I’m Voting For The Democrat In November Because I’m Not A Human Tire Fire

[kpete]

Rant by: Sara Benincasa
Comedian and author. My latest book is Real Artists Have Day Jobs (And Other Awesome Things They Don’t Teach You In School). http://amzn.to/1JWsgxy


This is for anybody wasting time online blathering about how Hillary and Trump are the same; how if Hillary gets the nomination, they won’t vote at all; or how they’re super-stoked to vote for a third party candidate because THEY HAVE PRINCIPLES, GODDAMMIT.

Hi. I’m your Auntie Sara. Time to wake the fuck up. If you are decent, you are going to vote for the Democrat in November. Not because you love Hillary (or Bernie, for whom I will vote if Hillary doesn’t get the nomination!) Not because you love the two-party system (I don’t! Do you? That’s weird! We deserve better!) But because we’re dealing with brass tacks reality here, not our dreams.

No, I don’t assume you’re sexist because you want to vote for Bernie. Of course not. I know many good and decent people, men and women and gender queer folks, who want to vote for Bernie, or for Hillary, or for Jill, or for ALMOST anyone but Trump. Yes, Bernie Bros are real. Yes, Hillary people can be annoying. Yes, any folks can be awful. I am not a woman who thinks everyone who loves a dude is sexist. I love dudes too! Sometimes ladies also! Sometimes folks who don’t conform to gender! Anyway, read on.

When I was a tiny baby woman of 20, I loved Michael Moore’s assertion that Gore and Bush 2 were EXACTLY THE SAME, MAAAAAAAN. I loved this because he was funny and smart, this Michael Moore, in my opinion. I still dig Michael Moore, though only in part and not in an idolatrous way, because I have put away most childish things like blind devotion to anyone who says something that sounds good but does not bear up to actual analysis. He is a wonderful filmmaker and storyteller with whom I do not always agree. He has evolved and so have I.

Other people who I thought were funny and smart and sensible loved Ralph Nader, too! Especially this one girl I knew with expensive dreadlocks (yes she was white, you silly billy, but you knew that already!) I thought Nader sounded great! I recognized he would never ever win the general, so I advocated for Gore. But still, this Nader was a delight! Also he made sure we had seatbelts! Were you aware? History is fun!

Then Bush 2 won.

AHHAHAHAHAH.

Remember No Child Left Behind? AHAHHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, how fun it was to contend with that gem of legislation a few years later when I was teaching in the public high school system. Remember abstinence-only education? Of course you do; it’s how you had your first child. And your second. They’re so cute now! Hooray!

My point is this: don’t throw your vote away because your ego and your “personal brand” says you’ve got to Feel the [fill in the blank thing that sounds great but will not lead to the Democrats actually winning the presidency in November 2016.]

I get it if it makes you feel really good personally and like a great liberal with super awesome true blue standards to vote for Bernie and support Bernie. He has many good things to say! He’s done some lovely stuff! He is smart and amazing and I admire him a great deal. I admire many people. That’s great. I also enjoyed Ralph Nader for a time. You know who’s also great? Dr. Jill Stein, the Green lady! She seems great! But when Hillary gets the nomination, and she will, it is imperative to vote for the Democrat because the DNC platform is vastly superior to the GOP values. And if it makes you feel good in your feelings to stay home from the polls because you don’t like Hillary or don’t agree with things that she has done or said, you are effectively voting for Donald Trump.

And I’m not voting for Hillary JUST because I think she’s more electable. I admire many things about her, too. Too many to list here, in fact! I don’t know her personally. I don’t know Bernie personally. I don’t know Trump personally. This is about the work. This is not about being a fangirl or fanboy or doing what will make my friends (most of whom love either Bernie or Hillary) happy. This is what I think is right for my country in the pragmatic long run where feelings cool and your angry or elated reaction to this post is but a mere memory and you and I and everyone we know has to actually contend with the policies enacted by our president.

So get your fucking shit together once Hillary is the nominee, unless your ego and need to talk about stuff at your organic locally grown dinner parties for the next four years is greater than your respect for and compassion for the people who would suffer terribly under a GOP presidency and the Supreme Court for the next 10 to 40 years.

