Tag Archives: presidential election

Response to a Republican Christian Science Friend

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There are things that we agree on, and there are things we don’t. It’s not important, to me, that everyone agrees with me. I don’t take that personally, and I hope you won’t, either. I have found that it’s possible to disagree with people, and still like and enjoy them. 

Although in the absolute of Christian Science all of God’s ideas are the perfect and beautiful expressions of Him, mortals are not God’s children – they are the counterfeits of His creation, and there’s no need to honor and follow them when they are dishonorable and aren’t leading us to be kind and honest and humane. The mortal counterfeit Donald Trump is not an honorable or kind man. He has proven himself with his words and actions to be self-seeking, dishonest, and racist. How anyone who witnessed what happened on January 6th in our capitol can support Donald Trump is beyond my understanding. When he talks about immigrants taking “black jobs” he shows himself to be a racist. He is a convicted felon – not because he was set up by the Justice Department as he claims – but because he paid off a porn star he had an affair with so that he could influence the 2016 presidential election. He put himself in that position, not the Justice Department. It was HIS actions and decisions that have made him liable for criminal charges and convictions. Understand, I do not hate Donald Trump – but I do not believe he is fit to be my president. 

The information you share with me comes from a place of bias. There are links and videos I could share with you, too, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be interested in seeing them, and so I’ll save us both a lot of time and energy and not bring them to you.

I hope all goes well with you, my friend. I know God is leading you down your own path in the same way He is leading me, and I know He loves both you and me without condition or limitation. We are both precious to Him. I respect your individual journey, and I trust you will respect mine.
Love, Karen

Presidential Candidates: Hypothetically Speaking

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For my friends who are saying that race and gender shouldn’t have any bearing on who a person votes for in the presidential election, let’s look at two hypothetical candidates then and think about who would make the better president, regardless of race and gender:

Hypothetical Candidate 1: White male. Was ordered to pay $83 million for defamation against a woman he raped in a dressing room. Was ordered to pay $25 million to students for creating a fake university to collect their tuition money. Was convicted of illegally influencing the 2016 presidential election by paying hush money to a porn star (whom he had sex with while his wife was pregnant) and hiding where the money came from. Kept classified government documents in his home after being asked to return them. Tried to overturn an election found to be legal and valid by every judge – both Republican and Democrat – who looked at it. Asked his vice president to discount the votes of the more than 81 million people who voted for the other candidate and to declare him the winner. Urged his supporters into a violent insurrection on the nation’s capitol building.

Hypothetical Candidate 2: African-American/Asian-American female. Served as a deputy district attorney for Alameda County and then assistant district attorney in San Francisco before being elected Attorney General for the state of California. Was elected and served as a U.S. senator for four years before being elected as vice president of the United States. She has been happily married for the last ten years and been praised by her step-children and her husband’s ex-wife for her role as a step-mother.

Who, would you say, is the better candidate to be president of the U.S.A. – hypothetical candidate #1 or hypothetical candidate #2?

Here’s what we’ve had so far…

Patriot or Bully?

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No, it is not alright to grab your guns and threaten the lives of election officials who are doing their jobs. If you think it’s okay to use violence to put your candidate in the White House – if you think it’s alright to start a Civil War because your candidate lost – if you think it’s fine to go against the votes and wishes of the majority of your fellow citizens – then you are NOT a patriot. You are a bully. I have no respect for bullies.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Message to My Friends on the Other Side

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I know I have friends who are feeling today what I was feeling four years ago. Devastated. Terrified of what the future holds. Sure that there must be some mistake. Wondering if it’s all a lie. Wondering if some miracle will change everything before the new president gets sworn in. I guess I just wanted you to know that I get it and I’m not going to judge you for whatever it is you’re feeling right now. And I’m not going to think less of you if you’re feeling scared.

I voted for Biden-Harris. I am relieved and happy they won. But I find I’m not even tempted to gloat about it.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

“God bless the whole world – no exceptions.”

