The Deadly Infectious Vaccine Myths Needing Eradicated

Posted by historymaniacmegan on February 28, 2017

Vaccine in vial with syringe. Vaccination concept. 3d

I often do my best to avoid telling parents how to raise their children. However, since it’s come to my attention that more US states are loosening their vaccination exemptions. And today a growing number of parents are refusing to vaccinate their children which I think is extremely irresponsible and dangerous to public health. Many of these parents refuse to get their kids vaccinated because internet misinformation such as the idea that vaccines cause autism promoted by Jenny McCarthy. Yet, these falling immunization rates correspond with recent resurgences of vaccine-preventable diseases. In 2010, an outbreak in California 9,120 cases of whooping cough, more than any year since the whooping cough vaccine was introduced in the 1940s. 10 babies too young to be vaccinated for the disease died during the outbreak. In some outbreaks, some children have been left severely and permanently injured or disabled. The New England Journal of Medicine said that anti-vaxxer activities resulted in a high cost to society “including damage to individual and community well-being from outbreaks of previously controlled diseases, withdrawal of vaccine manufacturers from the market, compromising of national security (in the case of anthrax and smallpox vaccines), and lost productivity.” A 2011 journal described the vaccine-autism connection as, “perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years.” But despite that scientific studies have debunked the non-existent vaccine-autism link, hundreds of parents still believe in this fraudulent claim and don’t get their kids vaccinated, which continue to greatly damage public health.

For all my readers on my blog and visitors, as a member of the autistic community, I sincerely plead with you not to listen to Jenny McCarthy. Sure she might have a child diagnosed with autism (or misdiagnosed), but she’s a prominent anti-vaxxer who promotes dangerous misinformation that have led to dangerous outbreaks as well as demonize a whole group of people. I may not be an expert in vaccines or autism. But I know a lot more about either than her. So listen to me instead.

I am on the autism spectrum. I have gone great lengths to avoid the subject of vaccines for as long as I could because I didn’t want people to see me as an autistic person. I didn’t want that fact to distract people from seeing me as the person I am who just happens to be autistic. Nor do I ever try to gain anything from except services I need so I can live independently from my parents someday. But since far too many people think the decision whether to get your kids vaccinated is like choosing whether you kid can have a puppy, I don’t see myself as having a choice. I may not be anywhere near as famous as Jenny McCarthy. But I consider myself more of an authority on autism than her since I am autistic though my experience doesn’t mirror everyone in the autistic community. And despite being diagnosed at 12, I’ve certainly had it long before receiving my shots like before birth. Personally, I see the anti-vaxxer idea of vaccines causing autism as resoundingly false and dangerous ideology that could lead to a public health crisis. I also find the frequently debunked autism-vaccine link deeply offensive and dehumanizing. I mean saying that vaccines cause autism is like saying that having autism is worse than contracting a potentially deadly communicable disease. Sorry, but as an autistic woman with a B.A. in history, it just doesn’t hold up for me. Have I had it hard living with autism, especially in getting a job and establishing social contacts? Yes, though I didn’t let it stop me from doing well in school and graduating from college or building up my blog and starting out as a writer. I may not be completely satisfied with my life right now and wish I had a better way to earn money than go on an exhaustive job search I see as a waste of time. But in some ways I have it better than a lot of other people in my age group. I have supportive parents and family members as well as a passion that gives me direction in life. Blogging on WordPress may not give me the money to pay my bills but at least I earn something from it and find the work more rewarding than trying to get a job.

Here’s another anti-vaxxer who has no idea of how autism and vaccines work. Yes, I know he’s an entitled rich sociopath who regularly promotes conspiracy theories on his Twitter feed and lies all the time. But somehow the Conald managed to convince over 60 million Americans to elect him president (though he didn’t win the popular vote). I know he’s an utter embarrassment and I did what I could to not make this happen. I sincerely apologize.

Vaccines are a great pillar of modern medicine. Before vaccines, life was especially brutal for children with huge portions dying from diseases like measles, smallpox, whooping cough, or rubella, along with others. Today a single injection can completely prevent these ailments in a number of ways. Nevertheless, we should never forget how many deaths and illnesses vaccines have prevented and continue to do so. Vaccines have been so beneficial to society that it’s no wonder practically all jurisdictions make them mandatory. For parents, having one’s children vaccinated on schedule isn’t just a parental responsibility but also a community obligation. Not vaccinating your kids not only leaves them exposed to danger unprotected, but also other kids and adults who can’t be vaccinated. Now that we have an anti-vaxxer in the White House, a Health and Human Services Secretary who was once part of an organization that’s espoused anti-vaxxer views, and a bullshit anti-vaxxer documentary shown at a film festival, I feel that we must debunk the falsehoods as I have in this list.

Here’s a poster with anti-vaxxer bullshit on how vaccines cause autism. Sorry, but just because vaccines and autism diagnostic rates have increased over the years doesn’t mean there’s a correlation between the two. Besides, autism was never an epidemic and its dramatic rise only indicates that it just happens to be far more common than we thought. Also, there are unvaccinated children who do have autism like those living in 3rd world countries.

Vaccines cause autism.– Sorry, but that hypothesis has been completely discredited that 1997 Lancet article on the MMR vaccine by British surgeon Andrew Wakefield who now addressed as Mr. Wakefield these days. The Lancet eventually retracted that paper due to serious procedural errors, undisclosed financial conflicts, financial conflicts of interest, and ethical violations. Furthermore, no scientific study afterwards has found any link between vaccines and the likelihood developing autism. Oh, and the fact in 2011, a “vaccine court” ruled against over 5,000 families claiming vaccines caused their children’s autism. Though causes of autism remain a mystery, most scientists believe genetics are certainly involved and identified autistic symptoms in children well before receiving the MMR vaccine. Further research provides evidence that autism develops in utero well before the baby is born or receives vaccinations. At any rate, the most effective way to prevent your kid getting autism is avoiding sexual contact with an autistic adult. Even that’s not 100% effective due to congenital mutations, possibly environmental factors, higher paternal age, pregnancy-related conditions, and that there’s no foolproof way of knowing who’s autistic and who’s not. Hell, there’s a good chance you or someone you know might have autism and not even know it. Because while there’s been an increase of children being diagnosed with autism, there’s also been an increase in adults as well. Many times the adults are the kids’ parents who don’t find out until after their kid’s diagnosis. Also, more families are experiencing multiple members with autism than ever before. So if one kid has autism, there’s an extremely good chance their sibling will have it, too. This is especially if autistic child and their sibling are identical twins. So the cause of autism has many genetic paths sometimes through familial inheritance or congenital mutations. Let’s just say autism prevention isn’t worth it unless you either get yourself sterilized or try celibacy. If anything, it’s very likely that autism may be underdiagnosed in both kids and adults, especially among females, minorities, and the poor. As someone with autism, I find blaming vaccines for autism to be extremely offensive and irresponsible. It’s very clear that these anti-vaxxers don’t know a thing about autism and think it’s worse than having a child suffer and die from some communicable disease. Having autism wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me. But I concealed that fact for years from fellow classmates, friends, and students since I was diagnosed at 12 because I didn’t want to deal with the stigma and the fact I didn’t fit in with their idea of autism. A lot of the people I grew up with would find it almost impossible to believe that an autistic person could be substantially more intelligent and articulate than them. Yet, I also have my limitations such as sensitivity to loud noises and an inability to filter distractions which is a major reason why I still don’t have a driver’s license. While my social skills have drastically improved over the years thanks to a childhood of speech therapy at school and medications, many concepts of social interaction don’t come natural to me. And a lot of what I had to learn about social norms and communication I had to learn. When I was a little, I didn’t start talking until I was 4 years old and was a very hyperactive and curious toddler who’d often get into things I wasn’t supposed to. Oh, and I also exhibited obsessive and repetitive behaviors like lining my stuffed animals on the couch and giving them books to read. Nevertheless, it’s an integral part of who I am which I would never change though it doesn’t necessarily define me. But many anti-vaxxers and the general public don’t understand there are different recognized versions of autism along a spectrum so no two cases are the same. The rise in autism rates has more to do with the fact that scientists have redefine what constitutes it, which explains why I was diagnosed at 12 instead of 2 (though I had early intervention, medication, and speech therapy anyway). Because back in the early 1990s, autistic children were widely perceived as intellectually disabled while my toddler self could open child locks. So it was an ADHD diagnosis for me. But even when it was under the radar, I’ve always had it. There is no autism epidemic for it has always been there whether those with it have been diagnosed or not. Those autism rates don’t reflect on who has autism, they just indicate those known to have it. And most autistic people including myself don’t see their condition as a disease needing to be cured. Though they could use attention, support, and resources that all too often go to misguided efforts to find one devilish, monolithic cause of the alleged epidemic. So to say that vaccines cause autism is not only bad science that encourages parental irresponsibility, it also marginalizes people who live with a condition many people view as a disease that it’s not.

This woman’s statement on Facebook really says a lot about what I think of anti-vaxxer parents. Having child with autism isn’t as bad as having a kid suffer from a deadly communicable disease people died from. Seriously, autism isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person.

2. Infant immune systems can’t handle so many vaccines.-In reality, infant immune systems are much more resilient than we give them credit for. Why? Because babies are exposed to countless bacteria and viruses every day. Besides, most vaccines usually contain a weakened or dead form of the bacteria or virus in order to train the immune system to fight it. And since many of these diseases contributed to high infant and child mortality rates in the past, today’s baby immune systems actually have it easy thanks to vaccines. Based on the number of antibodies present in the blood, a baby could theoretically respond to around 10,000 vaccines at one time. Even if all 14 scheduled vaccines were given at once, it would only use up slightly more than 0.1% of their immune capacity. So vaccinating infants won’t tax their immune system since their grandparents had to handle much worse at their age or older.

Yes, I know a lot of babies get a lot of shots as you can see from this graph. However, unlike what anti-vaxxers think, giving your baby a bunch of vaccines will only use up a very tiny fraction of their immune capacity. Also, before vaccines, then how do you think their unvaccinated ancestors survived infancy? I mean the days of pre-modern medicine had a lot of high infant mortality rates because of these bad germs.

3. Natural immunity is better than vaccine-acquired immunity.– In some cases, natural immunity like catching the disease and getting sick results in a stronger immunity to the disease than vaccination. Unfortunately, the dangers of this approach far outweigh the benefits. Of course, you could acquire a natural immunity from chicken pox with few ill effects. But contracting diseases like measles on the other hand, chances are you’d face a 1 in 500 chance of death from your symptoms. By contrast, the chance of you having a severe allergic reaction to the MMR vaccine is less than 1 in a million. Besides, even if vaccines aren’t natural so is a lot of modern medicine. So I’ll take my chances and go with the vaccine over natural immunity from deadly diseases any day of the week.

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Another anti-vaxxer myth is that vaccines contain toxins like mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde. While it may contain some truth, they are only in very trace amounts that are well within the most stringent EPA safety guidelines or not at all.

4. Vaccines contain unsafe toxins.- People have concerns about formaldehyde, mercury, and aluminum in vaccines. While these chemicals are toxic in certain levels, FDA approved vaccines only use trace amounts if any. In fact, according to the FDA and CDC, our own metabolic systems produce formaldehyde at higher rates (10 times as much in fact). There’s no scientific evidence that low levels of this chemical, mercury, or aluminum are harmful. If you’re still worried, remember that childhood vaccines haven’t contained any mercury since 1999. And when they did, the mercury levels were well below the EPA’s most stringent public safety limits. So even if your kid received a vaccine containing thimerosal, the overwhelming majority of data supports a lack of association between the substance and neurological problems. And that children are exposed to mercury from many environmental sources that according to Dr. Margaret Rennels, “The reality that a lot of people seem to miss is that the largest source of organic mercury is the environment: the air we breathe, the water we drink and the fish we eat. That’s due to the burning of coal.” As for aluminum, babies get more of that from food even in the first 6 months whether be from breast-feeding or formula.

While better sanitation, nutrition, personal hygiene habits, and antibiotics have helped decrease infections, they don’t explain the whole story. I’ll let this graph from The Wall Street Journal speak for itself. Or you can just ask a celebrity polio survivor (they do exist).

5. Better hygiene and sanitation are actually responsible for decreased infections, not vaccines.- Sure better hygiene and sanitation have helped reduce or eliminate infectious disease rates. But so have better nutrition and the development of antibiotics as well. However, when we isolate these factors and scrutinize infectious disease rates, vaccines’ role can’t be denied. Because many infections can still spread regardless of how clean we are. For instance, when the first measles vaccine came out in 1963, infection rates had held steady at 400,000 cases a year. Hygienic and sanitation didn’t change much during the following decade, but measles infections dropped dramatically with only 25,000 cases by 1970. Another example is Hib disease. According to the CDC, its incidence rate plummeted from 20,000 in 1990 to around 1,500 in 1993 after the vaccine was introduced.

As you see from this rag of lies, anti-vaxxers like to go out of their way to show that vaccines aren’t worth the risk. However, while vaccines do cause severe allergic reactions, the overall incident rate is like 1 in 2 million. Perhaps you should worry about bigger dangers to your children like meteors or lightning strikes.

6. Vaccines aren’t worth the risk.– Children have been successfully vaccinated for decades that there has never been a single credible study linking vaccines to long term health conditions. As for immediate danger like allergic reactions or severe side effects, the incidence of death is so rare they can’t ever truly be calculated. For example, the CDC reported only one death attributable to a vaccine between 1990 and 1992. The overall incident rate of severe allergic reactions to vaccines is usually placed around one case for every 2 million injections. Besides, vaccines are tested in more children over a longer period of time than any other drug. And when introducing a new vaccine, the FDA requires pharmaceutical companies to prove their product doesn’t pose a threat when added to the existing vaccine schedule. There’s even as special database called the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) which can help scientists monitor vaccine safety and anyone can use the system to report a suspected side effect. And in many cases, the side effects reported are mostly coincidences and of the people who reported to VAERS about vaccines causing autism, 80% were personal injury lawyers. Not to mention, vaccine makers often take a cautious approach when writing their warning labels, listing all possible side effects even if they occur at the same rate in unvaccinated people. So your child is more likely to die from being struck by a meteor than from a vaccination.

Here’s a chart on the types of vaccine denialists. There’s Autism Andy, Poisonous Pete, Loony Lucy, Hygenic Helen, and Naturalist Nancy. Each is an unreliable steaming pile of shit who shouldn’t be trusted.

7. Vaccines can infect children with the disease it’s trying to prevent.– Vaccines can cause mild symptoms resembling those from the disease they’re protecting against. It’s a common misconception is that these symptoms signal infection. In reality, in the less than small percentage of (less than 1 million cases) where symptoms do occur, the vaccine recipients are experiencing a body’s immune response to the vaccine, not the disease itself. There’s only one recorded instance in which the vaccine was shown to cause disease. This was the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), which is no longer used in the US. Since then, vaccines have been in safe use for decades and follow strict FDA regulations. Today, according to Kathryn Edwards, M.D., spokesperson for the National Network for Immunization Information, “Most vaccines we give today, such as meningitis and DTaP, contain killed vaccines—not live agents that could replicate.” Though there are some vaccines that do contain a live weakened virus to provoke an immune response such as the MMR and chicken pox immunizations.

Here’s some more faces of vaccine denialism we’ll get to. There’s Libertarian Larry, Ruling Roger, Skeptical Sally, Prove-Me-Right Rita, Violet VAERS, and Everything Evelyn. Again, a bunch of wackjobs.

8. We don’t need to vaccinate because infection rates are already so low in the United States.- The fact infection rates are already so low in the US is because we’ve been vaccinating our kids for decades because the virus and bacteria responsible for these diseases don’t go away. Thanks to “herd immunity,” so long as a large majority of people are immunized in any population, even the unimmunized minority will be protected. With so many people resistant, an infectious disease will never get the chance to establish itself and spread. This is important because there will always be a portion of the population like infants, pregnant women, elderly, and those with weakened immune systems who can’t receive the vaccines. But if too many people don’t vaccinate themselves and their children, they contribute to collective danger and open up opportunities for viruses and bacteria to establish themselves and spread. Not to mention, since international travel is growing quickly, the CDC warn that even if a disease isn’t a threat to your country, it may be common elsewhere. If someone carries in a trip from abroad, an unvaccinated individual will be at far greater risk of getting sick if they’re exposed.

Vaccines are very instrumental in the concept of “herd immunity.” This works when a large population gets vaccinated against a deadly virus, they can contain infectious individuals and protect those who can’t get vaccinated. If not enough people are unvaccinated, deadly diseases can come back. So for those who says as long as other kids get vaccinated that your kids don’t need to be, you totally do. Unless you’re Amish or live under a rock.

9. As long as other children are getting vaccinated, mine don’t need to be.- Sorry, but skipping your kid’s vaccinations puts your kids at greater risk for potentially life-threatening diseases. Besides, there’s the whole “herd immunity” thing you don’t understand in which according to Professor Thomas Saari, M.D., “The ability of immunizations to prevent the spread of infection depends on having a certain number of children immunized.” And the immunization level required to prevent most of these vaccinable diseases is very high. For instance, in order for the herd immunity to prevent measles from being spread from child to child, the 95% of kids have to be vaccinated against it. In 2003, the national vaccination rate in the US in children between 19-35 months was only about 80% despite that the number increases to the mid-90s when kids are starting school. Such rates may not be high enough to provide herd immunity, especially if exemptions from school vaccines are on the rise in some states. According to studies from Colorado where residents claim high numbers of vaccine exemptions for medical, personal or religious reasons, kids who aren’t immunized pose a greater risk for disease like 22 times to come down with measles.

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When enough parents listen to Jenny McCarthy instead of get their kids vaccinated like they’re supposed to, the disease causing agents weasle their way back and cause outbreaks with a vengeance. Look at the map of the 2015 measles outbreak from the CDC, people.

10. Now that major illnesses have largely disappeared, we really don’t need vaccines anymore.- That analogy is similar to what Republicans and libertarians say now that working conditions have improved, we no longer need unions and regulations. Or how some say now that the Civil Rights Movement did away with social discrimination, we no longer need civil rights protections on certain demographics. Or how some say that now that we have clean air and water thanks to the EPA, we no longer need environmental protections. Except you do because the propensity to commit such social injustice still lingers on as we know by the election of President Pussygrabber. The same logic applies to vaccines because despite relatively high vaccination rates in the US, many American communities still have outbreaks of diseases like measles and pertussis, a respiratory illness characterized by spasms of coughing that can last for weeks or even months. In 2003, 13 kids died from the infection. Unvaccinated children can also spread infection to vulnerable family members. According to Dr. Saari in Parenting Magazine, “Those children are more likely to give a disease to those who can’t fight it off, such as a six-month-old or a grandparent living at home.” One case is the incidence of whooping cough which has been increasing since the 1980s, and the CDC has recommended a pertussis booster shot for 11-year-olds because the risk of passing the disease to a vulnerable relative is so high. Also, if you remember reports about panics involving Zika and Ebola, diseases are spread by people from foreign countries who travel here. As Dr. Saari said, “Air travel has extended the range of diseases from countries where people aren’t immunized. We’re no more than one airplane ride from being exposed to many diseases.” Thus, if people aren’t vaccinated, these supposedly uncommon diseases can come back.

11. You shouldn’t give a vaccine to a child who has a cold.– You might think that a sick child would be more likely to have a bad reaction to a vaccine or that it might present and added burden to their immune systems if they’re fighting a cold. However, studies show that a mild illness doesn’t affect a child’s ability to react appropriately to the vaccine. As Dr. Rennels says, “Certainly if a child comes in with a fever of 102 and a rip-snorting ear infection, it’s not the best time for a vaccine. But a low-grade fever, mild respiratory infection or a little diarrhea shouldn’t be reasons to delay one, especially if the illness is on the way out.” Of course, vaccines can trigger side effects such as a fever and rash as well as soreness at the injection site, but these are rarely cause for alarm. The 5-in-1 Pediarix is more likely to cause a low fever than the individual shots are, but many moms say the fewer injections for their child, the better. But if your child has hives (which can indicate an allergic reaction), a fever of 105 degrees or higher, or convulsions, call your doctor right away.

12. I had chicken pox when I was a kid and it isn’t a big deal.– So did I and so did my sister. But my parents tried to get us vaccinated for it anyway before there was no longer any need to. Sure chicken pox may not be a big deal for most kids but on rare occasions, children can die from it. Before the vaccine was introduced, many children were hospitalized each year with serious complications, including pneumonia and dangerous skin infections. According to Dr. Rennels, “Chicken pox lesions can become infected with staph, including necrotizing fasciitis—the ‘flesh-eating’ bacteria.” Getting the chicken pox vaccine is especially important now that less of the virus is in circulation. And as Dr. Rennels adds, “Children who don’t get chicken pox or the vaccine are at risk of getting it as an adult, which is a much more serious illness.” Besides, I had a kid in my class who had chicken pox during our junior year in high school and he was out for days.

Vaccines may not be 100% effective. But they’re effective enough that you won’t need get well gifts like these when you get the diseases vaccines are supposed to prevent.

13. Vaccines can provide 100 percent disease protection.- Vaccines may not be 100% effective (though the effect rate can range from 75-95% which still very good) and it’s possible you can be vaccinated against a disease and still get it. But if all children are vaccinated against an organism, it’s less likely to hang around. Again, we have herd immunity kicking in, which is why vaccinating an entire population is crucial. As Dr. Edwards says, “Not getting vaccinated is like failing to stop at a four-way stop. If three people get vaccinated but one doesn’t, the risk is not bad. But if two people don’t get vaccinated, the burden of risk is greater on everyone.”

Some anti-vaxxer parents think it’s better to wait until their kids are older to get the vaccinations. However, the reason why vaccine schedules are designed the way they are is that small children are the most vulnerable to contracting them. Remember how historical times witnessed high infant mortality rates.

14. It’s best to wait until children are older before starting to give them vaccines.- The best time to get your kids vaccinated against the disease, is at the earliest possible moment they can get it. Immunization schedules are designed to protect the most vulnerable patients from disease. If you wait to give the vaccine, you might miss the window when a child is most vulnerable. We should also remember that many of these infectious diseases we vaccinated against have killed high numbers of infants and small children. So you get off the schedule, you put your child at risk. One instance in Wisconsin had 300 children under the age of 1 come down with whooping cough with 177 less than 6 months old. Half of these babies were hospitalized and 3 died. For a kid to die of whooping cough nowadays is criminal.

15. It’s safe to space out vaccinations.- Spacing out vaccines may actually cause children more distress. Sure kids don’t like getting several shots at once. But studies show that a child’s stress hormones peak after one shot while additional needlesticks doesn’t increase their distress. So it’s better to get several shots out of the way in one doctor’s visit than once a month. Besides, postponing shots leave babies at risk and none of the alternative schedules has been clinically tested. As Ari Brown says, “There is absolutely no research that says delaying certain shots is safer. Doctors who promote these schedules are simply guessing when to give which shots. What we know for certain is that delaying your child’s shots is playing Russian roulette.”

When anti-vaxxers say that vaccine-preventable diseases aren’t that dangerous, they’re usually thinking about relatively less severe ones like chicken pox. This picture depicts a polio ward with kids being encased in iron lungs. Polio was a menace because it could kill or leave its victims permanently disabled. Dr. Salk’s discovery of the polio vaccine in the 1950s was seen as a medical miracle. Let that sink in.

16. Vaccine-preventable diseases aren’t that dangerous. – Sorry, but as a history major, I think anyone who believes this bullshit have absolutely no fucking idea. Sure they may have had chicken pox as a kid which is usually not very dangerous. But if you think that most vaccine-preventable diseases are like chicken pox, you’re a fucking moron. Vaccines have eliminated diseases that have once sickened, disabled, or killed hundreds of thousands of people. Because few young parents have encountered any of these diseases and possibly not know a thing about science or history, they don’t realize how dangerous they are. Whooping cough once sickened 300,000 people a year and killed 7,000 mostly young children. A better example would be polio which ravaged the country so much that when Dr. Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine and gave it away for free, he was seen as nothing less than a miracle worker. But before that, polio was a nightmare virus that parents and children feared because it was contagious disease that paralyzed and killed people. Surviving the disease could be a life changing experience leaving some permanently physically disabled to varying degrees while remember the fear and isolation. It crippled Franklin Delano Roosevelt that he nearly ended his political career over it, which could’ve shaped the US quite differently had he not ran for Governor of New York and later president during the Great Depression. Hell, we have plenty of celebrities who’ve survived polio and are still alive like Alan Alda, Donald Sutherland, Mia Farrow, Donovan, Joni Mitchell, Itzhak Perlman, Neil Young, and Sir Ken Robinson.

This is US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1921, he came down with polio during vacation at Campobello that would leave him crippled from the waist down. He would be confined to wheelchair and walk with braces for the rest of his life. And he nearly ended his political career of this. Nevertheless, he’s an example what vaccine preventable diseases did to people.

17. Only sick people need flu shots and other vaccines.- As with herd immunity when healthy people get vaccinated, it can help protect the weak, including cancer patients, anyone with compromised immune systems, and newborns too young to get the shot. Because babies can’t begin common vaccinations until they’re 2 months old, they depend on those around them for disease protection whether they be family, hospital staff, or babysitters.

18. Vaccines contain tissue from aborted fetuses.- No they don’t. And even if they did, the National Catholic Bioethics Center has said that Catholics are, “morally free to use the vaccine, regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them. … It is important to note that descendant cells are not the cells of the aborted child. They never, themselves, formed a part of the victim’s body.” Anyway, fetal tissue has been used in the development of some vaccines like hepatitis A, chicken pox, and rabies. But the best example is in rubella during the 1960s since it involved isolating the virus from the tissue of fetuses whose mothers have had it. The women chose abortion due to concerns about birth defects caused by rubella which include deafness, heart disease, mental retardation, a devastating brain inflammation called encephalitis and pneumonia. Though in any case, the viruses were often purified before being used in vaccines and no human cells remain in the final shots given to children.

19. Vaccinated children can shed virus and infect others.- Only one vaccine has been known to do this which was the liquid OPV and it was one time. Even then children vaccinated with OPV could shed the virus through their feces and spread it to other kids who didn’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. In the process, they could protect those kids against the virus. Doctors call this phenomenon, “contact immunity,” and it was a useful trait in the 1950s, when the country was ravaged by polio, because vaccinating one child against polio could help to indirectly vaccinate others. After polio had been eliminated in the US by 2000, American doctors stopped using the live virus and have resorted to killed polio vaccines from then on. No other vaccine has been known to shed so kids vaccinated against measles won’t spread the disease to other kids spreading the virus. In fact, measles can only spread when people are actually sick with the disease and showing symptoms.

20. Vaccines cause autoimmune disease.- According to Medscape, “The role of vaccination in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases (presumably by triggering autoimmunity) has long been a matter of debate. Although the cause of these diseases is still unclear, several factors, including genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and infectious diseases, may play a role. The relationship between vaccines and autoimmunity is still under study; however, no definitive evidence supporting a causative association exists to date. Most of the data linking vaccines with autoimmunity comes from case studies, which are considered to offer a low level of evidence. So far, no large epidemiologic studies have been conducted to provide us with relevant compelling clinical evidence. Given the nature and heterogeneity of autoimmune disorders, such studies are very difficult to be performed.”

Here’s a good poster of why every kid should be vaccinated. And yes a lot of myths are listed on here. Yeah, it’s that simple.

21. Influenza is a harmless illness, so vaccination is unnecessary.- According to Medscape, “Although influenza is commonly considered to be a mild illness, this is certainly not always the case. Influenza is a large threat to public health, with three pandemics and millions of deaths from influenza in the 20th century. During the last pandemic period of the H1N1 virus (June 11, 2009 to August 1, 2010), 18,449 deaths were attributed to influenza, although the global death rate was certainly higher. Influenza can have serious complications, including severe pneumonia, and extrarespiratory complications, such as encephalopathy and myocarditis. In addition, a considerable number of deaths related to cardiac and pulmonary complications typically follow influenza epidemics. Particularly among the elderly, people with underlying medical conditions, and pregnant women, the risk for influenza-associated complications is higher and flu vaccination is strongly recommended.”

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Most vaccines aren’t only safe for pregnant women, two are also recommended. One of these is the flu shot while the other is the TDaP vaccine taken in the third trimester. Not only does this protect the mother, but the baby, too. Which is great because many newborns can’t be vaccinated.

22. Vaccines shouldn’t be administered to pregnant women.- Most vaccines aren’t only safe during pregnancy, but highly recommended. Two vaccines are especially important such as the flu vaccine and the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, acellular pertussis) given between 27 and 36 weeks. According to Medscape, “Tetanus, pertussis, and influenza are diseases with potentially severe consequences for the child and/or the mother that can be prevented through vaccination. The vaccination of a pregnant woman against pertussis offers substantial protection of the newborn against this infection.” Medscape adds, “An evaluation of the available data suggests that vaccines containing inactivated microorganisms are safe for administration during any week of pregnancy. Influenza, in particular, can be very severe during pregnancy, thus it is recommended that pregnant women receive flu vaccination during flu season.” There has been no evidence that the flu vaccine has contributed to any congenital malformations. Same goes for any other vaccines.

Many Anti-vaxxers think vaccinating their children should be a personal choice instead of mandatory, claiming that mandatory vaccinations violate their civil rights. Sure it’s only a personal decision if it only affects themselves. But unfortunately, with herd immunity involved, vaccines don’t work that way.

23. Mandatory vaccination violate civil rights.- Sorry, but this has no basis in reality. Massachusetts enacted the first mandatory vaccination law in the US in 1809. Nearly 100 years the Supreme Court ruled mandatory vaccination laws constitutional with the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. Though all states do offer medical exemptions. Nevertheless, parents need to be aware that if don’t vaccinate their kids, they’re putting them and their contacts at risk of serious disease. And unvaccinated children often have to stay home from school or daycare during outbreaks. Besides, what about those who can’t get vaccinated? Don’t they have a right to not contract a serious vaccine-preventable disease that won’t kill them? Don’t they have a right to herd immunity protection?

VAERS is a reporting system on vaccine reactions from the US federal government. Anyone can report anything on it. Nevertheless, despite what Anti-Vaxxer testify, VAERS data doesn’t prove anything. Nevertheless, here’s a VAERS form.

24. VAERS data proves that vaccines are dangerous.- VAERS data actually can’t “prove” anything. On VAERS anyone can report anything as “no proof of causality is required” while only reports of special interests like hospitalizations are verified. Even when checked, many reports aren’t accurate while many include non-serious reactions. The number of reported to adverse events is usually influenced by publicity. Besides, VAERS just exists to properly detect early warning signals and to generate hypotheses. It’s not meant to inform people about vaccine since it’s more of a suggestion box open to the public.

There’s an anti-vaxxer children’s book out there I had on one of my book cover posts called Melanie’s Marvelous Measles. Here are some other anti-vaxxer follow ups. Enjoy.

25. More people die from the vaccine than from measles.- For God’s sake, this is utter bullshit. In reality, according to the World Health Organization, measles kills 140,000 people a year globally while the measles vaccine saves 1 million lives annually. By contrast, there have only been 57 deaths due to measles vaccines filed through the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which is a no-fault system set up to compensate people injured by vaccines. The program doesn’t say how many of these claims are allowed. Nevertheless, while vaccines aren’t 100% safe, a person’s chance of dying from the vaccine are miniscule compared to their astronomical chance of being saved.

26. Existence of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program proves that vaccines are harmful.- Sure vaccines aren’t 100% safe as with any product since there are people who are allergic to it. However, vaccines are so safe that your chances of dying from one are less than being struck by a meteor. Nevertheless, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was launched in 1986 because vaccine makers were dropping out of the business out of fear of pricey lawsuits. Public health officials feared that the US would suffer a vaccine shortage. Nevertheless, under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, if people can prove they suffered an injury known to be caused by a vaccine, they could be compensated without having to prove the vaccine caused the problem. And it’s paid for by a tax on vaccines.

27. Foreigners, especially undocumented immigrants, are bringing measles to the US. – It’s true that measles was eliminated from the US in 2000 and that all outbreaks now begin with an imported case. But in 2014 which was the worst year for measles since 1994, 635 out of 644 cases involved US citizens. And out of them 77% were unvaccinated people. What’s happening is that unvaccinated Americans are going to countries where measles is more common and bringing the virus back. Unless they live in a community where many people aren’t vaccinated like Amish country, usually they don’t infect very many people. But when measles happens anywhere in the world, it can come here on a plane pretty quick. And it’s not coming over land borders because high vaccination rates in the Americas has eliminated measles there. Rather it’s more likely coming from Europe, Asia, and the Philippines.

This Natural News graph shows the often debunked anti-vaxxer myth that Big Pharma profits from them. In reality, doctors, drug makers, and insurance companies actually lose money from vaccines since they’re so labor intensive. Also, you shouldn’t trust Natural News as a viable news site. Since it’s full of conspiracy theories like this one.

28. Doctors and insurance companies promote vaccination to drive profits.- Actually doctors and insurers don’t profit from vaccination in any way. Some insurers pay the cost of vaccination to prevent having to pay more later if a patient gets sick. And a 2009 study found that 1 out of 3 doctors actually lose money when giving vaccines. Also, big Pharma only makes 1.5% of their income on vaccines anyway and only 5 companies make 80% of them that there have been problems in vaccine supply and fact making them is so labor intensive.

29. The DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) and the polio vaccines cause sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). – There’s no evidence these vaccines cause SIDS. 90% of SIDS cases occur before the infant is 6 months old with the highest rates between 1 and 4 months of age. Unfortunately, this is the age group when children are scheduled to be vaccinated against DTaP and polio. The SIDS deaths are co-incidental to vaccination and would’ve occurred even if the child hadn’t been given the vaccines. This is especially if the infant didn’t sleep in a crib with proper bedding, wasn’t in a proper sleeping arrangement or position, or had parent who smokes. Not to mention, these vaccines have been linked to a 50% lower risk of SIDS.

Some people may believe that one shot is enough protection. However, some vaccines take multiple doses since one shot isn’t enough like the whooping cough one you see here.

30. One vaccine in a series gives a child enough protection.- Getting the recommended dose of each recommended vaccine provides a child with the best protection possible. Depending on the vaccine, more than one dose is needed to build high enough immunity to prevent disease, boost immunity that fades over time, make sure people who did not get immunity from a first dose are protected, or protect against germs that change over time, like flu. Every vaccine dose is important because they all protect against infectious diseases that are threats today and can be especially serious for infants and very young children. Skipping vaccines puts children at risk for contracting the diseases, especially measles and pertussis. Thus, if the recommendations are for a series of shots, make sure your child receives all of them so they’re not left unprotected.

Of course, nobody likes receiving a shot from the doctor, especially babies who are likely to scream and cry. However, while giving them a TDaP shot today might your little one cry, it’ll keep them from constantly screaming in agony from diphtheria later.

31. Shots are very painful to a baby. – Indeed they are but the pain is only momentary and not significant. Besides, studies show there are ways to minimizing the pain your baby feels such as being breastfed before or afterwards as well as being held and distracted by their parents. The doctor could even give the baby numbing cream or a sugar solution. Yet, even if you don’t resort to any of this, at worst a small prick of a needle will only cause enough pain that might instill a lifelong fear of shots. Yet, this is a small price for protecting them against a world of pain from the serious diseases the vaccine protects against.

