Time to vote. I will be voting for what to me are the obvious choices: Hillary Clinton for president and Zephyr Teachout for Congress. But some of my neighbors have other obvious choices and I wonder what their thinking is. Research indicates that liberals and conservatives have different brain structure, that conservatives are more threat averse and liberals are more open to change and new ideas (see wikipedia: “biology and political orientation”).

I have identified as progressive liberal my entire life so I see Clinton as mostly compatible with my policy leanings. In the primary I voted for Bernie Sanders, mainly because I thought he would pull Hillary Clinton in my direction, which he did. I am psyched to finally have a woman as president. It seems crazy to exclude half the population from leadership roles and we must have missed out on excellent leaders as a result of societal sexism. It seems crazy to want to exclude people of multiple skin color, ethnicity and heritage from citizenship. I have been around the world and have found that people are the same all over. The notion that one skin color or gender should lord it over the others seems idiotic to me. What a waste of talent and inventiveness we have suffered.

I understand that some of my neighbors see the world differently. But why would they support candidates against their self interests? Cutting taxes on the wealthy has never grown the economy and the revenue base. It only grows the deficit and the tax burden on the middle class. Instituting tariffs on foreign goods will not bring back high paying jobs, it will only make everything more expensive and force down wages for American workers, raising their dependence on taxpayer funded social programs. Repealing health care advances would throw millions of Americans back into emergency rooms and raise insurance premiums even more than they are currently rising under Obamacare. That’s why we needed the Affordable Care Act. Costs were going through the roof and sick people couldn’t get coverage.

Favoring fossil fuel development for “energy independence” is a formula for climate catastrophe. And “building a wall” to keep out people who actually stopped coming here years ago is only scapegoating a less fortunate minority to focus anger away from the oligarchs who are the real cause of lost status for American workers. We don’t need a revolution. Slow change works better. Revolutions are messy and violent with unknowable outcomes. Look at the Arab Spring for reference. This election is about sensible policy choices for a better future, not division. Politics is not a team sport and an election is not a reality TV show. We should vote for a shared community, rich in diversity, cooperation and imagination. That is my American Dream.

Allan Rubin

Cochecton, NY