By Roman Oliman
My fellow Americans,
We are faced with the most critical election in American history. This election season has been the most tumultuous in all campaign history. However, for myself and a great many Americans, this election is a matter of principle and virtues. I am the son of immigrants. My grandfather was a Mexican immigrant that came to the United States as part of the Bracero program. He came to this country for the principles it stands for and because he wanted his family to be part of the land of opportunity and freedom. To this day in his old age he talks of the greatness of America and how he has never looked back on becoming an American.
However the tales of greatness are beginning to fade. America isn’t winning anymore. I am a patriot and I’ve always stood fast in my love for this great nation. That love is not a love of government or all the actions of our nation; it is a love for the people, our constitution, and our principles. Loving one’s country should never be blind and for too long corrupt politicians have sought to abuse the American people through our institutions. It is time for the American people to wake up.
Private interests and dishonest politicians have been gradually reducing the American people to a controllable herd of sheep under the guise of progress. Hillary Clinton is the latest, and worst, threat to the American people and she is running for the highest office in our land. She runs under the guise of “progress”, yet seeks to progress our nation down a path that is contradictory to our principles. She claims to stand for American values in the eyes of the public but she attacks our principles behind closed doors. She has publicly attacked the freedom of religion, the second amendment, and the freedom of the press. She makes attacks on her opponent saying that the opposition stands for bigotry, however she has made statements that prove her lies. Calling young black men “super-predators”, Hispanics “needy”, young voters “f’ing dumb”, and half of Mr. Trump’s supporters “deplorables” and “irredeemable”.
Her string of lies and negligence stretch much farther back than this election season. These include her attacks on the women that her husband has sexually abused, her jests about defending a rapist knowing he was guilty, her negligence of duty as Secretary of State during the Benghazi attack, her shady dealings within the Clinton Foundation, and of course her lies during the investigation of her illegal private server to the FBI. She stands for the polar opposite of what America stands for. I believe her plans for America will take us down an irreversible path of destruction of the America we once knew.
When looking at Donald Trump as a candidate, whatever that name means to you, the principles that should count. Mr. Trump is not a perfect man nor has claimed to be. Yet he still believes in what America was and can be. He still stands for the ideals that people like my grandfather were willing to leave everything behind to enjoy. A stalwart believer in our constitution and in the power of the American people, he has vowed to make America safe and great again. Being a realist, Mr. Trump sees the greatest problems we face as a nation and it willing to tackle them head on with a real world approach rather than just look good on paper.
His experience as a save businessman and his understanding of trade qualifies him to take on the tremendous task of bringing jobs home. He has been in the trenches of business and has experienced it first hand. Hillary can claim what she may, but she can’t understand business when she has sat behind a desk her whole life. The national debt problem must be tackled and no one is more qualified than Mr. Trump.
Many see Mr. Trump as too cavalier, reckless. Perhaps, however that is what America needs. After all, were the Founders not cavalier in their defiance of the Crown? Was Ronald Reagan not cavalier in demanding the Soviet Premier to “tear down this wall?” Our nation was founded on the tenacious spirit of freedom and hard work.
That is the spirit my grandfather, like all the other immigrants that built our country, sought to become a part of. That is the spirit that we will lose forever if Hillary is elected. The principles Donald Trump stands for are what we must elect to office, not the lies and criminal track record of Hillary Clinton. We as a nation cannot let the America we know slip through our fingers and into the bloodied hands of a criminal. It’s time for the American people to wake up to the lies that corrupt career politicians have sold us for generations and reinvigorate the spirit of America. At the ballot box we must stand resolved to make America great again.
Grace Gaines