Contrary to anti-vaxxer logic, vaccines don’t weaken immune systems. If anything, they usually strengthen the immune system from diseases that can compromise it and leave people more vulnerable to other infections as well as serious health problems.

32. Vaccines weaken the immune system. – Vaccines usually contain a weakened if not dead form of the virus so they can train the immune system in to fighting them without causing infection. Natural infections on the other hand, can weaken the immune system by preventing some people from fighting off other viruses and bacteria easily. This happens most notably in children during a natural infection like chicken pox or measles. And the fact so many small children died of serious diseases before we had vaccines for them illustrates why we have them in the first place.

While vaccinations aren’t 100% effective, they are certainly necessary as this graph certainly shows. And because of vaccines, these infectious disease rates have plummeted. But if at least 95% of the American public don’t receive their shots, these germs could infect with a vengeance. So yes, vaccines are necessary and if you haven’t already, vaccinate your kids.

33. Since most vaccines are not 100% effective, there’s really no need to get them. – Just because something doesn’t work 100% of the time doesn’t mean there’s no real need to have it, especially if it could save your life. For instance, wearing seatbelt may not guarantee my survival in a car crash. But I’d have to be an idiot not to wear one every time I ride in a car. Sure vaccines aren’t 100% effective but most have an 85-99% protection rate which makes it the best way to avoid these diseases. In addition, for some vaccine-preventable diseases, the serious effects of the disease may be less for someone who’s received the vaccine. And the more people who get the vaccine, the less likely the disease will be present in the community where it can spread to people unable to get the vaccine either due to being too young or having certain medical conditions. This is known as “herd immunity.” So yes, getting the vaccine is worth it.

In recent years, the rate of nonmedical exemptions from vaccines has risen thanks to the rise of anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories. Along with that comes a higher prevalence of outbreaks pertaining to vaccine-preventable infections. And these endanger the most vulnerable such as newborn babies. We need to understand that vaccine shouldn’t be a choice most of the time.

34. More vaccinated people get the disease than the unvaccinated. – Yes, but that’s because vaccines aren’t 100% effective so it’s still possible to get the disease being vaccinated against. However, if you do get the disease, you’ll only suffer fewer complications and long term effects than those who are unprotected. For instance, with pertussis (whooping cough), severe complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis (brain inflammation) occur almost exclusively in the unvaccinated. Both of these could either cause permanent damage in small children or kill them. However, the fact vaccines aren’t 100% effective don’t mean that they don’t work.

35. There are “hot lots” of vaccine that have been associated with more adverse events and deaths than others. Parents should find the numbers of these lots and not allow their children to receive vaccines from them.- This gets a lot of publicity but the concept of “hot lot” used in this context is wrong. This is based on the presumption that the more reports of adverse events a vaccine lot is associated with, the more dangerous the vaccine is in that lot. And that by consulting a list of reports per lot, a parent can identify which ones to avoid. According to WHO, this is misleading for 2 reasons. First, and adverse report following vaccination doesn’t mean that the vaccine caused the event. In fact, statistically, a certain number of serious illnesses, even deaths, can be expected to occur by chance alone among kids recently vaccinated. Besides, no scientific study has ever linked vaccines to any serious long-term health problems. Second, vaccine lots aren’t all the same with sizes varying from several hundred thousand to several million. According to WHO, “Naturally a larger lot or one that is in distribution for a longer period will be associated with more adverse events, simply by chance. Also, more coincidental deaths are associated with vaccines given in infancy than later in childhood, since the background death rates for children are highest during the first year of life. So knowing that lot A has been associated with x number of adverse events while lot B has been associated with y number would not necessarily say anything about the relative safety of the two lots, even if the vaccine did cause the event.”

36. Only children need vaccinations.- Look, I may not always get the flu shot every year even though I know I need it. But vaccine-preventable diseases continue to be a threat throughout our lives. According to the California Department of Public Health, “Adolescents need boosters for many childhood diseases, some college age students need protection from meningitis, adults need vaccines for shingles and pneumonia, and everyone needs the flu vaccine and, especially for those around infants, the pertussis vaccine.” We should also acknowledge that Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracted polio as an adult in the 1920s. So while infants and young children are the most vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases, they can and have killed adults. Just look at history or old timey literature.

Yeah, this pretty much sums up anti-vaxxers in a nutshell. Pretty much people with dangerous ideas. So if you’re skeptical about vaccinating your kids, just do it. Believe me, don’t listen to anti-vaxxer celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, Robert DeNiro, or Jim Carrey. Instead, listen to the medical community who know what they’re talking about. Sure some may be anti-vaxxers, but most of them aren’t.

Nazis and White Nationalists by Another Name: Why We Need to Talk About the Alt-Right

Posted by historymaniacmegan on February 10, 2017

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Now I always try to respect other people’s opinions as best they can even if I don’t agree with them. And in this day in age, I have to put up with a lot of people in my life spouting crazy ideas that seem to contradict with all kinds of factual information such as climate change. However, there is a one kind of ideology in American society with a considerable political presence we shouldn’t tolerate under any circumstance. But now that Donald Trump is president, it’s a movement we can’t ignore for it’s one that poses a grave and present danger in our country as we speak. We need to talk about the Alt-Right.

Make no mistake. The Alt-Right is a far-right set of extremist ideologies, individuals, and groups whose core belief that “white identity” is under siege by multicultural forces using “political correctness” and “social justice” to undermine white people and “their” civilization. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League see the Alt-Right as a white nationalist hate movement for this reason. And the fact Trump has Alt-Righters on his team at the White House like Steve Bannon should trouble you.

Considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist ideology, the Alt-Right is a set of far-right ideologies, groups, and individuals whose core belief is that “white identity” is under attack by multicultural forces using “political correctness” and “social justice” to undermine white people and “their” civilization. Known for heavy social media use and online memes, Alt-Righters reject mainstream American conservatism, skew young white men, and embrace white ethno-nationalism as a fundamental value. The Alt-Right has no formal organization and it’s not clear whether it can be considered a movement while occupying on the extreme ideological fringes of American conservativism. Given the nebulous nature of anonymous online communities such as websites like 4chan and 8chan, we’re not entirely sure who these people are and what motivates them. We also don’t know how much people write on these sites is serious or is intended to stir trouble. However, what we do know is that alt-righters use websites like Twitter and Brietbart to convey their message, post offensive memes, as well as harass people who disagree with them. Legions of anonymous Twitter users have used the hashtag #AltRight to proliferate their ideas, sometimes successfully pushing them into the mainstream. But more importantly, we know that they comprise of Donald Trump’s most steadfast supporters as well as played a pivotal role in bringing him to power. Now that former Brietbart CEO Steve Bannon has a high position of influence in Trump’s White House have made the Alt Right a major political force. Regardless what your political beliefs are, the fact a major Alt-Righter now occupies a major position of power should scare you. It’s perfectly clear the Alt-Right is a hate movement as exemplified by its founder Richard Spencer who’s often been accused of centering it on white nationalism to whitewash overt racism, white supremacism, and Neo-Nazism as well as frequently quoted from Nazi propaganda and spoke critically of the Jewish people. And it’s even scarier that the Alt-Right isn’t the kind of white nationalist movement that wears white hoods or swastikas. But one that sells white supremacy by trying to appeal to mainstream youth through a radicalization process involving skilled manipulation and pop culture. In short, they tend to be today’s Nazis by another name.

Mainstream conservatism always had a racist streak in America since our country was built on institutional racism. And the GOP doesn’t shy away from employing subtle racist rhetoric and stereotypes in their political campaigns such as this Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988. However, Republicans usually try to go to great pains not to look racist and love having minorities in their party so it can look diverse during convention time.

So where did the Alt-Right come from? It’s hard to say. Though the term was coined by leading alt-righter Richard Spencer while its members have a well-known online presence, its extremist white nationalist views have deep roots in American history because racism and nativism don’t really go away once they’re no longer acceptable. Nevertheless, mainstream American conservatism has always had a racist streak because our country was built on institutional racism as well as a suspicion on immigrants who don’t fit the WASP ideal. The Republican Party has often used racist dog whistles to win rural whites over for decades and have been very successful at it as you can see thanks to the Southern Strategy designed to convert Southern Democrats who left the party when LBJ signed a series of civil rights policies. And along with appealing to the Christian Right’s version of “traditional values,” racist dog whistles would continue to win more converts in the Rustbelt and the rest of white rural America ever since thanks to Reaganism and Fox News. However, while they often appeal to racist sensibilities in their rhetoric, it’s often in a subtle way that’s made to look somewhat acceptable toward white people who might not notice it. For instance, the “undeserving poor” usually pertain to poor black and Hispanic people. “Illegal immigrants” usually pertain to Hispanics, particularly Mexicans who are also seem to be poor border crossers to drop anchor babies in order to stay in the country. And “terrorists” usually refers to Islamic extremists in the Middle East who are often stereotyped as such. However, despite that mainstream conservatism has a lot of racist undertones, most white conservatives are only racist due to being from environments where almost everyone is like them and having limited exposure to diversity that much of what they believe about people seemingly different from them is shaped by what they see in the media. But these conservatives see no problem with people in those minorities aren’t poor, live like them, and embrace their message, mainstream conservatives accept them as model Americans. And they’re willing to grandstand them to prove that they’re not the racists you might think they are.

The Alt-Right rejects mainstream conservatism mainly for not sufficiently supporting racism and anti-Semitism or don’t advocate for white people’s interests as a group. They often use the term “cuckservative” to castigate Republicans as unmanly white men who support globalism and liberal ideas as well as imply that they let black men sleep with their wives. And yes, the Alt-Right is full of white supremacists.

This is not the case with the Alt-Right. In fact, those identifying with the Alt-Right regard mainstream conservatives as weak and impotent, largely because they don’t sufficiently support racism and anti-Semitism or don’t advocate for white people’s interests as a group. They frequently disparage the conservative movement by using the derogatory term of “cuckservative” which is a combination of “conservative” and “cuckold.” And it’s a term mostly used to castigate Republican politicians they see as traitors to their people as well as selling out conservatives with their support for globalism and liberal ideas. It has a racist undertone implying that establishment conservatives are like unmanly white men who allow black men to sleep with their wives. Though not everyone who identifies with the Alt-Right is a white supremacist according to the Anti-Defamation League, the designation itself usually applies to white nationalism because most of them certainly are as “white identity” is central to what they all have in common. And however they define themselves, Alt-Righters reject egalitarianism, democracy, universalism, and multiculturalism.

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While the Alt-Right usually recruits its members with its large online presence, they may hold press conferences and other public events at Washington D.C. Here featured is National Policy Institute head Richard Spencer.

What’s even more troubling is that the Alt-Right movement is growing at an alarming rate due to including a number of white people espousing racist and anti-Semitic beliefs as well as a loud presence online. There are also a growing number of small white supremacist enterprises including think tanks like the National Policy Institute, online publications like Radix, Brietbart, American Renaissance, and The Right Stuff, and publishing houses like Washington Summit Publishers and Counter Currents Publishing. Most of what they produced are white supremacist and anti-Semitic literature as well as promote unsubstantiated conspiracy theories many of their members believe. And if Trump’s ascent to the presidency tells us, their political influence is on the rise. Outside the Internet, Richard Spencer reserves the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. at least twice a year for a coat-and-tie gathering of his followers who regularly use false names or refuse to identify themselves for fear of being labeled as racists. Topics and themes can vary. In 2015 it was, “Beyond Conservatism” and capitalized on the strength of the virulently racist “cuckservative” meme. In 2016, it was “Identity Politics” and mostly focused on Trump’s presidential campaign and its continued success with featured speakers addressing a different facet of Trump’s influence on politics and Americans culture which they saw as an implicit white backlash against present-day politics as well as Trump creating a political space where the Alt-Right to grow.

The Alt-Right typically recruits its members online with a marketing strategy that avoids using the word race as well as conjure rebel and anti-establishment imagery that appeals to youth. For instance, its use of Pepe the Frog as a meme is among these.They also tend to talk about preserving European-American identity under the guise of multiculturalism. And thus begins the process of Alt-Right radicalization.

Since their agenda often seeks to insert white supremacy in conservative conversations that have largely deliberately excluded them in recent decades, they have a rather savvy media strategy behind them. For instance, the term Alt-Right is short for “Alternative Right” which is a conscious attempt by these people to stake out part of the conservative spectrum and claim they deserve a voice in conservative conversations. Though many argue their real objective is to challenge and dismantle mainstream conservatism as well as legitimize racism. The phrase “Alternative Right” explicitly avoids using the word “race” as well as conjures up rebel and anti-establishment figures which are often attractive to youth. Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos painted the movement as “born out of the youthful, subversive, underground edges of the internet,” and that the Neo-Nazis in its ranks are unrepresentative. They’re also likely to use terms like “culture” to substitute more lightning rod terms such as “race” or promote “Western Civilization” as a code word for white culture or identity. Alt-Righters don’t make explicit references to white nationalism that they may believe in, they’re more inclined to talk about preserving European-American identity under a guise of multiculturalism in order to recruit his followers. This orchestrates a path toward radicalization in which seemingly normal people are intoxicated with extremist ideology and possibly molded into terrorists. A lot of extremist groups have recruited their members by exploiting their vulnerabilities with narratives of strength and warmth as well as simultaneously emphasizing with those alienated and disaffected while also promising power and belonging through righteous violence against their so-called oppressors. You can easily see a demonstration of this radicalization process in the movie Fight Club.

The Alt-Right is notorious for its ruthless trolls who serve as orators and activists in the movement. Methods include inflammatory comments, doxing, and bombarding social media accounts with slur filled and photoshopped art. Though this statement on Brock Turner’s rape victim is incredibly offensive, this is just mild in their milieu. Because they can be downright hateful and often relentless as their victims suffer under their online harassment. Many Alt-Righters have been banned from social media for hate speech.

The Alt-Right is notorious for its ruthless trolls who serve as orators and activists to the movement. Brietbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos was instrumental in the online harassment campaign against women in the electronic gamer world known as Gamergate. Yiannopoulos was also banned from Twitter for inciting a racist pile-up on Saturday Night Live’s Leslie Jones. Let’s just say his reception at Berkeley was very well deserved despite now that he now has a book contract with Simon and Schuster. Other trolls have bombarded Twitter and e-mail accounts with slur filled and photoshopped art. There are also doxers who release personal information onto the Internet in order harass their victims. Though the Alt-Right didn’t invent these tactics, but the trolling during the 2016 election reached a sadistic pitch. Journalists opposing Trump received photos of themselves and sometimes their children dead or in gas chambers. This was especially the case if they were Jewish or had a Jewish surname with a signature punctuation marking Jewish names with “echoes” or triple parentheses like (((this))). Though the alt-right trolls may initially seem as annoying, they can be downright hateful and inflict a high degree of damage by issuing offensive slurs, threats, doxing, and other forms of intimidation. And they are often relentless as their victims suffer with a force they can’t argue with. At the same time they also stage propaganda campaigns organized around hashtags like #WhiteGenocide (referencing a myth that white people are being subjected to an orchestrated eradication campaign), #ISaluteWhitePeople, #BoycottStarWarsVII (in order to protest the black actor cast in a lead role), #NROrevolt (because the mainstream conservative National Review vehemently opposed Donald Trump in the GOP primary). Some Twitter accounts even depict hate symbols like swastikas and other Neo-Nazi insignia. It’s gotten so bad that several online outlets, including Twitter have suspended alt-right accounts while Reddit removed its alt-right page completely. Richard Spencer got kicked off of social media for hate speech.

The Alt-Right sees Donald Trump as their hero due to railing against “political correctness,” Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans, Chinese, and others during his presidential campaign and were among his most enthusiastic supporters. Thanks to Trump, the Alt-Right was elevated into the mainstream and now has a key role in influencing national policy with Steve Bannon working at the White House. However, whether you’re Democrat or a Republican, Bannon’s place in the Trump administration should worry you.

As you may see, the Alt-Right sees Donald Trump as their hero since he regularly railed against “political correctness,” Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans, Chinese, and others during his presidential campaign. In return, they’ve worked hard to affix the Alt Right brand to Trump through hashtags and memes as well as become his most enthusiastic supporters. To their glee, Trump has had former Brietbart CEO Steve Bannon to run his campaign as well as be his chief counselor in the White House. Such actions have elevated the Alt-Right into a position of enormous power that they see Trump as a way to get their ideas out there. And the fact Trump cares more about his own delusional vanity and unfettered opportunism as well as his supporters’ loyalty more than concepts like ethics and common sense or decency makes him a perfect vessel indeed. It also helps that Trump managed to secure a presidential victory by calling the government corrupt, assailing the Republican establishment, flouting almost every rule of political etiquette racial or otherwise, and that he did little to put the public at ease with the matter. Now most Alt-Righters don’t see Trump as a rabid white nationalist, but his racist rhetoric has gotten them happily on board since he helps their cause in more ways they could ever dream of. He even has former Brietbart CEO Steve Bannon as one of his closest advisers, which should seriously worry you.

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Before he worked in Trump’s campaign, Steve Bannon was the CEO of Brietbart which he turned into the platform of the Alt-Right. Though he’s denied it’s racist, his white nationalist views often echo those of his devotees. As one of Trump’s closest advisers, he’s proven to be very influential in his campaign as well as in his presidency. And it poses a very serious problem since he is a very vile man.

Though Steve Bannon has denied that the Alt-Right is inherently racist, evidence says otherwise. His tenure at Brietbart itself transformed what once was a regular conservative website into the go-to platform for the Alt-Right plunging into the ugliest dregs of conservatism while praising white nationalist groups as an “eclectic mix of renegades.” In short, it was under Bannon that Brietbart became notorious for pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness while its comment section turned into a white supremacist meme maker cesspool. And it’s clear Bannon’s views often echo those of his devotees. He called Islam “a political ideology” and Sharia law “like Nazism, fascism, and communism.” On his Sirius XM radio show, he praised noted Islamophobe Pamela Geller whom he described as, “one of the leading experts in the country, if not the world,” on Islam. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative as an Anti-Muslim hate group. And he even endorsed House Speaker Paul Ryan’s primary challenger, businessman Paul Nehlen who floated the idea of deporting all Muslims from the US. On the front of minorities, Bannon credited now Attorney General Jeff Sessions with laying “this populist nationalist” groundwork. Sessions has suggested that civil rights advocacy groups were “un-American” and “Communist-inspired” and his racist views prevented his appointment to a federal judgeship in the 1980s. In a lengthy July post, Bannon attacked the “Left” for engaging in “a plot to take down America” by focusing on police shootings of African Americans. He went on arguing that the Dallas cops were killed by a “by a #BlackLivesMatter-type activist-turned-sniper.” He also accused the media of an Orwellian “bait-and-switch as reporters and their Democratic allies and mentors seek to twist the subject from topics they don’t like to discuss—murderers with evil motives—to topics they do like to discuss, such as gun control.” And he added, “[H]ere’s a thought: What if the people getting shot by the cops did things to deserve it? There are, after all, in this world, some people who are naturally aggressive and violent.” Since Bannon took over Brietbart the site took a rabidly anti-immigrant tone, often hyping reports of immigrant crimes with tabloid like headlines and attacking Republicans favoring immigration reform. Bannon is even a noted anti-Semite who refused to send his daughters to a certain private school because he thought too many Jews went there and were raised to be whiny brats. Former Brietbart editor Ben Shapiro received a torrent of anti-Semitic tweets after announcing the birth of his second child. One read, “Into the gas chamber with all 4 of you,” while another depicted his family as lampshades. Former Brietbart critic Bethany Mandel was harassed on Twitter for months being called names like, “slimy Jewess” and told that she deserved the oven. We should also note that Bannon has been married 3 times as well as been charged with domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness. And that his second wife only dropped the charges due to threats made by Bannon and his lawyer. Brietbart staffers who resisted its transformation into this pro-Trump, alt-right hub eventually resigned in protest with several jumping ship after then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski manhandled reporter Michelle Fields (with the site siding with Lewandowski and staffers being told not to question his account). Former staffers who called out Brietbart for their ugly ways received a shitload of retaliation. It should be noted that Bannon is a very bad guy who shouldn’t be in such a powerful position at the White House. And as far as the Alt-Right is concerned, Bannon is their man in the Trump administration, as vile he certainly is.

As one of Trump’s most trusted advisers at the White House, Steve Bannon plays a key role in shaping his national policies that will hostile to immigrants and minorities. Bannon was certainly behind Trump’s Muslim ban as well as his counter-terrorism policy to focus only on Muslims. Not to mention, Bannon probably recommended Jeff Sessions as Attorney General since he admires the man.

So what does having Bannon in the White House mean for the United States under a Trump presidency? Well, since Bannon has Trump’s ear and has been elevated to his National Security Council, we can expect a presidency that will be hostile to minorities and immigrants. We shouldn’t be surprised that Bannon was behind the appointment of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions who’s a steadfast opponent of civil rights that he was denounced by Coretta Scott King during his federal judge hearing in the 1980s. Or that Bannon’s fingerprints were all over the Muslim travel ban executive order Trump signed a week into his term. Or that Bannon was a key adviser on Trump’s counter-terrorism policy that the government-run program Countering Violent Extremism will solely focus on Islamic terrorism while downgrading the scrutiny of right-wing radicals as well as sever ties with community groups and educational programs that counter-message violent ideologies. Not to mention, the Trump administration wants to build a massive border wall as wells as crack down on sanctuary cities who refuse to cooperate with ICE 100% of the time. Such measures aren’t what’s best for the US and won’t keep Americans safe. In fact, they may put risk putting more American lives in danger as well as trample on people’s rights in the process. Banning Muslim refugees from entering the country gives Islamic terror groups another reason to hate us as well as angers our Muslim allies in the international community. Having Sessions as US Attorney General will be a massive setback for civil rights that will make a Department of Justice one defending great injustices as far as minorities, immigrants, women, the poor, and LGBT communities are concerned. Not only that, but Sessions will let Trump use the DOJ as a political tool for the White House which will let him leverage the federal government’s major law enforcement arm for political gain. for immigration, well, Trump’s wall will certainly not keep undocumented immigrants out and will only amount to a massive waste of taxpayer money. Forcing municipalities to cooperate with ICE will deteriorate relations between immigrant communities and local law enforcement, lead to an increase of civil rights violations, make local governments pursue actions going against their interests, drain local resources and economies without reimbursements, and make localities increasingly vulnerable to liability costs.

We should understand that a counter-terrorism policy focusing solely on Islamic terror is bad national security policy that won’t keep Americans safe. As of 2017, radical right-wing extremists have committed more attacks and killed more Americans than their jihadist counterparts. And they’ve been seen as a growing threat since the Bush Administration. The fact we have a white nationalist as Trump’s trusted adviser means that there will be no right-wing extremist terror policy in the next 4-8 years. Expect this domestic terrorist problem to get worst since Trump’s victory led to a spike in hate crimes.

However, it’s Trump’s Bannon-inspired terror policy that really worries me. Why? Because a terror policy focusing solely on Islamic terror is simply bad national security. And the fact it includes a Muslim ban only makes it worse. How do I know this? I may not be a national security expert, but I am aware that cultural profiling has never kept Americans safe from terrorism. Because the terrorists posing a bigger threat to America aren’t radical Muslims from the Middle East, but the homegrown white supremacist and anti-government militants of the radical right who may often seem like the guy next door. As of 2017, far right extremists have committed more attacks and killed more Americans than their jihadist extremist counterparts since 9/11. And they’ve been considered a growing threat by US intelligence agencies since the Bush administration while the FBI has reported that white supremacists have infiltrated American law enforcement. The fact we have a known white nationalist at Trump’s right hand means that there will be no radical right counter-terror policy anytime soon in the next 4-8 years. But ignoring the terror problem will not make it go away. In fact, if anything, you can expect our right wing terror problem to get worse since the Trump administration’s hostility toward minorities and immigrants might embolden these anti-government and white supremacist thugs to commit atrocities. This isn’t helped at all that there was a spike of hate crimes immediately following Trump’s election to the presidency while right-wing terror incidents continue to regularly unfold. Or that alt-right platforms like Brietbart may have inspired several radical right terror incidents. We know networks like Fox News had as well as sites like Alex Jones’s conspiracy theory-laden Infowars as well as the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer. And this isn’t helped that right-wing terrorism often gets little media attention in the national spotlight. But when a president decided to ignore the growing threat of right-wing extremist terror, it only bolsters and legitimizes violent white extremism which can make millions of Americans vulnerable to deadly terror attacks. To cut ties with community groups and educational programs working to rehabilitate extremists will not deter any extremism within their communities.

The Alt-Right may not yet engage in violence as we know it, that doesn’t mean they don’t encourage it. Right-wing terror attacks are rarely orchestrated by lone wolves. Trump’s campaign and election victory have normalized hate and conspiracy theories fueling the Alt-Right into the mainstream and dramatically increasing its visibility. And its growing online presence in social media and increased radicalization shows a dangerous trend. Should the Alt-Right become a force of full-terrorism, don’t expect Trump’s White House to intervene.

Right-wing terror attacks are hardly incidents orchestrated by lone wolves. In fact, many of these so-called “lone wolf” terrorists had direct ties to white nationalist movements. Though the Alt-Right may yet not engage in violence as we know it, they do provide vindication for other radical right wing groups who also strongly support Trump and have committed violent acts against other Americans. Trump’s campaign and election victory has normalized the hate and conspiracy theories fueling the Alt-Right into the political mainstream and dramatically elevating its visibility. And as president with Bannon at his side, it’s very likely Trump will put some of their ideas into national action. Its growing online presence in social media shows that the white nationalist movement is increasing in size and radicalization indicates a much more dangerous trend. And with its vulnerable population, extremist ideology, and capacity for violence, the Alt-Right provides a breeding ground for terrorism. Communities infected by the Alt-Right are fertile ground where extremism can and has taken root. The Alt-Right isn’t going anywhere and as their numbers grow, they’ll seem increasingly inclined to violent rhetoric and radicalized ideology. And it will only be a matter of time before more charismatic and ruthless leaders replace the old order, harness this increased capacity for violence, and elevate the radicalized Alt-Right from a marginalized hate group of Internet trolls to a force of full-blown terrorism. If that happens within a very short time, don’t expect the Trump administration to do anything to address the problem other than label the infiltrators as mentally unstable lone wolves if the attacks receive widespread media attention. Trump has absolutely no interest in combating right-wing extremists as such measures would offend mainstream conservative sensibilities and alienate the radical right extremists who so enthusiastically and vocally supported him. When Trump announced he was to scale back efforts combating right-wing extremism, Daily Stormer editor Andrew Anglin responded, Donald Trump is setting us free. This is absolutely a signal of favor to us. We are not a threat to America, we are American patriots trying to save this country. It is also a slap in the face to the kikes of the SPLC and the ADL who pushed for us to be classified along with actual Islamic terrorists as a way to legally justify outrageous abuses against us by the federal government.” A site called Infostormer replied, “This measure would be the first step to us going fully mainstream, and beginning the process of entering the government in full-force without the fear of being attacked, financially-assailed, and intimidated into silence by the nefarious Jews.” These praises of white nationalist celebration aren’t what you’d want to hear about a president’s counter-terror policy.

The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the most devastating domestic terror attack in US history which killed 168 and injured over 600. Timothy McVeigh may have engineered this mass slaughter with Terry Nichols, he was deeply influenced by the white supremacist movement and the anti-government wing of the radical right. Now with right-wing extremism on the rise, if the US government doesn’t crack down on right-wing terror, expect another attack like this.

Right-wing and white supremacist terrorism has happened before in America and has killed people. On April 19, 1995, a 7,000-pound truck bomb made of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitromethane racing fuel and packed into 13 plastic barrels, ripped through the heart of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring over 600. In what was the deadliest terror incident in American history, this mass slaughter was engineered by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols who were steeped in radical right conspiracy theories and white-hot fury over Ruby Ridge and the Waco Siege. Well before Oklahoma City, McVeigh had already got the idea of using a truck bomb to blow up a government building from the infamous novel 1978 novel The Turner Diaries which depicts a violent revolution in the US leading to the overthrow of the federal government, nuclear war, and eventually a race war with Jews, gays, and non-whites exterminated. It has also become according to the Anti-Defamation League, “probably the most widely-read book among far-right extremists; many [of them] have cited it as the inspiration behind their terrorist organizing and activity” and has sold over 500,000 copies as of 2000. About a decade earlier, the book had also inspired Aryan Nations regular Robert Jay Matthews into forming The Order which received widespread attention for its role in the 1984 murder of Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg. After Oklahoma City, because it was no longer sufficient for many right-wing terrorists to strike a political significant target and instead aimed for higher body counts. One of these terror plots was a 1997 attempt by three Klu Klux Klan members to bomb a natural gas plant outside Ft. Worth, Texas which would’ve killed as many as 30,000 people had the local Klan leader not gotten cold feet and contacted the FBI. The most recent of these plots was a 2016 attempt by a group called “The Crusaders” to blow up a housing complex that was home to Somali immigrants and a mosque. The fact the FBI reports that white supremacists and other domestic extremists maintain an active presence in US police departments and other law enforcement agencies is particularly troubling. State and local police as well as sheriff’s departments present ample opportunities for right-wing extremists looking to expand their power base. To have an Alt-Righter like Steve Bannon as a chief strategist to a president would be their idea of winning the jackpot. To have extremists in positions of power will only undermine counter-terror efforts as well as abuse their power to victimize the people they’re sworn to protect. In recent years, law enforcement links to right-wing extremist groups have only gotten a lot more troublesome. If the federal government doesn’t step in and crack down on right-wing extremism, we may very well experience another Oklahoma City or worse.

In the early morning of January 31, 2017, a mosque in Victoria, Texas was destroyed by fire. The authorities ruled it as an arson and the suspect is still at large. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Islamophobia had a part to play since it’s very prominent in American society. In any case, ethnic and religious minority houses of worship tend to be prime targets for right-wing terrorists. If white conservatives continue to deny that right-wing extremism is a problem, then expect more scenes like this.

Nevertheless, while the Alt-Right may be a new to the right-wing extremism scene with its social media recruitment strategy, but their white nationalist beliefs and radicalization methods are not and have been embraced by right-wing extremists long before they were around. Downplaying the right-wing extremist threat won’t make it go away as well as put US national security significantly more at risk. For a president to have Alt-Righters as important advisers in his government only compromise US national security even further. In order to keep America safe from terrorists, our national security policies shouldn’t be about protecting white conservatives’ emotional security and making the Pentagon their safe space. When lives are at stake, we can’t ignore the reality of evil just to protect their tender illusions. Today discussing the threat of right-wing terrorism remains politically controversial that when the Department of Homeland Security addressed the issue in 2009, there was considerable conservative backlash. I know many white Americans don’t want to discuss it and some may even be personally insulted by the term “right-wing terrorism” or “right-wing extremism” and think it applies to them despite that there’s no reason they should be. But there comes a time when we have to tell the public what they don’t want to hear. Because ignoring the very real problem of right-wing extremist terror only exacerbates it, especially if millions of Americans vote for a man who’s refused to disassociate himself from his white supremacist supporters. The failure of right-leaning legislators, pundits, and intellectuals to take a clear stand against the Alt-Right along with other right-wing extremists for the benefit of all carries too high a price not only in American lives and national security, but also in our character since they pose an existential threat to our fundamental values such as pluralism, tolerance, and equality that form the basis of a liberal democracy. Americans can’t afford to keep right-wing extremism off-notice and if the White House doesn’t make it clear in opposing their kind of violence, then Trump’s lenience on right-wing terrorism further solidifies the administration as being on the side of white supremacy. Thus, it must be up to us American citizens to make that threat known and inspire political pressure because for millions of people’s lives and well-being may depend on it.

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A Primer on Sanctuary Cities in the United States

Posted by historymaniacmegan on February 5, 2017

Federal immigration officials often rely on local law enforcement to identify people who may be in violation of immigration laws. But some jurisdictions would refuse to turn over suspected undocumented immigrants to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The process goes as follows. Police arrest immigrants for reasons unrelated to their immigration status and are booked in local jails. There, their fingerprints are taken and eventually shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement which is required by law. ICE will ask officials to hold individuals if they’re in violation of immigration laws while ICE obtains a warrant. County and municipal policies dictate whether to comply, or release the individuals in question. Depending on local criteria, a sanctuary jurisdiction wouldn’t comply.

Sanctuary cities have been a major topic in recent years and are mainly believed to be liberal metropolises that are riddled with crime. Conservatives often argue in favor of defunding them and they aren’t seen as popular. However, sanctuary communities have been on the rise and not for the reasons conservatives think.

In recent times, the topic of sanctuary cities has attracted a lot of attention since undocumented immigration is a very controversial subject almost everyone has an opinion about. And this issue has been pushed by Republicans who call sanctuary cities as a crime ridden hellholes that should be defunded in order to get with the program. Congressional Republicans have introduced bills targeting these places, while Republican governors and state legislators have enacted policies banning them. Either way, Republican politicians have campaigned against sanctuary cities during the 2016 election. And now newly President Cheeto Pussygrabber has signed an executive order directing the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to defund sanctuary jurisdictions refusing to comply with federal immigration law. Also, he issued the Department of Homeland Security to begin issuing public reports including, “a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.” However, a George Mason law professor argued that Mr. Raging Orange Rug Hair’s withholding of federal funding to these places would be unconstitutional: “Trump and future presidents could use [the executive order] to seriously undermine constitutional federalism by forcing dissenting cities and states to obey presidential dictates, even without authorization from Congress. The circumvention of Congress makes the order a threat to separation of powers, as well.” Nevertheless, sanctuary communities have been on the rise, especially in my home state of Pennsylvania where they now consist of half the state. And it’s likely that Pittsburgh may be on its way. Though that hasn’t stopped the State House from passing an anti-sanctuary bill mandating that these counties and municipalities honor ICE requests to hold a person in custody for at least 48 hours or else no state grants for law enforcement.

Here is Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. In 2016, he distinguished himself as a high profile opponent of sanctuary cities and has proposed to defund these criminal hellholes. But in a sick twist of irony, one of these would be his home county of Lehigh which became the setting for a major case that made sanctuary communities much more popular in Pennsylvania.

So what are sanctuary cities? Are they really as horrible as they say? And why have they been on the rise in recent years? You might think these policies are designed to protect undocumented immigrants. But the reality is far more complicated than what most people even imagine. And they’re often so misunderstood. Perhaps I can show you an FAQ to answer your questions.

What is a sanctuary city?

When people think about sanctuary cities, they often think of San Francisco. However, sanctuary cities is kind of misnomer since sanctuary polices have been adopted by states as well as all kinds of municipalities. Sometimes this is through written policy while other times it’s through certain practices. These policies and practices differ throughout jurisdictions. However, just to be convenient we’re just going to define sanctuary jurisdictions as places who refuse to honor ICE detainers by themselves for whatever reason.

