My letter to the electors [View all]

Dear Elector;

I know that you are committed to voting for a Republican for president, and I have no intention of trying to persuade you to do otherwise.

I myself am a Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary and Hillary Clinton in the election. I suspect that you and I disagree on many issues of the day. However I am sure that we will agree that the United States constitution is an amazing document that has given us the greatest form of government in history. But the constitution is not indestructible, it is possible that the form of government we both revere could come to an end. It is for this reason that I am asking you to consider voting for someone of your own party, someone whose politics you agree with, but someone who is not Donald Trump. This is not about party politics or conservative versus liberal. This is about a man who has shown no respect for the constitution or the norms of political life. A man without the experience, judgment, temperament, maturity, or character to be president.

Vladimir Putin is technically a democratically elected president of a constitutional republic. In reality Putin is a strongman dictator who controls the press, harasses and imprisons opponents, and has used his position to amass a 70 billion dollar fortune for himself. I am afraid that Trump wants to be the American version of Putin. And I am afraid that he may succeed.

I reiterate, this is not about politics. I wish Hillary Clinton had won, but she did not. I accept that the next president will be a conservative Republican. I tell my fellow progressives that we have had conservative republicans in the White House before and we survived. But Trump is different, he is an existential threat to the republic. The threat goes beyond issues like health-care, taxes, abortion, or gay rights. The threat is to our system of government and the supremacy of the constitution.

So please consider an alternative. John Kasich, Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham, or Paul Ryan are people I disagree with and would not vote for. However I do not fear them like I fear Trump because I know that these men will uphold the constitution and all that it means.

Respectfully yours,