From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   /Reuters Oct 8, 2020   
      
       I’ve voted Republican my entire life. But I just cast my ballot for Joe   
   Biden   
      
      
   I just did something I have never done before in a U.S. presidential race:   
   vote for a Democrat.   
      
   I had no choice. I want to see Donald Trump and his Republican enablers   
   crushed. I want to see Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell and other Trump   
   sycophants chased out of Washington.   
      
   I do not love the Democrats and nor do I love Joe Biden, though at least the   
   Democratic candidate seems made out of flesh and blood and radiates a   
   much-needed empathy. Nor does Mr. Biden have the instincts and character of a   
   dictator. That alone sets him    
   apart from the current occupant of the White House.   
      
   In recent elections I voted for George H.W. Bush, George Bush, John McCain and   
   Mitt Romney. When I voted for these men I did it because I believed they would   
   do the best job. I did not do it out of loathing for their opponents.   
      
   In 2016, put off by Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton, I voted for an obscure   
   conservative candidate who did not have a hope in hell.   
      
   Not this time. Even though my single vote will not count for much, I do not   
   want to take any chance that Mr. Trump might be re-elected.   
      
   The things that have come out of his mouth are simply foul. At last week’s   
   debate he refused to condemn the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group. Nor   
   would he condemn white supremacy in general.   
      
   He has refused to blame Vladimir Putin for meddling in the U.S. election. He   
   confessed his love for North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the most murderous tyrant   
   in power today.   
      
   He is destroying American democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the   
   election and undermining a free press. He has threatened not to leave office.   
   I fear violence in the streets as he gives a nod and wink to his most   
   fanatical followers.   
      
   It makes me heart sick to see what he is doing to the country of my birth and   
   that of many of my relatives and ancestors.   
      
   Mr. Trump lost me when he denigrated Mr. McCain’s war service. Mr. Trump   
   said he prefers his heroes free – a hideous thing for a man who never risked   
   his life for his country.   
      
   I really thought at that moment the country would turn on him. How dare he   
   mock such sacrifice?   
      
   My father was a U.S. infantryman in Europe in the Second World War and he   
   dealt with his wounds as guest of the Germans in a POW camp. I always thought   
   he was a hero.   
      
   But once Mr. Trump was elected, I hoped against hope the gravity of the office   
   would temper him, make him more humble – especially given three million more   
   Americans voted for Ms. Clinton.   
      
   Instead, he claimed fraud. The popular vote was rigged. Then he bragged that   
   his Electoral College victory was the greatest in history. It was not, but it   
   was the only way he could deal with being rejected by the majority of voters.    
   Mr. Trump is always    
   the victim.   
      
   On the day after he took the oath of office, he went to give a speech at the   
   CIA. He stood in front of the Memorial Wall and lied about the inauguration   
   crowd size. Pettiness doesn’t even come close.   
      
   I could fill page after page with his lies, which have had fatal consequences   
   during the pandemic.   
      
   We now know, thanks to journalist Bob Woodward, that in early 2020 Mr. Trump   
   understood how deadly the virus was but refused to relay that to Americans. He   
   also thought the Democrats were using the virus to hurt his re-election   
   chances.   
      
   He is even willing to expose his supporters to grave illness. During the worst   
   of the pandemic, he held an indoor rally in Tulsa, Okla. – no masks   
   required. Attendee Herman Cain, a former GOP presidential candidate, died of   
   the virus. And now COVID-19    
   is wreaking havoc in the White House, with Mr. Trump himself contracting the   
   virus. He is still playing it down, telling Americans there is nothing to fear   
   – ignoring the devastating fact that more than 211,000 Americans have died   
   and many who have    
   recovered are still feeling the ill effects.   
      
   I do not want to see the end of the Republican Party. When I was 18 years old,   
   I registered as a Republican because I saw it as a party of honor. It really   
   was the party of Lincoln. Now, I find the label embarrassing – a repudiation   
   of all that was    
   good in my home country.   
      
   It is not too late for the GOP to reassert its true self. But if Mr. Trump is   
   re-elected, I fear the Republicans are doomed and the United States will be in   
   danger of losing its soul.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)