in which Dave urged me to send this in as a letter to the editor.
I think what a lot of HRC supporters were not ready for is the influx of new (to politics) people this cycle. An awful lot of people who _never_ before thought they'd bother with politics... have now bothered. The fact that the *only* reason they bothered is that they have finally found a Presidential candidate who they trust, who espouses their values, appears to be a fact that longtime political activists can *not* accept. I'm reading it all over the internet, from friends, from people who don't even know me, that it is my solemn responsibility to eventually close my eyes and vote for Clinton.
You think only the Republicans are acting like kids?
To me, it feels as if a group of kids on the playground came up with a long sheet of rules by which playground order is maintained. A bunch of new kids - having received a spiffy new jump rope for Christmas - ran in and began playing with it in the middle of the jungle gym. And the kids who have been there the entire time are politely trying to explain to the new ones that the jungle gym is for everyone, and the rope - no matter how spiffy - is going to break someday, and the iron jungle gym will still be there, and THERE ARE RULES. But the new kids only came to the playground to use their jump rope. They could care less about the jungle gym. And trying to get them to play with - and care about - the rusty, slippery, mud-ridden stairs up to the monkey bars is only going to drive them away faster. Perhaps if the rope breaks, some of them will stay to play on the jungle gym, but a lot of them will take one look at the state of it and remember why they didn't ever want to play in this playground before.
There is no way in hell all of them will stay. And, by the way, you *don't* get to use the broken rope to tie them to the jungle gym.
But I see any influx as a chance for sharing. If you love to jump rope, now's your chance. And an awful lot of Hillary supporters are refusing to look past the seeming solidity of what was on the playground before to see if they actually would enjoy jumping rope more.
For me, it's almost certainly jump rope or bust. I'm 45 years old. I have been on your jungle gym before. I've gotten cut up. I've gotten dirty. I no longer wish to climb it. I'm here for the jump rope, and no amount of poking is going to get me to do more than look at your rusty jungle gym with disdain.
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i know someone is going to respond to this letter, here or if it gets published, with the spectre of Donald Trump, who in this analogy is like someone coming in to bull-doze the playground and put up a-
what?
what gets built after the rusty jungle gym gets bull-dozed?