Dear Trump Voters: Here is what I need you to know

Anyone who has been following my blog for any amount of time knows that I always start my post with the preface that I in no way intend to cause discord among the people viewing it and that I respect all viewpoints equally. 

 

But not this time. Not this time.

This post is to anyone who voted for Donald Trump but it will mainly be aimed at my family and friends, who I hold dear. Here is what I need you to know.

 

I love you. You are a valuable person in my life and you are my friend.  And nothing will ever change that.  Not even this election. I hold no hatred in my heart for you OR Donald Trump and I wish neither of you harm. The night before the election I stated that no matter who you voted for I would remain by your side, and I meant it and still mean it.  If any of you decide to remove me from your life, either temporarily or permanently, because of what I am about to say, I will not blame you and I will not hold it against you. I will be ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATED to see you go. But I will respect your choice and will believe that you had valid reasons for doing so. I will pray for Donald Trump and for our country.  But the world that you and I built our friendship upon has changed. I HAVE changed as a result of this election. I am not the same person I was before Tuesday night. My eyes have been opened to an America that I didn’t want to believe existed but, I suppose deep down, always knew did.  People forget that when they go into that voting booth they are not just voting against something, they are voting FOR something.  Always.  And what Donald Trump is “for” is fundamentally opposed to everything I value about human life. So, in honor of his election, here is what I need you to know.

 

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the fight against sexual violence. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who has been accused by 13 women (not including a 13 year old girl) of sexual assault. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who bragged about being able to grope women’s pussies  just because he was powerful.  You forfeited that right when you elected a man who, when confronted about these comments, dismissed them as locker room talk and gave an insincere apology. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who bragged about going into pageant locker rooms unannounced so he could check out the women. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who when confronted with the accusation of sexual assault by one of his accusers, responded with “ trust me, she would not be my first choice.”  You forfeited that right when you elected a man who, upon seeing a 10 year old girl, said “I will be dating that in 10 years.” You forfeited that right when you elected a man who, when somewhat laughingly called a sex offender on the Howard Stern show, literally laughed and shrugged it off.  You forfeited that right when you elected a man whose ex-wife once accused him of rape. 

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the fight against the bullying epidemic sweeping our nation. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who criticized women for their weight and made disparaging remarks about women’s breasts. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who made a joke about Megan Kelly about bleeding out of her whatever. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who, when criticized twitter, lashes out at others in the most juvenile of ways. 

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the struggle for LBGT rights. You forfeited that right when you voted for a man who chose as his running mate a man who supports conversion therapy for gays and who signed off on a bill in his state that would allow private businesses to refuse service to a member of the LBGT community based upon personal beliefs. 

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the struggle for human rights. You forfeited that right when you voted for a man who said we should kill the innocent family members of SUSPECTED terrorists. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who said he wanted to bring back torture even if, and I quote “it doesn’t work.” 

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the fight for international diplomacy. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who is so thoroughly disliked across the world that even the Pope spoke out against him.

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the fight for environmental preservation. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who denies climate change and has already stated that he intends to nominate a man to the EPA board who believes the same. 

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the fight for religious liberty. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who wants to ban an entire religious group, Muslims, from entering the country

I no longer consider you an ally with me in the fight against racial prejudice and belief. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who referred to a man at one of his rallies as “My African American.” You forfeited that right when you elected a man who has been endorsed by  the The Klu Klux Klan and other white nationalist groups. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who had people at his rallies yelling “ fuck that nigger” when speaking about Obama and yet remained silent about such rhetoric. 

I no longer consider you an ally with me in recognizing the bravery of our amazing military family. You forfeited that right when you elected a man who when speaking about John McCain, a POW survivor and hero, that he would rather elect the man who got away.

