A Pasty White Jill Stein Supporter on Dan Savage: Just No

There simply are no words to convey how much I love Dan Savage, but recently I had to breakup with him.

 

This breakup will come as news to Dan, who only knows me as the guy who called his show every week for the last year, telling him why it was important for him to use his celebrity to endorse Bernie Sanders and to denounce Hillary Clinton.

Dan never even knew that we were dating.

I stalked his brilliant brain and amazing voice through his Podcast, Savage Love, for years.

I admired him from afar by reading his excellent blog.

And when he was on TV, I would hang on his every word and admire how incredibly gorgeous he was while dispensing compassionate advice about love and sex.

Whenever I would meet someone who knew of Dan Savage, I would inevitably exclaim…

“Oh my God!! Dan Savage is my hero!!”

And he was…

 

But I have to DTMFA (“dump the motherfucker already”, in Savage-speak)

It’s what he would suggest, should I call his show for advice.

His party-unity gaslighting has become abusive.

I know that I deserve better.

Perhaps you are wondering..

“Who the hell is Dan Savage and why the hell should I care about this?”

That’s a fair question.

Dan is a best-selling author, a blogger and a Podcaster.

Through these mediums he reaches millions.

Over the years I have followed him in all of his forms.

When my kids were wondering about sex, I purchased Dan’s books for them, because I knew that his advice was almost always spot on.

When my partner and I had questions about our own adventures, it was Dan who guided us through.

 

Dan is a hardcore advocate for LBGT+ rights and I am a firm believer that his “It Gets Better” program has saved thousands of lives.

For this reason alone, I will always love him.

Dan Savage is a damn fine man, but in his attempt to walk the Bernie/Hillary tightrope over the last year, he has fallen and completely missed the net.

Dan Savage, a former revolutionary voice, has now become just another shill for the establishment and I am deeply saddened to watch this former champion fall so far.

Yesterday, I realized that I had forgotten to block him on Facebook (a MUST to preserve one’s sanity during a breakup) and his new article entitled Jill Stein: Just No appeared in my feed.

I read the header to my former Savage-loving, LBGT rights radical, 14 year old daughter, where Dan refers to Jill Stein supporters as “pasty white people”.

My girlfriend said “Wow. So he’s a racist now?”

I said “I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a racist, but he sure has lost his way.”

My gender-fluid child Chloe, summed it up perfectly when she said

“Dan Savage: Just No.”

To be fair, some of my anger at Dan is simply transference at the LBGT+ community as a whole.

It is definitely treacherous territory, a liberal like myself, admitting to being angry at a community of people that I have spent my entire life fighting alongside, but here I am.

When Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for president, the gay and lesbian communities rallied around her in a way that simply made very little sense to me.

 

I’d post something negative about Hillary Clinton on social media and notice that my followers would drop significantly.

When I would see my gay friends at a party or club, they went out of their way to avoid me.

Some even took to calling me “Bernie-bro” in a manner that was clearly designed to be hurtful.

I wanted to engage them.

I really wanted to talk about this.

I wanted to know…

 

“How can you support a candidate who worked tirelessly to pass DOMA?”

 

“How can you support a candidate who so recently stood on the Senate floor and sold us all out by saying ‘Marriage is, as it has always been, between a man and a woman.‘”

“How can you support a candidate who lied and said that she and Nancy Reagan supported AIDS victims in the 80’s, when the truth of the matter is that the Reagan’s laughed at the epidemic and implied that it was some sort of plague from God to wipe out homosexuals?!”

These were friends I had attended rallies with.

These were friends I had protested side by side with.

And now they were blindly supporting someone who had spent her entire political career fighting against gay and lesbian rights?

Conversely, I would show them evidence that Bernie Sanders had been fighting for LBGT rights for decades.

I showed them evidence that Sanders risked his political career, by standing up for our movement.

Their replies were nearly unanimous..

“She’s evolved on that issue.”

or

“She’s with us now.”

My retort…

“She’s with us now, when it would be political suicide not to be. When we needed her she was fighting against us.”

 

I actually started this article nearly two months ago.

I was at the Indianapolis Gay Pride Parade, like I am every summer.

As I stood there in the sweltering heat, I watched an endless parade of Gays For Hillary shirts and I wondered how this had happened.

How did Hillary Clinton manage to gain the backing of a group of people that she had worked so hard to oppress?

