In his maniacal rantings about Hillary playing the woman's card Trump ignores what is right before his eyes; she is a brilliant, experienced and passionate woman whose supporters, male and female, will be working hard to elect her President of the United States of America. Clinton is the most prepared person running for President in decades with the range of experience and knowledge few if any past Presidents have had. Before his ego ran wild Donald Trump agreed. But this campaign has seen whatever common sense and decency he once possessed go out the window. All his recent threats to launch attacks against Bill Clinton are symptoms of candidate out of control and one afraid to face the person who is actually running for President, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Should Republicans nominate Trump the country will see him for the hypocrite he is. The thrice married Trump has always been a wheeler dealer. The Village Voice chronicled some of his deals and political manipulation including those leading to the building of the Grand Hyatt on top of Grand Central Terminal in New York, built with a 40 year $60 million tax abatement paid for by the taxpayers of New York City. He has never done anything for anybody else that didn't benefit him.
Those who have watched all the Republican debates and the three Democratic ones, Clinton backers now wishing there were more, have seen first-hand Hillary Clinton is far and away the smartest person participating in any of them. By dint of her leadership, experience and intelligence she is able to speak to both domestic issues and foreign affairs with an understanding and passion not evident in any other candidate.
As a progressive Democrat there is an admiration for Bernie Sanders and his passionate fight for economic equality. He has brought important issues to the forefront in this campaign. Yet a sober look at his record shows he is neither a leader nor had much real success in moving his ideas forward. Reviewing his over twenty-five years in Congress shows a total of three bills passed; two naming Post Offices in Vermont. There is a reason he can't get one Senator he served with to support him and the majority of the Progressive Caucus on the Hill has endorsed Hillary with only one member endorsing Sanders. Still if Democrats were to make him their nominee he should be supported because paraphrasing what he has said about Hillary, 'On his worst day he is better than any Republican running on their best day'. I know what it means to work with a fighting progressive having worked for one of the most outspoken ever to sit in Congress, Bella S. Abzug (D-NY). Bella never gave up her ideals and principles yet like Hillary she often managed to work across the aisle to get something done. In her six short years in Congress she was even named a whip by Speaker Tip O'Neill.
In twenty-eight days voting begins. First the Iowa caucuses on February 1st and then on February 9th the New Hampshire primary. The voters there will speak followed by those in Nevada and South Carolina. Time has come for both Clinton and Sanders supporters to join their candidates and commit to voting for whoever is the Democratic nominee.
There are important principles we in the Democratic Party are fighting for. They include income-equality; a woman's right to choose and control her own healthcare; full civil and human rights for the LGBT community; a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants; equal pay for equal work for women; a commitment to control climate change and support of the treaty President Obama recently signed; appointing Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Citizens United; reforming our criminal justice system because Black Lives Matter; and a host of others not one of which the Republican Party or their eventual nominee will support. So throwing a tantrum if your candidate doesn't win the nomination and proceeding to 'cut off your nose to spite your face' by not supporting the nominee of the Party, is nothing less than absurd.
There will be excitement around the Democratic nominee. If it is Hillary Clinton the same kind of excitement surrounding the election of the first African American President in 2008 will build with the realization she would become the first woman President. It will be a giant step which many countries in the world have already taken with women leaders from Iceland to Australia, from India to Germany.
It is time to use the right so many have fought for and even given their lives for in this nation of the free and the brave. Democrats, progressives and moderates alike, along with Independents who believe in equality and fairness must now speak out on principles we stand for and make their voices heard by voting. If you don't vote someone else will determine your future.