I can only imagine how this blog post of mine has offended you. But I suppose for those of you closest to me, you know it is not in my nature to stay silent when I perceive an injustice happening in my presence. To do so would be to betray the core of my being. I have made it a point all my life to surround myself with people from all walks of life. I do not regret that decision. I get it. I really do. Few people liked the choices we were left with this election cycle, including myself. If you dislike or even detest Hilary Clinton, you have valid reasons for doing so. But Trump is not a stupid man. Demagogues rarely are. He was counting on using the frustration and fears of average citizens to cause enough of a backlash that he could use it to his advantage and get elected. His strategy worked. It often does, as history continues to show us. You might be of the opinion that this blog of mine is too divisive. You are right. It is divisive. I intend it to be so. But perhaps before you ridicule me for writing such a blog, you should have considered that you elected a man whose ENTIRE platform was about causing division, not inclusion. You voted for division. You got it. Here it is. I do not know what the next four years have in store for us and the rest of the world, but here is what I DO know. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Two Americas have emerged this week. Two polar opposite visions of what America should look like and stand for are now before us. Both sides have their strengths and their weaknesses as no movement or ideology is perfect. But I have decided to pick a side. I have decided to pick the side that I see as being the most loving, most just, most inclusive, most humane as these are the values that I hold dearest and which guide my life.  I am ready to fight for my side, are you ready to fight for yours?

 

                                                                                                                                                        Love to you all,

                                                                                                                                                                Leia Peison

The most terrifying part of Donald Trump's abortion comments? They make sense

Unless you have been living in an underground lair for the past week( or maybe just Amish) you would know abortion has been in the headlines a lot, particularly in regards to our potential presidential candidates and and what policies they would like to see enacted nationwide. One candidate, Donald Trump, did s,etching I have never seen an anti-abortion rights candidate ever do. He took responsibility for the fallout that would logically follow from his ideological stance. He has since retracted his stance, but the damage is done. He single handedly exposed perhaps the BIGGEST   Inconsistency of the anti choice movement. He stated on a tv show during a forum that if abortion becomes illegal, there should be s,e sort of punishment for women who acquire them despite the law. Pro choice groups justly and rapidly condemned his outrageous comments as archaic and misogynist, which they are. But the response from the anti abortion community? Well that is where things get interesting. I wish I could say I was surprised by the responses but alas, I was not in the slightest. Major figures in the anti abortion rights movement swiftly and soundly condemned his comments saying that they have no such intentions of punishing women and that women who abort are victims of a predatory abortion industry that preys upon their vulnerability. To those of us in the reproductive justice movement, this rhetoric is nothing new.  Indeed it is standard. The anti choice movement relies upon the caricature of a scared and desperate woman who just doesn't know better in order to pass their paternalistic laws that women must be "protected" from abortion and thereby must undergo such things as mandatory ultrasounds and also forcing clinics to close due to imaginary threats of abortion clinics not being up to par with safety even though they do not insist on such safety measures for medical procedures that are far more dangerous than abortion. But spend any amount of time on an abortion debate forum, or better yet, spend time escorting women into abortion clinics as I have and you will see pretty quickly that such sentiments are a farce. Anti choice protestors routinely harass women entering such facilities and even sometimes perpetrate acts of violence against employees of such institutions. The truth is that anti choice organizations are not upset with the idea of imprisoning women for abortions as Donald Trump espoused. They are upset that Donald Trump exposed their true motives. If anti choicers sincerely do not wish to see women punished for abortion, they don't have to wait for abortion to become illegal in the country. There have been several cases within the last few years of women being punished for self aborting, which raises another thorny question that I wish Donald had been asked. For the sake of argument I will accept the mainstream anti choice movement's position that only those who perform abortions should be punished and not the women who undergo them. What then happens to women who self abort? Also if anti choicers do not want to imprison women for abortion, then why do they do so in countries where abortion is illegal?

To go on a Segway here, I feel compelled to take a moment to address a particular argument I have often encountered when conversing wth people within this movement. In regards to the topic of abortion concerning rape induced pregnancies, a common defense for banning abortion for these victims is that when a woman is raped, she is a victim but when she aborts any resulting pregnancy, she then becomes a perpetrator. Yet now the same people who use that argument are now saying that women who undergo abortions are not culpable for doing so. They can't have it both ways. Indeed, they can't have it both ways on the topic of punishment either. When has there ever been a law against something without a legal consequence for anyone who breaks it? Donald Trumps comments were awful, but not be use they were illogical but because the entire mission of the anti choice movement is awful. It is difficult if not impossible to berate women who abort as filthy baby killing whores ( yes an actual term I have heard used) and then to coddle them as helpless victims of their own stupidity in the next and seek to excuse their behavior instead of punish it. The anti choice movement has two choices. They can accept the current legality of abortion and leave women who procure them the heck alone both socially and politically or they can follow their own medieval logic to its logical and misogynist conclusion and ban it while simultaneously imprisoning women who have. It remains to be seen which one they will choose.