…Until Every Last Person is Free and Safe

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Van Jones’s words spoke to my heart this morning:
“Well, it’s easier to be a parent this morning. It’s easier to be a dad. It’s easier to tell your kids character matters… telling the truth matters; being a good person matters. It’s easier for a lot of people. If you’re a Muslim in this country you don’t have to worry if the president doesn’t want you here. If you’re an immigrant you don’t have to worry if the president is going to be happy to have babies stashed away or send Dreamers back for no reason… ‘I can’t breathe’ – you know, that wasn’t just George Floyd, that was a lot of people that felt they couldn’t breathe… and you’re going to the store and people who have been afraid to show their racism are getting nastier and nastier… and you spend so much of your life energy just trying to hold it together. And this is a big deal for us just to be able to get some peace…And the character of the country matters. And being a good man matters…”

I am feeling incredible relief this morning. But… I also recognize that we’re not done. There’s still a lot of work ahead for all of us – red and blue and green and polka dotted – to bring equity and progress and healing to our country. The path in front of us is not lined with roses and unicorns – and I am already emotionally exhausted from the LAST four years. But I guess we’ve all got to take a collective deep breath and gather our strength and march on. The battle’s not over until every last person on our planet is free and safe.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness…”
– Psalms 30: 11

“…rejoice that evil, by whatever figure presented, contradicts itself and has neither origin nor support in Truth and good. Seeing this, we should have faith to fight all claims of evil, because we know that they are worthless and unreal.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Love Help Us All

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God bless our country. God bless the whole world. No matter who wins this election we still have a long road of healing ahead of us. May God, Love, help us all – each and every Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party, Black, Brown, White, polka dotted, atheist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, gun-toting, unarmed, flag-waving, anthem-kneeling, F and M and LGBTQ one of us.
Amen.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Trump Not the Answer

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Originally posted in The Skagit Valley Herald (7/29/2020) –
The political signs are up now. Every time I drive by one of Trump’s “Keep America Great” signs I have a deep visceral reaction. I mean — seriously? — keep America great?! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or scream.

My country is in serious need of not keeping things as they are. We are in the midst of a pandemic — caused, in part, by Trump’s lack of leadership, and lack of concern for his citizens.

We have government agents in our streets — rounding up innocent protesters, beating and detaining them unlawfully as they try to practice their First Amendment rights. We have an environment that is being poisoned relentlessly by corporate greed. Racism is running rampant.

Our constitution is threatened by the very person who took an oath to protect it. We are in deep trouble here. And no, Trump is not the answer.

Karen Molenaar Terrell

“Trust.”

Quote

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Revisiting this one from 2016. This experience I had on the night of the presidential election has kept me going for the last three years…

Trust

Taking the dog for a walk,
the shooting star got my
attention when it flew across
the heavens on the evening
of November eighth. I stopped
in my tracks, looking skyward,
alert now, and the voice said,
“Trust. Everything is happening
as it needs to happen.
Don’t be afraid. Trust.”

And crap. I knew then. I knew
who’d won the election – why
else would I need to be reassured?

I went inside. And saw my fears
confirmed. And felt weirdly
stilled inside. Holding on
to that message: “Trust.”

The voice didn’t say what was to come
would be easy, or without struggle
or challenge. It didn’t provide
details of how, where, when or why.
It just said, “Don’t be afraid. Trust.”

And the earth rises now.
Thirsty for Truth. Joining in Love.
Crying for justice.
In the streets. From the rooftops.
Through the wires of computers
across the world.

“Everything is happening
as it needs to happen.
Trust,” said the voice of Love.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

 

via “Trust.”

Don’t Take My Vote for Granted Next Time

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“(Elizabeth Warren) said that when Perez won the party post early this year, ‘the very first conversation I had with him [was] to say, you have got to put together a Democratic Party in which everybody can have confidence that the party is working for Democrats, rather than Democrats are working for the party.’” – quoted by Nick Visser, HuffPost

Well, we have a mess here and that’s for sure. The question is: How do we fix it?

