An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton and Her Supporters

I am one of the ‘uneducated poor whites’ (according to media pundits) who voted for Donald Trump and want to explain why I did so, to you and to your hundreds of thousands of sad, angry followers. Many of whom are my friends. And who will most likely delete this article when they see it posted on their social media sites. Despite my vote, we have many things in common, you and I.

We are not enemies. Our list of similarities is a lengthy one. Here are the most evident and apparent to those who know us, even a little.

• We came of age during the same era, the infamous sixties.
• Many of our early mentors were the same: Saul Alinsky, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem were authors I read, and you may most likely knew.
• Both ambitious white women, we decided very early in our lives that we wanted to live lives of achievement, to make a difference in the world around us, rather than relying on the accomplishments of the man we were married to.
• Each of us adored her father and have written about the enormous effect of him on our lives in various publications.
• Most likely due to the influence of our blue-collar Dads, we were Barry Goldwater’s girls during the years before we were old enough to vote. But as we matured, embraced the Democratic Party and Planned Parenthood.
• Each of us has continued to work -and hard- far past the age when many of our contemporaries have retired.
• We have each suffered public humiliations.

Our respective paths diverged completely when I converted to Catholicism. For me, everything changed when I joined the Catholic Church. Everything...and nothing. This is not the place to explain that statement, I have done so elsewhere. Suffice to say that the Democratic ideology I had formerly embraced was not only impossible but had become abhorrent. During the process of joining the Catholic Church, I had once and for all dealt with the abortion I’d had years earlier. Had finally stopped lying to myself about what abortion is: Murder. And learned to speak publicly about the dreadful consequences of killing our children and then using euphemisms to obscure and deny our sin.

When I cast my vote for Trump, it was with conviction that you and the Democratic Party are wholly and entirely wrong for this country. I read in Carl Bernstein’s biography  that you still practice your childhood Methodist faith and also in the Atlantic Monthly that you adhere to position of the Methodist Church on abortion: It is “morally wrong.” Yet two months later the same magazine writes about your “unapologetic defense” of abortion ‘rights:’

“I’ve been to countries where governments either forced women to have abortions like they used to do in China or forced women to bear children like they used to do in Romania,” she [Clinton] added. “And I can tell you the government has no business in the decisions that women make with their families in accordance with their faith, [and] with medical advice and I will stand up for that right.” These comments are irrelevant to Americans and merely dramatic distractions. Clinton’s decision to use euphemisms where we charge the ‘right’ of abortion on demand to all taxpayers is the issue here. The law becomes a club to force Christian and Catholics to perform abortions. The argument becomes even more polarizing by highlighting the economics of abortion- rich whites can afford it. By repealing the Hyde Amendment, then all women have access to the ‘quick fix.’ The young Atlantic Monthly journalist Adrienne Lafrance ends her article with this astonishing statement: “Clinton’s message, unequivocally, is that women aren’t just baby-growers.” 

Since 1973, we have aborted close to seventy million babies in America. One of the many tragedies of this entire polarizing argument is its bland superficiality. Abortion rights advocates never mention the effects of a culture where citizens believe that fornication is acceptable-between men and women and between all varieties of the growing list of artificial genders. Protected by the government and prosecuted by those who write against ‘diversity.’ The actual effects on the women Hillary Clinton claims to protect are unmentioned: The growing list of sexually transmitted diseases qualifies as an epidemic but is unmentioned by mainstream media. The only church which offers help to women trying to deal with the shame and guilt of killing their babies is the Catholic Church, once again, unmentioned by the media. Nor are creative, effective alternatives to abortion publicized by the mainstream media.

When I joined the Catholic Church, it was with the clear understanding that I had entered a battle and that I needed to arm myself with the weapons of faith: For me those are provided by the Catholic Church in the sacraments. Religion is no guarantor of truth or salvation. Attending a church, listening to the words of a priest or minister can be no more than each Sunday can no more bring individuals salvation than can any empty platitude. Only when we humble ourselves and call our sins by their real name can we see Truth.

Therein lies the problem when our passions rule, we get confused, and our thoughts lose consistency, coherence, and clarity. In the end, all becomes chaos when we take God out of these critical discussions, decisions, and governing. This is what has happened to Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party.

Saint John Paul wrote with prescience: “My sons and daughters, you have pointed out...the sufferings and the contradictions by which society is soon to be overwhelmed when it moves away from God. The wisdom of Christ makes you capable of pushing on to discover the deepest source of evil in the world...And it also stimulates you to proclaim to all people, your companions in study today and in work tomorrow, the truth you have heard from the Master’s lips, that is, that evil comes out of the heart of man.”