I have been living in the United States for more than thirty years. I was granted a temporary residence permit when I lived in the country’s capital. A few years later, they sent me by mail the dreamed green card, the permanent residence permit. I took the oath of American citizenship as soon as I could. Then I was already living on an island in Miami, where I continue to live. I voted for the first time in this country in the presidential elections at the beginning of the millennium. My vote was not irrelevant. Bush won the state of Florida, and consequently the presidency of the nation, because he obtained five hundred and thirty-seven more votes than Gore. I voted for Bush. My vote was one of those five hundred and thirty-seven that gave him victory. I’m not proud of it. I don’t know why I viewed Bush with sympathy. Gore seemed haughty, stuffy, petulant to me. Bush was quite the cowboy. Later he was a discreet president: bad in economic policy and worse in foreign policy. As I was dissatisfied with Bush’s presidency, I did not vote for his re-election. I voted for Kerry. I decided to do it when I saw Bruce Springsteen singing at his rallies. I have Springsteen on an altar. His songs masterfully describe the tortured soul of the nation. No political speech could describe it better. Unfortunately, Kerry, more intelligent and sophisticated than Bush, lost. Luckily, The Boss kept singing. Four years later, I was amazed by Obama. He seemed like a virtuoso to me. His oratory pieces were musical exercises in hypnosis. It made people levitate. He was not just a political boss. He was also a religious preacher, a spiritual leader. I did not hesitate to give him my vote. His victory was a precious moment in the history of this country. He turned out to be a great president. His eight years in the White House brought a spectacular prosperity, after the recession he inherited upon assuming power. I didn’t want to vote for Trump, but I didn’t want to vote for Mrs. Clinton either, when Obama was ending his second term. Trump seemed like a nutcase to me, a braggart. While I admired Mrs. Clinton’s wisdom in forgiving the amorous indiscretions of her husband, the former president, her candidacy seemed thick, bureaucratic, and boring to me. That’s why I squandered my vote, or allowed myself one of protest. I voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson. I gave myself the pleasure of voting for whoever best defended liberal ideas. Now I think I was irresponsible. I should have voted for Mrs. Clinton. The truth is that I couldn’t vote for Trump. He found it unpresentable, indefensible. However, I predicted on television that, contrary to the polls, Trump would win. And he won. He won because he fulfilled an unwritten law: if the candidates had competing programs on television, the political election would be won by whoever would obtain the highest ratings on television. And Trump was an expert at having high ratings. Four years ago I didn’t want to vote for Trump, but I didn’t want to vote for Biden either. Once again, Trump seemed unpresentable, indefensible to me. However, Biden was not known for being smart. He was a veteran political bureaucrat. He did not see the aquiline flight of a president, the wood of a statesman, the penetrating gaze of a visionary. That’s why I stayed at home. I didn’t go to vote. My wife admonished me because I didn’t vote for Biden. It would have been a useless vote, I defended myself. Trump will sweep Florida, I added. I’m too old and tired to go vote, I declared. Then I argued: I choose not to vote. I choose to preserve a critical distance from both candidates. Not voting for anyone is a way of voting. It is a vote for independence, without making concessions. If I don’t like any of them, it’s better not to vote. Now I celebrate that Trump lost that election. Although Biden has been discreet, barely average, with a very short flight, I think Trump would have been worse. Which brings me to the burning, inescapable question: will I vote next Tuesday for Trump or for Kamala? Or will I not go to vote? Or will I irresponsibly vote for the Green Party candidate? In principle, I had decided not to vote and had announced it on television: I don’t want to vote for Trump, but I’m not encouraged to do so for Kamala either. However, on the eve of the elections, I have changed my mind. Now I think that I should not be lazy, I should not be frivolous, I should take the risks of this election seriously, I should go vote. I have announced that I will not vote for Trump. If I did not vote for him in the two previous presidential elections, I will do so even less now, when his candidacy seems grotesque, grotesque to me. I already know it’s the favorite. I already know that the experts predict that he will win. I already know that he will sweep Florida with the vote of Cuban-Americans. Knowing all this, I refuse to ride that wave. I don’t vote for Trump. Not before, not now, not ever. He is a subject who does not have the moral and intellectual aptitudes to be president of the nation. He demonstrated it in power and, if necessary, also in the opposition. He is an authoritarian leader, a banana leader, the head of a sect of fanatics. I repudiate Trump’s manners and manners, his channeled language, his barroom insults. His emperor’s arrogance and his contempt for the advantages of humility exasperate me. The wisest men I have ever known were all humble. Trump is not wise because he is not humble. He doesn’t know how to read, he doesn’t know how to listen, he doesn’t know how to surround himself with people who surpass him in intelligence, information and wisdom. That’s why he surrounds himself with sycophants. That is why it stimulates the cult of personality. He likes nothing more than to praise himself. It’s sad and pathetic to see how much he loves himself: he is always the best at everything. But, of course, he is not the best at everything. If in appearance he behaves like a scoundrel and a boor, deep down his ideas are bad. I’m not saying it: The Economist magazine says it, which these days has called for a vote for Kamala. Trump wants to build a wall: it’s a bad idea, and why didn’t he build it when he was president? He wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, whom he accuses of “poisoning the pure blood of the nation”: it is a bad idea, because the majority of these refugees are cheap labor in agriculture and construction and, if they are deported, inflation will rise. He wants to impose tariffs on imported products, particularly those manufactured in China: it is a bad idea, because the tariff barrier operates like a sales tax and makes imported products more expensive, which will trigger inflation. And the most serious thing: he says that the thugs who attacked the Capitol, poisoned and incited by himself, who was the intellectual author of that barbaric act, and that for this reason he should face justice, are “political prisoners” and that he will pardon them: it is a terrible idea, they are not political prisoners, they are criminals, they deserve to be in jail, and it is disgusting that Trump says that they are “great patriots” and that that tragic day was “a day of love.” I am a immigrant. I came to the United States more than three decades ago, fleeing a dictator who had staged a coup d’état. I hate dictators and bullies. I can’t vote for a quarrelsome thug like Trump, who despises immigrants. Just as I was welcomed in this country, I believe it is fair to welcome strangers fleeing other dictatorships, unless they are criminals. For now, I am in favor of this country receiving Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. It seems cruel to me to deport those who have already entered and are working honestly, even if they do not have papers to do so. The solution is not to deport them: it is to give them papers, like they gave them to me. I have announced that I will vote for Kamala. I like that she got married on the verge of turning fifty, that she is not a biological mother, that she has a brilliant career as a lawyer, that she is an independent, successful woman. She seems intelligent, educated, well-intentioned to me. If she is “retarded” and “mentally disabled,” as Trump’s bully says, then why did Kamala win the debate? In general, I think his ideas are correct, both on the economy and on foreign policy, as well as on abortion and the defense of democratic values. If Kamala loses, I am sure she will nobly accept defeat and congratulate her opponent. If Trump loses, he will say without evidence that it was a fraud, that the election was stolen from him. Only this profound moral and intellectual dishonesty gives an accurate idea that this vicious thug does not deserve to be president again, because he constitutes a serious threat to his country and the world.
#wont #vote #Trump
