No, It’s Not Hillary’s Job To Persuade You To Vote for Her

If you can vote, you’re at least 18 years old. You’re not five. It’s up to you to choose whether to eat oatmeal or arsenic.

Your job – your duty – as a citizen is to use your single vote as wisely as possible. Insisting that you be pulled irresistibly to the polling station by your emotions, and if you don’t feel that pull, you won’t vote, is not wisdom. It’s childish petulance.

Of course there are political realities. The Clinton camp will be laboring mightily to unify the party and focus its resources on the campaign. That’s their job, right now. But that doesn’t relieve you of your civic duty to decide where your vote goes.

Be wary of candidates who are adept at pushing your emotional buttons. Politicians want you to be ruled by your emotions. The adult voter ignores the shouted character assassinations and the yanking at heartstrings and chooses as rationally as possible from the list of candidates with a real chance of winning the presidency. In practice, of course, that means choosing between the Democrat and the Republican. It’s your duty to decide which of those two will do the most good – or the least harm – to you, to future generations, to the country, to the world. It’s also your duty to admit to yourself that refusing to vote for the Democrat is not a way of making a point; it’s merely a way of voting for the Republican.

I repeat: It’s not Hillary’s job to make that decision for you. It’s your job.

Now, grow up and eat your oatmeal.