Russell Rowland's Blog

I was five or six the first time my father took me golfing, at the Kendrick Municipal Golf Course in Sheridan, Wyoming, where he had landed a job as a sixth grade teacher. I fell in love with the game from that first time, at first because it meant time alone with my dad. But there was something about trying to make solid contact between a bent club and a tiny white ball that appealed to my perfectionist nature. I was challenged.

That course still had sand greens at the time, so once you putted, you had to drag a big rake and smooth out your footprints. I even loved that part of the game. What I didn’t love in the beginning was keeping score. After each hole, my father would ask how many times I hit the ball, and I could never remember. I would try so hard to concentrate and count. But I didn’t care how many time I hit the ball. I just loved being out there, on a quiet, dew-covered expanse of green grass, me and my dad.

When I was twelve, my parents bought me my first set of golf clubs, at a garage sale. I think they paid $75. I cared for those clubs with the kind of love that only kids show for the things that are most precious to them. They were a treasure to me. My friend Bob Hanson, who lived across the street from me, was just as obsessed with golf as I was, and we figured out that we could crawl through a hole in the fence at Hiland’s Golf Club, which was about a half mile from where we lived. So we would get up before dawn and walk to the course, crawl through the fence, and play nine holes before the members arrived.

Later that year, I earned a pair of golf shoes, and I felt as if I had become a real golfer. They were red saddle shoes, with the big flaps on top that you wove your laces through. I had a red shirt, and some blue polyester pants (hey, it was the 70s), and when I wore that outfit, I felt like I fit the part. So when my dad noticed an ad in the Billings Gazette one day, announcing a golf tournament for kids, I begged to sign up. I had become a pretty good player, shooting in the 40s for nine holes on a regular basis. So I was eager for a chance to play with other kids. Kids who were members at Hilands, or Yellowstone Country Club, the most prestigious club in town.

I showed up in my red and blue uniform, and was immediately aware that I’d made a huge mistake. The other kids, even the country club kids, were all wearing jeans and tee shirts. I got a lot of strange looks. And I became incredibly nervous, because I knew that simply by showing up with this ridiculous garb, I had established a certain expectation. I had better play well, or I was going to be a laughingstock. It was also clear that most of these kids knew each other. They had an easy banter, and seemed comfortable. I was not comfortable.

“Hey, are those women’s clubs?”

This question from one of my fellow players, before we even started, solidified the deal. I was a fraud. Trying to fit in with a crowd that wasn’t my own. I was embarrassed that anyone noticed, and angry my parents couldn’t afford the shiny black clubs these other kids carried around.

The pressure proved to be too much. On the first tee, my drive bounded down the fairway, a pathetic grounder, and it never did get better. I hit a few good shots, but my confidence was too shaken to play anywhere near my usual standard.

This experience did nothing to dampen my love for golf, but I became much more selective about when I played, and with whom. My father remained my favorite playing partner, until he died in 2013.

We also introduced the game to many of our friends, and I enjoyed playing with them. I tried entering more tournments, but it seemed that no matter how well I was playing before the day of the tournament, I always fell into this mental place of feeling like I didn’t belong in a tournament. I never played well, and I eventually stopped entering.

Over time, I also became more and more uncomfortable with certain aspects of the game. First of all, there is perhaps no other game that is so egocentric than golf. Go into any clubhouse after a round of golf, and you hear it at every table, people talking about ‘their game.’ Recounting every shot, especially the good ones, or the ones where they got robbed. The ball that hit a divot and bounded off into the rough. Their score would have been better if not for that unlucky break. Golfers love to talk about themselves. I have often said that the worst part of playing golf is that you have to hang around golfers.

I have also become increasingly uncomfortable with the environmental impact of the game, especially the amount of water devoted to these playgrounds for the rich. The fact that our alleged president owns many of these facilities has also made me increasingly uncomfortable with supporting the game, even all these thousands of miles away from his courses. There’s something about he and his ilk, and their devotion to this game I’ve loved my whole life, that has made the experience much less desirable.