Sometimes you make the best choice and you still don’t love it. But this is real life, not your copy of “Be Here Now.” I had that book too. It was great! It was written by a wonderful man who comes from a world of white privilege. I do too! Isn’t it crazy that I can make sense in some ways and be annoying or odious to you in other ways? This is how life works: things are not always all great, and neither are people.

Yes, we ought to have a system in which two parties are not dominant. It’d be great to have more than two viable candidates for president. Can you magically make that happen by November? No? Cool. Don’t vote Green. Don’t vote Libertarian. Vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Because it matters, and your choice this fall, barring an act of a God who does not exist, is Hillary or Trump. That’s your choice. Hooray!

You don’t like Hillary’s past support for military actions in XYZ? Cool! Me neither, sometimes! Show me a president who has never made a decision that led to the deaths of women and children and innocent humans at home or (more likely) abroad and I will show you a lie. You think Bernie wouldn’t take military action if necessary? You think our bombs wouldn’t land on kids even if he took every precaution to ensure only military targets were hit? In what fucking world is the leader of any country a saint? Saints don’t exist. Saints are a lie.

You think that’s an endorsement of policies that kill innocent children? Then you’re sorely in need of a course in reading comprehension.

I supported Hillary in the primary back in ’08. Then I supported Barack Obama in the general. Why? Because, as the title indicates, I am not a human tire fire. Barack Obama has done amazing things for queer people here! He has also okayed the use of drones that killed innocent children in Pakistan and elsewhere! If you cannot look critically at your candidate, you will not look critically at your President. You’re a cult member. Cult members never do anything good ever, except for the Amish people who make really great soft pretzels. But they still oppress women, even with their charming bonnets! Can you hold many truths in your brain at once? No? I’m sorry about that. Please read more and then talk to humans who are not like you, sometimes.

In the real world, sometimes you do not get all of the candy. Sometimes you get a little bit of the candy and that is better than getting a pile of actual flaming garbage. Don’t just think about yourself… Think about the people who will be affected by the policies of the next president, as well as the people who will be affected by the Supreme Court. Unless your politics is just about whatever T-shirt you wear, in which case you really ought to get more into football.

You think this is condescending? I’m using small words to help you understand what many, many, many of us get: your assertion that you can’t in good conscience vote for Hillary is an insult to me and women and queer folks and all the people who benefit and even have a chance to thrive under Democratic policies. You’d consign us to 4 years of Trump and two or three decades of a disgusting, vile Supreme Court because you have a sad feelz in your tum-tum?

You’re goddamn right I’m condescending to you. You deserve this.



Get with the fucking program.


I posted the whole thing, BECAUSE!:
https://medium.com/@SaraJBenincasa/im-voting-for-the-democrat-in-november-because-i-m-not-a-human-tire-fire-4a3f48dff372#.64eg8cvsb

[dana_b]

1. blah, blah, blah

more insults that are supposed to guilt us into doing what they say. Nope! To hell with that.

How is this different from the other 100 articles or rants on this subject that have been posted here?

[Cobalt Violet]

7. +1000

I'm tired of this way of thinking.

[liberal_at_heart]

2. don't talk to me about No Child Left Behind. Because of Obama's Race to the Top and

Common Core my autistic son came home crying every day in sixth grade. In fifth grade he was at a 3rd/4th grade math comprehension level and when he got to middle school they made him take sixth grade math, and they passed him even though he didn't understand it. Then he took 7th and 8th grade math even though he didn't understand that either. Finally once we moved to a district that wasn't afraid to buck the system they reevaluated his skills, went back and taught him multiplication and division in the 9th grade and then in the 10 grade started introducing pre-algrebra and now in the 11th grade is learning algebra. No telling how much further he would be in math right now if they had not tried to force him to learn 6th grade math. Also my autistic son is turning 18 this year. I am very worried whether he will even be approved for SSI because Democrats keep caving the cuts to social services during budget deals. I know what your answer will be. Well Trump will be worse. Well my answer is neither is acceptable.

