During the past month, I traveled back to western Massachusetts to visit family and friends. While waiting for my connecting flight, I spent several hours in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, one of the busiest in the nation. Always the people watcher, I noticed something interesting.
Not one person was wearing a button announcing their support for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
Driving through Franklin and Hampshire Counties, as well as Connecticut and Rhode Island, I was further surprised to see hardly any lawn signs or bumper stickers for any of the current candidates. Even in hyper-liberal Amherst, only one sign for Hillary was to be seen.
In Taos, where in 2012 I saw more “Obama-Biden” bumper stickers than here, there was an equal absence of any visible political affiliation.
One reason for this, I gathered, is the vast unpopularity of both candidates. Another is that, considering the volatility of the nation, this might be our first furtive election. Americans are scared to publicly declare their allegiance, afraid they will be yelled at, run off the road or have their houses vandalized. They prefer to vent within the safety of social media.
What a difference from 2008, when the enthusiasm for Barack Obama was like an electric charge in the air. Of course, after eight years of the catastrophic Bush-Cheney regime, some Americans would have voted for Count Dracula were he the Democratic nominee that year.
Still, I was an unabashed true believer, convinced that an inspired man like Obama could drag American out of the morass of war and incompetence it had sunk into. I even promised myself to dance on the roof of my Greenfield house the night he was elected.
Fortunately for my wife and the good citizens of my old town, I was stricken with the flu on Election Day. I was able to drag myself to the polls, but nothing more.
If I dance on this Nov. 8, it will be only in relief that a dangerous, neo-fascist like Donald Trump was defeated at the polls, thereby dodging a bullet that would have crippled the United States as a functioning nation.
However, I will feel little joy in the election of Hillary Clinton. She’s a stopgap measure, like the hand that keeps the trigger of a roadside bomb from exploding. She is the same old pol, but I will take her over a race-baiting demagogue like Trump any day.
As far as the Greens, Jill Stein has less chance of getting elected president than my neighbor’s horse. The only difference is the horse admits it. Stein, unfortunately, suffers from the same self-righteousness as Ralph Nader, whose third-party candidacy gave us George W. Bush in 2000. I voted for him, making the fatal error that there was no difference between the two parties, an attitude that was insane then and even more so today.
Therefore, I warn my progressive friends to vote their brains, not their hearts. A vote for Stein is an effective vote for Trump. It’s all about the math. Furthermore, if your vote for Stein puts Trump in office, you are morally responsible for what follows.
It’s on you when he appoints the next two or three Supreme Court justices who will negatively influence our nation and our planet for future decades. It is you who will have to explain to your children and grandchildren how your purity put them in danger by allowing a reactionary to take control of the government.
A year ago, when Donald Trump first burst on the political scene, I wrote an op-ed here comparing him to Hitler. As a Jew who knows his people’s history, it was not a comparison I made lightly. Trump came to national political prominence only by his racist scapegoating of Mexican immigrants and Muslims. Nobody took him seriously.
What scares me now is that too many in this country still don’t take him seriously, even though he could definitely become our next president.
And, finally, this will be my last op-ed piece in the Recorder newspaper. After I moved to New Mexico in 2014, editorial page editor Justin Abelson graciously allowed me to keep posting. But it is time for me to let go and move on. Although I will always return to visit, it is necessary to sever the psychic cord that binds me to Franklin County.
“My Turn” columns are voluntary. Anyone can submit them. I hope others do because, as they say, democracy isn’t a spectator sport. People, not politicians, are what makes this country great, and they make it greater when they speak up and raise hell. Greenfield is lucky to have a strong activist community, and they have done a fine job keeping corporate predators like Wal-Mart and the pipeline at bay.
I hope Franklin County always stays a special place. I grew up during my 44 years residing here, and it will always remain a special place for me.
Daniel A. Brown lived in Franklin County from 1970 to 2014 as a teacher, artist, writer and photographer before moving to Taos, N.M.