A sanctuary city is a jurisdiction that’s adopted a policy protecting undocumented immigrants by not prosecuting them for violating federal immigration laws in the country in which they’re now living. Such policy can be set out expressly in law (as in local ordinance) or observed only in practice (like a don’t ask, don’t tell policy). It generally applies to cities that don’t use municipal funds or resources to enforce nationally immigration laws and usually forbid police or municipal employees to inquire about a person’s immigration status. The designation has no precise legal meaning. Policies and practices differ throughout the country.

How many sanctuary cities are there?

This map is from a study at Temple University in Philadelphia. It shows how each county in the state deals with ICE detainer requests. I should also like to point out that many of these sanctuary counties don’t like to be viewed as such and went for Trump in 2016. And they’re certainly not the places you think of when we talk about sanctuary cities.

According to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, sanctuary policies limiting how much local police can cooperate with requests from federal authorities to hold immigrants in detention are present in 4 states, 39 cities, and 364 counties. These include almost every county in Colorado, Oregon, and New York as well as most of Florida as well as California, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut, and several major cities on the East Coast. And they’re not just limited to liberal and urban areas either. For instance, if you look at a map of Pennsylvania from a study at Temple, you’d notice that there are sanctuary policies in my home jurisdiction of Westmoreland County as well as in Fayette, Washington, Somerset, Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Erie, Blair, and Bedford as of 2017. And the ones I just described have only had sanctuary policies in their books since September. All of these counties went for Trump in 2016 and probably would rather see the undocumented living among them deported. Which is why local officials try to distance themselves from the loaded “sanctuary” label.

Are sanctuary cities legal?

It’s hard to say. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 has outlawed cities’ bans against municipal workers’ reporting people’s immigration status to federal authorities as well as established minor crimes as grounds for deportation. Its Section 287(g) allows state and local law enforcement personnel to enter into agreements with the federal government to be trained in immigration enforcement that would help them enforce immigration law. But it provides no general power for immigration enforcement by state and local authorities. However, such provision was only implemented by state and local authorities in California, Arizona, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina as of 2006. Furthermore, 8 U.S. Code § 1373 states that “a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.” Opponents state that the Justice Department requires that most federal grant money recipients certify their compliance to federal law, which sanctuary cities violate by not asking about, recording, or submitting their residents’ immigration status to the feds.

However, though federal officials usually have to rely on local police to help enforce federal immigration laws, the law doesn’t necessarily require local authorities to detain undocumented immigrants because their federal counterparts make a request. In fact, federal courts across the country have found complying with requests is usually voluntary. To back it up, supporters often cite the Tenth Amendment that according the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, prevents the, “federal government from coercing state or local governments to use their resources to enforce a federal regulatory program, like immigration.” Thus, Congress can’t force state or local governments to collect immigrant status information in order to share it with the Feds. And because these places never collected the data in the first place, they didn’t violate federal law. Some even believe enforcing immigration should only be left to the federal government and that local law enforcement should stay out of it. So let’s just say it’s a legal tossup at the moment.

Are sanctuary cities a new thing?

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Sanctuary cities have been in California for years thanks to the Sanctuary Movement. However, while many think that California metro areas adopt these policies due to liberal leanings, we also have to account for the fact that undocumented immigrants play a key role in the state’s economy and society, especially in low-income jobs. Not to mention, past instances have led authorities focus more on building relationships with immigrant communities in order to solve crimes. In other words, local law enforcement needs undocumented immigrants to be able to contact them without fear of deportation.

No. Los Angeles was the first to initiate a sanctuary city policy in 1979 to prevent police from inquiring about arrestees’ immigration status. The internal “Special Order 40” states: “Officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person. Officers shall not arrest nor book persons for violation of title 8, section 1325 of the United States Immigration code (Illegal Entry).” Certain other cities have followed suit during the 1980s and after. Though recent years have also contributing other jurisdictions to the same.

So when did sanctuary cities become a national issue?

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Sanctuary cities have become more of a high profile issue in recent years due to their reputation of harboring undocumented immigrants. And much of it has been opposition by Republicans who have no idea why jurisdictions would implement these policies in the first place. This especially apparent with Pat Toomey who opposes sanctuary polices while his home Lehigh County has adopted them. And for a very good reason.

The issue entered in the national spotlight with the 2008 GOP presidential primary when Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo ran on an anti-illegal immigration platform and specifically attacked sanctuary cities. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney also accused former mayor Rudy Giuliani of running New York City as one. Giuliani’s campaign returned the favor saying that Romney ran a sanctuary in the Governor’s mansion and that New York City isn’t a “haven” for undocumented immigrants.

Then there were reports of a series of crimes. In late June 2009, 3 undocumented immigrants were suspected of murdering a waitress in Albuquerque, New Mexico (one of whom was not deported despite being arrested for two prior DUI incidents). Then mayoral candidate Richard J. Berry decried the city’s sanctuary policy and vowed to eliminate it if elected. He defeated incumbent Mayor Martin Chavez that year.

Kathryn Steinle’s murder by an undocumented immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez in 2015 had sparked a national debate about sanctuary cities. And it led to a piece of congressional legislation known as “Kate’s Law” which targeted undocumented immigrants with criminal records and multiple deportations. But as of 2017, no vote has been held.

In 2015, an undocumented immigrant with multiple deportations shot Kathryn Steinle dead in San Francisco which sparked controversy and political debate over its place as a sanctuary city. In addition, many Republican presidential candidates would blame the sanctuary city policy for Steinle’s murder and encourage the need for a secure border wall. Donald Trump would also use the incident to criticize Jeb Bush and as a rationale to deport undocumented immigrants in the US.

Meanwhile, Congress would author The Establishing Mandatory Minimums for Illegal Reentry Act of 2015 or Kate’s Law which would’ve amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to increase from two years to five years the maximum prison term for an alien who reenters after being denied admission, excluded, deported, or removed. It also would’ve established a 10-year maximum prison sentence for an alien reentering after being denied admission, excluded, deported, or removed on 3 or more prior occasions and 5-year mandatory minimum prison term for an alien who reenters after being removed following a conviction for an aggravated felony or following 2 or more prior convictions for illegal reentry.

Do sanctuary cities increase crime?

Despite that conservatives have pointed out how sanctuary policies contribute to more crime, there is absolutely no evidence supporting that argument. However, there is evidence that might suggest that sanctuary policies might do the opposite.

According to a study by University of California at Riverside assistant professor Loren Collingwood, sanctuary policies don’t have any statistically meaningful effect on crime.

A study by associate professor Tommy K. Wong of the University of California, San Diego draws a different conclusion. “Crime is statistically significantly lower in sanctuary counties compared to nonsanctuary counties,” he wrote in a paper for the Center of American Progress. “Moreover, economies are stronger in sanctuary counties—from higher median household income, less poverty, and less reliance on public assistance to higher labor force participation, higher employment-to-population ratios, and lower unemployment.” The study evaluated sanctuary and non-sanctuary cities, “while controlling for differences in population, the foreign-born percentage of the population, and the percentage of the population that is Latino.”

Local law enforcement in sanctuary jurisdictions often admit that they rely on undocumented immigrants to come forward and report crimes. The fact undocumented immigrants are more likely to be crime victims than anyone else and more afraid to contact the police shows why.

We should also account that local law enforcement officials favor sanctuary policies and have said they don’t want the job of enforcing federal immigration laws. In addition, they admit to relying on immigrants in their communities to come forward to report crimes. The fact undocumented immigrants are most likely to be crime victims and least likely to report crimes to the police illustrates why many police view sanctuary cities this way. Undocumented immigrants who don’t live in sanctuary jurisdictions are frequently discouraged from reporting crimes to police due to fears of deportation. And these deportation fears can limit law enforcement access to potential victims, witnesses, informants, and neighborhood advocates. Many police often say that honoring ICE detainer requirements could scare people away and don’t want law-abiding undocumented immigrants to be afraid to contact them in order to report a crime.

Do sanctuary city policies prevent police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities?

Contrary to popular belief, while sanctuary policies may restrict police from cooperating with federal authorities, they don’t prevent it entirely. Most of the time, sanctuary policies restrict ICE cooperation with law enforcement on certain criteria. For instance, a sanctuary jurisdiction may refuse to honor ICE detainer requests because the individual warrant out against them or a criminal record to speak of. Or that the detainer isn’t backed up by a warrant from a judge.

Most sanctuary policies only limit police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities on undocumented immigrants with no criminal record to speak of. Let’s just say every jurisdiction is different but most of the time sanctuary policies specify that local authorities can’t hand over undocumented immigrants to ICE solely due to their immigration status, on minor crimes, or without any judicial warrant or court order. None of these protective policies prevent police from pursuing immigrants who commit felonies. According to a Department of Justice inspector general report, some jails in sanctuary areas only comply with a detainer request when the inmate has prior felony convictions, gang membership, or is on a terrorist watchlist. Others may reject every detainer request as well as refuse any kind of collaboration with ICE. In my home Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, county prison staff don’t accept ICE detainers unless they have a judicially authorized warrant or court order. Otherwise, the ICE detainer will be sent back to the agent. But while Westmoreland County said they’d inform ICE if a suspected undocumented immigrant is being released, most cooperation ends here. Washington County does the same thing as well as put the detainers on file for future reference. Meanwhile, Butler County’s sanctuary policy expressly forbids ICE agents from accessing the county jail or those in custody for investigative purpose. Butler also prohibits officials from using county resources to communicate with ICE regarding inmates. So whether sanctuary policies prevent local police from cooperating with ICE varies from jurisdiction.

Why would any place want to adopt sanctuary policies?

If you want to understand why jurisdictions would adopt sanctuary policies, we should understand the Secure Communities program which was supposed to encourage federal, state, and local cooperation on deporting criminal undocumented immigrants. However, the Secure Communities program was riddled with problems, had unclear constitutionality, and resulted in incidents of abuse.

During the height of the country’s undocumented immigration challenges before the recession, law enforcement officials in some communities expressed concerns about releasing these inmates after they’ve serve time for state offenses. Some of these communities entered agreements to help federal authorities with immigration enforcement. These arrangements allowed local jails to house undocumented immigrants after they served time on state charges and bill the federal government for this service. Sometimes they passed these inmates to jails without any formal notice to family members, then into the immigration court system for an expedited removal hearing. A lot of times, people were returned to their home countries in weeks. By 2011, the Secure Communities program had been deporting more than 400,000 people per year and had over 1,210 jurisdictions participating.

The Secure Communities program was often criticized for many of its inherent flaws such has lack of recognition of civil rights and due process as well as lack of transparency and oversight. Studies showed that most of the arrestees who were deported didn’t have any serious criminal record to speak of. There may be constitutional issues as well.

Critics often said the Secure Communities Program could generate a revenue stream for local prisons as well as violate international human rights accords. Many localities and states reported not being reimbursed for costs relating to their participation and saw the program as a strain on their resources. Civil liberties organizations called it a vehicle for cultural profiling. Some people couldn’t talk to their embassy officials from their countries or notify family members of their arrests, basically disappearing without explanation.More than one analysis of deportees and what happened during the process showed that most of these people were initially arrested for minor traffic violations, had no criminal records to speak of, or were low-level offenders who served their time. A 2011, Berkeley study showed that only 52% of Secure Communities arrestees were scheduled to have a hearing before a judge and out of those who had, only 24% were represented by an attorney. They also found that 88,000 families that included US citizens had a relative arrested under the program and that 3,600 of arrestees were US citizens. Immigrant advocates said the program deeply damaged already limited police trust in immigrant communities, making people afraid to call the cops or provide information, which these advocates saw as a threat to public safety. Thus, making these places harder to police. Also a number of court cases implied that the “detainer requests” might be unconstitutional and put cities in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Then there are have been reports that the Secure Communities program didn’t have clear complaint mechanisms as well as a lack of transparency and oversight.

Ernesto Galarza was a part-time construction worker who was illegally held at the Lehigh County jail for 3 days pursuant of an ICE detainer without a warrant, court order, or an explanation. And the ICE detainer was issued because Allentown police suspected Galarza may be an undocumented immigrant. Even though he carried a state driver’s license and his Social Security card as well as told police he was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. His case sent a broad message that if local jurisdictions choose to honor ICE detainer requests, they’ll have to face the consequences if it’s against the wrong people. Such ruling has been a driving force for jurisdictions across Pennsylvania adopting sanctuary policies.

Then there’s the matter with ICE issuing detainer requests they use to gain custody of undocumented immigrants for deportation. Detainer requests aren’t supported by a finding of probable cause or court order. In other words, it’s someone could have an ICE detainer on them on mere suspicion of an undocumented immigration status which can result in being detained for more than 48 hours. So it’s no surprise that some legal experts have questioned these ICE detainers’ constitutionality. In November 2008, Allentown police arrested a part-time construction worker named Ernesto Galarza in a drug bust at his workplace on a drug offense of which he was found innocent. At the time of his arrest, Galarza showed his state driver’s license and Social Security Card from his wallet and told local officials he was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, which should’ve made his US citizenship obvious to law enforcement. However, because Galarza was Hispanic, the arresting officer was apparently unsure about his citizenship and called ICE. ICE issued a detainer asking prison officials to hold Galarza while ICE investigated his citizenship and immigration status. As a result, Galarza was illegally held in the Lehigh County Prison for 3 days past when he should’ve been released with no warrant, no court order, and no explanation. And it was all because of racial profiling among local law enforcement as well as ICE agents’ baseless assertion that he might be an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic they were looking for. Galarza lost his part-time job because of this. In March 2014, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia found Lehigh County violated Galarza’s constitutional rights. Furthermore, the court ruled his detainer was only a request for help, not a binding order such as a federal warrant signed by a magistrate and that local governments have to pay damages for violating the rights of criminal suspects and jail inmates, not ICE. In other words, because Lehigh chose to honor the ICE detainer which resulted in a citizen’s wrongful imprisonment, it’s on them. After having to pay Galarza $95,000 in damages and attorney’s fees, the Lehigh County commissioners voted unanimously not to imprison people solely on ICE detainers against them. Other Pennsylvania counties followed suit figuring that it was safer to break federal immigration law than accidentally violate a citizen’s civil rights. Because if a local cop can get an ICE detainer against someone on merely suspecting their legal status, then it’s the federal immigration policy with the problem.

Do undocumented immigrants commit more crime than others?

To put it this way, absolutely not. Immigrants of all kinds are actually much less likely to commit crimes than native born citizens regardless of legal status. Not only that, the possibility of deportation usually gives immigrants a high incentive to obey the law. However, undocumented immigrants are far more likely to be crime victims because they’re least likely to report to the police due to threats of deportation. Now there may be some undocumented immigrants who are criminals, but the count’s not as high as 2-3 million. DHS estimates about 1.9 million while the Migration Policy Institute and Pew Research Center approximates 820,000 with some already incarcerated. Still, we should understand that undocumented crime is far less of a problem in localities than undocumented immigrants shunning contact with the police.

What about the shooting of Kathryn Steinle?

The murder of Kathyrn Steinle is often used as a talking point for cracking down on sanctuary cities. Is San Francisco’s sanctuary policy at fault? To an extent. But despite being deported 5 times, Juan Lopez-Sanchez was a low-level drug offender who served his time. So prior to shooting Steinle with a stolen gun, there was very little reason he’d pose a danger upon his release.

I know this story is often used by sanctuary city opponents on how San Francisco’s refusal to honor a detainer for Juan Lopez-Sanchez requesting that they keep him until ICE agents arrived cost a young woman’s life. Sure Lopez-Sanchez was a convicted felon who’ve been deported 5 times. However, there’s a lot that’s misunderstood about this case. For one, Lopez-Sanchez wasn’t a violent criminal and his record mostly consisted of reentry violations and drug offense all of which he served time on. The only real danger he posed to society was endangering those who bought drugs from him. So at best he was a low-level offender who served his time. Also, multiple deportations aren’t unusual for undocumented immigrants even for those without criminal records. Not to mention, Lopez-Sanchez had been homeless since his release. Second, the reason San Francisco didn’t honor ICE’s request was because Lopez-Sanchez had no active warrant for his arrest upon his release as consistent with their sanctuary city policy upon his release from prison. Yet, while the sheriff’s failure to notify ICE about Lopez-Sanchez’s release may have cost Steinle’s life since he had no active arrest warrant, it doesn’t mean that San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy is solely at fault. And if it is, it could be easily remedied with placing rules requiring law enforcement to notify ICE on individuals with criminal history upon their release. Other sanctuary jurisdictions do that. Third, it’s very likely that Steinle’s death was an accident because Lopez-Sanchez had absolutely no idea who she was. And it’s very unlikely that he fired that stolen gun in order to kill her because he might’ve fired toward the ground before the bullet ricocheted from the pavement. Fourth, it’s very likely Steinle’s death was due to failures at the local, state, and federal levels. Sure San Francisco’s sanctuary policy may be partly to blame. Yet, the Bureau of Prisons could’ve also handed Lopez-Sanchez to ICE instead of San Francisco. Hell, they could’ve just turned him over to a California state penitentiary. Or pass laws requiring people to lock their guns before leaving them in a car. Or maybe put Lopez-Sanchez in a halfway house so he wouldn’t be shooting a gun in the street.

The fact Lopez-Sanchez is an undocumented immigrant is only reason why Steinle’s death has generated such political outcry. However, had Lopez-Sanchez been a native-born US citizen, Steinle’s death would’ve been just as senseless and tragic. But nobody would blame it on San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy or that he should’ve been deported.

However, we should also note that prisons release crooks who go on to commit violent crimes all the time even for drug offenses like Lopez-Sanchez. Usually nobody says that such crimes could’ve been prevented had they been deported. Because most of these criminals were born in the United States. I’m sure the Bureau of Prisons has handed over US-born criminals to San Francisco authorities all the time as well as for crimes Lopez-Sanchez was charged with. It’s probably not unusual that San Francisco releases US-born prisoners without active warrants against them after they serve their time. And I’m certain it’s not unheard of for a US-born ex-con with a record like Lopez-Sanchez to kill someone shortly afterwards. Does any of that lead us to doubt whether our criminal justice system is too lenient? Sometimes. Yet, if Lopez-Sanchez was a native-born US citizen, would any politician blame San Francisco’s sanctuary policy and failure to deport him for Steinle’s death? No. Would Steinle’s murder have gotten the kind of attention it received? No. Because Lopez-Sanchez’s status as an undocumented immigrant is the sole reason why Steinle’s murder is so often used by immigration opponents to illustrate how sanctuary cities threaten public safety. But if Lopez-Sanchez wasn’t undocumented, he still would’ve posed just as much of a danger as any other violent criminal. And Steinle’s death would’ve been just as senseless and tragic even if covered just like any other murder case.

Why support sanctuary cities?

Sanctuary jurisdictions have many reasons to implement the kind of policies they do. Sometimes it’s because undocumented immigrants contribute so much to their society. Sometimes it could be that police would rather build relationships with immigrant communities and solve crimes than enforce immigration law. And sometimes it might be due to the area having limited resources and bigger priorities, having bad experiences with ICE, and a desire to avoid legal entanglements.

Other than basic human decency and keeping families together, supporters argue that cities have bigger priorities and too few resources to handle immigration enforcement. Many local policymakers and law enforcement agencies say that immigration enforcement isn’t their responsibility and that cracking down on undocumented residents disrupts community relations and make it more difficult to do their jobs. Cops prefer to focus on routine incidents in their localities than check whether a suspect, victim, or witness is legally on US soil. Yet, supporters note that none of their protective policies in any way prevent local police from pursuing immigrants suspected of committing crimes. In places like California, it might also be due to the vital role undocumented immigrants play in its economy and society as well as their large Latino population. You can say the same for many major cities as well as areas of Colorado and Florida. Then there’s the fact a lot of these places have endured a lot of bad experiences when they did cooperate with ICE, particularly during the Secure Communities program. For the recent rise in sanctuary counties in Pennsylvania, it has less to do with favoring undocumented immigration and more to do with avoiding expensive litigation, having limited jail space, not getting paid honoring ICE detainers, and others. Because honoring ICE detainers and racial profiling in local law enforcement have led to US citizens being illegally detained as illustrated in the Galarza case in Senator Pat Toomey’s home in Lehigh County. And since detainer requests aren’t binding orders, these local governments are usually stuck with paying the most in damages over civil rights violations, which Lehigh didn’t want to repeat. In the case of Armstrong County, the federal government didn’t reimburse their costs at the desired rate when they did hold people for ICE as well as having a jail typically operating at capacity.

Why oppose sanctuary cities?

Opponents on sanctuary policies often argue that they undermine federal enforcement efforts and compromising public safety that leads to preventable crimes. But opponents often stereotype sanctuary jurisdictions as places that are riddled with crime and lawlessness. Rather than a place that might be similar to where they live.

Opponents argue that sanctuary policies encourage undocumented immigration, undermine federal enforcement efforts, and severely compromise public safety resulting in crimes that could’ve been avoided through deportation. Furthermore, they believe that sanctuary policies keep police from investigating, questioning, and arresting people who’ve broken federal immigration law.

Is there a moral basis for sanctuary cities?

Though the legal basis of sanctuary policies may be in limbo, the moral basis is very much sound. I mean it should be a no brainer to keep families together as well as relieve law-abiding residents of deportation fears. Besides, sanctuary policies might be the best morally solution available at the moment.

Though the legal question of sanctuary cities can be debated, the moral question may not be the case. From what I know about undocumented immigrants, most of them came to this country illegal because the federal immigration system didn’t give them any legally viable options. Most of them have been in the US for at least 10 years while some came as children who grew up calling this country home. Many children who are US citizens and even American spouses. And despite entering illegally, most undocumented immigrants hold jobs, pay taxes, obey most of the laws, celebrate national holidays, and make contributions to society in ways most Americans don’t recognize. Furthermore, most undocumented immigrants come to the US for a better life than the one they left behind, not to commit crimes that endanger public safety. The fact federal immigration policy subjects their very presence as grounds for deportation has resulted in communities wary of law enforcement, thousands of broken families, and hundreds of kids in foster homes. And there is no good way for them to gain legal status or even citizenship. Ignoring an unjust federal immigration policy by providing a safe haven for these people may not be legal, but it’s probably the best moral solution available. But since President Cheeto Fuzz assumed office, you can forget the prospect of much needed comprehensive immigration reform for the next 4-8 years because that’s just not going to happen. In addition, the fact someone could get an ICE detainer against them because a police officer suspects their legal status has led to incidents of racial profiling and illegally holding American citizens in jail for over 48 hours with no warrant, no court order, and no explanation. In that case, refusing to hold individuals solely on an ICE detainer is morally reasonable. Then there’s the matter that municipalities don’t have the resources to handle immigration enforcement as well as bigger things to worry about. Local police would rather catch criminals than crack down on otherwise law-abiding residents who could help them. To cooperate with ICE may not be in their best interests and may lead local authorities to neglect their civic responsibilities to their constituents. So yes, enacting a sanctuary policy is probably the right thing to do.

Should sanctuary cities be punished for not complying with federal immigration policy?

If you think sanctuary cities should be defunded because they’re crime ridden areas sheltering undocumented immigrants, you might want to check if you live in one and why. If you live in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, you should really reconsider because it’s a sanctuary county. I swear I didn’t make this up. Look it up.

No. Despite that sanctuary policies may or may not go against federal law, I don’t think penalizing them is a good idea. Now I do believe that states and localities should adhere to federal law in most cases, especially when it comes to policies involving healthcare, education, civil rights, environmental protection, labor standards, product standards, gun laws, and financial regulation. In many cases, I find that a lot of state and local governments don’t serve their constituents’ best interests, especially when it concerns women, minorities, and the poor. But I do make exceptions when I think federal policy may not be unjust, inadequate, and prone to a lot of abuse particularly when it comes to national policy dealing with undocumented immigrants. The fact states and localities have developed their own policies to dealing with ICE and undocumented immigrants illustrates how federal immigration policy badly needs reform which won’t happen anytime soon. States and localities instituting sanctuary policies have very good reasons to enact them. They may not always be about protecting undocumented immigrants living among them, especially since it’s not just liberal cities adopting these policies. Or in jurisdictions where sanctuary policies would have widespread support like in rural and suburban Pennsylvania.Thus, penalizing sanctuary jurisdictions won’t be a very good idea in any case because they’re clearly not the problem. Sanctuary policies are more like a flawed and necessary substitute to work around a broken immigration system that needed to be fixed a long time ago but hasn’t. The best deterrence would be to pass comprehensive immigration reform which opens a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as well as requiring ICE detainers be issued with warrants and court orders. Now that I think about it, perhaps instead of punishing sanctuary jurisdictions, maybe our politicians should spend time in them and learn about their policies and why they enact them. And perhaps put those policies into congressional legislation. We can start by making US Senator Pat Toomey spend his congressional recess at his Allentown home for he really needs to know why Lehigh County enacted the kind of sanctuary policy he’s so vigorously opposed as well as a lesson on Galarza v. Szalczyk. Nevertheless, if the US government can’t come up with a federal immigration policy this nation needs, then expect more state and local governments enacting their own ideas to make the best of a sticky situation.

I end this post by bringing you a picture of the red covered bridge near where I live in the sanctuary jurisdiction of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Let it be known that sanctuary policies aren’t just limited to liberal urban enclaves like San Francisco. They can also exist in rural areas like this that don’t have a lot of liberals in them. Or a lot of people supporting sanctuary policies either. You can even live in a sanctuary jurisdiction and not even know it. Keep that in mind.

An Open Inaugural Letter to Donald Trump

Posted by historymaniacmegan on January 20, 2017

Mr. Trump, when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for some lowly blogger like me to pinch my two cents in with this whole fiasco. During the 2016 election, I worked tirelessly to ensure that you’ll never become President of the United States once you became the GOP nominee. I wrote 3 blog posts citing how you’re such a despicable human being who screwed workers, investors, contractors, banks, and pretty much anyone who’d dared to challenge you or your precious brand. Of course, my efforts failed since you wouldn’t be president if they succeeded.

However, if you think I’m writing to you to offer an olive branch and let bygones be bygones, you are sorely mistaken. You may have won over the support of the Republican Party establishment, enough votes to ensure a victory in the Electoral College as well as people in my neighborhood, family, community, and state, etc. You may have the constitutional legitimacy to be President of the United States. You may have a business empire worth millions of dollars and a name known the world over. But none of that guarantees that I’ll ever kowtow and respect you or see you as my president. Because you don’t win my respect by simply being very rich or famous or being President of the United States. No, respect has to be earned. You lost that chance forever long before you ever ran for president, especially after you started promoting birther conspiracy theories. Though I thought you were nothing more than a joke just using birtherism to garner publicity. Yet, your shock jock mentality stopped being funny the moment you referred to Mexicans as criminals, rapists, and drug mules while your popularity increased. Now that I know of all your dirty dealings and many grievous sins, you absolutely disgust me. And the fact so many people voted for you despite your critical moral failings and lack of qualifications incenses me to no end as well as makes me feel ashamed of my country. And the fact you’re President of the United States doesn’t change the fact you’ve flunked basic tests of decency as the unrespectable man you are.

To see you as president makes me feel that Americans don’t seem to have any moral standards whatsoever in the candidates they elect. Now I don’t expect for my political candidates to be saints by any stretch of the imagination. But I do wish they abide by certain standards of human decency such as having some semblance of a conscience which you completely lack. From what I’ve read or seen of you, I know of no moment when you’ve never been unconditionally nice to anyone. Nor do I know any time when you’ve taken any responsibility for your actions, ever said you’re sorry, or even admitted you’re wrong without someone pitting you in a corner. Nor could I ever tell whenever you’re telling the truth or making a promise you intend to keep. But I do know of countless times when you stiffed employees and contractors out of their hard earned wages as well as cheated investors and left them holding the bag whenever your business ventures failed. I know of instances of you using litigation as an intimidation tactic or lashing out on Twitter whenever someone dared to mock, challenge, or speak out against you. I do know of times when you’ve praised brutal dictators as well as done business with them. And I know of times when you’ve done business with known criminals. I also remember times when you’ve clearly lied, made promises you never intended to keep, as well as went to great lengths to avoid taking any responsibility for the widespread harm you’ve caused so many people. I’m not just talking about all the terrible things you said you’d do to minorities during your presidential campaign or your tirades against critics wanting to hold you accountable. But also the people who’ve put all their time, effort, and sometimes even resources into your ventures so they’d succeed only to have you swindle them out of what they’re rightfully owed. Yet, you feel absolutely no remorse and don’t give a damn about the consequences if they don’t affect you. If they do, you just deny, sue, intimidate, or blame someone else for them. Because you think your wealth and status guarantee you special privileges that exempt you from following codes of conduct you don’t think should apply to you. And I know that every time you were in a position of power or trust, you’d usually abuse it to enrich yourself with no second thought. You’re such a thoroughly despicable human being with delusions of grandeur who’d rather not let his dirty laundry see the light of day. I have no capacity to respect you and no amount of money and power could ever change that.

You may have won over a large swath of white voters with your virulent screeds of racist and xenophobic dog whistles, appeals to a whitewashed nostalgia, flag-waving patriotic grandstanding, and countless promises of making America great again. However, I know all too well that you really don’t give a rat’s ass about your supporters who think the world of you unless they have a generous bank account or their name in lights. And I know as president, you will certainly betray the white working class voters who elected you if you haven’t already done so whether it be for yourself, the GOP establishment, the corporate elites of the 1%, or your cabinet of swamp cronies. I may not know the full extent of your politics but I know you aren’t a man of the people and don’t give a shit about the working man you’d only cater to with empty promises if he can give you what you want. Even if it means voting for a candidate who goes against the kind of sacred American values they hold dear and who brings out the worst of this country. But that doesn’t mean you’ll deliver since I’m fully aware that your white working class supporters have been conned by an elite con artist of the 1%. But you don’t fool me because I know exactly the kind of piece of shit you are. The media may call you a populist but your populism is nothing but a charade while your presidential campaign was all smoke and mirrors but no substantive policies. Contrary to what your supporters think of you, you’re not successful, strong, or fearless leader who deserves respect but a weak, cowardly fraud who wouldn’t have his wealth or the presidency if he wasn’t born into the 1% and had his daddy’s money bailing him out of trouble. And I wasn’t surprised when you broke your promise to drain the swamp because your extensive history shows that corruption runs to the very core to your identity. I know you will use the presidency screw the American people your own self-enrichment with little regard to laws, rules, or others. I know you will honor no loyalties and commitments and betray the office and government you’re sworn to uphold. Because I know you have no respect for America, its values, its constitution, or its people. And I know you have no respect for democracy or believe a government conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. If anything, you certainly won’t fix what’s wrong with this country but make it worse for you’re part of the problem. Even if you are now the president, I see absolutely no reason why I should have any respect for you.

You may be the President of the United States as we speak. You may have the support of my relatives, friends, neighbors, community and fellow Pennsylvanians. But you can forget me addressing you as “Mr. President” and giving you a chance to lead or treating you with any kind of respect the office entails for the next 4-8 years even for the sake of unity or the country. Your supporters, the GOP, the media, and at least 60 million Americans may continually excuse and enable your appalling and despicable behavior no matter what you do. But I will not because not only do you go against everything I and America stand for, but you also constantly violate norms of ethical behavior which I still deem as unacceptable in a president. To unite behind you for the sake of the country will only give validation of racist, xenophobic, and misogynist and sexual predatory behavior as well as legitimized greed and authoritarianism as acceptable. To call you my president would be to send a message it’s okay to bully, intimidate, incite violence, and lie to people in order to get what you want and not take responsibility for all the hurt you’ve caused. To recognize you as my country’s leader means being fine with a president who’s eagerly willing to violate my constitutional rights. To be willing to work with you shows I’m willing to live in your world of vanity, hate, recklessness, untruth, vindictiveness, and your disdain for democratic norms that will lead to national decline and suffering. And deferring any respect to you for the sake of the presidential office or national unity will only give legitimacy to everything about America I despise. As president, you don’t deserve being recognized as worthy of the respect the office entails because you’re still an unrespectable man who’s nothing but a disgrace to the nation whose principles he doesn’t represent. Having you as president doesn’t make America great again and never will since you’re nothing but a repulsive sociopathic demagogue who puts the dignity of the presidential office in jeopardy. Your election shatters my faith in the American people beyond recognition as well as the people I know and love. To accept you as my president is to give my stamp of approval of your character and behavior which I won’t tolerate as well as abandon the kind of moral values I won’t desert.

Now I may still respect my country, pay taxes, and observe its laws just like any citizen. But I will not do so out of respect for you or the policies which I so vehemently oppose. Though I will exercise civil disobedience if any of your policies infringe on my civil rights or liberties or those of my fellow Americans. I will fight for the welfare of all Americans including those who elected you since I care about and respect them much more than you ever will. And I vow to resist you in order to keep you from destroying this great nation any further even if it means calling for your impeachment and removal from office. For I think those calling for your assassination are way too kind and out of their minds. As long as you’re in office, I refuse to recognize you as an authority figure. I refuse to give you any benefit of legitimacy that you don’t deserve. I refuse to normalize, excuse, or defend whatever you say and do because I see your presidency as a disaster of American democracy and think you set a terrible example to children. You may be president, but you are not my leader and you don’t represent me or my values because you aren’t worthy of my respect let alone admiration. And as long as you’re president, I will not cooperate with you, I will not bow down to you, and I will not obey you. You may complain if you wish but you can go fuck yourself by the pussy and go straight to hell for all I care. While only God knows what’s redeemable in one’s heart and soul, I deny you the right to take away my rights or those of others, especially if they can’t defend themselves. Because I still believe in basic human decency as well as the notions of liberty, equality, and the common good that have made this country great. I will not submit to a presidential authority who rejects the Constitution as well as its underlying principles of democratic self-government and individual rights. I will not comply with a president who uses the mass media to lie, insult, to strip individuals of their dignity, to commit the grossest falsehoods against religious and national groups, as well as encourage persecution, torture, and violence. I will not get behind a leader who actively campaigns against any notion of sexual, religious, or racial equality, embraces a form of self-serving capitalism with no conscience, and threatens those opposing him with the unchecked power of the state. Because even as president, you have absolutely no right to strip minorities of equal status and protections or throw away a democratic future of posterity. And God be damned if I let it happen in my lifetime. I know what may be in other people’s hearts or minds today, but as for me, you will never be my president and I hope your term of office goes down in flames.

So instead of wishing you well and congratulations on your presidency, all I have to say to you is go to hell and fuck you. Because if you can’t respect democracy and American values or exercise any form of decency, then I see no reason to treat you with the utmost disrespect and contempt befitting of a public figure so worthy of being so strongly despised by the American public. You’re a piece of pussy grabbing human garbage who represents everything about America I hate. To see you as president gives me nothing but shame. So even if over 60 million Americans consented to you screwing them, doesn’t mean you have a right to fuck with me. Because you absolutely don’t, not now, not ever. And if you do in any way, which I’m sure you will, I will not let you get away with it and make sure your life becomes a living hell. And if you shall come to my area for any reason, fuck off. So goddamn you and everything you stand for since you’re nothing but garbage to me. Your con man’s words have no value to me since you’re a pathological liar who only tells your supporters what they want to hear while shamelessly robbing them blind with no second thought. To me, you’ll always be an outright fraud who belongs in jail instead of the White House. If reading this post inflames you to the point you’re tweeting nasty shit about me because I don’t give you the kind of respect you feel entitled to, remember that I owe you nothing. And if you’re not happy with me attacking your brand or so-called good name, then perhaps you can shove it up your ass you seem to talk out of. You can do whatever you want with me but all I have to say is screw you for I don’t care what you think of me. So you might as well go fuck yourself as your presidency fucks up the country.