 

And as every single gay Hillary supporter I have asked for a year, has refused to give me an answer that even mentioned policy, I am forced to speculate.

I think some of it comes down to the fact that Bernie Sanders has zero curb-appeal, whereas Hillary Clinton reminds me of every safe-place Mom I knew growing up.

There was always that house, in every neighborhood, where the liberal Mom would invite us in and accept us without judgment, whenever our own parents would throw us out.

There were always old men trying to lure us in as well, but we knew to avoid those houses.

Before I knew about Hillary’s history of genocide or the fact that she accepts donations from for-profit prisons or sold weapons to governments that used the weapons to kill gays, I imagined Hillary as a nurturing mother who had my best interests at heart.

Perhaps my gay friends who support Hillary are like I was in 2008, when I listened to Obama speak three times and then said..

“He’s pro-choice, he’s pro-LBGT and he’s black? What’s not to like?”

Perhaps my LBGT sisters and brothers who support Hillary are just engaged in identity politics or maybe gays voting for Hillary is the ultimate case of Stockholm Syndrome.

Maybe they feel that she is more of an ally than Sanders, because they actually had to sway her to their side, whereas Sanders was always there.

Or maybe they bought in to the Clinton propaganda that “If you don’t vote for Hillary, we will get Trump.” and their desire to protect gay marriage versus the evil Republicans made up their minds for them.

Never mind that there is a good chance that Hillary will lose to Trump, whereas Sanders defeats Trump by a landslide in every single poll.

On the surface, this seems like solid reasoning.

Many are quick to point out that this election is actually about who gets to nominate Supreme Court judges and I agree that it is better to elect a candidate who would nominate liberals to these positions.

But anyone who knows politics knows that all of the potentially vacant seats are currently occupied by conservatives, so in the worst case scenario, after Obama nominates, liberals will still have a 5-4 advantage.

Trump will have no opportunity to overturn gay marriage and has expressed repeatedly that he has no desire to do so.

If Clinton were actually a leftist, who would nominate true liberals to those empty seats, then I would consider holding my nose and voting for her, but Rodham is no liberal.

She is a moderate Republican in disguise and would only nominate corporatist war-hawks that would likely cause as much trouble as anyone Trump would nominate.

As gay marriage will not be threatened by this upcoming election, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to nominate a true liberal to our nation’s highest office.

So I will vote my conscience and support Jill Stein, should the Democrats make the fatal mistake of nominating Hillary Clinton.

Should Trump win, we will block his every move by replacing Congress with real Progressives and be in a very strong position to take The White House in 2020.

Raising a legitimate third party in America should be the number one priority of every liberal, after the shenanigans we have seen from the “Democratic” Party in 2016.

Trump would be an acceptable setback for the ultimate greater good.

Clinton would be a two term disaster and supporting her means that we cannot run any true liberals in 2020 as she would run unopposed.

I am disappointed in you, Dan.

In this election your stood for nothing and fell for everything.

Your endorsement of Hillary Clinton, a hateful woman, who has fought against our cause for decades, is a slap in the face to everyone who has ever fought for equality.

You had the opportunity to be courageous and endorse someone who has spent his entire life fighting for us, but when we needed you, you chose the cowardice of neutrality.

You chose lesser evilism over revolution in a time when our country severely needed to boldly choose that which is good.

Everything that drew me to you and kept me with you for all these years seems to have left you.

Although I fully accept that my voice is greatly diminished, in your eyes, by my “pasty white” skin, I know that I will never allow myself to be defined by such rigid terms.

First and foremost I am a human and an ally.

I am a liberal and an activist.

The Dan Savage I fell in love with would have told the “Democrats” to DTMFA in regards to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

You had the eyes and ears of the LBGT+ community and you told them to accept a woman who had sold them out time and time again.

You hurt me and it will take a long time to forgive you.

This isn’t just about politics.

This is bigger.

Voting against this corrupt, untrustworthy warmonger is an ethical choice.

It is a moral choice.

This is about being true to what we KNOW is right.

 

I loved our years together, but you’ve changed.

You aren’t the “take no shit” Dan Savage I fell in love with once upon a time.

Your constant harping on how I am not a good citizen if I refuse to support your corrupt, genocidal, Monsanto-sponsored candidate border on abusive.

And I have too much respect for myself to endure this another day.