My Vote for President Based on the Facts
The way I see it, there are two primary responsibilities of an American citizen. The first is to be educated about the issues and the candidates and the second is to vote. We are 3 weeks away from one of the most consequential elections in American history, and I want to share with you my thoughts on the upcoming election.
I am not a Republican, and I am not a Democrat; I am an American Citizen who puts the future of our country ahead of any one party. As I look at the candidates and their positions on the issues, I have come to the conclusion that this election is not about the issues—it is a simple moral choice. Since casting my first vote in a Presidential election for Ronald Reagan in 1980, I have voted for candidates from both parties. Traditionally, I have always voted for someone; however, after reviewing all of the facts, this Independent will be voting against Donald J. Trump for the following reasons:
Only 24 out of 42 former Trump Cabinet members support his Campaign. Former Vice-President, Mike Pence, said, “Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President!” Bill Barr, Attorney General under Trump, said, “He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest. There is no question about it.” General John Kelly, who served as Trump’s Chief of Staff, described him as “a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.” When I am hiring someone for a key position, I always check their references. If half of their references were not supportive, I would absolutely not hire the person. Why would we hire Donald Trump for the most important job in the world when almost half of the people who worked for him in the White House are not supporting his candidacy?
Former President Trump has a total disregard for the truth. The President of the United States and the Leader of the Free World must be able to tell the truth. Here are just a few of the lies and misinformation that Trump has spread during the 2024 Presidential campaign:
1. Trump repeatedly claims that during his administration, the country had “the best economy in the history of our country.”
The reality is the following graphic shows why this statement is a lie:
2. Trump says, “We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before, probably the worst in our Nation’s history.”
The reality is that although inflation reached 9 percent, a 40-year-high, in mid-2022, it is now below 3 percent. (For all of 2022, inflation was 6.5 percent.) Inflation was 12.5 percent in 1980, 13.3 percent in 1979 and 18.1 percent in 1946—and many other years were higher than 6.5 percent.
3. Trump says migrants are fueling violence, accusing migrants of wanting to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America.”
The reality is numerous studies disprove this, but rather show that immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than those born in the United States, and that immigrants start new businesses, which also hire non-immigrant Americans, at twice the rate of non-immigrants.
4. Trump says, “I’ve said this and I say it openly and not a lot of people dispute it. I’ve done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. Nobody has even been close.”
This is a flat out lie.
5. On the transfer of power, Trump says, “Of course there’ll be a peaceful transfer. And there was last time.”
This statement completely ignores the reality of the January 6, 2021, siege on the Capitol, as well was former President Trump’s role in urging it on and his plan to pardon all of the people convicted of crimes committed on January 6th.
6. Trump says, “Her vice-presidential pick says abortion in the 9th month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth—it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born—is okay.”
The reality is infanticide is illegal in every State, and Harris and Walz have never supported it.
7. Trump says, “She (Harris) wants to take away everyone’s gun.”
The reality is Harris has not proposed taking away all guns. She has proposed banning assault-style weapons, which would essentially be a renewal of a bipartisan law that was in place between 1994 and 2004.
8. During the Trump-Harris debate, Trump said, “A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
The reality is Trump’s comment followed a baseless claim that immigrants from Haiti who have recently settled in Springfield, Ohio, have been eating pets. This is strongly disputed by Springfield city officials and residents.
9. At a Michigan rally, October 3, 2024, Trump said, “You know last time, last election, we did great in 2016. A lot of people don’t know we did much better in 2020. We won. We won. We did. It was a rigged election. It was a rigged election.”
To this day Trump refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election and continues to push the “big lie” that he won the election, despite losing all but one of the 64 lawsuits he filed across the country challenging the results.
These are just 9 quotes. A conservative estimate counts more than 30,000 lies by Trump over the 4 years of his Presidency, 162 lies during a single news conference, and more than 30 lies in the singular debate with Harris. Trump’s lying is unprecedented in American Presidential history. Yes, politicians may on occasion bend the truth, but Donald J. Trump flat out lies and makes things up as he goes along. Trump’s inability to tell the truth divides the Nation, hurts our foreign policy and says to the more than 300 million Americans that lying is acceptable. You would not accept this behavior from your kid’s soccer coach, and we should not tolerate it from a candidate running for the highest office in our land.
C-Span’s non-partisan 2021 Presidential Leadership Survey ranks Trump as the 4th worst President in our Nation’s history. Donald Trump served as President for 4 years and his self-assessment is that he was one of the greatest Presidents in United States history. Scholars rate Presidents in categories that include integrity, intelligence, the ability to compromise, executive ability, the handling of the economy, foreign policy, and the ability to avoid mistakes. Trump is clearly one of the very worst in all of these categories.
Donald Trump is not a Republican. Dwight Eisenhower was a Republican, Gerald R. Ford was a Republican, Ronald Reagan was a Republican, and George H.W. Bush was a Republican. All four of these men put our country first—before their own interests. All four of these men had a high degree of humility, and all four of these men had the respect of the people who worked with them. None would have voted for Donald Trump, and George Washington, who refused to become an imperial president, dictator, or king, certainly would never have voted for Donald Trump. In my opinion neither should you!
A vote for Kamala Harris is the only way to effectively vote against Trump.