I was always puzzled that my father loved the game so much, because he wasn’t that kind of guy. He hated talking about himself. He also had a real problem with rich people, especially successful men. They intimidated him. So I always found it interesting that he would choose to hang around a place inundated with them.

But he had his own way of subverting the image. He wore loud clothes, and rather than buy one of the fancy golf carts that were popular, he built his own out of a runner’s baby buggy that mothers use to run with their kids. He looked out of place on purpose, which kind of fit his personality. But his love of the game was also puzzling  because he was never good at it. My father was a gifted natural athlete, quarterback on his high school football team. He ran hurdles and set a state record in the triple jump. But he was awful at golf. But that never dissuaded him from joining a league, and playing as much as he could. Oddly enough, he figured something out about his swing just a couple of years before he died, so the last year of his life was probably the best he ever played the game.

In 2018, I played in a league for the first time. It was at a pretty exclusive country club, and the friend that invited me to be part of his team was someone I enjoyed playing with, so it ended up being a pretty fun experience. But the last two days of the league were the playoffs, made up of the top sixteen teams. Another tournament.

This tournament focused entirely on your individual scores, and when I showed up for the first day, I was surprised how much it felt like I was twelve years old again, standing there in my polyester pants and my red golf shoes.

I did some quiet meditation to try and calm myself, and by the time we started, I was feeling pretty good. Not that nervous at all. And it showed. We started on the hardest stretch of this golf course, and I parred the first three holes. Because I got a few strokes for my handicap, and because we had an app on our phones that told us how our team was doing as we went, we were able to see that our team was in first place for those first three holes, all because of the way I was playing.

I bogeyed the next two holes…also tough holes, so that didn’t discourage me too much. But it was the next hole, one of the easiest on the course, where things started to fall apart. I won’t recount what happened shot-for-shot, for reasons that should be obvious. But I got an eight on this short par four hole, and although I pulled it together for the next two holes, my confidence was shaken, so I shot 18 over par on the last nine holes, after finishing the first nine six over par. The next day I was all over the place, playing well for one or two holes before completely blowing up on the next hole. I finished with almost exactly the same score as I did the first day, and my self-esteem was completely punctured. That day, I knew that I would never fit in with these people.

I have a couple of friends that I like to play golf with, but somehow it’s not the same as playing with Dad. The way my father and I encouraged each other, and almost tried not to beat each other, was symbolic of so many things about our relationship. My father and I almost never fought. In fact, I don’t remember a single argument between us. We both sensed each others’ relative lack of confidence, so we found the golf course an easy place to try and help each other overcome that. I became a pretty good golfer, with a 12 handicap, and my father was more proud of that fact than I ever was.

But it was only with him that I ever experienced that feeling. I shot the best score of my life with my father, a 74 on a par 71 course, about five years before he died. And part of me thinks that I should take that experience with me and be satisfied. That there’s nothing left to prove. Nobody else cares how well I play the game. Nobody ever will care as much as my father did. And I have questions almost every time I play about why I’m there. Do I really have four hours to spare once a week? Or am I really benefiting from it enough to justify that much time?

Without my father, I think the answer has become no.

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Today I have a public service announcement for all you wonderful friends, and it’s about this whole writing business. I know many of you think that those of us who have published books are big time millionaires, which is really fun to think about, but it’s not even remotely true, except for Jamie Ford, who is a multi-billionaire. Anyway, despite the fact that I have been fortunate to get many nice reviews, and be named a finalist for a couple of awards, and develop a solid little following, I cannot find a publisher for my next book. I can’t even find an agent. And there are many writers who are in the same boat, writers you have heard of, writers you love. Because no matter how good your reviews are, it all comes down to the numbers.

The other dirty little secret about writers like us is that we don’t make enough from books to live on. Not even close. And I’m not talking about elaborate, glamorous writerly lifestyles, where we lounge around in exotic places and drink fancy wine. I’m talking about paying the rent and buying food. So most of us do what we can to supplement our book sales—teaching, or marrying someone rich, or selling our bodies.