The Legal Loan Sharks Among Us: The Matter of Payday Loans

Posted by historymaniacmegan on January 18, 2017

A loan shark is a person or body offering loans at extremely high interest rates. When we hear the term, we usually think about gangsters who lend money to people but enforce repayment through methods like blackmail and threats of violence. However, what you may not know is that while loan sharks are mostly seen as figures in the criminal underworld and organized, they’re not always seen as crooks linked to the mob, especially in the world of small time and salary lending. Historically, it wasn’t unusual for many moneylenders to skirt between legal and extralegal activity. In late 19^th century America, the unprofitability and negative societal perception of small loans paved the way for a slew of lenders offering loans at profitable but at illegally high interest rates under a veneer of legality and preyed upon a borrower’s ignorance of the law. The 1920s and 1930s saw a rise of loan sharks who targeted high risk borrowers and small businesses either in dire straits or ill repute as well as enforced repayment through threats of violence. Sometimes these loan sharks were affiliated organized crime but they never had such monopoly. Today our non-standard lenders consist of subprime loans which led to a global financial crisis and payday lending which are both legal. But both are rather exploitative and prey upon those who can’t qualify for standard loans on mainstream sources. Yet, it’s the payday loans that generally don’t receive the attention they should since they’ve come under tremendous scrutiny as a predatory enterprise and must be stopped. Here I provide a small cheat sheet for explanation.

It’s likely you may see a lot of payday loan ads like this. A payday loan is a small unsecured loan that’s typically due on the borrower’s payday. However, they tend to have an reputation of high interest rates.

What is a payday loan?

A payday loan is a small short-term unsecured loan that’s typically due on the borrower’s payday. They usually range from $100-$1,500 and are often due 30 days or less. A payday loan relies on the consumer having previous payroll and employment records. In a payday loan, a borrower gives the lender access to their checking account or writes a check for the full balance that the lender has an option to deposit when the loan comes due. Other loan features can vary. Though payday loans are often structured to be paid off in one lump sum payment, interest only payments known as “renewals” or “rollovers” aren’t unusual. In some cases, payday loans may be structured so they’re repayable in installments over a longer period of time. Payday loans usually include a finance that may range from $10-$30 for every $100 borrowed or the check’s percentage value.

legality_of_payday_loans_in_the_united_states_by_state

While payday loans are legal under federal law, state laws may vary. My home state of Pennsylvania is one of the states that prohibits them outright as you can see from the map.

Are payday loans legal in the United States?

At the federal level, yes and payday lenders are subject to regulation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as the Federal Trade Commission along with the Truth in Lending Act that requires them to disclose their finance charges. And there are special protections for military servicemen through the Military Lending Act. However legislation regarding payday loans varies widely between different states. As of 2017, payday lending is legal in 27 states, legal with restrictions in 9, and banned in 14 including my home state of Pennsylvania.

How did payday loans come to be?

The history of payday loans can be dated as far as the early 1900s with some small lenders participating in salary purchases, buying a worker’s salary at less than its value days before the scheduled payday in order to avoid usury laws. Loan sharks and the mafia also had their own payday loan schemes starting from the 1920s. In the 1930s, check cashers cashed post-dated checks for a daily fee until the check was negotiated at a later date and began offering payday loan services in the early 1990s. When banking deregulation caused small community banks to go out of business in the late 1980s which, the payday loan industry sprang up in order to fill the void in the microcredit supply at expensive rates. From there, the industry grew from less than 500 storefronts to over 22,000 and a total size of $46 billion. The number has grown even higher over the years that by 2008, payday loan stores nationwide outnumbered Starbucks shops and McDonald’s restaurants. There are also major banks that offer payday loans as well as companies that offer them online. Deregulation also caused states to roll back usury caps and allow lenders to restructure their loans to avoid them after federal laws were changed.

What do I need to qualify for a payday loan?

According to the CFPB, payday lenders generally require you to have an active checking account, provide proof of income from a job or another source, show valid identification, and be at least 18 years old. Some may have additional criteria like minimum time at your current job or a minimum income to qualify for a certain amount.

Like payday loans themselves, rollovers and renewals on payday loans also have varying legality among the states. However, they’re usually more or less regulated except in Kansas, Utah, and Nevada.

What does it mean to renew or rollover a payday loan?

According to the CFPB, “Generally, renewing or rolling over a payday loan means you pay a fee to delay paying back the loan. This fee does not reduce the amount you owe. If you roll over the loan multiple times, it’s possible to pay several hundred dollars in fees and still owe the amount you borrowed. For example, if you roll over a $300 loan with a $45 fee three times before fully repaying the loan, you will pay four $45 fees, or $180, and you will still owe the $300. So, in that example, you would pay back a total of $480.” Some payday lenders give borrowers this option if they can’t afford to make the payment when it’s due. Nevertheless, this practice is legal in only 14 states and most of them place limits on this save Nevada, Utah, and Kansas.

Despite what ads may tell you, most payday loan users are low income workers who usually take them out for recurring expenses over the course of months. This is partly why a lot of users have trouble paying them off.

Who uses payday loans?

According to a Pew study, “Most payday loan borrowers [in the United States] are white, female, and are 25 to 44 years old. However, after controlling for other characteristics, there are five groups that have higher odds of having used a payday loan: those without a four-year college degree; home renters; African Americans; those earning below $40,000 annually; and those who are separated or divorced.” Recent immigrants, Hispanics, and single parents also were more likely to use payday loans. And most borrowers use payday loans to cover ordinary living expenses over the course of months, not unexpected emergencies over the course of weeks (contrary to what the industry states in its ads). So it’s not unusual for borrowers to use more than one. The average borrower is indebted about 5 months a year. In 2013, 12 million people took out payday loans each year.

Payday lenders may claim to help people in tight spots. But they ensure employees to make tough times last forever thanks to obscenely high interest rates that may be impossible for some to pay off.

So why do payday loans have a shady reputation?

Payday lenders are notorious for their predatory lending practices of exorbitant higher fees and interest rates than traditional loans that don’t encourage savings or asset accumulation. According to the CFPB, “The cost of the loan (finance charge) may range from $10 to $30 for every $100 borrowed. A typical two-week payday loan with a $15 per $100 fee equates to an annual percentage rate (APR) of almost 400%. By comparison, APRs on credit cards can range from about 12 percent to 30 percent.” If that loan’s not paid on time, then the total cost will be much larger than expected $404.56 within 20 weeks or $2,862.22 within 48. The Pew study states that the average payday loan borrower took out 8 loans of $375 each and paid interest of $520 across the loans within a year.

Payday loans are usually marketed towards low-income households because they often can’t provide collateral in order to obtain a low interest loan or lack access to a traditional bank deposit account. Families who use payday loans are disproportionately black or Hispanic, recent immigrants, and/or under-educated since these individuals are least able to secure normal lower-interest-rate forms of credit. The payday loan industry takes advantage of the fact that most of their borrowers don’t know how to calculate their loan’s APR and don’t realize they’re being charged rates up to 390% interest annually. Those higher interest rates are likely to send borrowers into a debt spiral where they must constantly renew. And according to the Center for Responsible Lending, almost of half of payday loan borrowers will default within the first two years. Taking out payday loans also increases the possibility of economic difficulties that make it hard to pay the rent, mortgage, and utility bills. Such difficulties can also lead to homelessness as well as delays in medical and dental care along with the ability to purchase drugs. Since payday lending operations charge higher interest-rates than traditional banks, they have the effect of depleting assets in low-income communities. A consumer advocacy group called the Insight Center reported that payday lending cost the US $774 million a year in 2013.

Payday lenders have also made effective use of the sovereign status of Native American reservations, often forming partnerships with members of a tribe to offer loans over the internet which evade state law. While some tribal lenders are operated by Native Americans, there’s also evidence many are simply a creation of so-called “rent-a-tribe” schemes where a non-Native company sets up operations on tribal lands. The FTC also monitors these lenders as well. And the fact the Military Lending Act imposes a 36% rate cap on tax refund loans and certain payday and auto title loans made to active duty armed forces and their covered dependents as well as prohibits certain terms in such loans illustrates that the payday loan industry has targeted military servicemen.

Payday loans are often a debt trap since they target people who can least afford to pay them back. And such debt may lead borrowers to take in more payday loans ensuring a vicious cycle to continue.

How are payday loans a debt trap?

A debt trapped is defined as “a situation in which a debt is difficult or impossible to repay, typically because high interest payments prevent repayment of the principal.” According to the Center for Responsible Lending, 76% of the total volume of payday loans are due to loan churning, where loans are taken out within two weeks of a previous loan. The center states that the devotion of 25-50% of the borrower’s paychecks leaves most borrowers with inadequate funds, compelling them to take new payday loans immediately. And they will continue to pay high percentages to float the loan across longer time periods, effectively placing them in a financial hole.

How do payday loans affect the economy?

Payday loans actually hurt the economy. Though they’re designed to provide consumers with emergency liquidity (despite being normally used to meet normal recurring obligations), payday loans divert money away from consumer spending and towards paying interest rates which can range from 200-500%. In 2011, payday loans cost the US $774 million in consumer spending, $169 million in 56,230 bankruptcies, and 14,000 jobs. States that have outlawed payday lending have lower rates of bankruptcy, a smaller volume of complaints regarding collection tactics, and the development of new lending services from banks to credit unions.

How long does it take to pay off a payday loan?

Borrowers typically have payday loan debt for much longer than the loan’s advertised two-week period, averaging about 200 days. Though most borrowers do know when they’ll pay them off and about 60% of them pay off their loans within two weeks of the days they predict.

Payday lenders can be quite ruthless when it comes to collecting the debts. On some occasions, payday lenders have threatened borrowers with legal action that has led to a small percentage serving jail time.

How do payday lenders collect on loans?

Under federal law, a payday lender can use only the same industry standard collection practices used to collect other debts specifically standards listed under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The FDCPA forbids debt collectors from using abusive, unfair, and deceptive practices to collect from debtors. Such practices include calling before 8 o’clock in the morning or after 9 o’clock at night, or calling debtors at work. In many cases, borrowers write a post-dated check to the lender and if they don’t have enough money in their account by the check’s date, it will bounce. When that happens, payday lenders will usually attempt to collect on the consumer’s obligation first by simply requesting payment. If internal collection fails, some payday lenders may outsource the debt collection or sell that debt to a third party. Yet, a small percentage of payday lenders have in the past threatened delinquent borrowers with criminal prosecution for check fraud which is illegal in many jurisdictions. But over a third of states in 2011 allowed late borrowers to be jailed despite the fact that debtor’s prisons have been federally outlawed since 1833.

Then there’s the matter with Texas, which prohibits payday lenders from suing a borrower for theft if the check is post-dated. But lenders get their customers to write checks for the day the loan is given knowing that they’d bounce since the borrowers didn’t have any money. If the borrower fails to pay on the due date, the lender sues them for writing a hot check. Sometimes they can file criminal complaints. This has led Texas courts and prosecutors becoming de facto collections agencies that warn borrowers they could face arrest, criminal charges, jail time, and fines. On top of debts owed, district attorneys charge additional fees. Borrowers have been jailed for owing as little as $200 and most of them who failed to pay had lost their jobs or had their hours reduced at work.

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There are several alternatives to payday loans whether it means borrowing money from work or from friends or taking money from a credit union. However, if you need some fast cash before your next payday, it’s better to pay a late fee on your bills than take a payday loan. Because payday loans are nothing but high interest debt traps.

Are there any alternatives to payday lending?

Yes, there are. Credit union loans have lower interest but more stringent terms that take longer to gain approval, employee access to earned but unpaid wages, pawnbrokers, credit payment plans, paycheck cash advances from employers (“advance on salary”), auto pawn loans, bank overdraft protection, cash advances from credit cards, emergency community assistance plans, small consumer loans, installment loans and direct loans from family or friends. Those who own a car can go with an auto title loan which uses the equity of the vehicle as the credit instead of payment history and employment history. You can also take advantage overdraft protection at your bank, establish a line of credit from an FDIC-approved lender. However, if you should consider taking payday loans, always consider the alternatives or at least try to avoid taking them. So if you need to pay your bills before payday, a late fee might be cheaper than a payday loan finance charge.

Yes, payday loans work like that. So remember, if you’re a low income worker in need of money, don’t be embarrassed to ask for help from a friend or employer. Chances are they’d probably not put you through financial hell like the predatory payday loan business. I mean such

Why We Need to Defend Network Neutrality

Posted by historymaniacmegan on November 19, 2016

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Since the 1990s, the internet has become so much a part of our lives that it’s easy to imagine that it will always remain the free and open medium it is now. We’d like to believe it will remain a place where you can always access any lawful content you want and where those delivering that content can’t play favorites because they disagree with the message being delivered or want to charge more money for faster delivery. However, despite that we have rules in place protecting network neutrality thanks to the Federal Communications Commission, there may be no such guarantees after January 20, 2017. Why? Because not only did 60 million voters elect an unrespectable man like our soon-to-be groper-in-chief, Republicans have control of both houses in Congress and will more than likely retain power on the Supreme Court. Furthermore, there Senate hasn’t reconfirmed a Democratic FCC commissioner to another 5-year-term. Not only that, but the man President-Elect Evil Cheeto Head wants to chair the FCC is a longtime opponent of net neutrality and telecom lobbyist. If Donald Trump and his swamp cronies have their way within the next 4-8 years, this open internet and the network neutrality principles that sustain it, could be a thing of the past. Profits and corporate disfavor of controversial viewpoints or competing services can change both of what you see online and your connection quality. And the need to monitor what you do online in order to play favorites means even more consumer privacy invasions piled up on top of the NSA’s prying eyes. A lot of Americans don’t know about net neutrality because it doesn’t get a lot of coverage on the news media than it should. As for me, I first heard about this from my parents while I was in high school after they watched something from Bill Moyers about it. Those who do overwhelmingly support it across the political spectrum. And many Americans take the notion of a free and open internet for granted which they will sure to miss. But unfortunately, its share of detractors are in high positions of power as well as contribute generously to Republican politicians. Here I list a rough FAQ on net neutrality basics because if there’s a time we need to know and preserve net neutrality to protect the internet, it is now.

Network neutrality is the principle that requires all legal content to be treated equally by internet service providers. This allows consumers to pay a monthly fee to the ISPs in order to access any website and service they want. Net neutrality is essential for a free and open internet in a digital economy as well as in a 21st century democracy.

What Is Network Neutrality?

Network neutrality is the guiding principle that internet service providers and government regulators should allow access to all applications and content regardless of source and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. In other words, while ISPs provide you access to the internet, they should treat all services and websites the equally, which lets you use it as much as you want for anything you want at the cost of a monthly fee. Network neutrality preserves a free and open internet while preventing companies from discriminating against different kinds of websites and services.

What’s the Difference Between ISPs and Content Providers?

An ISP is a company that provides you access to the Internet like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Cox, Charter, and Time Warner Cable. Most people get their high-speed internet access from only these few telecommunication giants. The very few smaller carriers usually rely on the big guys to serve their customers. Content providers are companies that create and/or distribute videos and programs like Netflix and Amazon. Sometimes ISPs can also be content providers as well since Comcast owns NBC Universal as well as delivers TV shows and movies through its Xfinity internet service.

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We should care about network neutrality because it encourages innovation, promotes free speech, and prevents abuse by ISP gatekeepers. Without it, ISPs would demand a cut from every website in order to funnel that content to customers and possibly slow down or block content they don’t like. What the ISPs want the internet to be like should be unacceptable to all Americans.

Why Should We Care About Network Neutrality?

Network neutrality is essential because a free and open internet is the single greatest technology of our times that stimulates ISP competition, helps prevent unfair pricing practices, promotes innovation, promotes the spread of ideas, drives entrepreneurship, and protects freedom of speech. Overall, network neutrality keeps the internet a cornerstone of freedom and opportunity. When we receive or send data over the internet, we expect our ISPs to transfer it from one end of the network to the other. We don’t expect them to analyze or manipulate it. Without net neutrality, telecommunications companies can carve the internet into fast and slow lanes. An ISP can slow down its competitors’ content or block political opinions it disagreed with. ISPs can also charge extra fees to the few content companies that could afford to pay for preferential treatment while relegating everyone else to a slower rate of service. Such actions could destroy an open internet. So this is a very important issue.

Telecom companies want to interfere with their customers’ internet mainly for profit and corporate interests. They want to block speech that would make them look bad, slow down or block applications that aren’t their own, and increase profits by making developers pay more to avoid having their data blocked or slowed down.

Why Would the Telecoms Want to Interfere with Internet Data?

Well, the answer boils down to simple profit and corporate interests. Companies might want to interfere with speech that makes them look bad, block applications that compete with their own, or increase their profit by forcing developers to pay more to avoid having their data blocked or slowed down.

Those who believe that competition will ensure a free and open internet are sorely mistaken since building broadband is expensive that most ISPs are telecom companies since they already have the communication infrastructure already in place. And as far as internet provider consumer choice is concerned, most Americans are usually limited to 3 or fewer.

Won’t Competition Prevent Them from Doing Any of This?

Sorry, free-market believers, but your faith in the divine forces of capitalism will not save you. Normally competition should and would prevent telecoms from interfering with internet data. But it won’t. For one, data manipulation isn’t always easily detectable. Content can be delayed or distorted in a number of subtle ways. Secondly, building a high-speed broadband service is very expensive so there aren’t many of them. So it’s no surprise that they tend to be big phone and cable companies because they already have the data “pipes” in place. Most Americans don’t have more than a handful for legitimate high-speed broadband options at home (the vast majority have 3 or fewer). What this means is that customers can’t switch if big broadband providers start messing around with their service. Additionally, big content providers like Netflix have to send their data through these “last mile” gatekeepers. So, all you free-market absolutist libertarians, the current market competition just isn’t enough to stop them from blocking services or charging more for a fast lane.

If telecom companies had their way which might happen under a Trump administration, you can expect a the future of the internet to look like a pay to play service like this. Doesn’t seem like one you’d want, does it?

Have There Been Any Actual Instances of Service Providers Interfering with the Internet or Is This All Theoretical?

Real abuses have happened consistently over the past decade. New technologies now allow telecom companies to scrutinize over every piece of information we send or receive online like websites, email, videos, Internet phone calls, or data generated by games or social networks. They could also program the computers that route that information to interfere with the data flow by slowing down or blocking traffic and communicators that they don’t like while speeding up traffic they do or that pays them extra for the privilege. To put it this way, imagine if your phone company could mess with your calls every time you tried to order a pizza from Domino’s because Pizza Hut is paying them to route their calls first. Though opponents claim the threat is only “theoretical” or that applying common carrier principles to the internet is a “solution in search of a problem,” there have been numerous incidents of abuse. There’s AT&T censoring words from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder when he sang, “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush find yourself another home.” The company complained the words were censored to prevent youth visiting the website from being exposed to “excessive profanity.” Though the song contained none. They later blamed it on an external website contractor hired to screen the performance. There’s Comcast discriminating against an entire class of online activities by using deep packet inspection to block file transfers from customers using popular peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent, eDonkey, and Gnutella. In national tests conducted by the Associated Press, their actions were confirmed to be unrelated to network congestion since blocking took place at times when it wasn’t congested. And while Comcast blocked applications often used in trade videos like pirated content, much of what was blocked was legitimate. Then we have Verizon cutting off text-messaging program by the pro-choice group NARAL that it used to send messages to its supporters. The company stated that it wouldn’t service programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” And that was just 2007. These are just incidents but this kind of behavior hasn’t become broadly accepted to the internet structure. But without enforceable net neutrality rules in place (which can happen under a Trump administration), that could quickly happen. The consistency of these abuses tells us all we need to know about what will happen if companies are permitted to exploit their power over our Internet connections.

Net neutrality is great for business since it puts small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs on an fair and playing field. They rely on net neutrality to launch their business, create a market, advertise their products and services, and distribute their goods to customers. This helps create jobs, competition, and innovation. Without it, ISPs would seize every possible opportunity to profit which would squeeze its competitors out.

Why Is Network Neutrality Important for Business?

Net neutrality is crucial for small business owners, startups, and entrepreneurs, because they rely on an open internet to launch their business, create a market, advertise their products and services, and distribute their goods to customers. They need an open internet to foster job growth, competition, and innovation in the 21^st century and beyond. Net neutrality lowers the barriers for them by ensuring the web is a fair and level playing field. And it’s because of net neutrality that businesses and entrepreneurs are able to thrive online. They use the internet to reach new customers as well as showcase their goods, applications and services. Since ISPs are by definition the gatekeepers to the internet, they would seize every possible opportunity to profit from that gatekeeper control if net neutrality wasn’t in place while the next Google wouldn’t get off the ground. So no company should be able to interfere with this open marketplace.

Net neutrality is essential for a free democracy in the 21st century because it protects freedom of speech. Not only that, but net neutrality allows the internet to be a platform for voices to be heard who wouldn’t be represented otherwise in our media landscape.

Why Is Network Neutrality Important for Communities of Color?

The open internet allows communities of color to tell their own stories as well as organize for racial and social justice. The mainstream media has failed to allow people of color speak for themselves. And due to economic inequality and runaway media consolidation, they own only a handful of broadcast stations. This lack of divers ownership is a primary reason why the media has gotten away with portraying minority communities stereotypically. The open internet gives marginalized voices opportunities to be heard which they wouldn’t previously have access to. Without net neutrality, ISPs could block unpopular speech and prevent dissident voices from speaking freely online. This would lead people of color to lose a vital platform. Not to mention, millions of minority owned small businesses wouldn’t be able to compete with large corporations online, which would further deepen economic inequality in our nation’s most vulnerable communities. This isn’t just limited to communities of color either. For instance, the Internet is a great place to find out about environmental disasters in rural areas that tend to slip under the radar, which I’ve put to very good use. Not to mention, since runaway media consolidation and decline in newspapers has led to less local voices being heard from within their communities and less local content being produced, having a free and open internet more than makes up for it.

President-Elect Cheeto Creepazoid is a known opponent of net neutrality and has a known telecom lobbyist he wants to tap to head the FCC. It’s also clear that he doesn’t understand net neutrality either. Since he’s an extremely greedy and vindictive bastard who’s no friend to free speech, expect to take his views on this subject very seriously. Because starting January 20, 2017, net neutrality’s days may be numbered.

Why Do We Need to Defend Network Neutrality?

In February 2015, the Federal Communications Commission enacted Title II reclassification of internet access service to a telecommunications service which allows the agency to create strong network neutrality rules allowing customers to have reasonable, reliable, and nondiscriminatory services. What the FCC did was designate ISPs as “common carriers” or private companies that sell their services to consumers without discrimination. This is similar to how consumers received landline telephone service. A federal court decision has also upheld the ruling. However, even good ideas have their detractors and net neutrality is no different. Since the 2015 FCC Title II classification, opponents have worked everywhere from Congress to the courts in order to dismantle or undermine it. While foes have filed 10 lawsuits over it, Republican lawmakers have put forth more than a dozen bills or amendments to weaken or kill the FCC’s new regulations. None succeeded. However, Donald Trump’s election to the presidency as well as guaranteed Republican control of Congress and possibly the Supreme Court is very likely to mean that net neutrality’s days may be numbered. Trump will appoint 2 new commissioners in 2017 (while a Democratic member hasn’t been reconfirmed for another term) and has 2 people on his transition team with strong ties to the telecom industry. Trump’s man to run the FCC is Jeffrey Eisenach who’s a known anti-regulatory zealot criticized for his anti-neutrality stance as a think tank scholar while receiving funds from Verizon to underwrite his work. As Center for Digital Democracy executive director Jeffrey Chester states, “What Trump appears to be doing on internet and privacy policy is basically allowing the swamp to decide our digital future, allowing crocodiles to eat up our rights. What the big cable and phone companies want Trump to do is to turn the internet over to them to run as a private fiefdom.” Since Trump is known to be very pro-business and a greedy sociopath as well as no friend to the First Amendment and constitutional rights, his opposition to net neutrality is almost certainly sincere. So as soon as Trump is sworn in, expect net neutrality to be a threat.

Here is a small snapshot of net neutrality camps. Most Americans aware of net neutrality usually favor it along with the following mentioned. Those opposed are usually telecom companies as well as free-market conservatives and libertarians.

Who Supports Network Neutrality?

The good news is that network neutrality enjoys huge bipartisan support among consumers since more than 4 million Americans have filed public comments with the FCC about it, which is more than any other issue it’s handled. Chances are if Americans have heard of net neutrality, they most likely support it regardless of race, age, creed, political stance, or income level. The fact so many organizations support it like Greenpeace, Gun Owners of America, the Christian Coalition, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, AARP, American Library Association, Consumer Federation of America, and the Media Access Project illustrates how popular net neutrality is across the political spectrum. You can include unions and religious institutions as well. It also enjoys strong support from small businesses and large companies like Apple, Netflix, Tumblr, Kickstarter, Wikia, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Etsy, and others. President Barack Obama is one of the most prominent supporters of net neutrality whose expressed commitment to the cause helped lead to the landmark 2015 FCC ruling that designated the internet as a utility to preserve it and so are most Democratic Party politicians.

This is Pennsylvania US Representative Tim Murphy (R). He represents my congressional district. Unlike the most of his possible constituents Murphy publicly opposes network neutrality which is against the interests of every internet user, mostly due to big telecom companies giving him big wads of cash. That and how nobody seems to successfully run against him. If you live in my congressional district and think you can beat him, give me a call. Please, I don’t want him representing me any more. And I don’t care if people in my district approve of him.

Who Opposes Network Neutrality?

The bad news is that despite being a highly good and popular idea, net neutrality has a lot of very powerful enemies such as telecommunications industries, some network engineers, conservative to libertarian scholars, and many Republican politicians. Major ISPs and telecommunication companies like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, AT&T, and Time Warner mainly oppose net neutrality because they want to manage internet access like blocking charging users different rates to access different services or simply blocking certain services altogether. The 2015 FCC Title II ruling was not great to their bottom line that they’ve vowed to fight these regulations all the way to the Supreme Court. And in fact, the last time the FCC tried to instill net neutrality protections, Verizon sued and the rules were overturned by a federal court in 2014. These companies have lobbied against net neutrality 3 times as hard as its biggest proponents as well as outspent them 5 to 1. They also heavily contribute to Republican political campaigns which explains why so many GOP politicians oppose net neutrality while their constituents overwhelmingly don’t. Many of these politicians call it, “Obamacare for the Internet.” Organizations against net neutrality are usually free-market advocacy groups like FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Citizens Against Government Waste, and the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Tech companies like IBM, Intel, Cisco, Qualcomm, and Juniper also oppose net neutrality measures as well.

The main reason why many Americans don’t know much about net neutrality is due to runaway media consolidation. As of 2016, 90% of the media is controlled by 6 corporation. Two of these corporations are telecom giants like Comcast and Time Warner who oppose net neutrality.

Why Don’t We Hear About Network Neutrality?

Mostly because the mainstream media rarely talks about it if ever. Yes, there may have been an episode of John Oliver about it as well as some discussion on PBS but that’s about it. A big reason for this is media consolidation. As of now, only 6 corporations control 90% of media in the United States, including Comcast and Time Warner who are known to oppose net neutrality. And it doesn’t help that Comcast owns MSNBC while Time Warner owns CNN. Then there’s Fox News which is a conservative news outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch. Not to mention, a lot of telecoms sponsor a lot of news programming which can influence their content. The fact so many Americans have never heard about net neutrality leads them to take the notion of a free internet for granted. And if Trump’s administration gets rid of it, most Americans will miss it.

Protecting Network Neutrality is important for all Americans and we need to make sure it survives the Trump administration. 21st America depends on a free and open internet which is essential for our society. This is a list of what you can do.

What Can We Do to Protect Network Neutrality?

Well, you can do a lot of things to protect network neutrality. You can e-mail the Federal Communications Commission. You can contact your state representatives (though make sure they’re not against net neutrality before you do so because a lot of them receive campaign contributions from giant telecom companies. So if you live in Pennsylvania and your representative is Tim Murphy or Joseph Pitts, contact Senator Bob Casey instead. Because Senator Pat Toomey is against net neutrality, too, along with these big telecom industry stooges). You can donate to civil liberties and consumer groups like Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontiers Foundation, Free Press, Consumers Union, and the American Civil Liberties Union. You can stay informed and tell your friends. At any rate, remember that network neutrality isn’t a partisan issue so don’t let Trump’s swamp cronies let telecom companies slow down or block sites users love. And let the FCC use its Title II powers to stop them.

Remember Trump and his swamp cronies are enemies of the free and open internet we know and love. Don’t let them kill network neutrality or this will happen. Please, my fellow Americans, I know most of you support this. Please don’t fail me like you did in the 2016 Election. America can’t afford this.

Don’t Ask Me to Give a Chance on an Unrespectable Man

Posted by historymaniacmegan on November 12, 2016

To the Trump supporters and voters out there, I know the election’s over and that your guy has been elected president fair and square through the Electoral College process thanks to your votes. It may not seem fair to me since my candidate Hillary Clinton won the popular vote (even by a narrow margin), but that’s how the system works. Yes, I am heartbroken that my candidate didn’t win through this bitter election and I didn’t get much sleep that night. But now that Donald Trump is president-elect, you tell me it’s time to come together, have an open mind, and to give him a chance to lead that he deserves. After all, you tell me that this is a time of civility, unity, and reconciliation. Besides, you insist that he may not be as bad as I think and my refusal to do so just makes me a whiny sore loser. You want me to treat this moment as a normal election which I should get over with and move on with my life as if everything in this country within the next 4 years will be fine.

However, asking me to accept a Trump presidency is something I cannot do. Not now, not ever. You may call me a whiny liberal with a sense of entitlement who can’t get over her candidate losing. You may call me a spoiled crybaby who can’t accept not getting what she wanted. You may call me unpatriotic for refusing to get behind the future president you voted for. You call me out of touch and immature for saying that Trump is not my president. You may say by not accepting Trump I have no respect for the presidency, the will of my fellow Americans, or democracy.

But in truth, my rejection of Trump has nothing to do with my politics or being unable to accept reality. I accept that Trump won the presidency and will be come January. I know there’s nothing I can do about it. Besides, I’ve experienced political setbacks before which I can deal with. Had the Republicans won this election with a viable presidential candidate, I would more likely put aside political differences and accept that person as my president with little complaint. Sure I’d be sad that my candidate lost, but I’d get over it. But this is not one of those times. Because with your votes, you elected an unrespectable man as president of the United States. No unrespectable man deserves a chance to lead even if he did win the White House.

When you’re asking to give Donald Trump a chance to lead, you’re asking me to accept what I already deem as fundamentally unacceptable in everything that a US president should be as well as represents America at its worst. President or not, Trump is a man I have absolutely no respect for in any capacity and that will never change. Now that he’s set to become the next president, I have never felt so ashamed of my country in my life. I am deeply horrified that so many of you could vote for such a thoroughly despicable human being with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I am appalled that so many of you were willing to excuse this man’s gross violations of basic human decency that you wouldn’t tolerate in anyone else. I am absolutely disgusted that so many of you can be fine with electing a con artist who’s cheated his customers, investors, contractors, bankers, and employees. And I can guarantee that he will cheat you. I am upset that you could choose a man to lead our nation whose campaign was built on unfiltered disdain toward racial and religious minorities as well as endorsed by white supremacist terrorists. I am outraged that so many of you could be okay with a president who’s a sexual predator with a long history of objectifying and denigrating women. I am deeply distressed that you would vote for a man who is an entitled elitist who is corrupt to the core and doesn’t think the laws apply to him, an unrepentant and vindictive bully who uses litigation as an MO to anyone who’s challenged and criticized him, a pathological liar who’s constantly made promises he never intends to fulfill, and a irrepressibly greedy sociopath who’s tried to enrich himself by abusing trust others have placed in him whenever he’s in a position of authority. I am greatly troubled that you could ever support a man who has little respect for norms of ethical and acceptable behavior. I am angered that you voted for a man who never takes responsibility for his action, never says he’s sorry, and never admits he’s wrong. I am deeply incensed that you’re willing to choose a man to lead our country who’s had a history of unethical business practices that’s hurt thousands, who’s unwilling to release his tax returns and medical records, who’s surrounded himself with sycophants and outright criminals, who’s praised and done business with notorious dictators, whose flag waving patriotism is a sham, and who’s willing to use people as pawns in order to get what he wants and doesn’t care who gets hurt. Finally, I am extremely distraught that you elected a man who clearly has no respect for American values, American institutions, the rule of law, or constitutional rights that have made this nation great. And the fact I know very well that most of you aren’t bigoted monsters only makes it worse.

I know you will tell me that you voted for Trump because you hated or distrusted Hillary Clinton, your stance on the issues, his campaign promises, or what not. But whatever it is, I absolutely don’t give a damn. If you don’t like Trump for any reason, you should’ve tried to stop him regardless of what you believed even if it meant supporting a party that doesn’t share your beliefs and electing a candidate you despise. Hell, you shouldn’t have voted for him during the primaries in the first place and not let him take over the GOP. You could’ve easily stopped him then but you didn’t. But plenty tried, even within the Republican Party. And to be honest, I actually agreed more with Bernie Sanders than Hillary. But I voted for Hillary in the primary anyway because I knew people outside the Democratic Party wouldn’t get behind a candidate like Bernie Sanders even if they were white working class. And as much as I wanted change and see Bernie’s policy ideas a reality, I really didn’t want Trump in the White House and he was already the presumptive GOP nominee by then. I knew he was an unrespectable man even then, just not to the degree I know now. Yet, I also knew that unrespectable men must be stopped. Hillary Clinton seemed to be the only reasonable choice available to me. But unlike you, at least I made the right one I would never regret. I can’t say the same for you even if you don’t now.

Whatever your reasons may be for supporting him, they don’t excuse the fact you have given validation that racist, xenophobic, and misogynist and sexual predatory behavior as well as legitimized greed and authoritarianism as acceptable. It also doesn’t excuse the fact your vote for Trump sends a message that it’s okay to bully, intimidate, incite violence, and lie to people in order to get what you want and not take responsibility for all the hurt you’ve caused as well as being fine with a leader who’s eagerly willing to violate your constitutional rights. I know you don’t intend to say these things when you voted for him. But that doesn’t matter since your vote shows you’ve decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, recklessness, untruth, vindictiveness, and his disdain for democratic norms that will lead to national decline and suffering. Yet, what’s worse is that you didn’t care. You may not really like him. You may not really believe what he stands for. But casting your vote for him doesn’t make you any less guilty of giving legitimacy to this revulsive message of this unrespectable man.

