Amy Tan on Hillary

I am voting for Hillary Clinton. I'm with her. I have always been with her, for her. I have always admired her.
I'm not voting for her only as a way to stop him. I am voting for her because she will make a great president. I believe she is our best hope for fixing problems and making new and positive change. The other guy has a really loud voice and it gets people worked up and pumped with the adrenaline of anger. But I am listening more carefully to what Hillary has to say. She doesn't have easy one-liners as her plan, so I have to take time to know what she thinks and wants to do. I am excited about what she says. I am so happy she is our candidate because she is supremely qualified. I love that she is also a woman. There is so much that does not need to be explained when the president is not only the most qualified, but also a woman, a mom, a daughter, a grandmother, a working woman who has endured her own share of misogyny and condescension. She knows how we feel about our bodies and those who tell us to keep our legs together.

I am for Hillary because she addresses what I think is important for me and for my country. I am heartened by what Hillary says about immigration policies and not persecution, gun control, about national security, LGBT rights, race relations, about the needs of single moms, college students, the elderly, about jobs, poverty, the middle class, and the environment. She may not have all the exact answers now, but she knows the direction, issues, difficulties, and parameters. She is willing to listen. She has the intelligence, experience and compassion to put a workable plan into place. She has the experience and battle scars from working with a divisive Congress.

I have just said a whole pile of sentences that may have caused some people's brains to explode. I am not going to be coy anymore about who I support. The thing is, I am tired of playing the back and forth ping-pong flinging of doo-doo as a way of explaining why I am voting for Hillary Clinton. I'm exhausted from whack-a-mole candidate bashing. I can't wait for the ugliness to stop-- the acid-reflux gagging insults, the poisonous-worm-hole-boring-into-the-brain, the same old corkscrew arguments. I want to stop listening to the raspy voiced recitation of evil spooned from Lord and Lady MacBeth's stew. I want relief from the nutso-shouting of threats of retaliation, the conspiracy-spouting, anxiety-ratcheting, non-stop jackhammering yammering of news fragments and secret reports that make everyone feel doomed and paranoid.

I want to wake up and not be assaulted with variations of the same secret plots churned out the day before: those implausible fake reality show twists and turns, manipulated by one shocking revelation after another. I don't want to live in the mental and emotional world of someone else's hysterical what-ifs. I will no longer be pulled by those hyperbolic barkers of freak shows who claim that the facts and proof inside their tent are more terrifying than what is inside the tent of the other guy's. I don't need to be freaked out to know why I am for Hillary. The direction of my life is not based on an inverse reaction to hatred and threats and I don't want my country to be manipulated by Machiavellian politics.

I want a president who is more about building international bridges of diplomacy and cooperation than walls. Hillary knows the complexities that are relevant for the future. That's why I want Hillary to be my president. She is experienced. She is the most reasonable candidate, the one who makes sense, who is solid and stable. The leaders of other countries respect her and trust her. I do, too.

I think she is trustworthy--very much so. But I also think the meaning of trust has become distorted by people who use the GPS of a culturally-induced infectious cynicism that is fixated on finding dishonesty and conspiracy in every past decision, mistake, sneeze and laugh. I am looking forward to indulging in the luxury of idealism that enables me to feel excited and motivated by what will happen in our country.

Part of that idealism is the hope that we will one day see more civility and compassion--true compassion and not just tolerance. I am not going to be dissuaded from believing this. Those who say no-way will find they are right; they will find no way. They will refuse to see a way. But I see a way.

I am for Hillary Clinton. She believes there is a way. I am so happy she is going to be my president.

A special message to trolls and venom-spewers: Don't bother. You'll be blocked, your words trashed. And no need to tell me you will no longer read a book of mine. I won't be hurt. I know you have never read even one. If you are still reading: I'm with Hillary Clinton. I am for hope and change.

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