I tell you this for one simple reason, because there are a couple things you can do to help people whose writing you admire. One, you can write reviews for Amazon or Goodreads. These do help inspire people in their choices. But the main thing you can do is encourage your friends to buy our books. When you tell your friends how much you loved someone’s book and they ask if they can borrow it, ask them nicely to buy it themselves. Or buy them a copy for Memorial Day, or National Emoji Day, my own personal favorite holiday.

And lastly, please don’t judge us for our relentless self-promotion. It is basically a desperate effort to survive in this business. We all know it’s obnoxious. We hate it. And of course we don’t expect sympathy, because we have CHOSEN this profession. But a little understanding would be lovely. Thanks ever so. Oh, and Jamie is not really a multi-billionaire…I just like to tease him because he’s the nicest guy you could ever meet.

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Like most Montanans, I have watched the Congressional race between Greg Gianforte and Rob Quist with a combination of horror and fascination. Gianforte is full-on right wing fundamentalist, who has poured big money into a creationist museum here in Montana, and has stated that Noah built the ark when he was 600 years old, so there’s no reason people should expect social security. After spending the past few years traveling every corner of our state and reading about our history for my most recent book, Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey, I saw Gianforte as a reincarnation of many of the more nefarious characters in our history—namely, men who came here and benefited from our resources to make themselves very very wealthy.

Quist is an amiable fellow, part of one of the most successful bands to come out of Montana, but many in the Democratic ranks were disappointed he was chosen over Amanda Curtis, who gave Steve Daines an impressive run in 2014 after John Walsh was forced to drop out of the race when it was revealed that he cheated on a college research paper. Which of course seems quaint in comparison to recent events. But Quist endured a ridiculous series of personal attacks, including one that he smoked pot (!!!) with admirable aplomb. And he wasn’t afraid to express support of issues that aren’t always popular in Montana. So I became a believer.

When Greg Gianforte assaulted Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs the night before the election, it made the national news, and Gianforte’s camp immediately put out their version of the story, which completely contracted the audio recording. Gianforte claims that he was in a private room, that he asked Jacobs to leave, and that he also asked him to lower his recorder. Witnesses to the event (three Fox News staffers) corroborated Jacobs’ version, and nowhere on the recording does Gianforte ask him to leave the room or lower the recorder. Oh, unless you count the part where he tells him to ‘get the hell out of here’ after the assault.

Perhaps the most troubling part of this story is how many Montanans are still coming out to support Gianforte. And many of those expressing their support on his facebook cite the following reason—he stood up for himself. Which would imply that Gianforte was somehow the one under attack.

Which leads me to what I have learned from Greg Gianforte through this whole series of events. I’ve always been puzzled by this claim that Christians are under attack in America, and I think I finally understand what they mean. Jacobs was asking Gianforte to clarify his views about the recent Congressional vote on Health Care, an issue Gianforte has expertly dodged throughout the election. It is more than reasonable to wonder what a future member of Congress thinks about an issue that he is likely to face if he’s elected. So after Gianforte refused once again to answer, saying “I’ll talk about that later,” Jacobs reasonably stated “There’s not going to be time,” at which point Gianforte suddenly, according to the Fox witnesses, “grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him.” The Fox reporter went to state that she “watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the reporter. As Gianforte moved on top of Jacobs, he began yelling something to the effect of, ‘I’m sick and tired of this!’”

So apparently, the attack on Gianforte came in the form of a question that made him uncomfortable. A question he didn’t like. Which seems to be a growing trend in our political arena, with our Executive in Chief banning certain members of the press, and Sean Spicer making a point of picking and choosing who will be allowed to ask questions.

The fascinating part of this trend is that this same group of people tend to be the ones who are yelling the loudest about the First Amendment, and freedom of speech, in defense of whatever racist or sexist views suit their purposes. So apparently, if they say something that makes the rest of us uncomfortable, that’s covered by the Constitution. But if the opposite occurs, we are somehow persecuting them. It’s the kind of logic your average eight-year-old can see right through, but they have made this such a persistent mantra over the course of the last twenty years that thousands of Americans actually believe it.