I thought you were better than to vote for a candidate like Donald Trump who goes against everything this nation stands for. I thought regardless you perceived about Hillary Clinton, you’d do the right thing by electing a leader who’d make people feel proud to live in this great country. Even if you think Hillary is a criminal who belongs in jail. But you voted your self-interests to “take my country back” and elect that despicable demagogue who promised to “make America great again.” Sorry, but voting a man like Trump for president doesn’t make America great again and never will. Nor does it take your country back either but allowing it squandered by a sociopathic demagogue who’s only playing you for a pawn as well as put the dignity of the presidential office in jeopardy. It’s not a matter whether he’ll betray your interests but when. And when that time comes, you will come to despise him as much as those who’ve opposed him. In fact, your election of Trump makes the rest of us lose our faith in the America we’ve known and grown up with and the promise that it brought us that all are created equal and endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It especially shatters my faith in the American people beyond recognition as well as in the people I know and love. And for millions of my fellow citizens, the inevitability of a Trump presidency makes them live in fear, many for their lives and families being torn apart. Their fears are entirely rational since Trump fueled his campaign on bigotry as well as promised to do terrible things to them. But what message Trump’s election sends to the American people bears no resemblance to the values I was taught to exercise, admire, respect, or value in anybody, let alone in a president-elect. And I’ve learned many of these values from you, which makes me see your vote for Trump as a betrayal of those American ideals you taught me. Now I’m not sure if I know who you are anymore. To accept Trump as my president would be to normalize him as just a regular politician he’s not, which I won’t do. To accept Trump as my president is to give my stamp of approval of his character and behavior which I will not tolerate. Winning the electoral college doesn’t absolve Trump from fueling his campaign with bigotry and hate or the grave sins he’s committed against millions of Americans. And it’s because of that I’ll never stand united behind a president who’s an unrespectable man.

Don’t tell me that it was economic anxiety that led you to vote for Trump. Because most voters earning less than $50,000 a year voted for Hillary even among whites with the most economic grievances. Besides, while many white working class voters may be struggling but they make more money than their poor neighbors and are very much the middle class of their rural communities. Not to mention, white people across the board voted heavily for Trump. Sure non-college educated whites came out by force but nearly half of white college graduates voted for him, too. I’m sure everyone in the Rust Belt states know those good factory jobs left due to policies that were at least 30 years old and knows they’re never coming back ever. You know that any promise to bring back those jobs is just a mere pipe dream that will never materialize. Also, if Trump’s election was really about economic anguish then I’m not sure why you’d go for a so-called multi-billionaire from Manhattan. Don’t tell me you voted for Trump because he’s an “anti-establishment outsider” because I know though Trump may not have any political or military experience, he’s very much part of the establishment. For God’s sake, he’s been a member of the 1% his entire life and he’s more likely to support his rich buddies than your concerns if you’re white working class. Not only that, but I’ve grown up around people like you and I know very well how you complain about your taxes going to social programs like Obamacare or welfare as a thinly veiled way to poor shame as well as denigrate minorities and immigrants. I’m also aware of how you put rich people on a pedestal as if they’re successful entrepreneurs to be revered regardless of how they earned their money or how much their greed destroys. Now I’m sure that some of you may have legitimate economic concerns, but it’s very clear to me that you couldn’t care less about economic woes unless they pertain to your struggles or your tax dollars going to programs you don’t like or to beneficiaries feel are beneath you. Sure some of you may not like the elites but many of you make wealthy corporations and businessmen sacred cows who can do no wrong. But most of you like to scapegoat minorities and poor people for taking white people’s jobs, mooching from your hard earned tax dollars, and are protected, coddled, or exploited by the white affluent liberals you revile. But those liberals at least care much more about you than the big piggy billionaires, corporations, big banks and Wall Street people you constantly excuse. Besides, out of all the candidates in the 2016 Election, the one really cared the most about you white working class folks was Bernie Sanders. But I know you wouldn’t vote for him because of how much you don’t want to unite with your brown and black brothers and sisters in solidarity since they have more in common with you anyway and how America would be much better off if you did. You shirk at the notion of him calling himself a Democratic Socialist, which you view with suspicion. And I know you don’t like paying taxes either which I know you already view as big government even if it’s for your own benefit.

The exit poll data makes it perfectly clear that most of you who voted for Trump are way more white than working class. But that doesn’t stop the mainstream media from blaming the white working class for resentment of people of color and immigrants. But I know full well that white people at all income levels deride immigrants and minorities as well but they try to conceal it through their fiscal conservative rhetoric thinking liberals like me won’t even notice. If not, then you talk about it through the lens of securing our borders or fighting terrorism. Though the latter is quite ironic to me since you don’t seem to mind voting for a candidate who was endorsed by white supremacists. Or how you talk about how deindustrialization left the poor white working class without good jobs while Democratic party abandoned them for minorities, immigrants, LGBT people, women, and the environment. Sure I may empathize with the white working class on some level and why they’d be discontent with the establishment as well feel that they’re disrespected or left behind. But I find it very hard to believe that the Democrats really don’t care about the struggles in their communities. After all, weren’t the Democrats the ones to talk about paid family and sick leave, improving Obamacare and making healthcare more accessible, environmental protection, network neutrality, making college more affordable, and a higher minimum wage? Meanwhile, Republicans want to curb collective bargaining and union power through right to work laws. To say that the Democrats left behind or disrespected the white working class makes absolutely no sense to me. Or how you talk about it through rampant voter fraud that doesn’t exist. But you don’t fool me. It’s now perfectly clear to me that you still benefit from institutional racism and want it to stay that way whether you admit it or not. I mean the fact that many of you believed Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US or was a secret Muslim illustrates my point. Besides, many of you said that Barack Obama was “not your president” when he was elected in 2008. And I know it wasn’t because Obama wasn’t an unrespectable man since he was a man of great dignity who earned that chance to lead. Trump isn’t. You voted for Trump to preserve your white privilege which you thought was under threat by the nation’s increasing diversifying cultural landscape. Even if it means voting for a man who’ll only drag you through the mud along with your fellow citizens you deem as undeserving. There is no way around it. But while I don’t write off every one of you racist, sexist, or xenophobic maniac, I have to acknowledge that each of you decided that maniacal racism, sexism, and xenophobia wasn’t disqualifying for the President of the United States. Or that your selfish reasons for voting Trump matter more to you than protecting the rights of your fellow countrymen. I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you direct blame to the white working class who you scapegoat in order to avoid responsibility for the man you voted for. It’s another way of saying, “Don’t blame us, it’s the ignorant rednecks’ fault since they’re racists facing economic peril.” You knew liberals would blame them if Trump won as well as feel guilty that they’ve been out of touch with these people. For a while, I almost believed you. Yet, later it became apparent that these white working class voters only consisted of a part of Trump’s support. And those whites who were working class weren’t living on the edges of the economy either. But even if you fancy yourselves as non-racist or non-sexist virtuous people, you deserve all the shame you can get, possibly more than the proclaimed racists. Because you knew by voting for him you willingly handed the reins to a selfish, racist snake (sorry snakes). This makes you complicit in stating that millions of your fellow Americans don’t matter no matter how much you try to rationalize it. And I will not stand for it because it’s not okay.

Look, I know I probably have racist views that I may not be conscious of. Yet, as someone who’s studied history and researched political issues, I’m much more aware than most of my fellow whites. Though that hasn’t always been the case. I know I benefit from inequality and often fail to call it where I see it. But this election wasn’t one of those times since you failed to stop someone whose explicit aim was to scapegoat and pursue discrimination into law as well as in new and dangerous ways. You can’t be blameless for this no matter how strong your love for this nation’s ideals are which I now currently question. And in many ways, I feel like I didn’t do enough to call you out on your bigotry earlier when I should’ve since I knew it was always there. Even then, I underestimated how deep your disdain for the Other until today. And now I’m absolutely disgusted with you like I don’t know who you are anymore. What I find hard to accept is that many of ordinary Americans like you would vote for such an unrespectable man to lead your country. Look, I understand if you’re frustrated by the government dysfunction in Washington and that you may want change. But that doesn’t mean you should latch yourselves onto a wolf in sheep’s clothing who goes against your national ideals. And I know full well this wolf is the man you voted for. So if you berate me for rejecting Trump, don’t call me unpatriotic or a sore loser who won’t accept the election results. Because I do accept the results. But I also accept what Trump’s election means for this country and what it says about the American people. And to call him “not my president” means that I oppose his version of America and everything he stands for. Trump doesn’t represent me or the majority of Americans who voted against him no matter how small the difference. And I will fight him and his government tooth and nail to protect the American values I hold dear which I didn’t abandon on Election Day. I can’t say the same about you. So don’t tell me to embrace or support Trump because we’re one country united. Don’t lecture me about patriotism or values. And don’t ask me to give a chance on an unrespectable man.

An Electoral Catastrophe

Posted by historymaniacmegan on November 9, 2016

I cannot express the fear, anger, and disdain I feel when I heard that our next President of the United States will be a man whom I can never respect in any capacity. Our country doesn’t deserve a man like Donald Trump as its leader. I find it especially shameful that many of my friends, neighbors, relatives, and even my home state went to this most wretched man. I know this man won’t keep his promises because he makes them with no intention to fulfill them. This man doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone but himself and his own gain. This man has never made sacrifices, never accepts responsibility, never did any good for goodness sake, and never felt any remorse. He’s a man with no interest in anything but his own money, power, and fame. He doesn’t seem to value education, possess any intellectual curiosity, appreciate culture, or hold the truth in high regard. He’s a man of no ideas, political experience, and no understanding of the world he wants to lead. I know this man cares nothing about our country, our history, our values, our institutions, our rule of law, our democracy, or our people. This man won the presidency by stoking many of the worst sentiments of human nature as well as saying that our country is a wretched human wasteland. His victory is a disaster for democracy at its worst and sets a horrific example for the world as well as our children. His campaign represents a rejection of our democratic norms and put fascism on the ballot while white, working class rural voters responded to his vile, bigotry, and false promises in droves to vote “Yes.” I absolutely loathe Trump so much I’m not sure if I can respect the presidential office during his term because he absolutely doesn’t have the character of someone whom I could be truly proud to say he’s the leader of my country. And at no time in my life have I felt such shame for my country, my extended family, many of my friends from both high school and college, my community, my state, and even my neighborhood who elected this black hole of humanity on anti-minority statements or outright hate that even white supremacist terrorists happily joined in. Except me and my parents who only had the only Hillary Clinton sign in the whole neighborhood and were possibly the only people who voted for her. For that I feel such a sense of shame for the hatred so many people in my life believe about people who are different than themselves. So for anyone who voted for the repulsive unapologetic racist, then may I be the first to say shame on you because it’s your racism that’s wrong with this nation.

Electing Trump as president doesn’t “make America great again” and never will. It does just the opposite by giving acceptable license to such a despicable man’s behavior and rhetoric that can harm millions of Americans. And it doesn’t help that most of Trump’s supporters voted for him because of his racist comments that they were willing to overlook his other unsavory qualities. Perhaps I could be among the few white women in America who’ve not only supported and voted for Hillary Clinton, but also actively wrote about racism throughout my blogging career. Despite overcoming my own prejudices with a great degree of success while writing these and reading a few books by minority authors, I am not proud of it. In fact, I’m absolutely horrified that so many white people in this country don’t actively share my disdain for racism that they’d at least not let the racist candidate win. This especially goes for my fellow white college graduates. It’s no wonder that minorities are scared to death since Trump’s election sends a resounding message that an overwhelming number of white people doesn’t want minorities here which I feel is utterly unconscionable. I’m even more upset that these racists who don’t want minorities here are people I know and people I grew up with. I am deeply disgusted by that fact because I’m well aware that it does not make things okay for many of my fellow Americans who’ll be subject to the Trump administration’s worst abuses. Trump’s presence will embolden white supremacists who supported him to be more audacious as well as push further and more extreme actions. Mosques will be vandalized and perhaps temples, synagogues, along with black and Hispanic churches. Mexican and Latino Americans could be targeted to a degree not seen in decades while Trump’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants will divide thousands of families which to me is beyond the pale. Police departments could be filled with black suspects that are stopped and frisked with no good attorney general willing to stop them. You can also take into account that lax gun laws will allow white supremacists and other right-wing terrorists access to firearms as well as more mass shootings and law enforcement deaths. So I’m not too off about how electing Trump lets the terrorists win. I can’t accept a man as my president whose message that racial discrimination is good and prudent to the entire citizenry because I know such attitudes don’t keep Americans safe from the threat of right-wing domestic terrorism which will undoubtedly rise but will probably be unsurprisingly ignored.

Trump’s presidency will solve none of our problems in this country that desperately needed fixed. As president, Trump intends to repeal Obamacare and has the majority to make it happen, which will result in at least 22 million Americans losing their health insurance, which I won’t stand for because I don’t want our healthcare system go back to the Bush years. Denying healthcare to anyone in need is unconscionably cruel to me because I believe medical care is a basic human right. Besides, despite Obamacare’s faults, the law is a huge success that has lowered the uninsured rate by half and if we didn’t have it, things would be worse. I know that Republicans have pledged to do this since its passage for 6 years saying it’s made things worse. But in reality, they were opposed to it from the very beginning due their party’s free market ideology and contributions from health insurance companies. As for the environment, Trump is sure to reverse Obama’s efforts to curb climate change like the Clean Power Plan, emissions standards, signed on to the Paris Climate Deal, and renewable energy funding. Trump not only wants to reverse all this, he also wants to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency altogether (which was established in the 1970s). The effect on emissions could be enormous which can reverberate for thousands of years and affect hundreds of millions of people. Without drastic emission reductions, global temperatures will continue to rise. Meanwhile the ice caps keep melting, the seas will rise, Florida will go underwater, and mega droughts could affect the Southwest for generations and generations. Not to mention, Trump’s presidency will give a free ride to Paul Ryan’s fiscal plans with 60% benefitting the richest Americans, make devastating cuts in social programs, and tax cuts for the rich with Food Stamps and Medicaid ending as we know it. Not to mention Medicare could be voucherized while Social Security could be privatized. Such a plan will not only keep the rich from paying their fair share, raise taxes on poorer and middle-class Americans, but also tear into the social safety net on the nation’s poorest Americans as well as put millions of children in extreme poverty. In short it will be a disaster because government should play a key role in reducing inequality like granting paid leave, equal pay for women, affordable childcare, and tax increases for the rich. But that’s not going to happen. And I know far too well that the next 4 years will have a presidency that believes in a self-serving capitalism with no conscience that Donald Trump personifies to a tee. Rejecting such legitimized greed in my country is critical part of my progressive Catholic identity. I cannot accept this from a government to undo so much progress this country has made under Obama and I will not bow down to Trump for it.

Trump’s presidency will also tarnish America’s reputation as a respected world power and beacon of the free world. It’s bad enough that Vladmir Putin and WikiLeaks were able to help Trump with the election by hacking into Hillary’s e-mails. But Trump is sure to be Putin’s puppet since his commitment to the Trans-Atlantic Treaty is shaky, doesn’t believe in NATO, and is extremely sympathetic in Russia’s dominance of neighboring countries. He also thinks Putin and Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad are bombing ISIS when in reality, they’re focusing their assaults on non-Syrian rebels. Yet, Trump’s win should also encourage Assad and don’t expect him to lift a finger on behalf of his victims. It doesn’t help that Putin is greatly feared in Russia who’s left a trail of dead journalists. There are also possibilities of a trade war with China that could cost millions of American jobs, dismantling the Iran deal, the possibility of Trump turning Eastern Europe over to Putin, and his stupid wall he thinks Mexico should pay for. Then there’s the fact Trump supports torture which is a human rights violation in my book along threatening to alter American foreign policy in dangerous ways. I have no confidence that Trump could ever honor diplomatic ties or treaties and thus, I could never call him my president.

Though I might’ve known there may have been a chance that Trump would win the presidency, I always had faith that the American people will wise up and vote for Hillary Clinton despite all her baggage and beliefs. I thought despite whatever issues she represented or personal feelings toward her, Americans would choose a candidate who’d make people feel proud to live in such a great country like the United States. I thought my fellow Americans would put their country over their self-interests when they came to the voting booth this Election Day. And no matter how bad the race got, I somehow had faith that this day would pass and our national nightmare would be over. I thought Americans were better than to elect a sociopath for president like Donald Trump, a man who’d nobody would want to associate with in their every day life nor would want as a role model for their children. I was wrong for Trump’s victory and upcoming presidency thus marks the winter of our discontent. Today my faith in the American people is now shattered beyond recognition.

I know Trump supporters aren’t bad people. I know they work hard and take pride in supporting themselves. I know that many are angry. But what they did to “make America great again” was selfish, shameful, and disgraceful. And I will make sure they regret it for the rest of their lives. I know such a phrase will evoke nostalgia but it’s of an earlier time that only exists in a dream. I don’t want to go back to a time when they thought things were better when they were actually worse. I know these people want respect. I know these people want change. Hell, I even want change and so does everyone. But they should understand that they don’t get that by entrusting their vote to a wolf in sheep’s clothing who’ll fleece them and turn this great country into his little fiefdom. They say he’s an outsider and doesn’t represent the elite. In reality, he’s an elitist to the core whose interests always go against the common working man he sees an unsuspecting pawn and nothing more. They should also know that blaming vulnerable minorities for their troubles and lack of control doesn’t give them what they want either. What they got was an outright fraud who’s never had any respect for them, their values, their institutions, their freedoms, their country, or their rule of law. In effect, what they thought was a protest against one set of elites was really submitting to another elite as a license to screw them. They didn’t take their country back. They had their country squandered by voting a sociopathic demagogue who appealed to their baser natures. Because I’ve seen people take these deals before and I know the little guy gets swindled every time. Trump won’t fix it and he won’t make their lives better. He has already lied to them like he does all the time. He’s already given them false hopes and promises he never intends to follow through. He will rob them. He will cheat them. He will hurt them. He will let them down. But many seem taken with conservative media like Fox News or so set in their pessimistic reactionary worldview that they may not even realize this. But what’s more disturbing about them is how much they’re willing to overlook Trump’s inexcusable sins like they just don’t care that he was unqualified, temperamentally unfit, dangerous, and represents a major threat to American democracy. It’s as if they have no moral standards of behavior in a presidential candidate whatsoever. Or how their political choices may inspire their children to bully minority kids in their neighborhood or school. In the end, all I know is their support for Trump will give them nothing they want and may be even worse off than they were. And they’re doing with their votes is just bringing the rest of us down with them and dragging us through the mud. I guarantee he will wreck this nation and make the rest of us live with the consequences for the rest of our lives as well as those for generations to come. If they’re wise, these Trump supporters will regret voting for him. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But someday and for the rest of their lives. How do I know this? Because he’s screwed people who’ve trusted him left and right. And Trump supporters will be no exception.

Yet, though these Trump supporters try make themselves seem like they’re rugged individualists, the reality is that many of them aren’t. They’re actually kind of pathetic like many of the rest of us. Sure they may be religious, but they lack real Christian courage and they tend to choose their Un-Christian politics over Christian virtues. They think they’re tough with guns which they think will protect them. Yet, in reality, cling to their guns because they believe the world is a dangerous place and that the police can’t be trusted. Some may believe that government spending is out of control despite that they’re on welfare and food stamps because their job pays a shitty wage and doesn’t offer benefits. And they’re so afraid of being fired they’re so unwilling to stick up for themselves to their employer who’s exploiting or possibly robbing them. Many of them feel their lives seem hopeless no matter how hard they work they tend to scapegoat minorities and others poorer than themselves for being lazy or getting special treatment. Many also believe that if their candidate doesn’t win, then the election must be rigged by rampant minority voter fraud. They also have a tendency to fall prey to people who’d promise them a better life but actually using them for their own ends. But they always seem to cling onto a right-wing ideology that’s failing them and makes them think the world is a far worse place than it actually is. I have very little confidence these people could ever support a man like Bernie Sanders because these people are so adverse to liberal ideas that may sound even a teensy bit Socialist to them even if he best represents their interests, let alone a politician who calls himself a Socialist. I know all too well that these Trump supporters would’ve never accepted him. Many may be distrustful of government feel that it doesn’t support their interests even when their assistance helps them or is necessary that they feel they’re disregarded, disrespected or left behind. And they live in the same old patterns because they’ve been told not to stand up for themselves, revere the rich as successful people who they say earn their money, are so stuck in their ways, or accept everything as God’s plan. I’ve grown up around these people all my life and while I don’t dislike them, I tend to see many as misinformed, ignorant, self-serving, cowardly, hypocritical, and pathetic. Not to mention, I’ve heard their subtle racist comments all the time which are nevertheless damaging. But now I’m absolutely sick of their latent bigotry and won’t tolerate it any longer. Not even on special occasions when I’m supposed to be polite and keep my mouth shut on political matters. Even worse, many of them don’t seem to consider how this election will have on their children. I mean Trump allegedly sexually assaulted several women and teenage girls he called liars and threatened to sue as a form of intimidation. While he owned the Miss Universe pageant, he used to go into the dressing rooms when the contestants were partially clothed or naked, even during the teen competitions. It doesn’t help that his 3^rd and current wife is a college dropout who modeled in porn and he objectifies women on a regular basis. He even suggested that he’d date his daughter Ivanka if he could. It doesn’t help these girls’ mothers sold out their political views to this orange piece of human garbage. The fact that Trump’s election may normalize, excuse, or even encourage everything he’s said is particularly troubling. I don’t know if I can call a man like Trump, “Mr. President,” because I don’t want to normalize sexism. Or how Hillary’s defeat could prevent women from entering politics for fear of such a vicious backlash that won’t guarantee them victory (though Hillary did win the popular vote and thank God). Yet, the fact so many parents are willing to overlook Trump’s sexual predatory behavior and misogyny in this election somehow implicitly validates that these actions are acceptable. I am ashamed that American parents everywhere would even do such a thing since it sets an exceptionally horrible example to kids. And I refuse to tolerate it.

However, most importantly, I can’t accept Donald Trump as my president and because I don’t believe he respects the US Constitution as well as Americans made in order to form a more perfect union where all are created equal. He is more of a figure from authoritarian politics, not the American tradition and a democratic constitution that empowers such a leader has misfired badly. It’s very clear the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act as well as legalized voter suppression and intimidation played a huge role in his victory. In this election, Trump ran on a platform rejecting the Constitution as well as its underlying principles of democratic self-government and individual rights. Other than the 3^rd Amendment, there’s hardly a provision in the Bill of Rights or later amendments he didn’t explicitly promise to override. For instance, declaring open season on journalists is a huge violation of freedom of the press as would banning Muslims and shutting down mosques be with freedom of religion. Others include freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures like stop and frisk, the right to counsel along with the Fourteenth Amendment right to birthright citizenship and equal protection to Fifteenth Amendment voting rights. It’s like he offered Americans a bag of magic beans in an exchange for their rights and their form of government with nearly 60 million complying (which didn’t include me since I voted for Hillary who won the popular vote). I deny their right to give Trump my rights or those of others who can’t defend themselves. No result is legitimate threatening the constitutional promise “secure the blessings of liberty.” No amount of angry and frightened voters has a right to strip minorities of equal status and protections or throw away a democratic future of posterity. American national leaders gain their legitimacy by competing in compliance with not just outward forms but the clear values of our Constitution such as equal dignity, religious freedom and tolerance, open deliberation, and rule of law. These sacred constitutional principles don’t bind Donald Trump. In fact, norms of decency don’t apply to him as he shrugs off the very burden of the fact itself. Like Old World dictators, he uses the mass media to lie, insult, to strip individuals of their dignity, to commit the grossest falsehoods against religious and national groups, as well as encourage persecution, torture, and violence. He actively campaigns against any notion of sexual, religious, or racial equality. He threatens those opposing him with the unchecked power of the state. Sure there was a decay in American democratic norms before Trump who took advantage of a political system hardened in hatred that it’s caused constant gridlock as well as the growth of mass surveillance and toxic government secrecy. Though Trump was elected president on November 8, he’s not my president nor ever will be.

Why You Should Never Ever Vote for Donald Trump

Posted by historymaniacmegan on November 6, 2016

donald-trump-psychopath

With the election a few days away, most Americans have already decided to vote either for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump as their new president. Of course, while I think every American has a right to vote their own conscience if they want to, I think the choice for the highest elected office in the land is obvious. And yes, I strongly urge my readers, my friends, and my family to vote to exercise their civic responsibility and for the love of God, cast a vote for Hillary Clinton. Sure she may be a liberal who goes against everything you stand for. Sure she may have a ton of baggage like her e-mails, her marriage to Bill, and what not. Sure she may be pro-choice and think what a woman does with her body is her business. But for God’s sake, she’s running against a fucking sociopath with no political experience who undermines our American ideals, people! Seriously, I don’t care where you stand on the issues or what your beliefs are. I don’t care what you think about Hillary either or whether you can trust her. This election isn’t about the issues but whether we’ll elect the first woman president or a fucking embarrassment who may put this country on the road to ruin as we know it. Say what you want about her, but at least Hillary is a normal politician who will lead this nation within the framework of the constitutional laws. At least Hillary is qualified for president as well as shown herself to be a serious candidate for the job. At least Hillary is an acceptable role model for your children to aspire to. And if Hillary is elected president, at least I’ll be assured the American experiment set by our Founding Fathers will still exist within the next four to eight years. The same can’t be said about her opponent. Trump, on the other hand, should’ve been shut down in the Republican primaries months ago. If you think Trump is more trustworthy than Hillary, then you must be an idiot. If you think Trump can change, you must be a fool. If you think Trump could “make America great again,” like you hope he would, you must be insane. Trump is a volatile con artist who’s abused his power whenever he’s been in a position of leadership. Look, I may be a practicing social justice Catholic who believes in advancing the common good in all else which is why I’m a strong progressive Democrat. But in this election, I’m not saying that Donald Trump shouldn’t be president not because I disagree with my politics which is true. I’m saying that Trump shouldn’t be president because he’s a man not to be trusted with power or leadership of any kind. Because all he cares about is himself. Seriously, there’s never been a candidate so evil in this country as Donald Trump. And here I list 50 reasons why you shouldn’t vote for him.

Even Trump supporters don’t think Donald Trump is qualified. That should send a red flag. Seriously, why wasn’t he defeated in the primaries already? Why the hell did he have to be the Republican nominee?

He’s Not Qualified or Fit for the Presidency– While Hillary Clinton was a lawyer and advocate by trade as well as First Lady of both US and Arkansas, US Senator from New York, and Secretary of State, Trump has held no political office or has held any government job whatsoever. Yes, we’ve had presidents who never held elected office. Yet, many have had some public service for the US Government. For instance, Ulysses S. Grant, Zachary Taylor, and Dwight D. Eisenhower were generals. Herbert Hoover was a Secretary of Commerce as well as head of the FDA during WWI and organizer for humanitarian relief efforts in Belgium and the Soviet Union. William Howard Taft served as a governor of the Philippines at one point in his life and in Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet. He doesn’t even have that kind of political experience either. Besides, running a business is very different than running a country as Hoover learned the hard way. There’s also no evidence suggesting that he knows anything about foreign policy, balancing government budgets, education, diplomacy, or the Supreme Court. But more importantly, Trump has the temperament mentality of a spoiled, impulsive, and ill-behaved brat who’d probably not make it out alive in Willy Wonka’s candy factory of horrors. He’s made a lot of terrible decisions over his life that make me seriously question his judgement as well as said things that might not indicate he’s all there or even has interest in what the presidency entails. He also has serious moral character flaws that just can’t be ignored.

As they often say, the trouble with jokes is that so many get elected. Well, at least nominated as in Donald Trump’s case. However, once he started winning GOP primaries he stopped being funny. Now he’s downright scary.

2. He’s Not a Serious Political Figure Who Commands Respect– When Donald Trump first ran for president in 2015, I wasn’t nearly as upset as I should’ve been since for a long time Trump was basically seen as a joke. And a bad one at that. You know an extremely egocentric rich guy with a hideous haircut who hosted a reality show, built crappy hotels and ugly golf courses, as well as did very ridiculous things for the sake of publicity. Before his run for president, Trump’s been an international punchline as well as the honorary punching bag at a celebrity roast. To be honest, I thought Trump wouldn’t last long in the primaries since I didn’t think people would take him seriously enough to vote for him. Yet, the joke quickly stopped being funny for me when people started attending his rallies in droves and Republicans eventually voted him as their nominee. Now less than a week before the election and what I once perceived as a joke is now downright scary that I was extremely tempted to vandalize Trump signs from my neighbors’ properties. Electing Trump as president makes America look like a joke to the world, which should scare the living shit out of you.

Donald Trump is a perfect definition of a sociopath as you see in this picture. Trump only does what he can to get what he wants and doesn’t care who gets hurt. He uses people to his own ends and screws them over with no second thought. He never takes responsibility and never feels truly sorry for his actions. And he has very thin skin.

3. He Has No Conscience or Moral Values– Now when it comes to politician’s moral character, I mostly don’t care about what they do in their private lives since I know people are flawed creatures. However, we all know that Trump was never a nice guy to begin with and was never ashamed about being a shameless absolute jerk. But the more you know about Trump as a human being, the more you realize that he’s way more despicable than you could ever imagine. After considerable research into his scandals, even I can’t think of a single instance Trump has ever done anything unconditionally nice, shown any compassion or concern for other people, tried to hold himself accountable. And there are thousands of times from the last several decades when he has done the exact opposite. Trump is willing risk ruining people’s lives to get what he wants with no second thought. He just doesn’t seem to care about anything but himself. His sins aren’t just shocking but also appalling. He’s a narcissist at best and a sociopath at worst. Hell, even his The Art of the Deal co-author Tony Schwartz said if he was writing the book today, he would’ve made it a very different book with a very different title: The Sociopath. He’d later write, “I put lipstick on a pig. I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is. I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.” Schwartz found Trump to be such a horrible person that he continues to feel a sense of shame for his time as The Art of the Deal ghostwriter. Glenn Beck has also called him a sociopath asking Charlie Rose, “Have you seen him during the last year and a half truly feel for someone that couldn’t help him? Truly connect on a human level?” He went on saying how alarming and frightening how little empathy Trump shows adding, “A sociopath is somebody who doesn’t really see the human experience in somebody else, and I haven’t seen that in him. I haven’t seen him deeply affected by the human condition in an individual.” Let’s just say while Glenn Beck may have outlandish theories, his idea of Trump being a sociopath is very believable and can be thoroughly supported by biographers, people who knew him, and reporters.

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Those who think Hillary Clinton isn’t trustworthy may have a probable cause. However, those who think Donald Trump is more trustworthy than Hillary are nothing but morons. Seriously, Trump has made a career of swindling people of their money that Wall Street no longer wants to do business with him. Also, his Trump University was a major scam and he’s due to go on trial for fraud later this month.

4. He’s Not Trustworthy– Say what you want on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and her other activities, but if you’re voting for Trump because you can’t trust her, I strongly think you should reconsider. Yes, I know that so many people are willing to trust him over Hillary with running the country, but that rationale is absolutely insane. Trump’s long record of corruption since the 1970s is well documented as well as been recorded in legal proceedings and court cases. His flamboyant corruption runs to the very core of his identity. Trump has been a defendant in literally thousands of lawsuits brought by service providers and vendors whom he failed/refused to pay for services rendered to him and his business organizations. It’s abundantly clear that wage theft is part of Trump’s business model. Even Trump’s lawyers allege he didn’t pay their legal fees. What kind of businessman would do this? He’s also failed to pay his debts on his failing casinos that he later had less control of them with each bankruptcy. Not to mention, several major financial institutions like JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have flatly refused to do business with him for these and other reasons. In fact, Trump’s reputation in business is as a scam artist or as Mitt Romney put it a “con man” and “snake oil salesman.” You can also look into the allegations involved in the Trump University scandals to support Romney’s conclusions and why he won’t support him. Sure Wall Street may not be the most trustworthy when it comes with handling other people’s money. And yes, I know these banksters have campaigned against political candidates like Elizabeth Warren because of policy disagreements. But what Wall Street bankers and Warren can agree on is Trump. What Wall Street has against Trump is that they know he’s a swindler and a cheat who will take their hard earned money they’ll never see again. In fact, many there probably have done business with Trump themselves or know someone who has. So much so that they now deem Trump a high financial risk potential investors should avoid at all times. If Wall Street bankers can’t trust a Republican presidential candidate, especially one who claims to be a successful businessman, you can’t trust him with running the country.

Hillary Clinton may lie. But whenever Trump opens his mouth, it’s easier to know whether he’s lying than whether he’s telling the truth. That’s why Politifact named him 2015 Liar of the Year. The competition wasn’t even close.

5. He’s a Pathological Liar– Trump’s dishonesty is so well known that Politifact named him the winner of its annual “Lie of the Year” Award in 2015, a competition which the fact-checker said “was not even close” unquestionably in reference to the fact that it rated 72% of Trump’s public remarks on factual circumstances as false. Politico states he lies every 5 minutes. There’s even a website called Trumplies which is a vast compendium of misstatements, inaccuracies and outright falsehoods. Greatest hits include his RNC acceptance speech, defamation of Ted Cruz’s father in his first post-convention news conference, and his recent statement to the New York Times about NATO which was reported the next day and which he categorically denied. Seriously, the guy blatantly lies in public like there’s no tomorrow. As a businessman, he’s constantly lied to people in order to give him what he wants then making excuses why he didn’t fulfill his promises. Now cheating rich investors may be understandable to some extent since many forgave him for not paying him back. Yet, the fact he promised to pay his workers before refusing to pay them later is just beyond the pale. He’s also constantly lied to cover his own ass. You can re-watch any of the debates to prove my point. Seriously, whenever I see him on TV, I usually assume he’s lying because he’s lied so much. He even doubles down on his lies. Sorry, but Trump never tells it like it is. In fact, he tells what his supporters want to hear which isn’t.

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Donald Trump has a habit of not paying his bills on time, in full, or ever. He says he pays his workers based on whether they do a good job or not. Though it’s abundantly clear that he’s been subject to hundreds of wage theft allegations by people who worked for him he stiffed. Yeah, you’re better off not working for his projects.

6. He’s a Boss from Hell and No Friend to Working People– Trump may boast that he creates thousands of jobs over his business career. However, he has proven to be a man you don’t want to work for at all. For one, Trump has long been subject to hundreds of wage theft allegations over the past few decades from workers ranging from contractors, casino employees, and even his lawyers. Small businesses worked for him have either failed or struggled to continue because Trump didn’t pay their bills. One Republican consultant even tweeted how Trump stiffed his own dad in the 1980s. Trump has used various excuses like shoddy workmanship. Secondly, Trump also has a history of hiring undocumented workers many of whom worked under terrible conditions. During the demolition of the Bonwit Teller Building in order to make room for Trump Tower, Trump’s companies hired over 200 undocumented Polish workers who did backbreaking work for $5 an hour without hard hats and often slept on site. Also, workers complaining about back pay were threatened with deportation. He’s also been subject to allegations from former models at Trump Model Management who lived in squalid conditions while earning almost nothing and not having proper work permits. Not to mention, he’s hired foreign guest workers at his resorts even when Americans applied for the same positions. Third, he’s been sued by unions as well as tried to prevent workers from unionizing at his Las Vegas hotels. Fourth, he forced production employees from The Apprentice to work for him after Hurricane Sandy despite New York City being in a state of emergency and effectively shut down. Many of these employees endured dangerous conditions during commutes to Trump Tower. Fifth, his companies have been subject to complaints for disrespecting women and discriminating against minorities. Sixth, former employees have testified that Trump was prone to micromanagement as well as takes little interest in the diversity of his executives or the welfare of lower-level staff. Many said that Trump lacks the temperament deal with setbacks and becomes instantly impatient with those who don’t support or agree with him while remaining resolutely loyal to those who do. Others said he was a workaholic with very few true friends who felt sometimes awkward with company outside the workplace. Some said he doesn’t get the best people around and hates when someone else gets credit. Not to mention, he’s made many of his employees sign non-disclosure agreements. All these incidents and more should tell you that Trump is a horrible boss and is no friend to working Americans.

