Donald Trump and The Jill Stein Paradox: Get Out of the Race NOW, Jill

An endearing goal of Jill Stein, the Green Party Presidential candidate, is to “Protect the rights of future generations.”

No, I don’t agree with Stein and the Greens on everything, but I certainly would here: “Lead on a global treaty to halt climate change. End destructive energy extraction: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, and uranium mines.” Bravo, Jill!

Isn’t it a bit of a paradox, however, that you hate gambling with the future sea levels and the rest, but you’re turning the 2016 Presidential race into too much of a crapshoot---and increasing the chances we’ll elect an oil-loving fascist like Donald Trump? Mind you, most pundits still favor Hillary Clinton. But here’s the word from NBC: “In a four-way general election match-up, Clinton leads with 41 percent, a 4-point margin over Trump (37 percent). Libertarian Gary Johnson maintains 11 percent of the vote and Green Party candidate Jill Stein holds steady with 5 percent.”

So, yes, Dana Milbank at the Washington Post was on the money with his commentary headlined From Jill Stein, disturbing echoes of Ralph Nader. The election really might be close enough for you to make the wrong kind of difference. A Green vote cast in Georgetown won’t do any harm. But it might in a state like Ohio.

You attack “the politics of fear.” Well, I’ll confess to fear, a rational emotion. I live within easy roasting range of an H bomb dropped on D.C. I’ve already told how, while in elementary school, Donald Trump gave a teacher a black eye “because I didn’t think he knew anything about music.” And now Trump says his current temperament “is not that different.” Do we really want Trump to be the one dealing with Putin if the two fall out of favor on Twitter? Everything is personal to The Donald.

Granted, Hillary isn’t my favorite---I voted for Bernie Sanders myself. I think establishment Dems stacked the deck against him, and I’d also worry about Hillary relapsing back toward her old trade policies and not caring sufficiently about labor, health, and environmental protections. Not to mention the email server questions. Furthermore, I take it for granted she’ll be more of an interventionist abroad than I would like. Still, at least Clinton has not been described by a U.K. research firm as being among the top ten risks facing the world.

If nothing else, Trump will do his best to roll back Obama’s environmental policies, which, although not everything you and I prefer, are a far cry from what The Donald would give us.

Oh, and how would you like Trump-nominated members of the Supreme Court to stymie progressives for decades? And do you want The Donald’s attorney-general to be able to fire the FBI director when Trump himself rose to prominence with help from the mob-tied lawyer Roy Cohn? Or how about massive deportation raids ruining the lives of productive people who’ve lived here for years?

Jill, you don’t go to a Trump casino to roll the dice. But in this volatile race, that’s actually what you’re doing in a sense by not withdrawing and endorsing Clinton. There’s always next election. With Trump, given the risk of an outright dictatorship, there just might not be another “next time” for years to come. He talks of rigging---methinks that’s self-projection.

Needless to say, while I myself am a progressive, I would also encourage my libertarian and conservative friends to vote for Hillary Clinton.

I take it for granted they hate her politics and personality. Still, remember the alternative, Trump’s jack-boot politics. Under him we’ll be the antithesis of the America of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts---and very possibly even Ronald Reagan. This gamble we don’t need.