So I’d like to extend my thanks to Greg Gianforte and his people for helping me get a better grasp on what I’m doing wrong. I’ve been so blinded by my own personal agenda of making sure women and people of color and people with alternative sexual preferences get treated with the same amount of respect that old white guys like me get that I’ve overlooked the most persecuted people of all. And I apologize for that.

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About fifteen years ago, I made what turned out to be a costly error in judgement. Harpercollins made me a generous offer on my second novel, which I hadn’t written yet. But I was still flush with newly published writer egomania, to that point where I wasn’t quite satisfied with their offer. For one thing, I was hoping the second book would come out in hardcover, for reasons that I can’t even explain now. But it was important to me at the time. After meeting both my editor and my agent for lunch to talk about the offer, my editor told me that he thought he could probably come through with the hardcover deal if we waited until I finished the book. But that meant I would have to turn down their current offer. So I did. And I’ve been paying for it ever since.

There were two things I didn’t know at the time. One was that you can never count on an editor, especially a young, recently hired editor, to stay at a major publisher. The second was that once you are in with a major publisher, you should never cut ties with them unless you have a very good reason. Mine was flimsy at best, based on my own ego and greed. And the predictable happened. Right about the time I finished the novel, my editor announced that he was sorry, but he was leaving Harpercollins. The editor that he referred me to was not interested.

The other thing I didn’t realize at the time was just how much your sales can be boosted by being associated with a major publisher. Although it has been a scramble since then to get my books out there, I have been more fortunate than many, but the results have been a fraction of what they were with that first novel, with its national distribution and press. I was reviewed in the Times, and made the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list.

But perhaps the most painful cost of this error has been the shift in respect that came about because I was no longer affiliated with a major publisher. Apparently there is a club, and I had no idea how lucky I was to be part of that club. Oh, I was thrilled to be published, and very proud that Harpercollins had chosen me. I knew the odds. But I did not realize that if you step away from the club, your chances of ever being accepted again are infinitesimal. Because the assumption is always that you must have failed them somehow or you’d still be there. And of course, these decisions are also based on the numbers, and when your next few books are published by small presses, the numbers don’t work. So you’re stuck. Your numbers will never be what they were, and it’s not based on talent or quality, or how nice you are, or how easy you are to work with. It’s all about the numbers.

I recently contacted my first agent, the one who negotiated the deal for my first novel, and asked him whether he would consider working with me again on the new book I’m writing, which I am hoping will get me back in the door. My last book has made something of a mark, at least in terms of a small press book (it has still sold a fraction of what my first book did), so I thought that momentum might work in my favor. But he wouldn’t even look at the book. He looked at the sales from the last few books and said straight out, “No one will buy this.”

I know this is a luxury problem. I know there are thousands of writers out there who would give anything to be in my position. I’ve been fortunate. So I’m not complaining. But I wanted to tell this story for another reason. Most people assume, and I certainly did before I got involved in this business, that once you have a few books published, you are probably raking in the dough, and that getting the next one published is a given. I recently got the biggest royalty check I’ve ever had since my first novel, and it was for a grand total of $3000. For six months. Anyone who can live on $500/month, raise your hand. That’s what I thought.

So if you ever wonder why some of us are constantly trying to promote our books, it’s not because we’re trying to add more millions to those we already have. It’s because we’re trying to survive. It’s because we’re hoping against all odds that we might just be able to sell enough of the most recent book to attract some interest for the next one. It’s an uphill battle every step, and I know very few writers who aren’t in the same boat.

I have one more item on my agenda here, and it’s to apologize to anyone that I treated with that smug arrogance of being published by a major publisher. Because now I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that snobbery. The people in the club seldom realize they’re being snotty, I think. But there’s a natural assumption, and I remember it well, that you are in the club for a reason. And that others are not in the club for the very same reason. So now that I know this not to be true, I would like to apologize to the Richard Wheelers of the world, to the Matt Paveliches, the Adrian Jaworts, the Aaron Parretts, and the Tami Haalands. These are people whose writing I greatly admire, and they are people who carry themselves with much more dignity than many of the people in the club. Of course there are exceptions there, too. I have many good friends who have managed to be in the club without letting it go to their heads, people like David Abrams, Kim Barnes, Larry Watson, Jamie Ford. I treasure these friendships.