Sure Trump may be subject to a Celebrity Roast on Comedy Central, host SNL, and appear on late night TV from time to time. But a lot of comedians don’t like working with him because he’s very particular on how they make fun of him. This is a huge problem because a president is joked about 24/7 and doesn’t have control which jokes get aired. This is why Trump bombed on SNL. If Trump can’t take a joke, he can’t be president.

7. He’s Dangerously Petty and Vindictive– There’s overwhelming evidence that Trump can’t take any form of criticism no matter how slight and that he’s vindictive to the extreme. Dare to challenge, mock, criticize him, or stand in his way, and he’ll either take to Twitter or threaten to file a lawsuit against you (which might be substantiated). You might remember his confrontations with reporters and news organizations during the primaries, his weeks long attack on Megyn Kelly, as well as his shameful and despicable attacks on Khizr Khan and his wife. Yet, you can even look at his record before that. Trump sued a New York Times reporter for libel over saying he was worth less than a $1 billion as well as threatened to sue a MSNBC newscaster for saying the same thing. He’s sued Bill Maher for making fun of his involvement in the Birther movement. He lashed out at Jon Stewart on Twitter for calling him “Fuckface von Clownstick.” He’s threatened to sue a rapper for writing a song about him. He’s threatened to sue an activist who campaigned to get Macy’s to dump him as the store’s spokesman and remove his branded products from their stores. He’s sued a New York attorney general for bringing suit against Trump University and the Trump Institute or as I call it, “doing his job.” He’s smeared Alicia Muchado whenever Hillary Clinton talked about him fat shaming her. He’s even bashed SNL for Alec Baldwin’s impression of him. We should all know that Trump turns to Twitter and lawsuits to intimidate and suppress. Yet, there are time in which led to victims suffering real life consequences. In 1990, he threatened to sue Janney Montgomery Scott unless they fired gaming securities analyst Mark Roffman who correctly issued a negative forecast for Trump Taj Mahal. The firm caved and Roffman lost his job as well as spent the next few years in a living hell. The next year, Trump would successfully suppress an 80 minute documentary called Trump: What’s the Deal? by threatening litigation to broadcasters and distributors. Why? Because the documentary powerfully and disturbingly portrayed Trump as fraud which is very well supported. There’s even a persistent rumor that Trump is running for president just to get revenge for his treatment at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which has substantial merit. Say what you want about Hillary Clinton, but this woman has endured vicious and false attacks by her enemies for decades, some in powerful positions. But has Hillary ever resorted to Twitter wars and threatening litigation against people who’ve criticized her, challenged her, mocked her, or stand in her way? No. Because whenever someone goes after Hillary, she does what she has to do and moves on. Sure she might get occasionally angry, but she gets over it. She doesn’t take political attacks and jokes personally because that’s what she has to deal with as a politician running for president. She can take even the most damaging accusations that’s thrown at her. Whereas Trump retaliates viciously over mere jokes about him which makes him very dangerous if he’s ever elected president. This is especially when you consider that the offices would allow him to have access to the nuclear codes. Doesn’t help that he’s threatened to drop nukes. If Trump can’t take Alec Baldwin impersonating him on SNL, then he poses a serious national security risk in the White House.

Out of all the things he’s said, the one thing I can count on Donald Trump being honest about is his greed. Sure he’s been greedy and grabbed all the money he could however way he can. But it came at a very terrible cost to people who’ve invested their dough and never got it back as well as people who worked for him and never received the money. And he’s not a good businessman either.

8. His Candidacy Normalizes Greed and Exploitation– We all know that Trump is greedy and that he’s not at all ashamed of it. Since he began his presidential campaign, he’s encouraged voters in his Nevada primary victory speech, “to get greedy for the United States … to grab and grab and grab … to bring in so much money and so much everything.” Sure people might take it as: I’m rich and successful. Vote for me and you’ll be rich and successful, too. Come with me and grab as much as you can to make America great again. While Trump may not be wholly responsible for normalized greed in this country since it’s been prevalent for the last several decades as part of the conservative and libertarian gospel. Yet, normalized greed often leads to so many social and economic problems in our nation throughout its history like labor exploitation, income inequality, for-profit health insurance, environmental devastation, subprime loans, lack of Wall Street accountability, cuts to social programs, climate change denial, privatization, large-scale wage theft, union busting, poor shaming, Citizens United, policing for profit, and more. Not to mention, normalized greed has proven very destructive Americans’ souls so much that social justice issues are now seen as liberal talking points. I staunchly want to put an end to this normalized greed not only as a liberal Democrat but also as a practicing Catholic who deeply believes in fulfilling the common good. Donald Trump not only is a staunch adherent to normalized greed, but he even resorts to measures that will even make Wall Street bankers blush such as refusing to pay his workers, not making good on his investors, using his foundation as an all-purpose slush fund, running his Trump University scam, using intimidation tactics to shoo out tenants, and more. But no matter how you look at it, Trump has lived his whole life enriching himself at the expense of others and unashamedly so, which we should never accept in a presidential candidate.

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Here are some things that Donald Trump says about women. Of course, these poster came out before the “grab ’em by the pussy” audio bit came out. And these quotes are rather tame compared to his other sexist comments.

9. His Candidacy Normalizes Sexism and Sexual Abuse– It’s well known that Trump is notoriously sexist and has objectified women all his life. And yes, he’s a walking and talking example of toxic masculinity in our culture as well as a great contributor to misogyny and rape culture. He’s also rated women by their looks from a scale of 1 to 10 as well as criticized them for being fat and ugly. His sexist comments on women are utterly repulsive and his history of sexually humiliating beauty queens who won’t tow the line is well known. He’s even used Bill Clinton’s infidelity to attack Hilary on the campaign trail. Oh, and he’s even talked about banging his own daughter. So it should surprise no one that women have come out alleging Trump of sexual assault once his “grab ‘em by the pussy” rhetoric leaked. Not to mention, the former beauty pageant contestants who stated that Trump went into their dressing rooms while they were changing. Yet, even before that, he’s been accused of sexual misconduct by his ex-wife for rape, makeup artist Jill Harth for sexual assault, and an anonymous woman for child rape in the 1990s. Trump has denied many of these allegations and has threatened to sue them as always. Yet, the fact people still support Trump despite these allegations against him is very disturbing. Meanwhile, so many women have gotten sexually assaulted and raped that many don’t report their abusers out fear they won’t be believed for what happened to them. Some don’t even receive the support they need. And some victims have seen their rapists receive an all too generous sentence. Now none of us is perfect when it comes to addressing sexual assault. But when you support a candidate like Trump whose sexism is unparalleled in our times, you’re basically making a statement by saying that this sort of behavior is okay which shouldn’t be acceptable.

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During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump has shown a shocking ignorance of how the federal government works. Just look at Stephen Colbert’s face in this bit.

10. He’s Ignorant About Government– Now I have to admit, Trump isn’t too ignorant about how government works. Or at least when it comes to political contributions to candidates. Or hiring the most savvy lawyers and accountants. But as far as I know, that’s just as far as it goes. Trump has been constantly criticized for his lack of knowledge about the US political system. Of course, you can’t expect him to know more about government than his more politically experienced opponents. We do however, expect a presidential candidate to know at least about as much about government as anyone who’s taken a high school or college civics course. Surely that’s not too much to ask a presidential candidate to know about American federalism, the basic function of federal courts, as well as the grants of and limits of federal power. We’re not sure if Trump even knows even that much. During the primaries, Trump said he’d pick Supreme Court Justices who’d “look very seriously” at Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. It’s like he doesn’t know what the Supreme Court does even in the most elementary sense. No, SCOTUS doesn’t initiate criminal prosecutions, doesn’t investigate crimes, doesn’t try criminal cases, and doesn’t serve as a fact-finder in criminal prosecutions. The Supreme Court only reviews cases on appeal whether they’re criminal or not. And they’re usually concerned whether laws pertaining to the case were constitutional. Yet, from what Trump says, he seems as if he’s suggesting that Supreme Court Justices could prevent Hillary from “getting away with it,” such as investigating her or demanding that she be tried and convicted of a crime. In a primary debate in Houston, Trump referred to federal judges as “signing bills.” Even an eighth grade civics course can tell you that federal judges don’t sign bills. That’s what the president does in the federal system. Sure many Americans don’t understand how the Supreme Court and federal judiciary system works. But if you’re a major party nominee for president and there’s an open seat on the Supreme Court, you absolutely must have some basic understanding that Trump clearly doesn’t. Yet, the fact his supporters don’t seem to mind really sends a red flag. Having a major party presidential candidate with such astounding ignorance about how the political system work may seem like he doesn’t care about the government its supporters want him to lead.

11. He’s Extremely Inconsistent– Now I know that many political candidates are guilty of flip-flopping to some extent in order to pander to their base and make themselves look electable. But it’s well-known that Donald Trump has changed his positions on issues as often as he changed his socks even during this campaign season. Trump changes his mind so frequently and so dramatically that a compilation of his current policies wouldn’t tell the whole story nor would be up to date for very long. I mean this is a guy who once offered up 3 different views on abortion within an 8 hour timespan. So if you’re only voting for Trump for his pro-life position, you might want to seriously reconsider as well as rethink what actually constitutes a “pro-life” candidacy in this election. He also tends to mix facts with exaggerations and outright falsehoods while simultaneously refusing to offer any specifics. He even insists that unpredictability is an advantage he’ll use to cut better deals. Now Trump and the Republican Party are now putting forward the most elusive platform in modern history. So much so that NBC News has compiled a list featuring no less than 138 distinct shifts on 23 major issues. And that’s just his stated views since he announced his candidacy in June of 2015. But if Trump becomes president, his views are going to matter. And the fact he lacks core ideological convictions on many of these issues is huge a problem as well as posts another reason why people shouldn’t trust him. I mean if you don’t stand for nothing, what do you fall for?

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This quote sums up on how much of an egomaniac is Donald Trump. Sure he thinks he’s a smart guy who went to one of the best schools in the country. Mostly because his daddy could send him there as a legacy.

12. He’s a Dangerous Self-Delusional Egomaniac Who Doesn’t Listen to Anyone Else– We all know that Trump is a raging narcissist with a very high sense of self that he can’t tolerate any ill word against him. We know this from his own interviews, interviews with people who’ve known him, employees, and you name it. Yet, he has such an inflated sense of self that he’s very hostile to people who call him out on his mistakes, disagree with him, make him look bad, challenge him, or what have you. Because according to him, Donald Trump’s the most wonderful, terrific, and brilliant person on the planet who’s a rich and successful businessman able to solve any problem as well as can do no wrong. And if anything bad happens to him isn’t his fault. A guy with an “I alone can fix it” mentality is a man not to be trusted because he’s not going to listen to anyone else. Trump’s career as a businessman shows this repeatedly over the years with his gigantic ego leading to many of his business failures. For instance, Trump would’ve had more success with Trump Airlines if he just merely kept it the no frills Eastern Air Shuttle he bought exactly how it was and focused on the customers’ real needs. But no, he wanted to revamp it into Trump Airlines to suit his own image of gaudy luxury that the company ended up accumulating a lot of debt it couldn’t pay. Another instance pertained to Rank Group offering to invest in Trump’s Castle with a deal that would’ve helped reversed declining fortunes for Trump Hotels and Casinos. All Trump had to do was let Rank rebrand Trump’s Castle as Hard Rock. But Trump backed out at the last minute because he wanted his name to stay on the property. A savvier person in his place would’ve taken the deal because rebranding is a small price to pay. Then there’s the time when he threatened to sue a brokerage firm unless they fired a guy for accurately predicting that Trump Taj Mahal was going to fail. And the time when he tried to evict tenants from a building he owned in order to build a luxury condo complex, which would’ve failed if the residents didn’t successfully sue to keep their homes. Now what makes one a good businessperson may not make one a good president. However, if someone is lousy in business due to their humongous ego, then they’ll certainly be a terrible president, if not then dangerous. This is certainly the case with Trump.

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Here’s a stock slip from Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts Inc. from the 1990s. Of course, this company would end up bankrupt in 2004 and 2009. Sure Trump may say he’s a good businessman, but his record of failures that include 4 bankruptcies related to his casinos shows that he’s not. Besides, Wall Street bankers no longer want to lend him money anymore.

13. He’s a Horrible Businessman– Trump likes to sell himself on the idea that he’s a rich and successful businessman whose wealth and business acumen as evidence he’ll make a great president. The reality has shown that he’s nothing of the sort. For one, he was born to wealth and privilege thanks to his dad’s success as a real estate developer during the Great Depression. If it weren’t for his daddy’s wealth or close ties to politicians, then Trump would’ve most likely became nothing more than a sleazy used car salesman at best. I apologize to the sleazy used car salesmen. Has he had success? Of course, he has such as the renovating the Commodore into the Grand Hyatt Hotel and his dad chipped in on that one. But most of his ventures have been disasters. Some have been outright scams that defrauded hundreds of people like Trump University. In fact, it’s been said that if Trump didn’t have his dad to repeatedly bail him out, he would’ve declared personal bankruptcy before he was 35. Because his tax returns during the late 1970s and early 1980s shows that his personal finances were a disaster. By the time Trump came up with his Atlantic City casino scheme, his finances were falling apart. A lot of times, it’s been his own fault like using junk bonds to finance Trump Taj Mahal that it was already losing in its first year and would eventually go bankrupt. His inability to manage his debts at his Atlantic City casinos would later lead to 3 more bankruptcies as well as reduced control each time. According to Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek, “Lost contracts, bankruptcies, defaults, deceptions and indifference to investors—Trump’s business career is a long, long list of such troubles, according to regulatory, corporate and court records, as well as sworn testimony and government investigative reports. Call it the art of the bad deal, one created by the arrogance and recklessness of a businessman whose main talent is self-promotion.” Trump’s net worth is almost unknowable given the loose standards and numerous outright misrepresentations he’s made over the years that many don’t even think he’s a billionaire. He also tends to claim success even when it’s not there which in the business world is called lying. Not only that, but he’s gained a reputation as a scam artist on Wall Street that major banks now refuse to do business with him. Let’s just say, you don’t want to do business with this guy, let alone allow him to run the country.

While Donald Trump may call Hillary crooked, he’s way more corrupt than her. The amount of corruption cases is mindboggling. This chart shows what he did with some of his campaign cash for personal use.

14. He’s Corrupt as Hell– As I said before, Trump has a long and documented history of corruption since the 1970s which run to the very core of his identity. Many of his scandals have been recorded in court cases and legal proceedings. He’s so corrupt that I’ve had to continuously update my list of his corruption scandals on a regular basis and the sheer amount is mind-boggling, thanks to reporters unearthing many of these alarming stories. These range from unfair business practices, connections with mafia figures and known criminals, his ties to dictators, scams that defrauded hundreds of people of their hard-earned money, bankruptcies that left investors holding the bag while he made off with their cash, refusing to pay workers, history of being charged with housing discrimination, funneling money through a charity for his personal use, his history of exploiting undocumented immigrants, anti-trust violations, campaign financial abuse, and so much more. Whenever Trump has been in positions of power and authority, he’s demonstrated a pattern of trying to enrich himself while abusing the trust they placed in him whether it’s creditors, contractors, charitable givers, Trump University students, regulators, or campaign donors. Sometimes his abuses of trust are within legal bounds or entail breaking the law. Yet, the common thread shows that Trump screws people over to benefit himself. And despite the plethora of excellent reporting, too many voters either are unware of his troubling history and may view him as a successful businessman who says offensive things or don’t care. The fact so many voters think Trump is more honest and straightforward than Hillary is very troubling. Trump’s record makes it crystal clear that he’s more interested in rapaciously extracting what money he can and doing what he wants with little regard to laws, rules, or other people. Not to mention, he’s repeatedly proven willing to violate norms about what sort of behavior is acceptable and ethical. If you look what he’s done with power in the past, his corruption becomes the most troubling of his many unsavory qualities. There are many, many reasons to be concerned about a Trump administration’s ethics and potential to abuse power.

15. He’s a Perpetual Backstabber with No Respect for Loyalty– When it comes to relationships, Trump is as likely to build them, exploit them, and toss them for his own ends. Never mind if they were long time business partners who stuck by him through failure and success. Never mind if it’s the wives #1 or #2 who get tossed aside by a hotter and younger successor. Never mind if it’s the investors who gave money to him whose debts went repaid. Never mind if it’s the workers who poured their heart into his buildings for a set pay that they’d never receive. Whenever he’s in power he’s abused people’s trust. If he is ever elected president, he will certainly abuse the trust of the American people, honor no loyalties and commitments, and betray the office and government he’s sworn to uphold. Put your trust in Donald Trump and you’ll live to regret it. Because he will let you down and let you down hard.

Here’s Donald Trump tweeting about a woman being murdered in Chicago. First one just has condolences. The second one has him trying to make it all about him. Yes, it’s insensitive.

16. He’s Exploited Tragedies and Disasters– Whenever something bad happens in this country, Trump gleefully steps into the national spotlight and tries to benefit from it whether it pertains to money or stumping some speech. He has done this on several occasions throughout his life and in the worst way possible. In 1989, he faked a near death experience to get front page headlines when 3 of his company executives were killed in a helicopter crash, claiming he was supposed to be there but changed his mind at the last minute. In the 2000s, he took $150,000 from the Empire State Development Corporation which was designed to help small businesses after 9/11 when many of them were destroyed or went under that led furious local politicians issuing an open letter that Trump return the money. In 2005, he received $17 million in insurance for hurricane damage at his Mar-a-Lago club while repairs were only totaled at $3,000. During his campaign, Trump has claimed that the mass shootings at the Orlando night club and San Bernardino as well as terrorist attacks in France vindicated his claims on Islamic terrorism in America. Now that has to be very insensitive. When it comes to national tragedy and there have been many, a president must be able to give a condolence speech in remembrance to the victims. Not try to capitalize on it as Trump does, which is just so insensitive and so unbecoming.

Donald Trump racism isn’t just limited to his presidential campaign since he’s been sued for discrimination before. Yet, his ad calling for the deaths of the Central Park Five is perhaps one of his worst moments. I mean these were teenage boys for God sake! Never mind that they were railroaded by the system until the authorities caught the real rapist with DNA evidence. Yet, Trump still thinks these guys are guilty to this day.

17. His Candidacy Normalizes Racism, Discrimination, and Xenophobia– Contrary to what some experts might say, what made him so popular that people voted for him was his offensive remarks that reeks cultural hatred, which is scary enough. Yet, Trump has a long and documented history of racism. Back in the 1970s the Department of Justice sued him and his father for violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent to black tenants and lying about whether apartments were available. Trump claimed that the federal government was trying to get him to rent to welfare recipients. The case dragged for two years where he signed an agreement in 1975 agreeing not to discriminate to renters of color without admitting to discriminating before. He’d later break that promise by the way. There have been reports of black employees being discriminated against at his casinos over the decades. In 2000, Trump secretly ran a series of ads in opposition to a casino proposed by the St. Regis Mohawk, which he saw as a financial threat to his casinos. In them, he suggested the tribe had, “record of criminal activity [that] is well documented.” In 2010, he opposed the construction of a proposed Muslim community center in lower Manhattan two miles from Ground Zero which he called “insensitive” and offered to buy out one of the investors in the project. On Letterman, Trump argued referring Muslims, “Well, somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.” The next year, he played a big role in pushing rumors that Obama wasn’t born in the US and urged the president to release his birth certificate which he did. But Trump still didn’t believe him. He also argued that Obama wasn’t a good enough student to get into Columbia and Harvard Law and demanded he release his University transcripts. However, one of his most infamous racist tirades was when he ran an ad in the local papers in the wake of the Central Park Five where 5 black and Latino teenagers were accused of attacking and raping a jogger near Central Park. In these ads Trump demanded, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” Below that, he wrote: “I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence.” The teens’ convictions were later vacated after spending 13 years in prison in a great miscarriage of justice and the city paid a $41 million settlement. Trump still believes they’re guilty to this day despite that the real culprit turned himself in and DNA evidence to the contrary. During his campaign, Trump called Mexicans rapists who were bringing crime and drugs, called for a ban on Muslims, argued that a judge should recuse himself from the Trump University case over his Mexican heritage, tweeted an image of Hillary in front of a pile of money and a Star of David, attacked a Muslim Gold Star family, and made a pitch to black voters saying, “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?” Furthermore, he’s been endorsed by white supremacist groups like the KKK and the American Nazi Party whom he has yet to denounce. Trump’s blatant racism on the campaign trail is a serious problem since it gives even the most ardent white supremacists some level of legitimacy as well as put racial minorities in danger. And like I said, supporting a racist like Trump for president basically gives license that whatever he say is acceptable no matter how much it has threatened people’s lives.

Donald Trump often talks about how he’ll fight the terrorists. Yet, he’s never denounced the terrorists who endorsed him like the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. Let’s just say if Hillary loses these terrorists win.

18. He’s Endorsed by Extremists and Terrorists– And if his candidacy legitimizing racism isn’t the worst thing about Trump’s campaign, well, it gets worse. Trump’s virulently racist rhetoric has attracted a lot of enthusiastic endorsements by white supremacists and anti-government extremists who think he’s the candidate they’ve been looking for. These people are domestic terrorists and who’ve posed a growing threat to our nation’s security in recent years. While lack of media attention on radical right wing terrorist attacks emboldens these people to attack minorities and other potential victims in their neighborhood, Trump’s failure to denounce their ringing endorsements of him encourage them even more. This further compromises public safety for vulnerable populations such as minorities particularly blacks, Latinos, and Muslims. There have been reports of these Trump supporters resorted to acts of violence and not just at rallies. These include a Moroccan taxi driver shot in Pennsylvania, a black church vandalized and burned in Mississippi, a black family being assaulted by a hospital volunteer in North Carolina, a Muslim woman being thrown an “unknown liquid” in her face in Virginia, a Hispanic couple’s truck being vandalized in California, and the list goes on. Trump’s campaign also has connections to the Alt-Right which is a set of far-right ideologies, groups, or individuals whose core belief is that “white identity” is under attack by multicultural forces using “political correctness” and “social justice” to undermine white people and their civilization. They’re usually characterized by their heavy use of social media and online memes, eschewing “establishment” conservatism, skew young, and embrace white-ethno nationalism as a fundamental value. Trump is a hero to these people while one of his campaign managers works for Breitbart magazine, an alt-right publication. These are the real deplorables among Trump supporters and if Trump can’t denounce these dangerous people, then he doesn’t deserve your vote.

Donald Trump hasn’t just praised dictators on the campaign trail, he’s done business with some of them. While on a visit to the UN in 2009, Trump rented Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi his house in Winchester, New York. Qaddafi would set up his tent on Trump’s estate but he never slept there. Mainly because the locals voted to kick him out their town. Of course, who could blame them because Qaddafi sponsored terrorism that killed many Americans. At least Hillary and Obama got rid of the bastard.

19. He’s Linked to US Enemies and Dictators- It’s well known that Trump has openly praised Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin, calling him, “a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.” In reality, Putin is far from respected. In fact, he’s highly feared having left a trail of dead journalists and invaded countries like Ukraine. Trump has numerous ties to Russia since he’s financed projects from its banks and it’s well known that the Russian government is behind hacks at Wikileaks and the DNC. His campaign manager Paul Manafort has offered his services to pro-Russian Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych that paid him $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments. Manafort has also worked for Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, the Saudi royal family, a Bahamian president accused of drug trafficking, and a former Angolan leader accused of torture. Before his campaign, Trump went into business with an Azerbaijani billionaire playboy with familial connections to its kleptocratic and dictatorial government, did business with the Cuban government during the Embargo in the 1990s, rented New York office space to a state-owned Iranian bank that’s been linked to the country’s nuclear program and terror groups, and tried to rent his opulent Winchester estate to none other than Moammar el-Qaddafi. Yes, that Qaddafi who’s notorious sponsorship of terror that’s killed scores of Americans. During his campaign, Trump has praised Kim Jong Un saying, “How many young guys — he was, like, 26 or 25 when his father died — take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden … he goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss. It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. I mean, this guy doesn’t play games. And we can’t play games with him.” No, it’s not. That’s scary since North Korea is an autocratic dictatorship that’s a US enemy and tests nuclear weapons. He’s lauded Syria’s Bashir al-Assad and told ABC that the US shouldn’t trust some of the groups rebelling against the repressive regime. “Assad’s a bad guy, but they’re all bad guys. We’re supporting rebels. You know they talk about the Syria Free Rebels. We’re supporting rebels. We don’t even know who they are,” he said. And during a North Carolina rally, he said, “We shouldn’t have been there. We shouldn’t have destabilized Saddam Hussein, right. He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It’s like Harvard, OK? So sad, so sad.” Saddam Hussein’s best known for committing genocide against the Iraqi Kurds with chemical weapons. Trump’s history and praise for dictators from US enemy nations should really scare the shit out of you. This is not what I’d want in a president.

Here’s Donald Trump tweeting on how Scotland took its country back by voting for Brexit. However, Scotland voted IN. Yeah, not very informed in international affairs.

20. He Alienates Our International Allies– As I said before, Trump doesn’t value loyalty and commitments to his business allies, employees, investors, and even wives, Trump is likely not to value the support of our allies either. He’s also has had precarious relationships with world leaders, many of whom express fear in a Trump presidency. Some US allies have used words like “stupid” to describe his ideas. And the fact Trump has business dealings with reviled tyrants known to commit human rights abuses as well as praised known US enemies only makes it worse. Please, for the sake of our world, don’t vote for Donald Trump.

21. He Has No Broader Interest in the World– It’s well known that Trump has some interest in the world, when it pertains to his business interests. But when it comes to making the world a better place, then he just doesn’t give a damn. Even in America, his whole life revolves around making the world his personal playground he could build stuff on and profit from. He has no interest in making the world a better place or sacrificing for the greater good. He never has. He doesn’t care who gets hurt or screwed. He doesn’t care if his business deals put entire countries and people in danger. Nor does he take any interest in other cultures or honoring national commitments to other nations which should be essential for a president. For instance, Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, her Clinton Foundation, and time as First Lady show that she really has an interest in global affairs, which will help our image abroad. During his presidency Barack Obama often played tourist while in a foreign country which improves our diplomatic relationships. Foreign countries like it when our leaders show an interest in them. I don’t see Trump doing this. A world of ruthless competitors guided by nothing but blind ambition and profit is hardly a pleasant place, especially with someone like Trump in political office.

Even Trump supporters know that Trump sets a a very bad example for children. Yet, Trump supporting parents are really not helping their case when they endorse a candidate they don’t want their kids to emulate. Hillary has taken advantage of this.

22. He Sets a Terrible Example for Children– What sickens me more about Trump’s supporters the most is that many of them have children who attend school or younger. When a parent supports a political candidate, they’re implicitly telling their children that whatever this candidate does is acceptable behavior. If not, then it’s giving one’s children license to look upon that candidate as a respectable role model to emulate and admire. It doesn’t take much to see that Trump is a terrible role model for children and even parents who support him don’t want their kids to act like him. After all, he spews profanity, insults women, mocked a disabled reporter, demeaned a prisoner of war, made racist comments, incited violence at his rallies, is on his third wife, threatens to sue people on a regular basis, and calls anyone disagreeing with him a “loser.” I mean the guy is a total bully with no consideration for other people. You may say he’s a role model for children of what not to be when they grow up. Sure Trump’s own grown children may have turned out all right. But we have to concede that he was barely involved in their childhoods unlike their mothers, nannies, and even their grandparents. So they’re not really a reflection on him per se. Still, teachers have become increasingly worried about Trump’s candidacy leading to a rise in school bullying. This is especially the case when it’s white children harassing minority students. And it doesn’t help that some minority kids might be among the few nonwhite children in their schools. Now there are kids who fully understand that Trump is a bully and a terrible role model. But there are kids who may not see Trump that way and take his offensive words to heart and think that being a bully is a winning strategy. How parents feel about politics is one thing but what we teach our children is another. I know that all parents want to teach their children the right things. But for parents who support Trump need to understand that they may unintentionally be teaching their children the wrong lessons. I know most wouldn’t actually teach that Trump’s behavior is okay. But that may not be what their kids would take from it. At least I can respect Glenn Beck opposing Trump on this since he said, “I don’t want my children to look at that man and say, ‘Yeah, he’s my President.’ I won’t have that. I will not endorse it, I will not tolerate it.”

Donald Trump has often claimed that not being sorry for anything is a sign of strength. However, he’s too dumb to realize that not taking responsibility for his actions and never apologizing for anything just makes one an asshole.

23. He Never Takes Responsibility and Never Apologizes– While we all make mistakes once in a while, we’re taught to take responsibility for our actions as well as apologize. Holding oneself accountable for one’s sins isn’t easy but it’s an act of true moral courage and strength. This is especially true when it pertains to a public figure running for the highest elected office in the land. It’s well known that Trump has refused to take ownership for the outrageous things he’s said and done not just during his campaign but also over the course of his life. He never apologizes for any missteps or intemperate attacks. He’s demonstrated a remarkable lack of empathy for people whom he’s attacked, injured, or harmed. When Trump is caught he usually does one or more of the following: deny involvement, deny it ever happened, blame someone else for it, say they deserved it, spin it into something positive or trivial, threaten litigation, or resort to legal action. But he will never see it his fault and never see himself wrong. He will avoid apologizing as well as taking responsibility unless he’s pressured to do so. DOJ suing him and his dad housing discrimination in the 1970s? Say the federal government was forcing him to rent to welfare recipients. Refusing to pay hundreds of contractors? Tie them up in court and other negotiations to financially overpower and outlast them in order to drain their resources. Also, claim that their work was shoddy. Caught cheating on Ivana with Marla? Blame Ivana for losing her attractiveness after having kids and wanting to do more with the business. Gaming securities analyst forecasts trouble at Trump Taj Mahal? Threaten to sue his employer to get him fired. Call for the deaths 5 minority teenagers who were later found innocent? Assert they’re guilty as sin to this day. Caught taking advantage of a federal loophole to avoid taxes? Say that makes him smart. Caught declaring bankruptcy to avoid taxes? Claim he takes advantage of the laws when running a company. Humiliate a beauty queen for her weight gain? Say she wasn’t honoring her contract and that she starred in a porn. Cheer for the housing crisis? Say it’s called business. Trump University consumers suing for fraud? Blame them for being suckers. Call the state attorney general investigating a liberal stooge for Obama or Hillary. Use family charity as personal piggy bank? Call the state attorney general investigating a liberal stooge for Obama or Hillary. Publicly advocate birtherism even after Obama shows his Hawaiian birth certificate? Claim Hillary started the controversy in 2008. Claim opponent’s dad conspired to kill Kennedy? Deny it. Claim global warming is a hoax by the Chinese? Deny it. Caught saying, “grab the pussy” on tape? Say it’s locker room talk. Multiple women come forward with sexual assault allegations? Deny it, claim some of them ugly, and threaten to sue. No matter how you look at it, Trump always tries to cover his own ass and take considerable action not to be held accountable. And whenever he does say he’s sorry, the apologies are nothing but hollow. This is not what you want in a leader or anybody.

This is Donald Trump’s tweet after the Pulse Nightclub shooting where he just had to pat himself on the back for being right on Islamic terrorism. For God’s sake, nobody should be tweeting this shit.

24. He’s a Selfish, Shameless, and Sleazy Opportunist– Whenever Trump is in a position of power, he uses it to empower and enrich himself by abusing those who placed their trust in him. If he wins, expect the presidency to be no different. Many Trump supporters would claim that they like him because he’s not afraid to “tell it like it is”, “be politically incorrect,” and intends to “make America great again.” Some say he’s an “outsider” who “can’t be bought.” But even before he ran for president, I knew Trump was a sleazy opportunist and self-promoting con man willing to do anything to get what he wants and doesn’t care who gets hurt. I saw him do it before whenever he promoted his projects and latched on to political causes for the sake of wealth, power, and fame. While many supporters swear he, “tells it like it is,” he’s actually lying on multiple levels. He’s conning people into voting for him by telling them what they want to hear and what would entertain them. He’s playing for an audience by appealing to voters’ frustrations, insensitivities, and unsavory emotions. His candidacy is nothing but a reality show satiating a bloodlust and structured insanity. And while supporters may swear that Trump will make America great again by moving our system through sheer force of un-bought will, it’s really just part of his Big Lie. He’s telling folks never mind the policy details, never mind the separation of powers, and never mind profound partisan disagreement. Everything will be easy and terrific. But in the end, we should all understand that all who Donald Trump cares about is Donald Trump. Win or lose, he will let his supporters down and they will regret it. Like he has let down so many other people throughout the years. He’s let down Wall Street investors by breaking his promises to pay them back as well as making off with their money when things go south. He’s let down his employees by refusing to pay for their work despite promising otherwise. He’s let down his customers with his scams. He’s let down veterans after promising to donate millions to a charity for them when he didn’t. And what’s worse is that Trump doesn’t care who suffers.

Donald Trump’s campaign is one of the biggest train wrecks we’ve seen since June if 2015. Here we have Trump with a notorious anti-Hillary ad with a Star of David. It was changed into a circle to tone down the anti-Semitic imagery.

25. He Can’t Run a Decent Presidential Campaign– Since he announced his candidacy in June 2015, Trump’s presidential campaign is just a horrific train wreck that really should’ve gone away during the Republican primary season. The only reason why Trump managed to outlast his primary opponents was the fact his celebrity and penchant for controversy gave him free campaign publicity. But even then, you could sense critical flaws. For one, Trump’s candidacy was all spectacle but no substance as well as relied on his offensive statements and antics in order to hog the camera. There were no detailed policies but campaign promises consisting of simplistic bullishit by a guy who seems completely unconcerned about the implications in order to accomplish them. I mean Trump promised to build a wall between the US and Mexican border as well as promised that Mexico will pay for it. How do you expect to accomplish that? Second, Republicans working to elect Trump described his campaign debilitated by infighting, a lack of staff to carry out basic functions, minimal coordination with allies, and a message that’s prisoner to their guy’s momentary wins. According to NBC News, veteran operatives were shocked by the Trump campaign’s failure to fill key roles. In June, there was no communication team to deal with hundreds of media outlets covering the race, no response director to quickly rebut attacks and launch new ones, and a limited cast of surrogates lacking a cohesive message. It’s also said that staff appeared unprepared to address scandals and controversies like Trump University or whatever comes out of Trump’s mouth. Third, the Trump campaign was far from clean and has been prone to scandals ranging from shady campaign managers, allegations of malpractice, and the list goes on. Fourth, Trump has repeatedly violated political norms of acceptable behavior in this election. Let’s just say if one can’t run a decent campaign, they can’t run the country.

