The Bully

Political cartoon from cagle.com

I vividly remember my "being bullied" experience as a child and I have learned over the years that most people have their own memories and stories to tell. My first encounter with a bully came around the time I hit puberty. My body began to change earlier than most of my classmates, which made me very popular for a brief time and then hormones peppered my face with acne (...thanks a lot, Mother Nature). That couple of years it took to work itself out was a bit of a nightmare If I'd been able to grow my hair to cover my face like cousin IT from the Adam's family, I totally would have. Thankfully, I grew out of that awkward phase. I don't know, however, if the people who treated me so badly about it, teasing me mercilessly, ever grew out of being jerks. Fortunately, a long time ago I also grew out of caring what they thought of me.

Let's face it, no matter how many laws are on the books about this kind of behaviour, it's going to happen. Parents, guardians and children everywhere must learn to deal with or neutralize this problem, and I know from first hand experience that it's not always easy to overcome (...worse now in this digital age, where everything you do and say could end up splashed across some form of social media). It is also not uncommon for adults to bully or be bullied. Our Fox 9 Station in the Charlotte area of North Carolina recently aired a story about teachers being bullied by students and feeling threatened nearly every day at work, a workplace problem certainly not limited to that area. Which brings me to my point...

Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has shown himself to be an expert at bullying tactics. It is not unusual to hear him refer to a woman he doesn't like as "fat" or "ugly". He also frequently has nasty things to say about anyone who crosses or disagrees with him. To my mind, this type of behaviour reveals a deep rooted childishly immature streak to his character, as these tactics signal someone who cannot come up with an intelligent argument for their side of an issue. I cannot, in good conscience, vote for a man who may or may not call some leader from another nation a big "doody head". I want a leader who can actually handle adulting with class, dignity, and maturity. I want the very grown-up issues we face today to be attacked by someone qualified to do what is necessary to correct our problems, instead of someone who seems to look upon the rest of "us" with blatant disdain. "I am very rich," he frequently, laughingly says in soundbites, which translates to, "...and you are not. Don't you wish you were me and could do whatever you want?!" He backed away from the comment he made about the fact that he could "shoot someone and still get elected", touting that as a joke, but the very real underlying message from that "joke" was, "People are so stupid, I could get away with anything and they love me so much they'll elect me their leader." This, to me, is a giant red flag flying beneath the childish behaviour. It is the ego maniacal spoutings of a power hungry man who thinks he's untouchable. Historically speaking, these kinds of people did not bode well for a positive outcome.

So, what's a girl to do when she's fresh out of decent candidates for president, but feels as if her right to vote is a duty that should be honored? There's only one option left...come November, I'll do a write-in, because I'd cut my own hand off before I cast a vote for either Trump or Clinton. Voting for either of them would go against many of my fundamental beliefs and I'm just not going to do that. I will, however, respect those who see things differently than I do, even if I vehemently disagree with them. That's called "being an adult"! Someone should send the  Trump Camp a memo about that!