If you're thinking of voting third party this fall, please reconsider. [View all]

[Ken Burch]

(This is the speech I'd give if I was asked to make a case to such voters to support OUR ticket).

There are a lot of reasons to be dissatisfied with our current political culture and the dominant parties within it.

Fighting to change that culture and this country is a perfectly valid thing to do.

And you have the right to make whatever choice you want to make at the ballot box.


BUT...

This nation is in crisis and in jeopardy. The most powerless people in our society and the most ambitious dreams of change we aspire to are in mortal danger-are at risk of being destroyed.

Destroyed by a maniac, by a demagogue and a purveyor of hate.

His name is Donald Trump.

If Donald Trump is elected president, all we hold dear as Americans and all we aspire to change as progressives are under existential threat. The poor, working people, people of color, LGBTQ people, those Americans who are most recently arrived and those who were here before any of our ancestors, will be the subject of an unrelenting campaign of hatred, vilification, and violence in a Trump Administration. It may not be possible to organize even an antifascist resistance in that situation.

We're not asking anyone to give up their fully-justified anger at the status quo and the corruption endemic to it, or their dream of something better, or their right to work for a newer vision of life. We're asking simply, for the next two months, for all people of good will, for all those who want this country to belong to all of us rather than the view to make the tactical decision to join us in stopping
the greatest threat to freedom, democracy, and what Bruce Springsteen called "the country in our hearts", by working for and voting for Hillary Clinton for president in November.

When we have stopped Trump and elected her, we can immediately hold her feet to the fire and push for the program of change this country needs, organizing for it throughout the land and uniting all those who want the nation and the world we need in a massive people's campaign for the future.

We ask this out of respect to all of you, out of support for the values we both support, and out of a sincere belief in the better angels of everyone's nature.