I voted third party in 2016 when I should have voted for Hillary Clinton who I was not fond of at the time. I was wrong in my perception of her, and she was right about Trump and so many other issues.
Presidential Historian Alan Lichtman has correctly “nailed” a prediction about every single presidential prediction since 1984. The only election Alan Lichtman was unsure of was the election between Al Gore and George W. Bush which is understandable. Lichtman totally nailed all of the others, including a Trump victory in 2016 when most Americans thought that Hillary Clinton would win. Lichtman doesn’t rely on polling but a system he developed called, “The 13 keys to the Whitehouse” which historically determine American presidential elections. Yesterday, Alan Lichtman predicted a Harris victory for November. I say, “Thank God!!”
Not only do I think Harris will win, but I think she will win with a good margin. Trump’s base has declined a great deal since 2016, and now the traditional “pro-life” movement is infuriated with him for floundering on his anti-abortion stance. His much smaller base is divided more than ever now. The extreme right is composed of many dividers who cannot find common ground with others who aren’t in lock-step with their vision. Trust me when I say that I know these people. The only life who matters to them is the baby in the womb, and once the life takes its first breath, it can go “take a hike.” Not only is this not pro-life, it is the greatest hypocrisy and detriment to lives already born. To support a nationwide abortion ban, which I have never supported, but not support reasonable gun restrictions to prevent gun violence, which is the number one cause of death among America’s school children, is not in the slightest bit prolife.
I’m going to add a faith component to this as well. For 50 years, the hard political right mixed with parts of the American Church (mostly white) brought us to the point where we are today. I bear a small amount of responsibility for not seeing what these people were doing sooner. I am glad I was in the business of teaching kids in schools, raising a family, and not the traditional pro-life movement. I participated in a six-month period of a progressive pro-life movement of Democrats which provided expansion of supports for babies and mothers to quickly learn that they abandoned their vision for anti-abortion extremism. I trusted conservative Christian leadership at church, and I believed, repeated, and even went along with some of the things they were telling me which were not true. I will be living a life of repentance and reparations for this and for not waking up sooner and not rejecting many of the things they were telling me. In retrospect, I think it was the apolitical and progressive Christian and non-Christian Americans who spoke, lived, and served in reality which is truth. Anything which is not actually happening in lived reality is false unless it is supernatural which not everyone believes. One of my dearest friends like brother to me named Dr. Clarence White says, “The truth lies in the voices of the vulnerable.” He is a retired college professor and pastor.
We acquire the truth through the life stories of real people. When the collective of those stories match the news and other media stories, then they are true. When media does not match lived reality, like much of what we see on Fox News, it is false. These are the lessons I have learned over the last decade, and I will live in accordance to those lessons. I love what some progressive pastors who believe in science and history say. “I take the Bible seriously, but I don’t take it literally.” Pope Francis says religious fundamentalism leads to all kinds of horrendous killings, abuse, wars, and death. He is absolutely correct.
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