A thought, a theory, a guess, and a rant.

(I still don’t know who I’m voting for, so please bear that in mind.)

A Thought:

Likely Hillary supporters are a noisy lot. Likely Trump supporters are quiet, mostly (I think) because voicing Trump support subjects you to ridicule, and that’s bad for careers, friendships, marriages, neighborhoods, etc.

A Theory:

A vote for Hillary is a protest against misogynistic husbands, boyfriends, bosses, coworkers, lecherous airplane passengers, and 500,000 years of gender role evolution (about the time we started wearing clothes and cooking our food).

We don’t like who we are and what mutating genes and collateral attributes have made us, so we blame our parents, God, church, each other, and anything else that’s tightly molded over our most indelible selves.

Hillary reminds me of a smug and prescriptive grammar teacher I once had. I can’t shake that unpleasant connection anymore than I can return to that ancient classroom to appreciate Silas Marner.  

A Guess:

The election will be very close and the loser will contest the results. The winner will be the subject of impeachment or legal inquiry within the first year.

(10/30/2016: An observation:

When someone remarks how crazy this election is, Hillary supporters often laugh. Trump supporters don’t.)

A Rant:

We tend to conflate ideas because it’s easier to support or condemn wide swaths of people (religion and decency; civil rights and abortion; marijuana and opiates; racism and color; etc).

But protection is protection, and it’s pretty meaningless if, instead of coexisting peacefully, we force everyone to share the same protected beliefs.

And it should apply to beliefs most of us hold (freedom of speech, association, worship) and those most of us don’t (freedom to hate, ridicule, and exclude). That’s one of the things that (up until I learned of Podesta’s “Catholic Spring”) I thought would never be in doubt.

What prompted my rant? Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation) who cited the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision as an example of precisely why we need Hillary in the White House.

I like Wil Wheaton. I think he’s probably a good man. I also think he’s terribly wrong.

2016.10.26

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For those keeping, track: My book is at 92,446 words. Still expecting to end at 100,000 or thereabouts.