Jason Wallestad

I’m voting for Biden because he stands firmly in support of LGBTQ+ rights, including the right to marry.

I’m voting for Biden because he stands up for the rights of women, including their right to make decisions regarding their own bodies.

I’m voting for Biden because he has a proven track record of fighting to end violence against women and fighting to end the pay gap that exists between men and women for equal work.

I’m voting for Biden because the efforts of Democrats (through social programs, including sex education, health care, and universal access to birth control) do more to reduce abortions than do the Republican efforts to make abortion illegal.

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Fox News probably isn’t going to cover the story of the Trump supporters who were abandoned in the 31 degree freezing cold after Trump’s rally last night.

Trump’s supporters were bused in (hey, isn’t that what they accuse BLM of doing?), and for whatever logistical reason, it took up to 3 hours (!) to get them all back to their cars after the rally at Eppley Airfield outside Omaha. Trump finished speaking by 9 p.m., and some of his rally attendees didn’t get transportation to their cars until midnight.

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Republicans like to believe that racism in America is rare or overblown, and they are quick to defend Trump against charges of racism. But Trump’s racism is hiding in plain sight.

At Trump’s rally in Florida this past Friday, a man standing behind him continually flashed the “white power” hand gesture as Trump was speaking. I’m guessing that most Republicans are not aware that this hand gesture is anything but the OK sign. But don’t be fooled –– this sign has been deliberately used to represent “white power” since 2017. And the man was wearing a hat with a golden laurel –– that’s one of the symbols used by the Proud Boys, the group that Trump gave the shoutout to at the first debate.

That’s how the racism of Trump and his white nationalist followers works. They use symbols and words that can appear innocuous, but that convey a meaning to those who look for them and listen for them. And they allow good people who are Republicans to be completely unaware of the causes that are being supported right in front of them.

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Let’s start here: Do you really think Rudy Giuliani was just doing a deep one-handed shirt tuck in the Borat video that was released yesterday that shows him flat on his back in a hotel room while a 24-year-old woman who he thought was 15 was leaning over him?

Or how about this favorite story of the week: Do you really think Hunter Biden would have three damaged MacBook Pros at the same time and then decide to take them all to a Mac repair shop run by a Trump supporter who then gave a copy of the hard drive to deep-tucker Rudy after Hunter failed to pick up his laptops after 90 days? Would you even trust a computer repair shop with a website this bad: demacshop.com? Or believe that it’s possible to get anything fixed on a MacBook Pro for $85 as the bill to Hunter supposedly shows?

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I’m voting for Joe Biden this fall because he’s the only candidate with the moral standing to lead our great nation.

The party that once claimed the mantle of “The Moral Majority” is now anything but. Not only have they raised the most immoral man in modern American political memory as their standard bearer, but they have bowed down before him subserviently and turned him into an idol.

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Yesterday was just another day in Trumplandia, and Trump continued to remind me why I’m voting for Biden.

Midday, Trump released a video message to seniors, a demographic he is failing badly with, in which he spoke in front of a green-screened White House. His message makes it clear why he’s failing with seniors: “We’re taking care of our seniors. You’re not vulnerable, but they like to say ‘the vulnerable,’ but you’re the least vulnerable, but for this one thing you are the vulnerable.” They could have done another take! Does no one on his team dare tell him that he makes no sense?

Trump called in to Hannity’s propaganda hour last night and rasped his way through 30 minutes of nonsense that even seemed to leave Hannity confused. Hannity asked him three separate times when his last Covid test was to see if he’s no longer contagious, and Trump literally coughed his way through his evasion.

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This post is probably going to make some of you uncomfortable, and that’s okay.

I believe that most of Trump’s followers think racism is wrong (at least the ones not waving Confederate flags), and this is why Republicans are so uncomfortable and defensive when charges of racism are leveled at Trump.

I’ll get into the specifics of Trump’s racism in another post, but before I go there, we first need to take a closer look at ourselves. I’ll start with myself.

I grew up in rural, white America, and I grew up with a Republican worldview. I understand the hesitancy Republicans feel about acknowledging the existence of racism. My childhood was a world far away from diversity where everyone I knew looked very much like me in terms of skin color. My world was white and insular, and I had never truly met anyone or listened to anyone who had a life story that was markedly different than mine. How could I have known what racism was other than through what came into my world on 1980s TV?

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I’ve read transcripts of Trump’s rallies, press conferences, and interviews –– he veers mid-sentence from one topic to another, rarely finishing a thought, and he repeats and doubles back so often that it’s hard to know what he’s actually saying.

While it’s tempting to dismiss his dodges, evasions, and ramblings as general ol’ craziness, that would be a mistake. His dishonest language and verbal slights of hand allow him to perpetuate lies and half-truths and give his followers plausible deniability for his exaggerations, fear-mongering, and racism.

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I join Joe Biden in wishing the President a speedy and full recovery from Covid-19.

In addition to praying for the President’s recovery, Biden had his campaign pull all negative ads. Four years ago when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia just two months before the election, Trump didn’t wish her well, pray for her, or pull his negative ads. Rather, he openly mocked her. Watch the video.

Let that difference sink in.

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If you know me, then you know I’m not one to use words lightly, and you might wonder why I am posting so often on Facebook.

I’m standing up because this is not a normal election between two equivalent sides who simply disagree on issues and policies.

Do you remember during John McCain’s run in 2008 when an attendee made a racist comment about Obama at a Minnesota rally? Rather than feed that hatred, McCain stood up against it, took away the microphone, and denounced it. McCain was an honorable and good man; the Republican Party sure has fallen a long way since then.

Rather than standing for values that we should all cherish, such as honesty, compassion, empathy, and goodness, Trump stands for the exact opposite.

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