unlovable (she's too ugly, too stupid, not feminine enough, not smart enough, doesn't deserve love or admiration) comes out of Trump's mouth regularly. Guess who she's voting for? The person who validates every one of her fears. That makes me angry. My son is autistic. Donald Trump has publicly commented that his autism is caused by vaccines. Science has proven that it isn't. Is this the person we want appointing heads of scientific boards? While we're at it...what message is it sending to my son and his friends who have other special needs when his relatives who supposedly love him more than anything VOTE FOR the candidate to PUBLICLY taunts and makes fun of people with special needs? Don't think my son hasn't noticed. He's already asked me. This makes me even angrier because I can't give him a rational answer.
2. A soundbyte was released where Trump was heard saying something to the effect of, "When you're rich and famous you can gram 'em by the pussy and they let you." The "they" he was referring to, of course, was women, girls really. Whether he has done it or not, it encourages the kind of rape atmosphere we read about so often today. Thing is, it's not something that just started now. Let me tell you a personal story to explain why this bothers me so much....
More than 20 years ago, when I was 16, I was a typical curious girl. I was a virgin who wanted to stay that way but who still wanted to know what it was like to be kissed and cuddled. I was in a church youth group through school. What safer place to meet a boy, right? I did. He was cute. Taller than me. Initially, I thought he must be a senior. Turns out he was actually 14 - younger than I was. That meant he was even safer, right? Certainly a younger boy wasn't going to pressure me into having sex. He'd be willing to take it slow. His parents were divorced. I met his dad who was such a kind man. Like father like son, right? At the next youth group meeting, I had a strange encounter with one of the leaders. I don't remember her exact words but she told me to "be careful of him". She didn't tell me anything specifically and, frankly, I blew her off because my friends and I had given her an unflattering nickname because she was an evangelical who told us a story that when she met her boyfriend she told him she didn't want him to even hold her hand - she just wanted to be friends. I wanted to hold hands. I wanted to kiss. I thought she was being overly ridiculous. At the same time, I grew up listening to my father talk about women on the news who were raped or assaulted and hearing him say, "What did she expect walking there at night," or, "wearing that outfit," or, "being with that guy," followed with disgusted contempt in his voice, "Stupid slut (Ho bag, whore, cunt)! She should have known better."
Anyway, my boyfriend had been, in hindsight, trying to get into my pants for weeks and I kept fending him off. I thought I had made it clear to him that I was not interested in going that far and that he respected me. I was wrong. I had my driver's license so one night we were driving around and he directed me down some roads I was unfamiliar with which led to a dead end. I was cool with parking and talking and kissing....you know what kids do. I'd made it clear what my limits were. Surely he would respect them. We started talking. He took my hand in his. Then he pushed my hand down his underwear until I touched his erection. I was so shocked I couldn't talk but I kept trying to pull my hand away while he held it there. I said no. Pretty sure I mumbled it because I was freaked out. This is NOT what I wanted. I had made that clear. Why was he doing this???? Eventually he let me go so he could shove his hand down my underwear. I remember him shoving his fingers inside me. It wasn't pleasant. It wasn't romantic. It damn sure wasn't consentual. I was frozen in fear and shock. It was HORRIFYING! I made some excuse about being late for curfew to get out of there. I drove him home then went home myself. I honestly don't remember what I did when I got home. I was in shock and that part is a total blank. I'm sure I curled up in my bed and cried. I never told my parents because, "What did I expect. I should have known. Stupid slut." Oh yeah, those words echoed through my head. What's worse? When I told my best friend the next day, her response was that I disgusted her. Not that she was disgusted FOR me, but even she believed that it was my fault. It validated my fear. Oddly enough, the only other person I told was my closest male friend, who later came out of the closet, and he was the ONLY person who hugged me and told me he was sorry. HE was the only person who told me it wasn't my fault. You know who you are and THANK YOU! I think you kept me sane. Needless to say, I broke up with that boyfriend the very next day over the phone and I stopped going to the youth group.
My hands are starting to shake and my eyes are tearing up as I write this and it's been 23 and a half years since that night. It still affects me. This culture STILL EXISTS today. About 4 years ago, I reconnected with another old friend from high school who at that time worked in HR. Part of her job was to check to make sure candidates weren't on the Sex Offender Registry. She said, "Didn't you date (boyfriend's name) in high school? Did you know he's on the Sex Offender Registry?" I hadn't talked about it to anyone except my husband and one other long-term, serious boyfriend before him. I don't know what made me decide to start talking about it that day, but it was freeing. I looked my friend in the eye and said, "I did and I'm not surprised considering he molested me when we were dating." I don't think her eyes could have gotten any bigger. My point is, I don't want my daughter growing up in the same environment. I've seen Trump's pathetic "apology" for his comments. I don't believe him. If my ex-boyfriend sat there and said the exact same words Trump said, I would tell him to Go Fuck Himself. He's on the sex offender registry for good reason. He did what he did to me when he was 14. He was put on the list as an adult. It's not just locker room talk. You don't "meet people" and suddenly "feel ashamed" for what you said a few years ago. FUCK YOU, DONALD TRUMP. FUCK. YOU. I don't want my daughter to grow up with a president who has ANYTHING in common with the boy who once sexually assaulted me and is now on the sex offender registry. I don't want my son growing up thinking any of this behavior or language is EVER in ANY WAY acceptable. I truly believe with all my heart that the only reason Trump isn't on a sex offender registry is because he has money and has been able to pay to stay off of them.