So please be kind to your writer friends. Please don’t expect them to give you copies of their books, because those copies cost them money. Please don’t hold it against them if they talk about their books more than you would like. They really can’t help themselves. Because it’s pretty much all we think about.

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A few months ago, a friend of mine said something wise, in a conversation completely unrelated to the election: ‘If you cross a narcissist, you have to be prepared for them to do everything they possibly can to smear your reputation.”

I have had enough narcissistic tendencies myself to understand the temptation, the desire to give in to that kind of vengeful behavior. But I usually don’t, and there’s only one reason for that. It’s because I have learned what it feels like to be on the other side of it, and karma is something more than the first word of a clever phrase; it really is a bitch. I have had dealings with several flaming narcissists in recent years, and extracting myself from their sphere of influence was hard. Because part of me knew it was going to cost me, and part of me was a coward about facing those consequences. But in the end, I did it because I couldn’t stand being used any longer. I couldn’t stand feeling as if I needed a shower every time I left a meeting with them. And the rewards were tremendous. I missed them not a whit, and watching others suffer from their behavior made it that much sweeter.

Like so many of us, I’ve been struggling for the past few days to make sense of what happened on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Every poll indicated that this election was going in the other direction.

So where did things go awry? I think back to the second debate, when Clinton did that little shoulder shimmy while Trump was making yet another inane comment. In Kate McKinnon’s spoof of that moment on Saturday Night Live, she said in response to fake Lester Holt’s question, ‘What do you think about that?”: “I think I’m going to be president.” I think many of us agreed with her. I think Hillary agreed with her.

And maybe that arrogance was part of what did her in. I was among many who spent the weeks after that debate mocking the hell out of Trump, speculating about what his life would look like after he lost, wondering what the effect would be on his businesses, his family, his life. I reveled in every article that tore him apart, and anticipated a crumbling of the Republican party. Like many, I wondered how they would possibly recover from this.

Other people went as far as to mock his supporters. I have many friends who are Republican, and even a few who supported Trump, and I’m not a big fan of alienation, so I avoided blanket comments about ‘them,’ but only in public. Privately, I was just as hard on them. And now I’m embarrassed about that. Because it’s clear that part of what threw this election right into the lap of Mr. Trump was the alienation so many people felt from those of us who were so sure we were going to win. Because of our relentless attacks, however deserved they may have been, we managed to turn Trump into a sympathetic figure. It hardly seems possible until you think about who he was appealing to.

I now wonder how people couldn’t vote for Trump after being treated as if they were stupid to question Hillary. I backed Hillary, but she never inspired me. I always felt as if she was playing a part. Her speeches said the right things, but there was never the kind of passion you heard from Bernie, or Elizabeth Warren, my choice for the first woman president. Hillary’s speeches felt like speeches. I almost never agree with Trump, but there’s no denying the fact that he is passionate about what he says. Even if it’s crass, offensive, and self-defeating. And it’s clear that there are a lot of people who would love to be able to express themselves this same way. That’s who voted for him. It’s not because he’s racist that they voted for him. It’s because he was free to voice his own opinions. They didn’t care that he’s a racist, misogynistic asshole. Which is frightening enough in itself. But how could he not eventually become a sympathetic figure to a group of people who are feeling left out in the cold right now? How could they not vote for someone who doesn’t sit at the same table with the cool kids? Like Hillary.

I think back to the tape of Obama roasting Trump at the Correspondent’s dinner a few years ago. According to the Frontline special about Trump and Clinton, Trump was thrilled to have been invited to this event. He was honored. And then Obama went off on him, especially in regard to Trump’s allegations that Obama wasn’t born in the US. The look on Trump’s face says it all. One of the people from his group of advisers said in that documentary that this was the moment he decided to run for president. He was humiliated; he wanted revenge. There it is. The narcissist has been crossed. It’s one of the few times in his eight years in office that Obama’s timing was off, in my view. He wouldn’t let up, and the longer he went, the more Trump steamed. It’s easy to imagine him going back to that moment even today, the day after he sat in the Oval Office and looked that same man in the eye. It must have been sweet for Trump, and painfully humbling for Obama.

