This spontaneous monologue was part of a larger Facebook Live feed the evening of Wednesday, July 27th, 2016, just after President Barack Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention, and he and Secretary Hillary Clinton embraced once another on the stage in front of the world. The transcript is below.
When broadcasting this video, I was thinking I had referred to kittens, but it was in fact, originally puppies....but the same point is made.
There are people that wanted Bernie Sanders to be president. I know that there are amazing and challenging things that need to be fixed in our political process. I know that there are people that have a great deal of contempt for both candidates and they feel like they’re somehow honoring themselves if they do not cast a vote for a candidate with whom they might have a deep distrust or resentment.
That can be said about both candidates and that could be said about many people who are considering whether or not to vote, and who to vote for.
With that said one of these two people will be the President of the United States of America, and even though it might be painful for some of you to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton (for me it will be a joy!), I want you to consider how you would feel if you decided for example to vote for a green party member. I’d like to ask you to consider how you personally will feel at a win by Donald J. Trump, because your vote, and depending upon how you do and do not yield it, impacts the outcome.
You can have contempt for both candidates. I personally love Hillary. I’m completely partisan here. But you could have contempt for both candidates and your presence and casting of a vote, or your absence and withholding of a vote, impact the outcome. This reminds me actually of how I personally related in the eighties to the phrase, Silence = Death, which was a major Battle Cry and ACT UP, and the flip side of that is Action = Life.
So remind yourself that someone’s going to win this election and that person is going to be in a position to do a great deal of good or a great deal of damage, and you might decide to withhold your own conscience, and your own moral and emotional and spiritual well-being, but I want to ask you, do you recognize that when you’re withholding that vote, you’re impacting the outcome?
And do you recognize how damaging and destroying it could be to the entire world and millions of people if someone like Donald Trump became president because of your individual moral outrage about some of the things Hillary Clinton has done?
So this is what is before us.
So, one of the things that I actually shared, and I need to apologize, so one of the things I personally shared on Facebook recently was ‘discovering that someone you love is voting for Donald Trump is like learning that they’re dipping kittens in boiling water.’
Now, that really does not accurately characterize the people that I love that are voting for Donald Trump on many levels, and that’s why I’m going to apologize.
The level of shock, and surprise and ‘oh, my God!’
That is what I was trying to convey when I made that remark, but I decided that dipping a kitten in boiling water is not a good analogy, because someone who would dip a kitten in boiling water is doing so knowingly. They are fully aware that they have a living and breathing and helpless little being in their hand, in they’re dipping it in boiling water. So I’ve decided that, if people I know and love are voting for Donald Trump, and I know that they’re not the sort of person who would dip a kitten in boiling water, what I need to remind them of is that I’m....
Donald Trump wants to take away my healthcare (and freedom to marry, and he and the party support conversion therapy to try to make LGBTQ people heterosexual) ...
Donald Trump wants to remove a woman’s right to choose.
Donald Trump and his party don’t want transgender people to be able to use the bathroom of their choice.
Donald Trump and his party have demonstrated time and time again complete disrespect for women and minorities...
And then, in the original, longer live broadcast, I was distracted by comments from viewers so I didn’t return directly to this rant. Find the original broadcast here.
Silence does equal death. And action does equal life. Voting for Hillary (even if you don’t like her) is the way to prevent a global catastrophe.
#ImWithHer