Melania Trump has promised to fight cyberbullying as First Lady if her husband is elected president (and God, please don’t let this happen). However, it’s ironic that she’s married to one and could do her part by taking away his phone.

26. He’s an Unrepentant Bully– It’s not hard to see that Trump is a bully whenever you turn on the news as he always has been all his life. But I’m not saying this because he insults whole demographics and people he doesn’t like or thinks treated him unfairly. Yet, while Trump may seem to have all the characteristics you might associate with a narcissistic school yard bully, he’s much worse. Sure he may attack immediately when someone criticizes them even for the slightest insults. You may notice that Trump frequently talks about “winners” and “losers.” Of course, “losers” to him include opponents or anyone who disagrees with him. To him, “losers” are people who “deserve to lose” which clearly reveals his indifference to, and rationalization for, injuring or humiliating others. Yet, he also does far more damaging things than that like flaunting a rival’s dirty laundry, spreading unsubstantiated claims to the masses, throwing temper tantrums, and taking an active efforts at character assassination. And if things go wrong for him, then he’ll say that the whole system is rigged against him. It’s very clear that Trump uses intimidation tactics not only to defeat, but also to demean and destroy his rivals. And that’s just on the campaign trail. Trump has also threatened and filed lawsuits against those who merely said negative things about him or joked about him. He’s threatened and took litigation against anyone daring to hold him accountable for his actions or challenging his perceived image as a skilled businessman. He’s humiliated people for not wanting to do things his way and even afterwards like with Chris Christie and Ted Cruz. Let’s just say that Trump intimidates not just to win and get his way, but also to escape the consequences of his actions. And he does it in an attempt to destroy people with no second thought. Nobody should find this acceptable behavior in a president.

27. He Associates with Horrible People– While Trump always claims that he associates and hires the best people throughout his life, this is far from the reality. You may know he has shady ties to dictators like Putin, Qaddafi, and the Castro brothers. Yet, he’s been linked to the mafia many times for many years over varying degrees of closeness. Of course, it wasn’t unusual for construction magnates like him to have mob connections during the 1970s and 1980s. Trump often portrayed himself as an unwilling participant but that’s probably bullshit. Trump’s reputed to have a close relationship with Gotti associate Robert LiButti whom he worked very hard to keep happy like not letting black and women card dealers at his table whenever he gambled at his Atlantic City Casinos, gifting 9 luxury cars in exchange for $1.65 million in cash, inviting him on his yacht and helicopters, and other instances. In the 1970s, he and his father were represented by a lawyer named Roy Cohn while sued for housing discrimination under the DOJ. Cohn also represented Genovese crime family boss Tony Salerno and worked for disgraced US Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Cohn would later get disbarred for fraud and other wrongdoing. But Trump didn’t just limit doing business with mobsters and despots. In 1992, Trump Taj Mahal foreign marketing vice president Danny Leung and 3 other Trump casino employees were named an associates of the Hong Kong-based organized crime group 14K Triad. Additionally, Leung was said to give complimentary tickets for hotel rooms and Asian shows to numerous Asian organized crime associates and members. And according to the New York Times, Leung, “flew in 16 Italian crime figures from Canada who stole more than $1 million from the casino in a credit scam. The incident was never reported because Trump never filed charges.” His casino and junket licenses were later removed. Another criminal Trump was associated with is Felix Sater in a questionable condo hotel scheme who had a 1998 racketeering conviction for a $40 million Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme and who had then become an informant against the mafia. Another associate in that scheme was Bayrock Group’s Tevfik Arif who was detained in Turkey for running a high priced prostitution ring consisting of him setting up trysts between wealthy businessmen and Eastern European models, some underage aboard a $60 million yacht once used by the nation’s founder Ataturk. Then we have a couple of con artists named Mike and Irene Milin who ran Trump Institute in the mid-2000s and were known were known serial operators of get-rich-quick schemes. And let’s not forget his campaign mangers Corey Lewandowski who arrested for battery of a Breitbart reporter, Paul Manafort who lobbied for despots along with campaign adviser Roger Ailes best known for sexually harassing women as CEO of Fox News and surrogate New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who’s under investigation for causing a traffic jam in political revenge against a mayor. You don’t want to see a guy with these connections in the White House. Then you have Ivanka’s husband Jared Kushner whose dad spent 2 years in prison on campaign finance charges as well as used his New York Observer to punish real estate Mogul Richard Mack for refusing a write-down on a loan. Let’s just say Trump does not have nice friends.

Here is Donald Trump tweeting about New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman whom he thinks is going after his Trump University because he’s a liberal stooge for the Obama administration. My theory: I think Schneiderman is after Trump for the Trump University scam because he’s doing his fucking job!

28. He Promotes Conspiracy Theories– One of my criticism in my Fox News article was how the network had a tendency to promote unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Even before his campaign, Trump has spent years pushing conspiracy theories to his supporters’ delight and his enemies’ disdain. And he pushes these theories mostly to make his foes look bad. I’m not sure if he really believes them or not. His advocacy of birtherism is utterly shameful as well as his inflammatory claims about Obama. So was his claim that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination or his and Rubio’s questionable eligibility for the presidency (Cruz was born to an American mother in Canada while Rubio was born in Miami). Or anything about Muslims like 9/11 hijackers having girlfriends who fled to Saudi Arabia, Muslim Americans celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11, mosques preaching hate, or Syrian refugees billing ISIS for their phones. He’s even pushed theories like fake racist crime statistics, immigrants mostly being rapists and criminals, Mexico deliberately sending criminals to the US, people coming into the country with Ebola, vaccines causing autism, global warming being a hoax by the Chinese, and rampant voter fraud. As for the Clintons, well, Trump is eager to get those out like alleging their involvement in Vince Foster’s murder (which was actually a suicide), Hillary wanting to take guns, Hillary lying about Benghazi, the Clintons’ involvement in Whitewater, and more. By the way, he kept talking about Hillary’s involvement in Benghazi even after the late Chris Stevens’ mother told him to shut up about it. Recently 370 economists signed a letter to the Wall Street Journal as citing Trump’s promoting of conspiracy theories that mislead the public saying: “He misinforms the electorate, degrades trust in public institutions with conspiracy theories, and promotes willful delusion over engagement with reality. If elected, he poses a unique danger to the functioning of democratic and economic institutions, and to the prosperity of the country.”

When Donald Trump tried to make a deal of how he made so many sacrifice after attacking a Gold Star family, there was a Twitter campaign called #TrumpSacrifices. Many of these were parodies of how little Trump sacrificed in his life.

29. He’s Made No Sacrifices for Anybody or Anything– One of the most powerful speakers at the DNC in July was when Khizr Khan addressed Trump to, “Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.” This comes from a Muslim Gold Star father of a decorated war hero calling Trump out on his bigotry and selfishness. Trump cruelly and viciously attack Khan and his wife in true Islamophobic fashion. But when asked by George Stephanopoulos whether he made any sacrifices to his country, Trump replied, “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.” Really? Well, from what I’ve heard, Trump skipped out of Vietnam while 58,000 men in his generation died there, bragged about cheating on his wives, neglecting his children, refusing to pay workers, failing to pay back investors, deliberately avoided paying taxes while taking government money, constantly breaking promises, uses his charity as a personal piggy bank, as well as conning customers in his scams. Not to mention, suing people in order to avoid the consequences of his actions. Let’s just say when it comes to sacrifices, it’s the party Trump deals with who ends up making them. Apparently, Trump’s idea of sacrifice is all about making wealth or you know greed which is the exact opposite. So much so that there’s a Twitter hashtag called #TrumpSacrifices as a joke. Seriously, this is a guy who’s never made any sacrifices whether it be for his country, in his relationships, or for anything else. If he becomes president, he will throw the American people under the bus.

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Despite that Donald Trump having a penchant for patriotic displays during his presidential campaign, his record shows that his patriotism is a sham. I mean the guy used government money for his projects and doesn’t pay taxes. Also, skipped out on Vietnam.

30. He Has No Respect for America, Its Values, or Its People– I’m very aware that Trump always likes to show himself as a flag-waving American patriot who loves his country. In truth, he’s more likely to say he loves his country in order to exploit it for his own gain while he couldn’t care less about our nation. He’s used his wealth and privilege to get out of Vietnam, avoid taxes, use taxpayer funds for his little projects, and filing lawsuits against people who’ve criticized him or want to hold him accountable. Hell, he even brags about paying as little as possible in taxes as he can get away with. Not to mention, he won’t release his tax returns. What about creating American jobs? Well, Trump has but a lot them came with imaginary paychecks that never materialized as well as jobs that pay below minimum wage. Some of them are even done by undocumented immigrants who could be easily told to shut up with deportation threats. Oh, and a lot of his goods were made in foreign countries like China, Mexico, Turkey, Slovenia, or anywhere in Southeast Asia. What about praising repressive dictatorships who hate America and have a rap sheet of human rights violations? I mean he did business with Cuba during the Embargo, rented out his Winchester house to Qaddafi, rented out New York office space to state-owned Iranian bank, is chummy with Russia’s Vladimir Putin whose country is hacking Democrats’ e-mails on his behalf, and praised despots on the campaign trail. What about spreading damaging but unsubstantiated claims about the President? What about calling a Vietnam War POW a loser for getting captured? What about renigging his promise to donate money to veterans? What about advocating torture? What about hostility to minorities and immigrants? What about his RNC speech about America being a pitch black country soaked in blood a la Hunger Games dystopia? A presidential candidate who has done these things deserves to have his patriotism questioned. Sorry, but I think Trump seems to salute himself and not any flag. And certainly not the American flag. To Trump, patriotism is just a convenient cloak to play to the masses.

If Donald Trump had any respect for democratic values, then tell me why he feels the need to issue legal threats and file lawsuits to anyone who’s challenged or criticized him. Of course, the New York Times knew how to respond to this threat.

31. He Has No Respect for Democracy– Now the United States was built on the idea of democracy which Americans cherish as a government that’s conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. Now let’s see how Trump does with democratic values. American melting pot of cultures? Build a wall to keep Mexicans out and ban Muslims. Free speech? Sues people who challenge or criticize him. Also, hates when people joke about him. Freedom of the Press? Bashed the media for liberal bias despite airing almost every word he’s said and sued a reporter for challenging his billionaire status. Freedom of Religion? Ban Muslims and attack the Pope. Freedom of assembly? Stop a bunch of workers from unionizing at his Las Vegas hotel. Right to petition? Threaten to sue a guy who wants you dropped from Macy’s. What about election results? If he loses, then it must be rigged by minorities committing voter fraud. Equal rights? Believes that women should be fired for being pregnant, ugly, or fat. Also, blacks need to be stopped and frisked, Muslims banned, and Mexicans deported. That and along with a disturbing affinity for tyrannical dictators, Trump doesn’t have much respect for democracy.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has often said he’ll bring back American jobs and how he’s created so many jobs fore this country. Excuse me, but can you tell me where this was made?

32. He’s a Notorious Hypocrite– While Trump likes to relish in dishing out Hillary Clinton’s baggage such as calling her a liar and a crook who’s put our country in danger. However, records show that Trump is a much bigger liar and crook who praises and does business with dictators. He’s savaged people for not paying taxes as well as companies for moving overseas for tax and business advantages. Meanwhile, Trump hasn’t paid federal income taxes in over 20 years and has no problem using the American tax code to suit himself. Besides, many products with his name on them aren’t American made. Trump has attacked Bill Clinton for his affairs while he tried to get his wife to pose for Playboy, bragged about his affairs, and has been married 3 times. He’s blasted Hillary’s use of foreign donors for the Clinton Foundation pay for play scheme. At the same time, he’s been using his charity as a personal piggy bank with other people’s money for over two decades. He complains about undocumented immigrants being criminals while exploiting them as cheap labor he could threaten to deport. While he constantly slams Hillary for her e-mails on private server during her time as Secretary of State, court records show that his company has yearly erased e-mails since at least the late 1990s.

33. He’s a Trigger Happy Coward– We all know that Trump tends to be quite aggressive in his rhetoric. And he’s been seen by many as crazy and unstable. Doesn’t help he lacks total self-control on a podium. He has to attack everyone who opposes him even after he’s defeated them. He has to be hostile on Twitter as well as threaten or file lawsuits at anyone who’s challenged him or wants to hold him accountable. Even when it’s a Muslim Gold Star family stating how he has never made any sacrifices. His menacing, angry convention speech can only be seen as delusional and demented as if it’s spoken by a raving lunatic. He’s promised to bomb the shit out of ISIS and lock Hillary up in prison. Sure he may talk tough to trigger happy proportions. Yet as David Atkins states in Washington Monthly states, “Ultimately, however, Donald Trump is a coward. Not just for serving himself at the expense of others even as millions of Americans devoted their lives to causes greater than themselves on the battlefield, in the classroom, at the laboratory table and in the civic engagement hall. He is a coward because he cannot face the reality of what he has done with his life before an audience not prepared to idolize him.” And in many ways, he usually takes a coward’s way out in order to cover his own ass whether it be denial, blame, lawsuits, threats, or what have you. Because if Trump was truly brave, he’d take responsibility for his actions and apologize. Democrats have a word for crazy men like him known as “chickenhawk.”

Though Donald Trump brags about being a successful businessman, the truth is that he inherited his money from his father Fred. Fred also bailed him out a number of times until his death in 1999.

34. He Constantly Appeals to His Privilege– Note I’m not talking about white or male privilege here. But privilege Trump enjoys as a lifetime member of the 1% which allows him to be the entitled rich man he’s always been. All his life, Trump has constantly appealed to his status of as being born a white man of wealth and privilege to do whatever he wants and get away with it. His inherited status has allowed him to get out of serving Vietnam when thousands of other drafted young men were killed. When his personal finances were a disaster, his dad bailed him out. He’s used his status to get government funding for his projects, avoid paying taxes, and avoid responsibility for his actions while leaving his workers, investors, customers, and others screwed. And it’s his affluence and privilege as being part of the 1% that Trump can rise to positions of power and get away with breaking laws. Any normal person who’s committed a fraction of his crimes would’ve been stopped years ago. In fact, it’s because he’s so rich and powerful that he’s able to use lawsuits as a technique for retaliation, intimidation, and damage control. And he’s not shy about it at all. Yet, it’s because of his privilege as the rich white man Trump is that he’s been able to sell his image as the successful businessman for years despite it only being a façade as slews of renowned reporters have pointed out.

35. He Constantly Appeals to Secrecy– Trump has often harangued Hillary for being secretive as each batch of her e-mails is being discovered by the FBI and the Russians as well as made public by WikiLeaks. However, Hillary has released both her medical records and tax returns while Trump hasn’t. In fact, Trump is far more secretive than Hillary. Transparency is just simply not his style. His platform doesn’t have clear cut policies and no clear details on how to accomplish them. And even before his presidential campaign, Trump has a penchant of secrecy such as having employees sign non-disclosure agreements, erasing e-mails from company computers each year, destroying and withholding testimony and evidence, not disclosing charity records, and more. We don’t know how much Trump actually earns since he won’t release his tax returns. Neither does Wall Street know what Trump did to the money he stole from them. The fact Trump has resorted to secrecy so much over the years matters, especially when he’s a candidate of a major party for president. If he wins, his administration will be one of secrecy which won’t be good for the country.

While politicians are used to mudslinging each other during campaigns, Donald Trump attacks his opponents unusually viciously. Here he is saying how Ted Cruz’s wife is ugly.

36. His Campaign Strategy Mainly Revolves Around Bringing Down His Foes– Trump’s campaign is particularly noteworthy since it’s more or less on appealing to people’s prejudices and anxieties while viciously attacking his opponents in any way he could in order to get media attention. He won the Republican primary this way as he attacked and defeated his toughest opponents one by one. And it’s clear that Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush got the worst of it. Whether its calling Hillary a criminal who should be in jail or promoting conspiracy theories, Trump’s campaign has set a very hostile precedent for this election. In fact, if you watch his debates, Trump devotes more time to attacking Hillary than discussing actual policy. Even during the town hall which Trump devoted to interrupting her and talking about Bill Clinton’s sex scandals and even spent some time following her on the stage. And if he thinks he’s losing, he claims that the whole thing is rigged by voter fraud and that people need to be vigilant poll watchers in order to intimidate minorities at polling places. In years of ugly elections, Trump’s persistent bullying on the campaign trail makes it so apparent that he should be the candidate to lose.

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Here’s Donald Trump giving his daughter Ivanka a friendly hug during the RNC. Yes, I know there’s a real Manchurian candidate vibe here. It’s disturbing. Yeah, that’s just creepy.

37. He’s Terrible to His Family– Yes, I know that Trump’s family is extremely loyal to him despite that he’s completely despicable. Of course, his father was the same way which is why the two got along so well. But this didn’t help his brother Freddy whose fatal flaw was being a normal guy born to an affluent family of sociopaths. He also liked to fly planes which his father and brother Donald constantly thought was at the same level of a bus driver. Freddy died an unhappy alcoholic at 43 in 1981. Yet, it was reported that Trump helped draft his father’s last will that cut Freddy’s kids out of their grandfather’s inheritance when the old man died in 1999. According to the New York Times, “Freddy’s children sued, claiming that an earlier version of the will had entitled them to their father’s share of the estate, but that Donald and his siblings had used ‘undue influence’ over their grandfather, who had dementia, to cut them out.” It gets worse as the Times adds, “A week later, Mr. Trump retaliated by withdrawing the medical benefits critical to his nephew’s infant child.” We should take note that his nephew’s son had cerebral palsy. And you thought his mocking a disabled reporter was bad. He’s also very shitty husband who bragged about cheating on them as well as groped other women. His marriage with first wife Ivana ended after Trump’s affair with Marla Maples went public and their nasty divorce with Ivana claiming Trump raped her. His second marriage with Maples also ended in a nasty divorce with her taking their daughter Tiffany to California. As with third wife Melania, well, there’s rumors that she may not have been legal when she came to this country. But you probably know what she has to deal with. Then we have his children for whom he wasn’t really around much when they were growing up. But how he treats his daughters is pretty telling. I mean Trump once told reporters that he’d date Ivanka she wasn’t his daughter. And then he touched her ass at the RNC. Yeah, that totally seems too much like Mrs. Iselin and Raymond Shaw in reverse. Let’s just say if Jared Kushner’s New York Observer isn’t endorsing Trump right now, this is probably the reason. As for Tiffany Trump, well, he doesn’t really take much notice of her as her RNC speech makes her seem like she’s begging for his attention. And he didn’t even watch her. Yet, when she was born Trump already seemed to reduce her to body parts saying that she had her mom Marla’s legs but wasn’t sure whether she’ll have her breasts yet. Oh, and there’s a chance he may not have wanted her in the first place. His sons Donald Jr. and Eric have turned out to be pricks who hunt endangered animals on African safari. And according to one of Donald Jr.’s classmates, Trump once slapped him across the face in college and that Jr. despised his father, was habitually drunk, and hated the attention his last name afforded him. Yet, he and Eric also inherited their dad’s racism and sexism, too. Yeah, Trump isn’t really very nice to his family is he?

38. His Campaign Is Tampering with the Political Process– The reason why Trump managed to get this far in the 2016 election is that his train wreck go so much press attention during the Republican primary that the news networks basically gave him free publicity that basically put his competition out of commission. And he did the same thing during the general election with constant allusions to the Clintons’ scandals as well as Hillary’s e-mails. It doesn’t help that he’s had help by Putin’s Russian government and WikiLeaks who both have beefs with Hillary and the Obama Administration. We know the DNC hacks were by the Russians. Not to mention, Trump has called for his supporters to poll watch for in person voter fraud at the polling places particularly where minorities vote. There are even allegations of voter suppression in states like North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, and Pennsylvania. And we know who’s targeted in these states. You know minority voters who support Hillary. That doesn’t get me started by how Republican dominated states have resorted to gerrymandering. Let’s just say if Trump is losing, it’s not because the election’s rigged against him as he believes. Quite the contrary.

Donald Trump rallies have been known for their moments of violence. And Trump is said to encourage the spectacle. Here is a fight in Tucson, Arizona.

39. His Campaign Rhetoric Is Inflammatory and Incites Violence– All through the campaign season, Trump’s rhetoric is very inflammatory with racist and sexist comments that have caused supporters glee and opponents cringing in fear. And some of them have a good reason to be concerned, especially if they’re minorities since Trump’s endorsed by white supremacists. Yet, Trump also has a history of calling for violent acts against those who protest at his events that goes back until at least August of last year. He’s encouraged supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies, particularly if they’re people of color. He’s even suggested violence against Hillary alleging she’d get rid of the Second Amendment. Yet, what’s even more disturbing is how he talks about it so casually. But violent rhetoric can get too out of hand, particularly since some of his supporters are known terrorists.

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Here’s what Donald Trump said about appointing Supreme Court Justices. What he says indicates he doesn’t know what the Supreme Court does at all. This is a problem.

40. His Campaign Has No Substantive Policies– While Trump’s campaign contains enough spectacle to take over the airwaves, but there’s no substance to it unlike those of his opponents. He’s never been transparent on anything especially when it comes to his medical records and tax returns. We don’t know how he’ll build his wall on the US-Mexican border or how he’ll force Mexico to pay for it. He doesn’t have details on his healthcare plan he intends to replace Obamacare with (and probably has none). Most of his campaign promises tend to have vague assertions and broad rhetoric. There’s little on what Trump plans to spend, how he plans to pay for it, and what he thinks his programs will look like. In his rhetoric, Trump doesn’t seem to have much knowledge on public policy details even stumbling on basic American governance and frequently demonstrating his ignorance of key challenges and issues in policymaking. For instance, Trump accused President Obama for keeping interest rates low which is the Federal Reserve’s job. If he’s elected president, we won’t know what he’s going to do which is very troubling.

Protestors hold up a sign towards the crowd at a rally for U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma

While the media has tried to make Trump support about economics, support is mostly based on racism, xenophobia, and authoritarianism. This banner makes it clear.

41. His Political Appeal Is Based on Cultural Hatred and Authoritarianism– I know many Trump supporters probably don’t have much faith in government and are going through tough economic times. I know many Trump supporters are working class whites with no college degrees. Yet, according to Nate Silver, Trump supporters are on average wealthier and more educated than their peers. So the white working class isn’t a monolithic group. For instance, there were a lot of white working class voters who supported Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary. Besides, a lot of these white working class voters tend to be very suspicious of government as well as continually complain about paying taxes for welfare recipients. So it’s more likely that Trump support has more to do with race and xenophobia since it’s Trump’s spewing of cultural hatred that has made him so popular like building a wall, stop and frisk, and banning Muslims. The fact he’s been endorsed by white supremacists and terrorists that he hasn’t denounced shows this. Besides, if you’ve heard “Make America Great Again,” it evokes some kind of warped nostalgia as if he sets to make it the way it was. Even though that imagined past didn’t really exist or wasn’t anything like that they thought it was. We should also take into account how white society in the South has long been structured to view whiteness as a mark of higher status whether during slavery or segregation. Not only that we should also account how Southern whites learn their history within the nostalgically racist “Lost Cause” mythology when it pertains to the American Civil War. And how Barack Obama’s presidency challenged that and many didn’t like it. Let’s just say, the cultural hatred angle for Trump support makes a lot more sense for me.

This list shows who’s been suing Donald Trump for stealing their money over the decades. What he’s done by cheating these people really shows how Trump doesn’t have much respect for the law. Not to mention, he uses the court and his money to get away with

42. He Has No Respect for the Rule of Law– If reading Trump’s history tells me anything about him, it’s that he often believes that the rules don’t apply to him. Or at least when the penalty doesn’t consist of jail time. But whatever the case, he tends to treat rules and laws as inconveniences as well as exploits legal loopholes. He ignores conflicts of interest as well as takes what he wants regardless who gets hurt. He’s been repeatedly caught for discriminating against blacks whether in housing or in the casino business. For years, he’s been repeatedly fined for breaking rules relating to operating his casinos including an incident in 1990 when his father Fred bought 700 chips at Trump Taj Mahal for $3.5 million. He’s also went to great lengths to avoid being accountable for paying back investors along with wage theft. Yet, what shows Trump’s disrespect for the law the most is his Trump Foundation charity in which he used other people’s money for his own purposes. With his Trump Foundation, Trump has used the money to pay for lawsuits, bribe public officials, buy stuff like portraits of himself and a helmet signed by Tim Tebow, and funneling money in them that would’ve been counted as taxable income otherwise. He’s even said to use Trump Foundation money to fund his campaign. All these are known as self-dealing which is illegal for a charity to do under the IRS. But Trump gets away with this. Even more telling is how many times Trump has used lawsuits to avoid taking responsibility for his actions. Furthermore, Trump’s campaign has been plagued with money shenanigans. Another can be him expressing no regret calling for the Central Park Five to be executed despite the fact they were exonerated due to DNA evidence. But Trump still believes they’re guilty to this day. Even legal experts across the political spectrum are scared of a Trump presidency since he doesn’t seem to have respect for the rule of law in this country nor has any respect for American constitutional traditions. As Adam Gopnik wrote for the New Yorker, “The American Republic stands threatened by the first overtly anti-democratic leader of a large party in its modern history—an authoritarian with no grasp of history, no impulse control, and no apparent barriers on his will to power. The right thing to do, for everyone who believes in liberal democracy, is to gather around and work to defeat him on Election Day.” He later goes on to say, “If Trump came to power, there is a decent chance that the American experiment would be over. This is not a hyperbolic prediction; it is not a hysterical prediction; it is simply a candid reading of what history tells us happens in countries with leaders like Trump. Countries don’t really recover from being taken over by unstable authoritarian nationalists of any political bent, left or right—not by Peróns or Castros or Putins or Francos or Lenins or fill in the blanks. The nation may survive, but the wound to hope and order will never fully heal. Ask Argentinians or Chileans or Venezuelans or Russians or Italians—or Germans. The national psyche never gets over learning that its institutions are that fragile and their ability to resist a dictator that weak. If he can rout the Republican Party in a week by having effectively secured the nomination, ask yourself what Trump could do with the American government if he had a mandate.” In the US, it’s well established that nobody, not even the President is above the law. Unfortunately Trump always thought he’s above the law because he’s rich. And there’s a strong chance he won’t uphold the constitution if he ever becomes president.

Here’s Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago portrait that the Trump Foundation paid for at $20,000. It’s at his Florida Resort. Of course, how Trump got it is an act of self-dealing which is illegal under the IRS.

43. He Constantly Breaks His Promises– All his life Trump has made promises to people in order to give him what he wants. Yet, once he has it, he often doesn’t fulfil his word and always making excuses why. A June article from the USA Today alleges that Trump has refused to pay workers for decades when he said he would. As of 2016, Trump has at least 60 lawsuits involving employees and contractors alleging he didn’t pay them. He’s settled with 48 servers at his Miami golf resort in a lawsuit about failing to pay overtime for a special event. There were at least 253 subcontractors who weren’t paid in full and/or on time for work on Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It’s very clear that Trump promised to pay these people or they wouldn’t have agreed to work for him. And yet, he refused to pay them in the end. He’s also failed to pay back investors who’ve lent money to him and now Wall Street no longer trusts him. Not only that, but Trump has promised to donate money to charity over the years and never makes good on them. Well, unless he’s called out on it. It’s not that Trump constantly breaks his promises. It’s just that Trump constantly makes promises that he has no intention to fulfill. It’s part of how he works. You can’t have a president like that.

44. Even Republicans Hate Him– We should understand that Trump was never the favorite to win the Republican primary in the 2016 election. The Republican establishment wasn’t happy when he was ahead in the polls or when he won primary after primary. And when the many of these Republicans finally caved to Trump in the general election, it was mostly because they feared for their jobs and possibly the good of the party. Yet, many Republicans still won’t support Trump such as Mitt Romney, the Bushes, Colin Powell, Condolezza Rice, Glenn Beck, Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Tom Ridge, Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Reagan Education Secretary Bill Bennett, the National Review, Wall Street bankers, the Weekly Standard, and many conservative newspapers. George Will even left the Republican Party for his opposition to Trump. Nebraska Senator Bob Sasse wrote a long Facebook post explaining why he won’t vote for Trump. Right wing radio host, Eric Erickson explained his reason because he’d, “put my country before my party and decline to help the voters in this country commit national suicide.” At the RNC, it’s very apparent that the Republicans weren’t warmly behind their candidate. In fact, many prominent Republicans like John McCain refused to attend. Those who did, didn’t give an enthusiastic endorsement and don’t seem to like him much. For instance, I know that Paul Ryan doesn’t like Trump and has even called him out on it. Yet, he ended up endorsing the guy anyway, because he’s Speaker of the House and was in a tough primary fight with a Trump supporting opponent. And even in his convention speech, he barely mentioned the guy. Then there’s Texas Senator Ted Cruz who declined to endorse Trump at the RNC in his speech after the latter viciously attacked him at the primary for calling his wife ugly and insulting his father. Yet, Cruz would eventually cave to endorse Trump anyway when he discovered he was up for reelection in two years. You also have Chris Christie who’s only been supporting Trump to get on a ticket or at least a cabinet position, whom Stephen Colbert likened to “a best man at a wedding he doesn’t believe in.” Any way you look at it, the Republican establishment more or less supports him as if they feel that they have to since he’s their party’s nominee.

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Donald Trump has received very few major newspaper endorsements during this election than most candidates. Perhaps it’s because Trump is no fan of freedom of the press. And that he’s a morally bankrupt individual to begin with.

45. Newspapers and Experts Have Warned People Not to Vote for Him– While experts and newspapers usually have their own political biases, what’s unusual about this election is how many have refused to endorse the Republican nominee. In fact, there are many who are coming out to encourage Americans not to vote for Trump. For one, Hillary has received way more newspaper endorsements than what’s usual for any presidential party nominee. Even more telling is that many of these publications usually endorse Republican candidates with some not endorsing a Democratic presidential nominee in decades. Major publications that didn’t endorse Hillary usually went with no endorsement, Gary Johnson, or not Donald Trump. Nevertheless, Hillary’s high newspaper endorsement count doesn’t indicate an acceptance of her politics that many of these papers disagree with. In fact, it’s indicative that the newspaper industry doesn’t want Trump to be president for good reason. After all, Trump is no fan of First Amendment rights since he sued a reporter for challenging his billionaire status. Experts who oppose Trump include 370 economists, 50 GOP national security officials, legal experts across the political spectrum, and more. Even 600 historians have spoken against Trump. David McCullough said the prospect of a Trump presidency distressed him that he felt he could no longer remain publicly attached saying, “When you think of how far we have come, and at what cost, and with what faith, to just turn it all over to this monstrous clown with a monstrous ego, with no experience, never served his country in any way — it’s just crazy. We can’t stand by and let it happen. The Republican Party shouldn’t stand by and let it happen.” Filmmaker Ken Burns voiced opposition against Trump in his commencement address at Stanford University, where he said that despite 40 years of avoiding advocacy in his work, he no longer had, “the luxury of neutrality or ‘balance’ or even of bemused disdain.” It should be a red flag that a Trump presidency poses nothing but trouble.

46. He Brings Out the Worst of America– Watching the Republican primaries take its course this election was especially distressing for me. Whenever Trump would do something outrageous that would get normal presidential candidates out of the race, he didn’t suffer any fall in his popularity. It’s like his supporters kept excusing his behavior on the stage even when he was encouraging them to beat up protestors at his rallies. There are even people comparing Trump rallies to 1930s Germany which led to the rise of Adolf Hitler. And we know what happened there. Yet, such comparisons do have merit since Trump’s campaign revolves around a cult of personality like he would make everything okay. And these supporters think he would because look how successful Trump is. Look how strong and fearless he is. And to prove how much America needs him, Trump reminds voters that America is in deep, deep trouble. Yet at same time, Trump’s campaign has no substantive policies on how he’ll get things done. Nevertheless, a candidate who says he’ll fix it but doesn’t offer any plans spells trouble. But it seems that his supporters don’t seem to care what he does and seem to take him at every word. This is bad.

Donald Trump likes to use “America First” in his presidential proposals, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. This term was used by Charles Lindbergh’s anti-war group called the America First Committee known for its isolationism as well as virulent Anti-Semitism. Lindbergh’s “America First” speech was filled with Anti-Semitic language and cost him his reputation.

47. He Has Little Knowledge of History or the Lessons Learned from It– Trump has never cared about the consequences of his actions and his candidacy certainly shows this. It’s very clear the Trump isn’t just ignorant on matters of basic civics, he has no sense of the American past and doesn’t understand the achievements in this country. Sure he’d want to “make America great again,” but he doesn’t understand what already makes America great in the first place. According to the New Republic, he’s never read a presidential biography and that his knowledge of presidential history is almost entirely self-serving. It doesn’t help that people in the media have compared aspects of Trump’s campaign to parts of America’s past and none of them are good. One example would be Trump’s foreign policy outline which he refers to as “Restore Fortress America” or “America First” which to him means disconnecting from other countries, more barriers to trade, tougher negotiations with long standing NATO allies, and a more restrictive immigration policy with a wall and Muslim ban. It also shares similarities to the America First Committee before US entry into WWII while Nazi Germany was taking power across Europe. Now the American First Committee was an isolationist group who opposed US involvement in the war, which originated with college students. Yet, it soon became a group that included conservatives who wanted to stick it to a liberal president as well as virulent Anti-Semites and Nazi sympathizers. Things got worse when famed aviator Charles Lindbergh became their public spokesman and gave a highly Anti-Semitic speech in 1941 that was universally condemned, which combined with being too nice to Nazi Germany led him to suffer an epic fall from grace. The phrase “America First” has become taboo ever since as well as an Anti-Semitic byword. But when Trump was asked about this group in July, he claimed that “America First” was a brand-new modern term and that he never related it to the past and not what Lindbergh had in mind. It’s very clear that Trump doesn’t know about the shameful American First Committee nor does he even care. Nor does he care about the parallels that suggest how the old isolationist movement is relevant to his campaign. Because he kept using “America First” as a slogan not just to his foreign policies but his other ones, too. It’s like he’s using this phrase because he thinks it sounds good for his campaign. Another term is the “silent majority” which seem eerily reminiscent of the radical right John Birch Society of the 1960s, which played an active role in the Red Scare. It was also used in the Nixon campaign of 1968. Yet, what Trump doesn’t know is that the past doesn’t always stay in the past and those who don’t know much about history are doomed to repeat it.

48. He Gives Little to No Thought to His Responses to Questions or Challenges– Trump’s campaign has been characterized as all spectacle without any substance. Trump doesn’t seem to think that policy matters much, details don’t matter at all, and that positions are negotiable. All that matters for Trump is running on attitude and charisma, strength and success, that goo-goo elites make America a loser, and that he’s the superhero who can make it win again. However, this campaign style is extremely done. Presidential elections aren’t about mere policy face offs, they’re also about competence, leadership, values, vision, records, and which face voters want to see their TV the next 4 years. Sure like Trump, Obama ran as a political outsider which worked out well for him. However, Obama had a detailed policy agenda and much of it has become the law in the land. We’re not sure what would become law under Trump or how he’d face challenges. Even worse, Trump has given little or no thought in his responses to questions or challenges as we’ve seen from his debate performances. But when we’re choosing a president, then we need to know what they’re going to do if elected. And if Trump can’t give a good response to a policy question, then he shouldn’t be elected.