3. Ethics. This is a sticky one. This is why Hillary wasn't initially my candidate so for me it comes down to who is less ethical. I've heard the argument that Hillary defended a rapist who was guilty of raping a young teen girl and she laughed about it. I looked into this one. First, she was appointed to the case. She didn't want to take it. She asked the judge to remove her and was denied. At that point, her JOB was to defend the asshole to the best of her ability whether or not she thinks he's a slimeball. I listened to the recording of her laughing. She wasn't laughing at the girl being raped. She was laughing at the absurdity of the legal system using "lie detector testing" as evidence when her client passed the test even though he lied. She was questioning whether that evidence should ever be considered trustworthy again.
Liberals like to point out that Trump has had many businesses fail and a conservative I know explained to me that it's not a business failure - it's a tax write-off. Good point, but is it ethical? Trump talks about jobs moving elsewhere and about creating jobs but what about the people who depended on those businesses he built then either carelessly or, worse, purposely ran into the ground so he could use them as a tax write-off? People who had their health insurance through those jobs. People whose income depended on those jobs. People who were paying for their kids' daycare or college or diabetes supplies with that job. If he doesn't care about his employees, and he only cares about paying as few taxes as possible, how can he have the best interests of the people of the United States of America at heart?
This is one that's probably going to piss people off and so be it. Hillary Clinton has used her talent and power to silence the women who have come forward to accuse her husband of infidelity while in office. I'm not arguing that she hasn't. Here's my take on the situation.
Hillary Clinton grew up in a time when women were not supposed to have aspirations. Suppose she always had a desire to be President or Secretary of State. Suppose that she saw Bill Clinton as her way of getting there. Here's the thing. Well behaved women rarely make history. They're villified. Kind of like Hillary.
Have you heard the word "mansplaining"? You don't have to explain its meaning to a woman. She gets it. Men, however, groan and roll their eyes. "Here we go again," he thinks. He really doesn't care. *He fixes a patient, patronizing smile on his face* "Please, go ahead. What is it?" As a woman, I'm supposed to ignore the patronizing asshole. If I don't, I'm a shrew. I must be on the rag. I'm obviously hormonal. My female coworkers and I (who worked in a male-dominated field) used to joke that we forgot to bring our penises to work with us). Yes, we joked because it was that or become rage-bitchy. I seriously lost count of the number of times one of the women would come up with an idea, propose it in a meeting, have the idea shot down by the male management, then have the EXACT SAME IDEA (often with the same exact wording and sometimes in the same meeting) be proposed by a male colleague and have it applauded, the male colleague patted on the back, and have it publicly announced that the male colleague came up with this wonderful idea that was being implemented. I even spoke up on several occasions for my fellow women and loudly stated that SHE just said the EXACT SAME THING, only to be told I was wrong or be ignored completely. Seriously. It happens a lot. I even get mansplained by my husband, father, and father-in-law. Men do it all the time and they don't realize it. That doesn't even cover the other types of mysogyny females encounter every single day in both subtle and outright ways that men are completely unaware that they do. And even men who *think* they have progressive attitudes towards women often slip on occasion without realizing it.
So Hillary has made her career in this environment. The only way for a woman to get to the top is to be a shark. You can not be a nice woman and make it there. IT. IS. NOT. POSSIBLE. Had she not silenced those few women, it's possible she wouldn't have been able to get as close to Washington as she did, riding on her husband's coat tails. It's not pretty, but it's truth. While she was there, she rubbed elbows, made friends. People noticed her. She began to stand out on her own. Her own intellect and her own strength stood out. She made a name for herself. I doubt that would have happened had she allowed her husband's career to tank because he was a moron who couldn't keep it in his pants. She's shrewd. She kept her eyes on the prize. If she were a man, nobody would be talking about it. But she's not. She's subject to a different set of rules.
So, she is a flawed candidate, but I understand where she's coming from and at the end of the day, I can look my children in the eye and tell them that I made my decision based on the ideals that I try to teach and practice for them.
So, Sunshine and Rainbow, today, I'm with Her.
