I’m a 34-year-old white man in Maine who works 100 hours a week and owns several small businesses. I didn’t go to college, and I enjoy working on my two old sports cars. Growing up, I idolized “GI Joe,” the “A-Team” and “Davy Crockett,” and to this day, those kids’ shows with their focus on being fair, helping those in need and fighting injustice still influence my moral compass.
Statistically, I should be in Donald Trump’s camp, but honestly I find him disgusting. Trump comes off like a cheap villain from the shows I grew up watching. He plays on people’s fears to take advantage of them, and appears to care about no one but himself. Trump also has a well documented history of serially not paying contractors his companies hire. As a small-business owner and as a normal, ethical human, I do not want a president who doesn’t pay his own bills.
Trump does not hold any of the values that I think of as quintessentially American. He seems to be a self-centered, opportunistic, thin-skinned coward. Trump is like Hugo Chavez, but without the charisma.
One of the things that bothers me most about his campaign isn’t any of the particular things that he has said, it’s the bedrock foundation on which his campaign rests. Trump’s campaign message assumes that America is a bad place. In Trump’s world, America is a weak failure that other countries have taken advantage of. He sees America as a victim that needs saving by some modern day Napoleon. The idea of an all-powerful leader saving America by the force of his will just isn’t American. I believe in myself. I believe in my friends and my generation. I believe in this country. When Trump bad mouths the U.S., it makes me angry.
America has a work ethic and openness to innovation that is unique in the world. America is incredibly welcoming of people who want to start a new business or try something different. This might be difficult to understand unless you’ve seen how hard it is for a young person to start a new business in Europe or Africa without being choked by regulation or stifled by bribe-seeking officials. Honestly, much of the rest of the world is more jaded than the U.S. and accepts things the way they are.
To people who deny American exceptionalism, I say show me another democracy that has been the dominant economic power in the world for this long and has done as much to keep the world relatively peaceful. Over the last century, more than a billion people around the world have moved out of extreme poverty, have more food to eat, enjoyed longer lives and have more freedom of expression than ever before. And while all of these huge changes have taken place, America has re-invented itself many times over and maintained its place as the world’s leading economy.
I’m not denying that America has lots of problems, particularly public health issues and the growth of income inequality, but our country’s run has been exceptional and Trump is wrong when he mouths off about America. I’ve bet on this country through the debt I’ve taken on to grow my businesses, and I’m going to double down on America by supporting Hillary Clinton for president.
I’m just an unknown small-business owner in Maine. I’m a small person, but I feel a moral responsibility to add my small voice to all the others, including big voices like U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and businessmen like the Koch brothers and Warren Buffett, to say that this isn’t just about policy disagreements; Trump simply does not embody the values America is built on and is not fit to lead this country. I wish for the sake of America that Trump would close his mouth and go home.
Edward Swain is a small-business owner. He lives in Greater Portland.