While Donald Trump’s campaign has many veteran supporters, this doesn’t mean he’s nice to them. In fact, quite the opposite. Here is his fake veterans hotline voicemail.

49. He’s Shown Disrespect to People Who’ve Supported Him– Trump has been unusually vicious to people who opposed him and not just on his campaign either. Yet, he could also be quite awful when it comes to people who support him. First, Trump has had a long record of bashing veterans including times when he’s had disabled vet vendors chased off Trump Tower, calling a decorated war hero and POW a loser for getting captured, organizing fake veterans fundraisers, accepting a Purple Heart from a supporter and saying how he always wanted one, ignoring a mother’s demands not to politicize her son’s death in Benghazi, setting up a fake veterans hotline, calling his sexual escapades during the 1970s his “Vietnam,” attacking a dead soldier’s parents, claiming to know more about ISIS than the generals, and more. Let’s just say Trump really has no respect for those who served our country in uniform and kept our country safe in a time of war. Yet, veterans rank among some of his most loyal supporters despite all that. Second, while Trump claims he’s pro-life and has considerable support in the pro-life crowd, his record isn’t, even on the campaign trail. He’s taken 5 different positions on abortion in 3 days, called pregnancy an “inconvenience” for a business” (before he denied it), had a woman fired for getting pregnant, tried to replace a pregnant employee who refused to sleep with him, may not provide maternity leave to his employees, mocked a disabled reporter, rejected his first wife after she popped out 3 kids for him, bragged about sexual assault, rates women based on their bodies, cut medical benefits to his nephew’s son with cerebral palsy, praised his future current wife for taking birth control every day on the radio, may have paid and urged mistresses to have abortions (since he answered, “such an interesting question” when asked this), and once told future second wife “Uh, excuse me? What are we going to do about this?” after finding out about an accidental pregnancy (despite that Marla Maples had already made up her mind to go through with it). Sorry, pro-lifers, but Trump is not your man. I mean calling pregnancy an “inconvenience for a business” is even less pro-life than calling abortion “a women’s right to choose” especially since the former statement has killed far more innocent unborn children than the latter. And I think Trump’s belief in pregnancy as an inconvenience for business basically sums up his stance on reproductive rights. In other words, he believes a business’s needs are more important than an unborn child’s or even the mother’s. Besides, whenever he speaks on the matter, he seems like he has to go the extra mile to prove he’s pro-life. Yet, while the pro-life movement backs Trump in droves, it’s very apparent that these people are being played for major fools. Third, are women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and minorities who are supporting him but that goes without saying. Fourth, this can go on.

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Of course, this is very true when it comes to Trump supporters. It seems that these people treat Donald Trump like he’s a bad boyfriend thinking he’ll change. But let’s just say his employees, investors, and ex-wives thought the same thing. Seriously, if you support Trump, I guarantee he’ll let you down. So I hope Trump let’s you down by losing the race. Because if he wins, we could be in trouble.

50. He Brings Out the Worst in His Supporters– I know that a lot of Trump supporters aren’t bad people. I know that a lot of Trump supporters are well-educated and not stupid. Yet, whenever I see or hear people I know support Trump, I feel utterly appalled. Now Trump isn’t a guy these people would want in their neighborhood or someone they’d want their children to emulate. Of course I know many of these people support Trump because they’re racist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic even if it doesn’t define them. Some people who support Trump are violent like some of the Second Amendment fanatics who like to carry their guns in full view as well as right wing terrorists and extremists. But this is a man who’s violated the norms of ethical behavior even the most ardent Trump fans wouldn’t accept in someone in their lives, let alone in a presidential candidate. And yet, these same people continually excuse Trump and his campaign no matter what happens like they have little to no standards for what a presidential candidate should be. Look, I know many people are supporting Trump because they’re pro-life, Republican, or don’t like Hillary Clinton. But come on, to support Trump for these reasons just makes you look pathetic. Because there are plenty of people who are in all these camps but are still voting for Hillary Clinton anyway because they have standards for what to expect in a president. Hell, even some of Hillary’s enemies are supporting her like Michael Chertoff. Yet, what’s worse is that plenty of Trump supporters don’t seem to care if their man is a raging sociopath with no political experience who’s lying them into a gigantic con. They don’t seem to question his morals. They don’t seem to question his policies or lack of them. They don’t question whether he’s fit for the presidency. They don’t question whether the veracity of his statements or whether he’s lying to them. They don’t question his sordid past that debunks his claim as a successful businessman. All they care about is whatever Trump says and how he’ll make America great again. And the fact so many Americans are willing to vote for a guy like Trump, including people I know such as friends and family just scares the living shit out of me.

Yes, here we have robber baron Trump sitting in his gaudy gold oval office ushering a new autocratic gilded age for America. For the love of God, America, please don’t let this happen. Jesus, please, don’t. I don’t want to see a Trump presidency.

Why We Need to Raise the Minimum Wage

Posted by historymaniacmegan on October 27, 2016

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When the federal minimum wage law was signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1938, it was meant to keep America’s workers out of poverty and increase consumer spending in order to stimulate the economy. Since then the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times with its current value at $7.25 an hour. However, it is a poverty wage which doesn’t keep people from being poor nor has it kept up with the US cost of living. In fact, it’s said a full time job on $7.25 an hour can’t even support even the basic living essentials in all 50 states. Nevertheless, campaigns to raise the minimum wage have recently been gaining momentum across the country ranging from ballot initiatives to grass organizing to major legislative efforts in states and localities. Many have achieved some degree of success. Yet, at Capitol Hill, proposals to raise the minimum wage have gone nowhere, despite widespread popular support across party lines as well as economists. As for me, I feel that not only should the federal minimum wage be increased, it should also be adjust automatically to keep pace with cost of living that doesn’t exempt tipped workers and the disabled. While I do not believe raising the minimum wage would relieve poverty even at $15 an hour, I feel that it’s good responsible policy as well as the right thing to do.

This graph from the Department of Labor illustrates how the minimum wage has fallen by a third since 1968. If it was automatically adjusted for inflation from that time on, the minimum wage today would at least be $11 an hour.

The Minimum Wage Is an Arbitrary Value-The only good explanation as to why the minimum wage is a poverty wage is mostly due to increases requiring approval by Congress and it doesn’t keep pace with inflation or rising costs of living. This is why the new minimum wage value usually falls from the moment it’s set. The federal minimum wage today is $7.25 per hour. Does it mean it’s higher than it used to be? In terms of real dollars, yes. But in terms of buying power, no. When adjusted for inflation, the current federal minimum wage would need to be more than $8 per hour to equal its buying power in the early 1980s and nearly more than $11 per hour to equal its buying power of the late 1960s. For tipped workers, it’s $2.13 an hour which has remained unchanged for over 25 years. In other words, why the current minimum wage is $7.25 per hour has nothing to do with inflation adjustments. Because despite minimum wage increases, its buying power has dropped and keeps falling. Though President Obama has argued for the minimum wage to increase automatically with inflation which can eliminate requirements for formal congressional action, reduce time between increases, and better help low-income families keep up with rising prices. There’s even a bill called The Raise the Wage Act proposed by Senator Patty Murray and Representative Bobby C. Scott proposing to do just that along with raising the wage to $12 an hour by 2020 as well as set automatic increases starting in 2021 and eliminate the unfair subminimum tipped wage of $2.13 an hour. It’s a policy that makes far better sense the current one. Some states have also enacted rules to do the same thing. So why is the federal minimum wage a paltry $7.25 per hour? Well, since increasing it requires congressional approval, I think it has more to do with politics and employer preference for cheap labor. In other words, it’s an arbitrary value.

2. Most Minimum Wage Jobs Can’t Be Outsourced – While conservatives often argue that raising the minimum wage will lead many people to lose their jobs, we need to understand that most minimum wage jobs are in the service industry. Unlike jobs in manufacturing, it’s unlikely most of them could ever be outsourced overseas with globalization. Besides, when we’re talking about minimum wage employees, their pay has nothing to do with international competition. Because they’re not engaged in the export sector. Competition in the service industry is mostly domestic and localized as well as staffed by local workers and serving a local customer base. In other words, service jobs be in a specific location. The biggest threats to pay in service sectors aren’t foreign countries known for human rights violations but large multinational corporate chains who treat their employees like shit.

Recent trends show that most job creation has taken place in low wage industries. So it’s no surprise that a higher share of millennials work in low wage industries while lower shares work in mid or higher wage industries.

3. New Job Growth Has Been Concentrated in Disproportionately Low Wage Industries– Today more families than ever rely on low wage and minimum wage jobs to make ends meet especially since job losses during the Great Recession have hit higher wage sectors like construction, manufacturing, and finance hard. And according to a 2012 report by the National Employment Law Project, 58% of all jobs created post-recession were low wage occupations. This isn’t a short term trend either since 6 of the top ten growth occupations projected by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for the next decade are low wage jobs, such as home health aides, customer service representatives, food preparation and service workers, personal and home care aides, retail salespersons, and office clerks. Raising the minimum wage would boost pay scales in these jobs where millions of Americans spend their careers today. And for many it’s getting harder for many workers to move beyond a low wage job. Thus, raising the minimum wage right now is more important than ever.

Here’s a picture on the hazards of domestic labor. Now people in these jobs usually earn minimum wage or less. Some of them earn more. But what this chart tells you that it’s anything but easy. In fact, it’s hard and thankless work. The same can go for many low wage jobs.

4. Most Minimum Wage Jobs Aren’t Easy– Those opposed to minimum wage increases argue that anyone could do a minimum wage job which doesn’t require a lot of responsibility. But that has no bearing on reality whatsoever. Service industry workers often have stressful work days as well as unpredictable work schedules. A lot of them don’t have nice work environments either. Not to mention, a lot of these jobs lack health benefits, paid leave, opportunities for advancement, and job security. Many minimum wage employees work on weekends and holidays. A lot of them work 8-hour days while some can work even more. Some even have more than one job if they work part-time. Some may even experience workplace injury or illness. A lot require constant human interaction, time management, and multitasking. Let’s just say there’s a very good reason why a lot of minimum wage jobs have high turnover rates. These aren’t easy jobs anyone can do. They’re thankless, stressful, and grueling jobs while these workers receive little respect for all the crap they put up with on a regular basis. I spent a Christmas season working at Macy’s which paid $8 an hour. I spent hours on my feet that I had a lot of aches and pains. I also had to deal with hours of Christmas music in the background. By the end of my shift I was exhausted. I have often seen ads for many of these jobs which have a long list of duties and responsibilities as well as skills like patience, knowledge, care, and communication. There are plenty of caregiving jobs with educational requirements that pay minimum wage like home healthcare and childcare. Hell, even hairdressers and manicurists can earn low wages and they have to go through cosmetology school. Some low wage jobs can require at least an associate’s degree or even a 4-year college education. Building services may also require special skills. For instance, janitors may have a wide range of duties besides indoor cleaning like maintenance, security, and yard work. The cleaning industry is known for hiring 17-23% of undocumented immigrants as well as posts a median pay of $10.68 an hour (though many school janitors get paid more than the teachers so it’s not always a low wage job). Bank tellers, data entry keyers, cooks, pharmacy assistants, clerks, hotel receptionists, and security guards can also be paid minimum wage. In many ways, I think the terms “low-skilled” or “unskilled labor” just refers to jobs with shitty pay.

Many people argue that low wage work is such because they don’t require a lot of skills, education, and lack social value. If that were true, then explain to me why Cesar Chavez became so famous for organizing farm workers for better conditions. Yeah, that doesn’t hold up.

5. Most Minimum Wage Jobs Don’t Lack Social Value– When most people think of jobs paying minimum wage, they tend to think about people working at fast food restaurants which only consist of 5% of low wage jobs. In fact, most low income jobs pay poor may have little to do with their value in society. Or if they do, then it might be a reason they’re paid so poorly in the first place. At any rate, they’re all around us which include security guards, nurse’s aides and home healthcare aides, child-care workers, educational assistants, maids and porters, janitors, call center workers, bank tellers, data entry keyers, food preparation workers, waiters and waitresses, cooks, pharmacy assistants, hairdressers, manicurists, fish and meat processors, sewing machine operators, laundry and dry cleaning operators, ambulance drivers, parking lot attendants, and farm workers. Sure there may be people in these jobs who make good money like a janitor at a public school or hairdressers. But we’re talking about general trends. We’re not necessarily talking about people who make no contribution to society. In fact, we’re talking about people in jobs that don’t get much respect. If you don’t believe me, then think about how Caesar Chavez became so famous for organizing California farm workers in the 1960s. Or why so many workplaces and corporations in the service industry take major steps to keep their low wage workers from unionizing.

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This is a graph from the Economic Policy Institute illustrating how a minimum wage increase would affect American families. After all, low wage workers are usually responsible for half of their family’s earnings. Not to mention, 1 out of 5 kids has a parent who’d be helped.

6. Raising the Minimum Wage Will Benefit Workers and Their Families– Even if you work full-time at $7.25 an hour, you’re lucky to retain $225 a week or $12,000 a year after taxes and deductions. This is precisely threshold of poverty for a single person. Not enough to pay rent or take care of dependent children. In fact, it’s barely surviving. In no state can a minimum wage worker afford a 2 bedroom unit at a fair market rent, working a standard 40 hour work week. Or at least without paying more than 30% of their income. But a lot of minimum wage workers are trying to pay rent and have dependent children to support sometimes by themselves, which is why many are on welfare and food stamps. In addition to the 1.3 million people working at minimum wage, raising it to $10 per hour would help 1.7 million working below it, and 21 million working above the minimum but below that amount. So you’re talking about a third of the workforce. 17.5 million children will also benefit since at least one of their parents will get a raise. Raising the minimum wage to $12 or $15 an hour could benefit even more. Not to mention since women and minorities are disproportionately represented in low wage jobs, raising the minimum wage could help close significant gender and racial pay gaps.

Here’s a snapshot on how many hours a person would have to work a week on $7.25 an hour to afford rent in the country. As you see, all the values are above 40 hours.

7. Raising the Minimum Wage Benefits the Economy– When workers are paid more, they’re more likely to spend more, especially when it comes to their own companies or hometowns. This explains why Henry Ford decided to pay his workers high wages to make and later buy his cars. Now Ford wasn’t a nice guy. But even he knew that workers are customers and the better a worker’s ability to participate in the economy as a consumer, the better off businesses and the economy will be as a whole. Though businesses might experience a dip in their profits, they’re able to pay higher wages without reducing employment because the savings can be substantial even if greater productivity and lower turnover may not fully pay for the minimum wage increase. Workers earning low wages are less committed to their jobs and less likely to stay for long. Employee turnover forces businesses to constantly find and train new workers, costing them significant money and time. Most of the time the new recruits may not be as optimally efficient during their training period as the experienced and productive workers they replaced. This can incur indirect costs to businesses from lost sales and imperfect customer service as new workers learn on the job. Add to that the fact a lot large retail companies like QuikTrip, Mercadona, Trader Joe’s, and Costco not only invest heavily in their employees, but also have the lowest prices in their industries, solid financial performance, and better customer service than their competitors. They also have better reputations, more work satisfaction, and less employee theft. 89% of small businesses in the country also pay their employees more than the federal minimum wage. Many small business owners believe higher wages level the playing field by preventing larger and less scrupulous firms from gaining a competitive advantage through very low labor costs. A strategy adopted by large corporations such as retail giants like T.J. Maxx, Walmart, Gap, and Ikea which have enjoyed record profits for years as well as employ 2/3 of all low wage workers. It’s no surprise why most small businesses support increasing the minimum wage to at least $12 an hour, some to even $15. In many ways, this makes a lot of sense since these large retail giants see workers as expendable while small businesses need to hold onto their best employees for as long as they can. Small businesses and large companies have proven that the key to their success is a combination of investment in the workforce and operational practices benefiting employees, customers, and the company.

This map show the lot of tipped workers many of whom can earn below minimum wage at a rate as low as $2.13 an hour + tips. But the system in paying tipped workers is so complex that these workers are subject to manipulation and abuse. Many have had their tips stolen by their bosses. And many live in poverty.

8. Current Tipped Minimum Wage Laws Are Terrible– According to the National Employment Law Project, an estimated 4.3 million people work in predominantly tipped occupations in the US. Employees classified as tipped workers if they receive at least $30 per month in tips and the current federal tipped worker minimum wage is $2.13 an hour, which is less than a third of the current federal minimum wage and has remained unchanged since the 1990s. While most tipped workers are in the restaurant industry, these include car wash workers, nail salon workers, valets, and airport attendants among others. Two thirds of tipped workers are women which makes the subminimum tipped wage a form of legislated pay inequity. Many tipped workers use these tips to support their families and to pay for higher education like student loans. Labor movements have called to eliminate the tipped minimum wage. 7 states already have and their tipped workers earn full minimum wage + tips which I strongly think is how tipped workers should be paid anyway. New York’s tipped minimum wage is $7.50 which is more than 83% its full minimum wage. And in Hawaii, tipped workers only earn less than half minimum wage if they receive more than generous tips. Other states and D.C. have also increased their tipped minimum wage above $2.13 an hour. But these rates aren’t equal and aren’t always fair. And personally, I find the idea of a subminimum tipped wage as absolutely unfair and ridiculous. Add to that the fact employers are required to make up the difference if a tipped worker’s base wage and tips doesn’t add to the full minimum wage. But this is a complex system that’s both difficult to comply with and largely unenforceable for these reasons:

It requires extensive tracking and accounting tip flows which even law-abiding employers find burdensome and difficult. This also allows less ethical employers to take advantage of this notorious complex system to illegally keep a portion of tips for themselves. Thus, this results in many tipped employees failing to receive the tips which they’re entitled to as well as have their income prone to manipulation and abuse.
Employers are allowed to average tips over the course of the work week and required to “top up” only if an employee’s average hourly earnings are less than the full minimum wage. They’re also allowed to estimate their workers’ tips in order to determine how much tax to withhold. Though this estimation approach isn’t sufficient for federal minimum wage compliance, many employers use this anyway though they don’t actually verify that their workers really do receive enough tips to bring them up to the full minimum wage. One southern New Jersey waitress told NELP, “They just take our total sales for the day—say it’s [a couple] hundred dollars—and they just [estimate] 15% of that.” Under the federal minimum wage law, this is illegal as well as overstates tips since many customers tip less than 15% and “a few times a week” a customer leaves no tip at all.
Tips are allowed to be pooled among various types of restaurant employees, giving a portion of those tips a server receives to legitimately be reallocated to other workers. This is a frequent and sometimes legally dubious practice at many businesses across the country as well as creates other opportunities for unethical employers to illegally skin off a portion of these tips for themselves or use to pay other employees whether they’re tipped or not.
Tipped workers who’ve experienced tip-stealing or other forms of wage theft are often reluctant to demand what they’re owed in fear of reprisal. Many of rely on their supervisors to schedule their shifts and make more or less in tips depending on what shifts they’re given. So complaining about being ripped off might lead to being scheduled on a less profitable shift or simply fired.
Tip stealing is rampant in industries that employ tipped workers who are often victims. Tip violations can take various forms but ultimately, they all result in tipped workers losing some of their tips to improve the employer’s bottom line. Some employers simply pocket a portion for tip pools while others can be less direct such as including non-tipped workers in the tip pool so they can be paid the lower minimum wage for tipped workers. Sometimes restaurants can take advantage of communication barriers among workers. The National Employment Law Project mentioned a waitress setting aside 15% of her tips for bussers but was expected to pay upfront and didn’t know whether they got it. They also discuss how waiters and waitresses in an upstate New York town exposed that managers had simply pocketed a portion of their tips they deducted, supposedly to share with the bussers. Additionally, they also talked about a Maryland waitress who already shared her tips with a captain, bussers, and host who finally contacted a union for help when the restaurant’s managers tried to take a portion of her tips for themselves as well. Several high profile lawsuits have recently been filed in response to these practices.
According to a 2014 report by the White House Economic Council and the Department of Labor, 1 in 10 surveyed tipped workers reported hourly wages below the federal minimum wage, tips included. This compared to 4% of all workers reporting earnings below minimum wage.
Compliance and enforcement challenges aside, despite requiring employers to make up the difference between tips and statutory minimum wage, it remains the case that customers are directly responsible for paying a portion of workers’ wages under this system. Thus, instead of being a gratuity for good service, having a subminimum tipped wage renders tips a customer-funded wage replacement and lowers labor costs for employers in a few select industries.
Work for tipped employees is inherently uneven and often unpredictable with most making substantial amounts on Friday and Saturday nights and much less other days of the week. In addition, bad weather, a bad economy, seasonal change, and a host of other factors can cause sudden drops in tipped income and economic insecurity. Also, tips can fluctuate widely and are often paid in cash.
Nationwide, the median tipped wage for servers is $10.11 per hour and $9.89 for waitresses. This despite claims from the restaurant industry that servers make a median between $16 and $22 per hour. The median wage for all workers nationwide is $16.48 per hour. Median wages for tipped workers in general are nearly 40% lower than overall median hourly wages.
46% of tipped workers depend on public assistance from the federal government which is well over the rate of 35.9% for all workers. 12.8% of tipped workers in the US live in poverty, including 15% of restaurant servers. In fact, servers experience poverty at well over twice the rate of the overall US workforce. They’re also only a quarter as likely as the workforce as a whole to receive employer-provided health insurance and are twice as likely to be uninsured. In states the federal tipped minimum of $2.13 per hour is implemented, 14% of tipped workers and 18% of servers live in poverty. In states where tipped workers are paid full minimum wage + tips, the poverty rate for them is 10.8% and 10.2% for servers.

Despite fierce contention in the media and in Congress, raising minimum wage has wide support among Americans. This NELP graph illustrates this.

9. Raising the Minimum Wage Has Wide Support– Most Americans feel the minimum wage is too low and are concerned about rising inequality. A 2014 Public Policy Polling shows that 80% of respondents don’t believe they could support themselves or their families on minimum wage. Other polls show that 7 in 10 Americans believe that income inequality is getting worse and nearly as many believe the government has a role to play in reducing the gap between rich and poor. A 2013 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 57% of Americans want lawmakers to address income inequality. The Hart Research Associates shows that 75% of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $12.50 or more by 2020, including 92% of Democrats, 53% of Republicans, 73% of Independents, 80% of women, and 72% of non-college whites. On the small business front, support for increasing the minimum wage is 61% or 3 in 5. 63% of Americans support a $15.00 minimum wage. 71% of Americans favor eliminating the subminimum tipped waged to ensure tipped employees the same minimum wage as other workers. 82% support automatic annual minimum wage increases to ensure it keeps up with the annual costs of living. There is no reason why Congress should be unable to pass The Raise the Wage law right now, even with a Republican majority. At least as far as the American people are concerned.

10. Minimum Wage Laws Unfairly Exempt Disabled People– Under the current federal law, the Secretary of Labor can issue special wage certificates to employers allowing them to pay disabled workers a subminimum wage, sometimes just a few cents per hour and in segregated work environments where they often perform mundane tasks that don’t use their existing skills, interests, and talents. Yet, this exemption is based on an antiquated notion that encourages disabled workers to rely on Social Security Income, Medicaid, food stamps, or other government programs in order to get by. There are also current training and employment strategies to assist those with even the most significant disabilities to obtain integrated and meaningful work. And when paired with the right rehabilitative tools, training, and expectations, employees with disabilities can be as productive as their nondisabled peers. It’s also discriminatory since nobody should be paid below the minimum wage, disabled or not. And I say that even if the minimum wage is too low.

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During the Gilded Age, those in blue collar professions worked in terrible working conditions with long hours and shitty pay. Many of these workers were children, some of them as old as kindergartners, mostly because their parents worked in the same place and didn’t earn enough to support a family. Still, we should also acknowledge that once workplace regulations and protections were in place, these large companies still earned money and lost nothing.

11. Blue Collar Jobs Used to Have Shitty Pay– Yes, I’m well aware that a lot of jobs in the service industry pay minimum wage or even less than that. And yes, I know many argue low wages are a cost-driven necessity for these jobs. On the other hand, you have a lot of blue collar jobs in mining and manufacturing which many people see as good paying jobs that many working class people lament leaving their hometowns or being outsourced. However, we should also acknowledge that blue collar jobs were the shit jobs of 19th and early 20^th century industrialization with dangerous conditions, long hours, and very low pay. And I mean like working in the mine for 14 hour days on a wage that can’t support your family. So now your eight year old has to drop out of school and go to work with you. It wasn’t unusual for whole families to work in a factory, including the kids who could be as young as four years old. Now we’re talking about a time when there were no workplace safety protections, no minimum wage, no workers’ rights, and institutionalized child labor. So what changed? Well, these workers organized into unions and went on strike for their rights, not just risking getting fired but also getting killed. And they faced staunch opposition from their robber baron bosses. Yet, once they got what they wanted, these blue-collar jobs were no longer seen as shit jobs by later generations. In fact, they were seen as jobs that could support a family and local economies benefitted just the same. But this shows us that the existence of shit jobs has more to do with an employer’s desire for cheap and expendable labor than what the job entails. Also, keeping workers dependent on them that they’ll put up with any abuse they give them. Not to mention, it supports the argument that low wages are a choice and not a cost-driven necessity. This is why a lot of corporations don’t want to raise the minimum wage or have their workers unionize. Not only that, but also that the shit jobs of today don’t have to be the shit jobs of tomorrow if we invest more in our workers. Raising the minimum wage is a good place to start.

12. Raising the Minimum Wage Saves Taxpayer Money– With wages being what they are, many low income workers have relied on public assistance because their paycheck can’t cover basic expenses. Even if they work for companies that could certainly afford to pay them a raise and benefits. American taxpayers spend an annual $153 billion in taxpayer money helping low wage earning families get by. This includes food stamps, Medicaid, CHIP, TANF as well as childcare subsidies and reduced-free school lunch programs. These programs help Americans meet a basic standard of living despite being targets for cuts and reductions. But having workers rely on public assistance has more to do with their employers paying them nothing more than poverty wages. Therefore, the government is indirectly subsidizing these companies that refuse to pay more. In fact, some companies like McDonald’s doesn’t even hide that half their workforce is on welfare and even encourage their employees to seek public assistance. Higher wages at work save taxpayer money since they lift more people out of poverty and produce more tax revenue. Sorry, libertarians, but cheap labor doesn’t come cheap.

This is a graph from the Economic Policy Institute that shows what the average minimum wage worker. Despite the stereotype of a teenage working after school, most minimum wage earners are adults who work full time as well as earn more than half of their family’s total income.

13. Low Wages Don’t Relieve Poverty– Contrary to what conservatives said about minimum wage jobs being for teens trying to earn extra money and experience, 89% of minimum wage workers are 20 years old or over while many are women and people of color. 37% of them have at least some college education. A third of them are over 30. Not to mention, 57% of minimum wage jobs are full-time and are unlikely filled by teens anyway. Some low wage industries don’t hire teens at all. That being said, statistics show a lot of low wage workers make nearly to over half their family’s income and 28% of them are parents. Sometimes they could be the family’s chief breadwinner, especially in single parent households. In every state working the minimum wage leaves a full-time worker with two kids below the poverty line. Not to mention, low-income wage earners may work multiple jobs which gives them even less time to spend with their kids as well as take care of themselves. At worst this could lead to a case like Maria Fernandes who worked so hard to make ends meet that she died from gas fumes in her car while napping between shifts. Fernandes was said to work 4 jobs and sometimes didn’t sleep for nearly a week. There were a couple occasions when single mothers were busted for leaving their kids unsupervised due to working 3 jobs and lack of available childcare options. Many low income workers have also experienced a considerable toll on their health while their children suffer in school and in life. No one who works for a living should have to live in or near poverty, especially full-time.

14. Raising the Minimum Wage Has Expert Support– In January 2014, over 600 economists across the country sent a letter to President Obama and congressional leaders arguing for a minimum wage raise to $10.10 by 2016 and then indexed to protect it against inflation. 7 of these were Nobel Prize winners. Even the Department of Labor supports this measure and think it’s a better idea than the current minimum wage laws we have now.

Here’s a map from the Wall Street Journal showing the minimum wage increases within each state. Of course, some pay below or have no minimum wage laws at all.

15. The Minimum Wage Has Been Raised in Localities and States– As of 2016, 29 states, D. C., as well as countless localities have raised the minimum wage, many in recent years. Some have even enacted measures to increase the minimum wage automatically with inflation and the costs of living. Not only that, but despite congressional Republican opposition, raising the wage in these states, D.C., and other jurisdictions weren’t just mere liberals pushing for it. Sure Washington State, Oregon, California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts voted for minimum wage increases. But so have red states like West Virginia, Arkansas, South Dakota, Nebraska, Alaska, Missouri, and Montana. Swing states like Florida, Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio have also raised their minimum wage. The fact minimum wage increases have passed in states of various political leanings should emphasize its widespread support among party lines.

Despite that many opponents of minimum wage increases argue that raising it would kill jobs or raise prices, keep in mind that none of them bring up this argument when it comes to skyrocketing CEO pay while regular wages remain stagnant. Seriously if your company can afford to give a CEO a generous severance package of a few million bucks, they can raise wages on their lowest paying workers. It’s not hard to see.

16. Opposition to Minimum Wage Increases Has More to Do with Self-Interest and Ideology– I know there are people who argue that raising the minimum wage would hurt the economy as well as kill jobs and raise prices. However, we need to understand that despite bipartisan and expert support, raising the minimum wage is still seen as a mainly liberal issue in the halls of Congress. Why? Because a lot of Republican politicians are bankrolled by big corporate lobbies who would rather use cheap labor, many of whom boast record profits and very much can afford to pay their workers more. There are a lot of libertarian and conservative economists and think tanks to back them up, some of whom want to abolish minimum wage which just makes workers even more prone to further exploitation. Believers in free market and trickle down economics usually see low wage jobs as a cost-driven necessity for economic prosperity. But employers often use this argument to justify not giving their impoverished employees a raise for decades, including your Gilded Age robber barons. Besides, no Fortune 500 CEO uses this argument when it comes to their own pay, which has skyrocketed dramatically. I mean the median CEO to worker pay ratio has risen from 20-to-1 in 1965 to 204-to-1 in 2015. Some of the highest paid CEOs make 300 times more than their typical employees. There are plenty of CEOs with million dollar salaries as well as stock options/grants, bonuses, benefits, and other perks. Hell, even bad CEOs receive generous severance packages whenever they left their companies in worse shape than when they took over. Yet, no libertarian or conservative argues that raising their pay will contribute to higher prices, job loss, or worse economies. Or why people end up paying higher prices and lose their jobs while worker wages remain stagnant. Yes, I know that a CEO’s job may require more skills, education, and talent than a lot of minimum wage occupations and that we’ve been through a recession. But it doesn’t convince me why conservatives and libertarians think raising the minimum wage will lead to economic ruin while raising CEO compensation won’t. Surely a company that can generously compensate its own CEO can pay its lowest earning workers $15 an hour, which is just small potatoes. So I think it’s more of a matter of corporate greed and self-interest.

This quote by Chris Rock perfectly explains why we need the federal government should raise the minimum wage. Most companies will not give their employees a raise by themselves. They need to be mandated to do it.

17. Large Employers Are Unlikely to Increase Wages on Their Own– While many conservatives and libertarians might tell us that workers would be better paid if it weren’t for all those pesky taxes regulations, it is not the case. The robber barons during the Gilded Age didn’t pay federal income taxes until the 16^th Amendment passed in 1916 and none of their tax dollars went to benefit their impoverished, overworked, and underpaid employees. Not to mention, their workplace policies are the reason why we have so many regulations and agencies to protect workers today. Besides, there are plenty of large corporations exploit federal tax loopholes so they don’t have to pay at all. And yet, conservatives and libertarians claim that if we get rid of the tax burden with social welfare programs and regulations, the “free market” will provide and take care of workers. Uh, excuse me but during the Gilded Age, those tax supported social programs didn’t exist and I’m pretty sure the free market didn’t take care of those low wage workers. Unions and the government policies they lobbied for while facing staunch opposition from these large companies. Besides, corporations lobby at all levels of government like crazy for direct and indirect public assistance like bailouts, subsidies, special tax breaks, deductions, tax and policy loopholes specifically designed for them, so-called “right to work” laws, and more. Say what you want about welfare, but I’d rather have my tax dollars go to assisting poor people than to a $3 billion a year corporate jet subsidy, a $200 billion Wall Street bailout, special tax breaks to hedge fund managers allowing them to pay a 15% tax rate, or a $70 billion a year home mortgage deduction with 77% going to people earning over $100,000. Sure corporations may like lower taxes and less regulations but even if they get what they want from their political lackeys, they will not give workers a raise unless they’re pressured to either by unions, government policy, or both. But wait, what about companies that pay workers better wages like Costco? Yes, there are big businesses that treat their workers generously like Costco but the Costcos in this world are the exception to the rule, especially in sectors that hire low wage workers. Therefore, federal government action to raise the minimum wage is necessary.

By raising the federal minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour, corporations will only have to spend just 1/3 cent of every dollar spent on wages, according the the Congressional Budget office. So I’m confident these large companies with minimum wage labor can totally afford it.

18. Raising the Minimum Wage Is the Right Thing to Do– Economics aside, we should consider the fact that as earnings from corporations and the top 1% increased to dramatic new high, wages have stagnated or lost value even as productivity also rose. This could never be more true for low income workers. Raising the minimum wage will protect the most powerless in our workforce. Now could anyone say whether it’s fair for businesses to boast big profits while paying their employees poverty wages? Of course not. Is it fair for someone to live in poverty despite working a full-time job? Hell no. And if raising the minimum wage hurts their profits, why should I care? I mean a big company like McDonald’s is unlikely to lose business if they pay their workers $15 an hour since they’ll usually make a big profit anyway. Besides, most small businesses pay their staff more than minimum wage anyway since they can’t afford replacing them while retaining a competitive edge against their larger counterparts. As for price increases, well, they usually rise whether wages increase or not. And studies show that the increases won’t be much. What about jobs? If raising the wage results in reduced hiring and hours and more job loss by big companies, it won’t be due to economics. It would be more or less because of greedy executives who’d use just about any excuse to cut their workforces. Small businesses, on the other hand, are more worried about poor sales than being trounced by their big business counterparts than anything. Even if raising the minimum wage does hurt the economy like its critics have predicted, what about the concept of economic justice? I think that should matter. After all, labor is critical to a business’s success and workers who dedicate their time and effort into that company should get a bigger cut in that. Look, from how I see it, there’s no good reason to not raise the minimum wage. And above all, no one working a full time job should live in poverty. Even though I know that raising the wage won’t cure poverty any time soon, at least it can show a good example by making businesses invest more in their workforce. It’s about time.

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As FDR said himself, nobody should work a full time job and still live in poverty. Workers have a right for a decent living wage which has been denied to many in the name of profit. So raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do. Besides, what’s wrong with economic justice for God’s sake?

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The Lone Girl in a Crowd

The thoughts and perceptions of an aspiring writer on life and the world around her

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