[vintx]

21. Thanks for sharing your experience.

People need to see the real life consequences of third way bullshit

[CorkySt.Clair]

23. You're blaming your child's academic problems on Obama?

Last edited Fri May 27, 2016, 05:58 PM - Edit history (1)

We're through the looking glass now, apparently.

[Lizzie Poppet]

3. From one Sara to another (not you, kpete!):

Take your smug, condescending (and largely infantile) twaddle and shove it right straight up your ass.

[AtheistCrusader]

24. Juror number 2 dissapproves of the alerter's shenanigans.

On Fri May 27, 2016, 09:47 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

From one Sara to another (not you, kpete!):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2066398

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

A clear violation of the TOS. Should be hidden.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Fri May 27, 2016, 09:52 AM, and the Jury voted 2-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: So mean and nasty....
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Deceptive alert. The poster made it clear she was referring to the AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE, not the POSTER THAT STARTED THE THREAD. Reading comprehension for the win.
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I've seen worse posts than this over the past few weeks. It must be primary season.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: TOS violation?
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: The comment is aimed at the author of the article quoted in the OP, and not against any DU'er. The vulgarity is certainly no worse than that entire OP article. No TOS violation here.
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I don't understand how this is a violation of the TOS. It's a complaint about the tone of an article, and not directed at a DU member.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[Lizzie Poppet]

30. Thanks...to you and (most of) the jury.

I thought that might get alerted, thus my specific exclusion of the poster). Glad it was sustained, even though hides aren't relevant any more.

[Dem2]

34. Lovely

The O/P article says so succinctly a simple concept that one cannot disagree with, the fact that you had such a violent reaction to it says that you 1) probably didn't read it and 2) that you're super defensive about your uncompromising position re: attacking the likely Democratic nominee.

[seekthetruth]

4. How condescending to the poor when someone won't even support a fair minimum wage....

How condescending is it to seek out trade deals that harm the American worker?

If I don't support Clinton I'm somehow limiting my wife's ability to be free, or my gay brothers and sisters? She supports Sanders....and I cannot count on my hands or feet the amount of women I know that won't ever vote for Clinton because of her neoliberalist views.....so many of them!

Seriously, I read your post but my eyes and brain started to hurt by the lack of logic, and the frantic way you were condescending towards people who don't agree with you.

Sorry, this is the world and people aren't always going to agree with you.....deal with it.

[cwydro]

10. You do realize the OP did not write that?

I hope you do.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. No sale.

[Mnpaul]

6. crap reasoning like this

is why our country is so screwed up

[wiggs]

8. legitimate point of view. Glad you posted, regardless of her overlay of

condescension because I think people can look past the style and recognize valid content. I bet a lot more people agree with her point than disagree, even on DU.

[cwydro]

9. K and R.

Thanks for posting this.

Spot on.

[berni_mccoy]

11. Even if every Democrat votes for Hillary in November, she isn't going to win.

She is not liked by the general voting population and Trump is beating her with independents by wide margins. She has enough baggage that Trumps campaign doesn't need to use her strengths against her like has been done in the past vs. Gore and Kerry.

[dana_b]

13. especially now

there is NO way that she will win. If people still think that she will because of Trump, they are either willfully blind or delusional. Instead of voting for her, many just won't vote. Period. And that seems to work against the Dems when people don't vote.

[vintx]

35. THIS

[Bleacher Creature]

12. This is fantastic. Thank you!!

[AirmensMom]

14. What a vile post.

That should help...not. SMDH

[oldandhappy]

15. What is a tire fire? Just curious.

Mostly Bernie people will vote clinton. Inhale.

[Paladin]

16. If you fail to vote for Hillary due to your allegiance to Bernie, you need to leave DU.

We don't need any Trump enablers around here.

And yes, if by some small chance Bernie gets the nomination, he'll get my vote, reluctant as it may be.

[Nirgendwo]

29. Wow. Democracy in action!

My way or the highway...