As if there aren’t enough reasons to be worried, I fear where this is going to take us because of this aspect of Trump’s personality. He’s not a man who makes decisions based on principles. He makes them based on his own reaction to what happened to him. His attention span clearly goes no further than the last phone call, the last tweet, the last conversation. Ironically, it was Trump’s inability to look at the big picture that won the people over. He won on emotion.

It is so tempting to place the blame here on ‘them.’ Congress. Fox News. The Russians. Who else? The list could go on. There is no doubt they all contributed to this disaster. But to me it’s on all of us. We created this monstrosity and now we have to deal with his quiet and not so quiet quest for revenge for the next four years. Let’s just hope it’s not longer than that. But judging from the past year, we should never underestimate the power of this man’s desire to smear others. We could be in for a very long ride.

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I have never declared myself to be a Democrat on a public forum, and part of the reason is because I get tired of the way people make broad statements about other parties, as if each and every Democrat believes and supports exactly the same things. But the fact is, I am a Democrat. What’s interesting about that is that the older I get, the more my support for that party has to do with money. People assume that being a Democrat means you believe putting huge money into welfare programs and cutting back on military, etc. And part of me supports those ideas, but that’s not the core of my beliefs. The reason I’m a Democrat is because our history has shown that the structure that stimulates the economy more than any other is when we give our people the opportunity to make a better life for themselves. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Eisnhower’s Marshall Plan, even some of Reagan’s economic policies were geared toward creating an infrastructure that puts money back into the economy rather than putting the majority of the money into the hands of people who have very little interest in making life better for anyone other than themselves.

Donald Trump has never done anything with the intent of helping anyone other than Donald Trump. So the idea that he would suddenly have the interest of the American people in mind is completely delusional. The idea that he would suddenly become a completely different person is a fantasy, just as it has been a complete fantasy that he’s suddenly going to change direction with is campaign. One of the most baffling criticisms of Hillary is that voting for her is just going with the status quo. I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. If I want someone to do surgery on my mother, I’m not going to go to a dentist. The people who have accomplished the most in the political arena have been great politicians, whatever that means. Hillary has proven herself to be very adept at this. Has she benefited personally from her efforts? Absolutely. But has she also shown a long and solid track record of using her power and influence to do things to help others? She certainly has. Way more than Trump ever has or ever will. The criticism that she’s in the back pocket of the banks is absurd. Powerful men have been raking in hundreds of thousands for speaking to large corporations for decades and no one has ever accused any of them of being influenced by these practices. So to suggest that she will handle it differently is really just an insult to her integrity that is based on nothing of merit.

In general, Democratic policy looks at long term success. In giving people the opportunity to take care of themselves now so that taxpayers are not paying for major health problems later. In taking care of our environment now so that we aren’t paying for Superfund sites later, in holding the wealthy and banks and corporations accountable so that we’re not paying billions in bailouts later, and in taking care of our veterans so that we’re not paying the price for their health care later. It’s not about bleeding hearts. It’s about trying not to bleed our treasury.

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After months of puzzling and study, I think I’ve finally figured out what the Republican candidate for president and his followers have in mind when they say they want to make America great again, and it’s way more simple than I imagined. What they want is to go back to a time when women and minorities suffered in silence. When white heterosexual males ruled the land and everyone else was careful and afraid.

The Colin Kaepernick controversy has really brought this to light in a way that wasn’t clear to me before. Here we have a thoughtful young man who is risking a very lucrative career to express an opinion about what’s happening to people who look like him in this country. Despite what his detractors claim, he has never once said he’s been mistreated, never once said that he’s against the flag, the military, or America itself. He simply took on the responsibility as a young man who is in the public eye to start a healthy conversation about an issue that is clearly a problem.

