The election is about more than the personalities

Despite best efforts twice in the past week I've been drawn into political arguments online. In one someone I respected came out on Twitter stating he was proud to be voting for Donald Trump. This guy is intelligent enough to have written a fairly credible book and when I saw that at first thought I had somehow misinterpreted what he was saying. Nope. So I questioned it and offered a couple of reasons to change that vote.Then I discovered the problem. He's out of his element.

His book was about a serious environmental issue so I suggested he look up Trump on environmental issues. In his next tweet he asked any of his followers if they could direct him to any articles on Trump's environmental views.  In other words he didn't have a clue and hadn't really looked into his candidate. And then this happened.

When I questioned him about that he blocked me.  Ha, a first. blocked like I was trying to send him naked pictures or something. You know what? No loss. It is a common result to write a book and immediately feel like you are among the infallible literary elite. You aren't. Everything you do is questionable. Ask any writer who was full of himself after the publication of his first book. Guilty.

The second one was more complicated but at least there was no blockage. A friend whom I have known for almost 40 years wrote a comment about how he views this year's election campaign in general. Mostly we agree, the main point being how dangerous a Trump presidency would be to the republic. I added a comment agreeing with him but questioning his evaluation of Hillary Clinton – the old  distrust factor. My thought on that has always been that any negatives about her are the result of the constant propaganda assault on her and her husband from Republicans. Although no wrongdoing has ever been proven, the barrage has had its effect in at least raising questions in peoples' minds about her qualifications.  My friend disagreed and as far as I was concerned that was the end of it. Then a whole bunch of people agreed with me. To be fair quite a few agreed with him too. Call it a tossup, whether you absolutely agree or disagree, the one thing we did agree on is she is a better choice than Trump by far.

I do not have the qualms he does. I was for her from the beginning though I did go with Bernie Sanders for a while. When she won the nomination, I was all in. I think she is possibly the most qualified person in terms of experience who has ever run for president of the United States.

For people who might be wavering or unhappy about voting for the "lesser of two evils," I have attached a meme that came out nearly a year ago. Besides the personalities, it shows what is really at stake in this election and it makes a compelling statement to vote  for one of the candidates.