[geek tragedy]

17. people who are okay with Clinton losing to Trump don't care about policy, or other Americans nt

[JCanete]

18. First, your characterization of our attitude towards a Trump Presidency is wrong, perhaps smirkingly

so? I'm not sure who you are speaking about when you say that anybody is OKAY with a Trump presidency. Those of us not necessarily willing to vote for Hillary come November are not OKAY with it.

But we're also not OKAY with being backed into a corner and forced to vote for the "lesser of two evils," because all that is continuing to do is to shift us right, and it has been for decades. Every time we shift right, the republicans get to shift even further right and the complicit media gets to pretend that our right is the new left wing.

And you know what? We've stopped believing the democratic party is tacking right because it has to in order to hold seats and get good things done. Now that we actually have an example of a candidate who is solidly left, that in-spite of a predictable round robin of media blackout to media take-down blitzes has wide support in this nation, it has become clear to me that given the climate, he could beat any candidate running on the GOP ticket, if he had the support of the DNC. What has been disappointing to see is that our misgivings about the DNC have been vindicated. The solid front put up by the establishment to tarnish Bernie's (I would have thought unassailable) record and history and paint him as a non-democrat have been a convincing testament to the commitment to the status quo that our party leadership and its ranking members has.

So, you tell me, why should I keep lying to myself and voting D in the general no matter who, if I know my vote only serves to vindicate the party for paying lip service to progressive issues and continuing to do Wall Street's bidding? Knowing that it gives cover of mandate for bad policy, and helps to manufacture consent for this right-wing corporatist vision of the Democratic Party?

[geek tragedy]

19. If you're not willing to oppose a Trump presidency even by voting to prevent one, you're

pretty much okay with him beating Clinton.

Actions > words.

Clinton's 2016 platform is further to the left than Gore's 2000 platform, and Obama is further to the left than Bill Clinton was. So this 'rightward drift' talk is nonsense.

People who voted for Clinton over Sanders had reasons for doing so--and it's not the reasons you imagine. People didn't vote for Clinton because they think the status quo is so awesome it has to be preserved. They voted for her because she's better able to change it for the better. Not just talk about how it should be better, but actually make it better.

Hurt feelings, not policy, is what drives people to say they won't do a damn thing to prevent Trump from being President, just like it was in 2000.

[JCanete]

25. Give me some examples of that change that Clinton has and is bringing. And no,

the DNC is just as responsible for there being a Trump candidacy as the GOP. What I'm not going to do is to continue to support the kabuki theater of fighting over symptoms to the illness while both parties continue to cultivate the illness, and then say "behold, these pustules are surely something you can't live with!" Fuck that. I don't want future Trumps, so I'm going to stop supporting the system that enables them.

[geek tragedy]

26. "the DNC is just as responsible for there being a Trump candidacy as the GOP"

Bye

[JCanete]

27. coward. nt

[vintx]

20. Stopped reading her drivel after "Bernie bros are real"

Idiotic blathering

[B Calm]

22. Same here. LOL

[MisterP]

28. so her only case is NCLB, which Obama doubled down on and Dems mainstreamed?

I supported Hillary in the primary back in ’08. Then I supported Barack Obama in the general. Why? Because, as the title indicates, I am not a human tire fire. Barack Obama has done amazing things for queer people here! He has also okayed the use of drones that killed innocent children in Pakistan and elsewhere! If you cannot look critically at your candidate, you will not look critically at your President. You’re a cult member. Cult members never do anything good ever, except for the Amish people who make really great soft pretzels. But they still oppress women, even with their charming bonnets! Can you hold many truths in your brain at once? No? I’m sorry about that. Please read more and then talk to humans who are not like you, sometimes.

this reminds me of that FL mother who got likkered up and rambled about her son having to learn Ay-rab numerals


"And I’m not voting for Hillary JUST because I think she’s more electable"

[Ino]

31. I hope Sara feels better...

but her arrogant little rant will have the opposite effect of what she wants. Good for her, LOL.

[Dem2]

32. Kicked and recommended and bookmarked

There is no other explanation needed, I'm going to assume that those pissing and moaning didn't read the post; because if they did they'd realize that they are making fun of themselves in their insta-reaction nonsense.

[Starry Messenger]

33. K&R