The fact that people find this un-American is about as clear an indication of hypocrisy as you’ll find. Because it comes from people who have been screaming for months that our Republican candidate and those who follow him have a right to say whatever the hell they want. That people are too thin-skinned if they find it offensive that he calls Mexicans rapists. Or wants to prevent Muslims from coming into our country. It’s a pretty simple formula they’re operating from. They want white men to be able to scream about everything that’s wrong with America, but anyone else who does so will (and in their mind, should) be seen as un-American.

The biggest issue that Kaepernick has focused on is accountability, and this is where he stands up as a much more of a responsible adult than the great orange hope ever will. For one thing, Kaepernick comes from a culture that has coddled these young athletes, often overlooking their worst behavior. Covering up cheating in school, domestic violence and sexual assault is common in his world, so for him to focus on this issue really goes against the code of his peers. He has not only risked his career, but it has become clear in recent weeks that he has put himself in a position as an outcast among his tribe. Thankfully, others have stepped forward to support him. But Kaepernick has endured whatever criticism has come his way for this decision with quiet dignity. He has made a couple of missteps for sure, especially wearing the pig socks. But he hasn’t ducked taking questions about his actions, or his intentions.

Meanwhile, our candidate bats every criticism away by insulting those who offer it, calling them losers or other juvenile insults rather than considering the possibility that he might actually be wrong from time to time. It’s a sad, childish way to live, with no sense of accountability whatsoever, no sense of empathy for others, and especially no room for the complications that most of the real issues in our world demand when it comes to finding solutions. It’s not hard to imagine why this approach appeals to people. Because it’s very very easy. It requires little thought, no homework, and very little discussion.

I used to think people were going too far when they compared the Republican candidate to people like Hitler, or Mussolini. But I no longer think it’s a stretch. Those guys also started out sounding fairly reasonable for a time. They actually managed to find a way to hide their real intentions behind a nationalism that appealed to people who were looking for a reason to believe. But just like now, much of the public was unable to recognize how much these men were focused on a singular goal, which was more power for themselves. In our case, this man has never even made a secret of the fact that everything he does is designed to make his life better. You can’t point to a single enterprise that he’s been involved with whose goal was to make the world a better place for anyone other than the orange guy. The idea that he would suddenly give a damn about that is not only absurd, it’s completely naïve. There’s no reason to think anyone could change that dramatically, nor does he have any reason to when his approach has gotten him this far.

These stories never end well, especially for the despots. Mussolini hanging in a public square. Hitler a suicide before they could kill him themselves. Joe McCarthy’s career ended in disgrace. But let’s hope this one ends before this egomaniac can hurt more people than he already has. The stories have been out there for months, about him screwing over contractors, employees, innocent bystanders who don’t want to sell their land to improve the view for his golf course. Not to mention rape allegations. He hurts people. On purpose. And takes no responsibility for any of that. That’s not what ever made America great in my mind, and it sure won’t solve any of the problems we have now.

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First and foremost, I applaud you for bringing passion back to politics. Especially to the more liberal aspects of politics. I have been wondering for years what it would take to get young people angry enough to take a stand on some of the issues that seem important in today’s America. And Bernie has addressed many of these issues with a direct and logical and enthusiastic approach that is fabulous. So thank you for making many of these issues relevant again.

This may surprise you, but a lot of us get it. Bernie is right about many things. Because it’s common sense, right? Making sure the wealthy are held accountable. Making sure the poor have every opportunity possible. Making sure people are treated with the respect they deserve. How could we not want that?

I was very much in Bernie’s camp at the beginning of his campaign. Because he brought back memories of some of the politicians that first inspired me in my younger days—people like George McGovern Eugene McCarthy Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug These people stepped outside of the ‘status quo’ and offered radical solutions. Solutions that made sense. And in the end, they influenced the direction our country took around many of these issues.

The sixties, when I was a young kid and a teenager, were a time when this kind of passion was encouraged and effective. It was a time when you felt as if your voice was important. People rallied together and made change happen. The Civil Rights Act. Women’s Rights. Title IX. It was a time when it seemed as if no matter what you felt strongly about, there was a group that was working hard to fight that issue.