Look, I voted for Hillary Clinton because I felt I had no choice last November. Our only other option was Trump. And. Yeah. Don’t even get me started on THAT one. There was a lot of pressure put on progressives by the Democratic party to vote for Clinton. We were guilted. Those, like myself, who had been Bernie supporters were especially guilted. In fact, some people STILL blame Bernie’s supporters for this mess – which is kind of like blaming the victim of a purse snatching for having a purse.

It’s been bandied around a lot that Clinton lost because she was a woman. But no, I wasn’t reluctant to vote for her because she’s a woman. I would have eagerly voted for Elizabeth Warren, for instance.  I was reluctant to vote for her because I didn’t think the Democratic candidate, or those who counseled her, recognized the need to get out and talk to the disenfranchised, homeless, poor, and unemployed. There was the same old emphasis on getting campaign money from the rich and powerful and sort of ignoring everyone else. This is not to say that I thought the Democratic candidate didn’t care about the poor, but that she seemed sort of oblivious to them, you know?

People have suggested that Bernie Sanders shouldn’t have tried to run as a Democrat because he’d never really been a part of the party machine – he hadn’t “paid his dues” to the party like Clinton had, I guess – and it’s been suggested that he should have run as a third party candidate. But if Sanders had run as a third party candidate he would have split the progressive vote – and how would that have helped our country? So 1) Sanders couldn’t run as a Democrat and expect to get the party’s nomination and 2) he couldn’t run as a third party candidate without splitting the progressive vote. How do we fix this cockamamie system?

Progressives need a presidential candidate in 2020 who can be a voice for the middle and lower classes – someone, like Bernie Sanders, who reaches out to the “common folk” and walks their walk with them.

As I see it, we have to either do an over-haul on the Democratic party which is supposed to be representing us, or we throw it out altogether and create something entirely new. But I’ll tell you this:  In the next election, if the Democratic party refuses to transform itself, it should not take my vote for granted. Guilting me isn’t going to work again.

(Here’s an interesting article from the Huffington Post: Elizabeth Warren Says 2016 Democratic Nomination Rigged for Hillary Clinton. )

A Political Vent (you might want to skip this one)

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I voted for Hillary Clinton in November 2016. Because Trump.

But I wanted Bernie.

Hillary Clinton is telling us now that the lack of respect from Bernie and his supporters “hurt.” But the manner in which the Democratic party (under the leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz) ignored Bernie Sanders, ignored the huge rallies and the enthusiasm of his supporters, “hurts.” Clinton’s narrow-visioned, egocentric take on the presidential election is proof to me that she should never have won the Democratic nomination for President. I wished then, and I wish now, that Clinton would have stepped aside when she saw the wave of enthusiasm that Bernie had behind him. He would have won the presidency and we wouldn’t be dealing with what we’re dealing with now.

I remember thinking “big deal” when Clinton won all those states in the south in her race to win the Democratic nomination. I knew those southern states weren’t going to vote for Clinton in the general election. Winning those southern states meant nothing. I could see that it was the northern states, the Pacific states, the states in the northeast – the blue states – that mattered in the race for the Democratic nomination. The southern states were going to vote Republican in the end. They were not going to vote for Clinton in November.

If Clinton had really had the best interests of the country at heart, rather than her own single-minded, blind, dogged determination to be the first woman President, she would have seen that, too. But she didn’t. The fact that she STILL doesn’t see it is testament to me that she should never have been the nominee for President.

Clinton did a terrible disservice to our nation by not stepping aside and letting Bernie Sanders lead the charge. To feel “hurt” because he didn’t drop out of the race right away has me shaking my head. The presidency of the United States is not some prize to be won by the biggest ego. Neither is it supposed to be a job promotion to whoever gives the most money and time to her (his) political party. The President of the United States is supposed to represent ALL Americans – not just Democrats, not just Republicans, and not just the wealthy and powerful.

And for those of you who are posting a defense of Clinton and telling your readers they aren’t allowed to respond to your post in a negative way: tough bananas. This is still America and I am still allowed to openly disagree with you.

Please can we have a viable candidate in 2020?