The problem is how you define "true." This "truth" usually turns out to be "speculation that I believe to be true."
ZOMG, that is such a "rabid fan base" statement . . . not.
The first time I got to vote, I voted for Dick Gregory of the Peace and Freedom party in 1972 because I couldn't in good conscience vote for George McGovern once he proposed a 100% Estate (inheritance) tax. I simply could not, and cannot vote for "pie in the sky" amateurs. So, mine was a protest vote.
I was living in California, and I also voted for (the first ever) proposal to legalize Marijuana. Both of my choices lost by a landslide.
Up until 2005, I was a registered independent. While this precluded, here in Pa., my voting in the primaries, it was how I best saw myself in our political landscape. That is NOT to say I was not, as I always have been as an adult, a proudly left of center American liberal in the tradition of many previous Republicans and Democrats who have held political office whom I have seen as largely sharing my inclusive and progressive social and political values. This was true, even as I self-identified as a Republican (who would have nearly always split my ticket had I been able to vote) up until the age of 18, due mostly to my parents being Republicans (though Pubs who would have been horrified and disgusted at the present state of the GOP.)
After George Bush was re-elected, an event I never thought could happen, I realized I had to draw my own personal line in the sand, so I re-registered as a Democrat. I have no overwhelming love for the Democratic party in toto; but they remain, no matter how
wildly imperfect, as the sole realistic bulwark against the presently yahoo/ignoramus infested and controlled Republican Party.
The GOP, as presently constituted and led, is a clear and present danger to my bedrock values, and to my hopes for the Republic, which I love. I am eternally grateful to have had the great, good fortune to have been born a white American male in the United States of America. And I fervently wish to extend every bit of the opportunities and advantages I have enjoyed as one to every single fellow citizen. Nothing, not one thing short of "liberty and justice for all" will do. No (economic or social) justice, no peace. We sink or swim as a country
together, no fucking exceptions!
I am in eternal debt to that GREAT Republican Abraham Lincoln for saving the Union. I can still
literally get tears in my eyes at the apocryphal words of the roaming, restless ghost of Daniel Webster and his one piercing question, "Neighbor, how stands the union?"
We have spent the last 200 years plus trying to live up to the gorgeous founding documents our forefathers bequeathed us. Have there ever been more beautiful hopes stating that which a government would provide for its people than, "Life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness?"
Liberty. I wish to add something parenthetical about it. It is not just the juvenile bleat of "Leave me alone" or "You are not the boss of me" or "I should be able to do what I wa wa want in every single circumstance." Liberty comes at a cost, and I am NOT just talking about force of arms. To be a true citizen of the our Republic involves an inescapable array of duties and responsibilities, of pitching in and of giving back, of ceding some unrestricted personal latitude for the greater good, to the ultimate benefit of ALL (crude example, obeying red lights.)
I do not buy into the scurrilous campaign of corrosive innuendo and supposition that has been energetically waged against Hillary Clinton for some decades now. It is, quite frankly, one fetid pile of hysterical bullshit. I heartily agree with all those who correctly state that she is amongst the most qualified and prepared candidates ever to run for our highest office.
Is she perfect? No. Show me a candidate or a person who is. Does she come across in public as wildly personally likable? Sadly, not especially. But I am SICK of the amiable boob contingent, as exemplified by George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Gary Johnson.
I said it here at the beginning of this election season and I'll say it again. Politics is the art of the possible. And the most important and clearly attainable bit of progress I can make my vote count for is to install a Democrat as President so that they get to nominate a Supreme Court justice (or two or three.) THIS ALONE will change the course of our country for the better for years and years to come.
That Hillary Clinton is a decent human being who has served her country admirably in a series of public and private ways her entire adult life is a great and good thing. That her election, most hopefully by some degree of landslide, will (also hopefully) serve as a clear repudiation of the worst candidate ever to run for President AND THE PARTY which welcomed him as their standard bearer, well, all that is vitally important to me as well.
The slogan as clever political agitprop holds no candle in crude effectiveness to "Lock her up" or "Ein Volk, ein Furher", I know.
Nevertheless:
"I'm with her."
May the best woman win.
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