So we have seen the results of this kind of movement. The kind of revolution you’re talking about with Bernie. And of course Bernie was there too. And that’s why he gets the idea that sometimes you have to choose your battles. If you focus on achieving your goals from only one angle…if you insist that your way is the only way to get there, you run the risk of accomplishing nothing at all. We saw that happen time and again in the 60s. We had to learn the hard way that just because a cause made complete sense to us, and just because thousands of people agreed with us, and just because there was often widespread support across the country, it didn’t mean that things would change overnight.

The Suffragette movement was in existence for fifty years before they accomplished their goal. This is unacceptable, of course. But that’s how long it took to break down the thick invisible walls that prevented the patriarchical society of that time to recognize that these women were not going away. And more importantly, that what they were asking for probably wasn’t going to ruin our country.

Both McGovern and McCarthy lost in their bid for president, but they served their country honorably in the Senate, and they did act as forces for change. McGovern’s work in the private sector is well known here in the West. The McGovern Center for Leadership and Public Service still provides great resources for the causes he championed. Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm also moved the bar upward, with Chisholm being the first woman and the first African American to declare for the presidency. She survived several assassination attempts during her campaign, and talked openly about how the men in the House of Representatives, where she served for 14 years, completely ignored her. Without Chisholm, Barack Obama would never have happened. These three fell short of their goal of the presidency, but they didn’t let that deter them from their work.

Abzug served three terms in the House, and was an outspoken proponent for women’s rights. Hillary Clinton would not be possible without her and others who were passionate about that cause.

But there’s another important issue that comes into play in this whole discussion, and perhaps the best example of what it looks like is the man who is considered by most to be the best president we ever had. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was able to incorporate more policies directed toward helping the needy, the disenfranchised, and the elderly, and he did it in a way that actually stimulated the economy. He and his administration proved that if you build an infrastructure that provides some of the causes that so many people today consider to be a drain on the economy, they can actually be fiscally beneficial. That has been a hard sell ever since, even with the solid evidence of his administration behind us. Because people don’t tend to study our history closely enough to understand these things.

Bernie has proven to be a fabulous source of ideas, but as has been pointed out time and again, he doesn’t seem to have much of a plan for incorporating them other than trying to balance out the distribution of wealth. I believe his influence will have a tremendous impact on our society, even without him in the race. But what we really need right now is someone who can make things happen. And according to a friend of mine who served in Congress with him for many years, Bernie is not that guy. His ability to get along with other people, and to convince people on the inside to work with him, is sketchy at best. I trust this man’s judgement, and it was that conversation that swayed me to go in a different direction.

Many of you insist that change won’t happen unless we embrace this guy’s beliefs and push for them, and maybe you’re right. Which means you should absolutely do that. Push for them to happen. But it’s also important to accept the reality of the situation. We live in a world where the balance of power is out of our hands. There are way more people out there who disagree with us than we ever want to believe is possible. I mean, how could they not see the logic of what we’re saying? It baffles me all the time. But it’s the way it is. And some of these ignorant bastards even happen to be in positions of power. Again, I don’t get that. How could they be so stupid and somehow find themselves in these hallowed halls?

But they are. And because the gap between what they believe and what we believe is so wide, change is slow. And sometimes we have to make compromises to get there. That doesn’t always mean we’re selling out. Sometimes it means that we are simply compromising. To get to a better place.

I’m not going to try and convince you to vote for a specific candidate. I’m not even going to try and convince you vote against another one, although you can probably guess where I stand. But to me, the important thing is that you get out and vote. This idea of not voting because Bernie may or may not have gotten screwed is self-defeating. For one thing, there are many Supreme Court seats at stake over the next four years. This alone could affect the direction our country takes more than any other aspect of this year’s election. So vote. Vote for Bernie if you really feel that strongly about his message. Vote for Jill Stein. Vote for your sociology professor. Get your name out there. Because that, my friends, is how change happens.

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