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| My shot, Amsterdam, June 2008 |
Still, the first few times I was asked this I brushed off the question. Trump won't be elected, I believed, and still do, so let's not indulge in such imaginings. But yesterday, undeterred, my then-current interlocutor responded that he really didn't like Hillary, the implication being he just couldn't bring himself to vote for her. So this is what I said, more or less calmly.
I'm a one issue voter, and that issue is global warming. There's lots of things I'd like to see changed, but none of those things will matter--none of those things will exist--if we don't change our course sharply and soon. If Trump is elected, the United States government's ability to react to global warming will be crippled. It's not that he doesn't believe in global warming--Trump's beliefs are as malleable as every other part of him--it's that he's an incompetent who believes himself, with good reason, immune to consequence. Trump will have neither the skill nor the motivation to steer the ship, and without a firm hand on the tiller that ship will drift along in the same direction for four more years.
Two points here. First, it is inconceivable to me that we will meet the challenge of global warming without effective action by the US government. Not China, not the EU, not all the multinationals in the world can do what the US government can, for good or for ill. Second--and I'm sorry to say I'll write about this in more detail soon--we don't have four more years. We are already past the practical deadline for radical change required to preserve the world as we know it. We are now rapidly approaching the point in time and carbon that will determine if we face a merely disastrous situation or a runaway scenario the outcome of which is utter destruction for all higher forms of life on the planet, and a goodly portion of the low, too. We may end up in a 6+ degree world without Trump at the helm, but with him there it's 6+ for sure.
You may not like Hillary Clinton, and that's fine. You may wish we'd given Bernie a chance (I do) or you may think in terms of protest votes, unwilling to make the false choice between the lesser of two evils. But this election isn't about what you like. It isn't about making statements, or setting or avoiding precedents. It's not even about choosing between good and evil or shades thereof. This election is about whether there is going to be a United States of which to be President a century from now. You choose.
