The more I’ve learned about the GOP candidate, the more solid is my support for Clinton
For four decades I avoided voting in political primaries because I thought it would be inappropriate for a reporter to align with a political party. I often covered political campaigns, so choosing one political party primary over another one would represent a bias in my view. I waited until the general election to cast my votes for candidates I preferred, and I usually kept my vote to myself.
That all changed when I retired and moved to Cedar Creek Lake in 2008. Down here, Democrats hold few offices, because East Texas is known as a Republican, Christian stronghold. I knew if I wanted my vote to count for much I needed to support moderate Republicans in the primaries for offices such as state representative and senator and for county offices.
That brings me to the 2016 presidential election. I did vote in the Republican Primary, and I voted for Donald Trump. At that time I knew what I thought was a lot about him, and I didn’t think of him as menacing. I knew that Ted Cruz would represent practically nothing I favored and almost everything that I deplored.
So here we are, less than a month out from the general election in November, and I’m mighty happy to know that even though I voted for Trump in the 2016 primary, I can cast my ballot for Hillary Clinton for president if I so choose.
Absolutely nothing prepared me for what I would learn about Trump during the past few months. Thank God for our relentlessly thorough media (hated by Trump for obvious reasons) that reveals what you need to know about political candidates and their agendas.
The media has revealed Trump lost almost $1 billion in 1995, according to a tax return obtained by the New York Times, and that allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for almost two decades.That pretty much shot down any claim to him being an “economic genius.” With that record, just think what he could do for America in four years.
We also now know that Trump is a sexist, racist, homophobe who would reverse every social gain made by any minority group if he only could become what he seems to really want to be — a dictator with absolute control over all of the branches of government.
Since the recent release of the Access Hollywood tape from 2005 that revealed him denigrating women and saying he could molest any of them he wanted because of his “star” status, Trump appears to be plummeting in the polls. In a four-way race, a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed Clinton leading Trump 46 percent to 35 percent, with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson polling at 9 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein showing 2 percent.
In a head-to-head match, Clinton leads Trump 52 percent to 38 percent.
Trump’s core support appears to be white men without degrees and, in smaller numbers, white women without degrees, and also seniors, according to the Washington Post. The Atlantic reported that 90 percent of Trump’s support is white.
Trump already had failed to gain the critical support of the Bush family, and now that his conversation with Hollywood Access co-anchor Billy Bush (a first cousin to George W. Bush) has cost the younger Bush his job with NBC Today, that’s unlikely to change.
Clinton’s support is higher than Trump’s among female voters, blacks and Hispanics, according to the Washington Post.
It comes as a bit of a surprise to me that so many women dislike Clinton, given that she has worked most of her career as an advocate for women and children. In the Cedar Creek Lake area, I’ve yet to find a female senior, young woman or even a lesbian to say anything nice about her.
One of the most frequent complaints appears to be that she didn’t divorce Bill Clinton when the news about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky became public and several other women claimed he engaged in affairs with them or sexually harassed and assaulted them.
The women to whom I spoke also claimed Hillary Clinton verbally attacked and ordered private investigations of Bill Clinton’s accusers. They called her a serial liar, and they criticized her sympathy for immigrants fleeing war-torn countries.
I would say the decisions of the Clintons to remain married is their business, and I’m not going to fault her for that choice. Most married people these days seem to be on at least their second marriage, and I’ve known people who were married as many as five times and divorced just as many.
One of the more bizarre comments about support for Trump after the release of the Access Hollywood dialog came from a Kansas woman who identified herself as a Republican Party chair. She said that although she deplored Trump’s remarks, she believed he would be the kind of man Christians should support: “God can use anybody,” she said. “God can use this man.”
I gather she thinks God is in charge of the Republican Party.
Neither Clinton nor Trump are models of propriety, but I know which candidate is most likely to take my interests to heart when it comes to really important matters, such as the appointment of a new justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, setting an agenda that protects the rights of all people and preventing our nation from taking rash military action that could lead to catastrophic results.
I’m for Hillary and the Democratic Party, and if you share my concerns, you should be too.
David Webb is a veteran journalist with more than three decades of experience, including a stint as a staff reporter for Dallas Voice. He now lives on Cedar Creek Lake and writes for publications nationwide.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 14, 2016.